At the end of last week, the Indian cabinet had cleared the text of the 123 Agreement with the US for civilian nuclear cooperation. The Manmohan Singh government hopes to overcome the opposition of the BJP and its own Left allies to the nuclear agreement, but it will not release the full 123 text anytime soon. The text would have to be placed in full before Parliament and debated, and then opposition or support to it would crystallise. But meanwhile, the government's public relations campaign to sell the Indo-US nuclear deal has not settled grave doubts about it.

Although India is a nuclear weapons state (NWS) with advanced military and civilian programmes, it is not defined as such by the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Amendments to US nuclear laws terminate civilian cooperation with any non-NWS that detonates nuclear weapons. The 2006 Henry Hyde Act allows exemptions for India's 1974 and 1998 tests to enable civilian nuclear cooperation. But a future test binds India to return to the US, under the so-called "right of return" provision, all US-origin equipment, technologies, fuel and special nuclear materials produced as a result of that cooperation. Perpetual safeguards would also apply on the facilities connected to US nuclear exports.

While India maintains a unilateral moratorium on testing, it cannot decide against testing if its immediate strategic rival, China does so, to plug a perceived strategic gap with the US or Russia, or if Iran becomes unstoppably nuclear. The US's own Reliable Replacement Warhead Programme for Cold War weapons does not rule out testing. Russia is already testing superior missiles, though not yet new nuclear weapon designs, to outwit US ballistic missile defence capabilities. Plus, the Indian deterrent does not meet the rigorous military standards of testing - a case in point being the thermo-nuclear weapon tested in 1998 amid widespread doubts over its yield.

The Indian side claims US assurances that an Indian nuclear test will not trigger the "right of return" provision completely. The provision would only apply after mutual consultations, and does not cover critical reactor assembles, fuel, technology, or radioactive byproducts. But the Hyde Act and the amended 1954 Atomic Energy Act make no concessions. And the US Undersecretary of State, Nicholas Burns, a key negotiator of the deal, has denied the aforementioned Indian interpretation. India hoped that the US would arrange for alternate fuel sources if the test collapsed the deal. But there has been no reassurance even after the latest round of negotiations. Deal opponents say that once billions of dollars of nuclear foreign investments are exercised, India would be discouraged to test, effectively compromising the quality of its deterrent.

Reprocessing is the second stumbling block. India's long-term power programme depends on reprocessed and bred plutonium, and transmuted U-233 from thorium, a state of affairs characterised by its limited uranium reserves. While the Indo-US nuclear deal would clear the way for light water reactor and light enriched uranium fuel imports from Nuclear Suppliers' Group countries, uranium prices have shot up because of hoarding by China and the reality of a shortfall of cheap uranium. The once-through uranium fuel cycle also leaves over ninety-five per cent nuclear energy unburnt in spent fuel whose storage is additionally hazardous and costly. Last year, therefore, the Bush administration overturned President Jimmy Carter's suspension of reprocessing and approved the Global Nuclear Energy Programme (GNEP). Its stated policy is to burn plutonium in spent fuel through a proliferation-resistant process. But detractors say it opens the way for breeding.

The short point is, the US, Russia, EURATOM, Japan and China have advanced, embarked or are embarking on ambitious reprocessing programmes. But the Indo-US nuclear deal, as it is presently legally structured, prevents reprocessing. Allowing India to reprocess bedevils the US' memory of the 1974 Indian nuclear test, where plutonium was obtained from the Canadian CIRUS reactor using US heavy water. Critically, the deal puts India in the precarious position of being dependent on scarce uranium while foregoing the fruits of its tremendous advances in breeder and thorium reactor technologies. The nightmare is of India becoming a supplicant for imported breeder technology at a time - a couple of decades away - of uranium scarcity, while the P-5 and Japan make the transition to a plutonium economy via the GNEP programme.

The government says that advance consent has been obtained for reprocessing in the just-negotiated 123 Agreement, but actual permission to reprocess is to come only eighteen months later. Nobody in the government has explained why additional permission is required after advance consent. If a "subsequent arrangement" for reprocessing takes these extra months, this immediately counters the Hyde Act. The Hyde Act bars a "subsequent arrangement" for reprocessing for India in a national facility. Burns says the draft 123 Agreement entirely complies with the Hyde Act. So where does it leave India on reprocessing?

Fallback safeguards are the third controversial point of the deal. If for any reason the IAEA cries off from inspecting safeguarded Indian facilities, the US would step in, with all its negative consequences. The chief Indian negotiator, the National Security Advisor, M.K. Narayanan, says the door is closed for the US on this. But his interview to The Hindu newspaper is less reassuring. "what we have said," he commented, "is OK, we meet your (US) apprehension, that if the IAEA determines they cannot (inspect), then we will have a joint – the two parties will mutually agree on new verification arrangements." Meaning, the US is not out of a joint determination on safeguards for India. Nuclear weapons' states, especially the US, have voluntary safeguards. At will, they can place or remove a facility from safeguards. India was denied this flexibility. This gives a lie to claims that India and the US have come as nuclear equals to the deal.

The fourth key concession is on cut off of fissile materials' production. The Hyde Act binds India to assist the US to secure a fissile materials' cut off treaty (FMCT) at the Conference of Disarmament in Geneva, or failing that, a voluntary moratorium on fissile materials' production. The US wants an unverifiable moratorium, which would leave India at a disadvantage with nuclear cheats, as it does not maintain advanced satellite surveillance assets. More important, there is nothing to suggest that India has enough fissile materials to meet its projected strategic requirements of rigorously tested weapons. India is also committed in the Hyde Act to assist the US in "denuking" Iran. While the Hyde Act is a US law, since it enables a 123 Agreement with India, India cannot brush it aside, as Indian negotiators are wont to.

The Henry Hyde Act, although it makes exemptions for India, is quite unfriendly. It is impossible that any 123 Agreement can reconcile to it, while at the same time, addressing all of all India's concerns. By not releasing the 123 text, the Indian government is laying itself open to the charge of surrendering India's national interests. At bottom, India can do without the deal. Making the deal the centre of Indo-US relations, threatens the same relationship.