In Delhi

THIRTY FOUR years ago, after India under the late Indira Gandhi conducted its first nuclear test, euphemistically called Peaceful Nuclear Explosion, the US corralled the world’s nuclear powers and their suppliers under an outfit called the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

The NSG’s mandate was to ensure that nuclear weapons did not spread to those that didn’t have it at the time. It recognised just five nations as nuclear weapons states.

The rest who wanted access to nuclear equipment and supplies would need to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Last week, using the heavy muscle that only the US can employ, Washington railroaded a skeptical NSG to grant a special waiver for India, which is neither an NPT signatory nor a party to the CTBT.

While the NSG nations will still not give India enrichment and reprocessing technology, pretty much all else is available to it.

What is more, the NSG describes India as a state with 'advanced nuclear technology' - a neat way of saying it is a nuclear weapons state without actually saying so.

Little surprise that Indians celebrated the milestone it had crossed. The deal is a huge victory for PM Manmohan Singh, who put his job on the line to ensure that Indian parliament backed his negotiations with the US.

In the process, the Left groups that gave him critical backing, pulled their parliamentary support, leaving him to scramble to make alternate political side deals. Such is the euphoria in this country over the NSG waiver, that parties critical of the India-US accord that helped bring it about, have been silenced.

The BJP, which began the process of building new bridges with the US, is sulking. The Left groups have little to say.

The extent Washington has gone to pamper India is an indication of how much the relationship between the two, once on opposite sides of the Cold War, has traveled lately.

Some of this is from a common dread of a rising China. But there is also recognition of a host of other mutual interests: India’s democracy, the attraction of its billion-plus market, a nation that is comfortable with English and sends the most number of foreign students to the US, the most prosperous immigrant community in the States - the list is endless.

More than 60,000 Americans work in India today. The largest US embassy in the world is its mission in New Delhi, with more than 550 expatriate Americans supported by 2,500 local staff. Indian back-office companies service American banks, mortgage issuers and healthcare providers.

Interestingly, it wasn’t just the Americans: the Russians and French were just as keen to get India the waiver. Whatever objections China may have had, including its resentment at being rushed to approve the waiver, were brushed aside.

The US economy may be on its knees, but it is the dominant global power and can still get its way.

India’s National Security Adviser has told us that two things the US will not give India are reprocessing and enrichment technologies. At least, that is the case for now.

But given the way the US-India strategic relationship is developing, who knows what is to come a year or two down the line.