Over the past fifteen years, India has had the second-fastest-growing economy in the world. That economic growth has meant consumption, and consumption has required energy — lots of energy. The need for power in India is higher than ever, and demand is rising fast. For the hundreds of millions of Indians that live in poverty, low supply has translated into increasingly unmanageable costs, leaving over half of all Indian households without reliable access to electricity.

India’s leaders have taken note of this, proposing a ‘Power for all by 2012’ plan, which would require nearly double the electric output that is being produced today. Due to a heavy reliance on dwindling coal supplies — which currently generate over half of the nation’s electricity —implementing a long-term solution is requiring that leaders consider the development of non-thermal sources. “Fossil fuels are not there with us,” says Ramendra Gupta, head of the Uranium Corporation of India, “in the long run… we are left with no other alternative except to go for nuclear power.”

The push for more nuclear power has been widely supported in India, but leaves one major problem: India possesses less than 1% of the world’s uranium — the key element in generating nuclear energy. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh believes that an agreement with the U.S. is the answer to India’s energy dilemma. According to the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Non-proliferation Enhancement Act, which passed Indian Parliament in July and the U.S. Congress in October, the U.S. will help India develop its nuclear power initiative with technical assistance and access to much-needed raw materials.

In exchange, India distinguishes between civil (for energy) and military (for weapons) facilities, placing all civil plants under the watchful eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ensure they don’t switch production over to military means. Critics have slammed the plan, calling it a major blow to decades of successful non-proliferation efforts.

As an outsider to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968, which stipulated that only the permanent U.N. Security Council states could legitimately possess nuclear weapons, India was forbid from developing or acquiring their own nuclear weapons. In 1974, on the heels of defeat in the Sino-Indian War and under growing pressure to check China’s rising nuclear capabilities, India became the first nation to detonate a bomb outside the provisions of the NPT.

The result of India’s ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ as it is called, was swift and universal condemnation, including over three decades of U.S. sanctions aimed at making India give up their weapons program. By continuing their nuclear weapons development and refusing to sign onto the NPT, India was refused access to nuclear trade, even for energy purposes, but for India the test was about international respect. “India has spent thirty-three years under American sanctions without budging,” writes Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria, “and anyone who understands the country knows that it would happily spend many more before even thinking about giving up its nuclear weapons.”

The real sticking point for many Indians is that China is free to trade nuclear technology as a legitimate weapon state on the NPT, despite being actively involved in proliferation through helping Pakistan develop nuclear weaponry. “The inequity with China,” Zakaria points out, “especially offends New Dehli.”

The Indo-U.S. nuclear deal marks a shift in attitude toward India; it no longer has to develop its nuclear programs on the sideline now that it has been recognized by the world’s foremost nuclear power. Among the provisions of the plan, India will place 14 of its 22 nuclear power plants under direct IAEA supervision, which the U.S. argues is making India’s nuclear program safer by putting supervision where there was none before. Opponents of the plan call this a sham, citing that India gets to decide which facilities are considered civil and which are military, thereby deciding which plants operate free from oversight.

“We can’t for the life of us understand why the United States would deliberately undermine and destabilize nuclear deterrence in South Asia,” says Shireen Mazari, director of the Institute of Strategic Studies. Like most Pakistanis, Mazari does not share in Washington and New Delhi’s enthusiasm over the deal. She does not see the U.S.-India partnership as a solution to Indian energy problems, but rather as a way for U.S. favoritism to allow Pakistan’s arch-rival entry into the world’s exclusive club of ‘nuclear haves’.

Underlining Mazari’s objection to the deal is that India — along with Pakistan and Israel — possesses nuclear arms despite never signing onto the NPT, which should by agreement make them ineligible from any form of nuclear cooperation from NPT signatories like the U.S. Most defense experts estimate India’s ready-made nuclear arsenal between 75 and 200 weapons, while Pakistan’s stockpile is still well fewer than 100. Mazari echoes concerns of favoritism by the U.S., which she believes might lead to a small-scale arms race in Asia.

British columnist George Monbiot puts it this way: “If you acquire the bomb and threaten to use it you will qualify for American exceptionalism by proxy. Could there be a greater incentive for proliferation?” He goes on to cite the double-standard applied by the U.S., with NPT signatory Iran being sanctioned and deprived from developing nuclear technology for energy purposes, while India — openly possessing a small stockpile of fully developed nuclear weapons — has full American support.

Monbiot’s claim is supported by, or perhaps comes from, the recent dealings between the U.S. and North Korea. When it became clear that broad economic sanctions weren’t doing enough to deter North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in the early 2000’s, President Bush broke from his right-wing rhetoric to extend promises of economic aid, energy, and recognition in exchange for an end to Kim Jong-Il’s nuclear program. The result was a paranoid, back-and-forth posturing between the two countries ensued, ultimately proving fruitless, as North Korea detonated its first nuclear test weapon in 2006.

A political backlash against President Bush followed, with his own conservative base demanding a more hard-line approach. The attempted appeasement of North Korea, they argued, boiled down to nuclear blackmail. Under this precedent, and in addition to India’s newfound nuclear status, it might be difficult to see what motivation remains for a country to keep their nuclear ambitions in check.

But India is not North Korea, nor is it Iran. At the heart of this controversy is a tension between the pragmatic benefits of allowing a nation like India to have ‘earned’ its way into the club, versus the ‘slippery-slope’ dangers that come with subverting the single most important international weapons agreement of the past fifty years.

Despite pockets of strong opposition, international support has been vital to the deal’s passage. The deal has had to garner support from international nuclear agencies, without which any agreement between India and the U.S. would have been in vain. The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which monitors and controls international trade of materials that may be used for development of nuclear weapons, granted a waiver for India to commence trade with other nations.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, came to Singh’s defense, emphasizing that the deal would mean more independence for India. “Independence means freedom of choice and freedom to use state-of-the-art technologies,” said ElBaradei while addressing opposition questioning. “The nuclear deal will enable India to interact freely in the international nuclear market both as a recipient and a supplier.”

While ElBaradei maintains that India has a lot to gain from the deal, some observers are questioning where American motives lie, especially coming off decades of trying to get India to reverse course on its nuclear program. President Bush has been a vocal supporter of the deal. “As a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology,” says Bush, “India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other such states.” He believes decades of self-enforced regulations — including being one of the only nuclear states with a policy of no first-use and a long track record of independent non-proliferation policies — constitute a good-faith effort worthy of recognition.

Others maintain that the U.S. — long wary of a having a single hegemon running the show in either the European or Asian sphere — is seeking a way to curb China’s growing power in the region. “Behind whatever else is going on here the US is preparing for a grand conflict with China and constructing an anti-China coalition,” according to Joseph Cirincione, head of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “In that scenario, India is even more valuable as a nuclear power, rather than as a nonnuclear country.”  Cirincione’s tone may sound slightly overblown, but he shares some of the major concerns voiced by U.S. policymakers, who refer to China’s growing military budget, now second-largest in the world behind only the U.S., as a source of concern.

If helping balance regional power in Asia is a realistic U.S. objective, any implication that the U.S. is building its relationship with India into a long-term strategic partnership seems naïve at best. Although Indians have a very positive impression of the U.S. — 71% say they have a pro-American view — the nation as a whole has a strong national identity resistant to the idea of being swept away in foreign interests.

Domestic opposition to the agreement has been fierce over concerns of ceding too much influence to the U.S. In July, Singh narrowly survived a confidence vote in Parliament by a 275-256 margin following his announced support of the deal. If nothing else, India’s slim passage of the deal demonstrates a clear message: there is a fine line between Western meddling and Western cooperation.

The effects of the deal didn’t take long to start: a few days after its final passage, France inked a separate agreement with India that includes similar nuclear trade provisions. Less than a week later, China responded by announcing a similar deal with ally Pakistan, seen by some to be a direct response to the Indo-U.S. accord.

The consequences of India’s nuclear energy pursuit could be farther reaching yet: will isolated nations like Iran cite it as justification for seeking their own weapons programs in the future, or might it eventually lead to the disintegration of the NPT as a whole? For the millions crowding into the dark slums of Mumbai and Calcutta, it might just mean they can keep a light on at night.