The Hindu Business Line : Nuclear Disarmament: Myths and realities in India

With the finalisation of two nuclear treaties, including the fissile material cut-off treaty, likely in the not-too-distant future, India has to stand firm that it will accede to such a treaty only if it is non-discriminatory and internationally verifiable, cautions G. PARTHASARATHY.

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the UN Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Mr Sergio de Queiroz Duarte. India should reaffirm that it will not accept treaties that undermine the efficacy of its nuclear deterrent.

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, addressed a Conference on Disarmament in New Delhi on June 9 to mark the twentieth anniversary of Prime Minster Rajiv Gandhi’s address to the UN Special Session on Disarmament on July 9, 1998. Rajiv Gandhi had then presented an Action Plan calling on the international community to negotiate a binding agreement on general and complete disarmament leading to the elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2010.

Twenty years later, we have a situation where, according to the Bulletin of American Scientists, the US has a stockpile of 4,075 active nuclear warheads. Russia, France and the UK have 5,830, 200 and 350 warheads respectively. India, Pakistan and Israel are said to respectively possess between 100 and 200 active warheads each. North Korea reportedly has 410 nuclear warheads.

When Rajiv Gandhi presented his “Action Plan” in 1988, Pakistan had, thanks to liberal Chinese assistance and American acquiescence, already acquired a nuclear arsenal, prompting Rajiv Gandhi to direct his scientists, Dr P.K. Iyengar and Dr V.S. Arunachalam, to proceed with assembling an Indian nuclear arsenal.

Even as Rajiv Gandhi was calling for the establishment of a “non-violent and nuclear weapons free world order” duly backed by Mikhail Gorbachev, the nuclear weapons powers were moving to perpetuate their hegemony, by securing an indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was concluded on July 1, 1968.

With 189 countries now having acceded to the NPT and only four — India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — living outside its provisions, the NPT can be said, as western experts aver, to have prevented the emergence of around 20 nuclear weapons states, as was feared in 1968. Thus, while India can legitimately claim that the Treaty is unequal and discriminatory, it cannot ignore the fact that it will remain the target of signatories to the Treaty, even from amongst its non-aligned partners, such as Iran and Egypt.

These attitudes are partially motivated by a measure of envy, apart from concerns arising out of the possession of nuclear weapons by Israel. Countries such as Iran demand a “complete prohibition” of nuclear co-operation with countries that have not signed the NPT.

Champions missing

The July 9 New Delhi Conference was called in the wake of an appeal issued jointly by Senator Sam Nunn, former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, and former US Defence Secretary William Perry, calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The reality is, however, that the American establishment is nowhere near accepting these recommendations, with the authors themselves now becoming quiet.

New Delhi should remember that none these four new-found champions of disarmament, who were invited to the June 9 conference, chose to attend the Conference.

Even Mikhail Gorbachev, that ardent one-time champion of a “non-violent and nuclear weapons free world,” did not attend the conference, even though invited. The reality is that while world statesmen may pay lip service to disarmament, they are uneasy at associating themselves with India, because it is a non-signatory to the NPT.

The NPT was founded on the “three pillars” of non-proliferation, disarmament and co-operation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

While its proponents draw a measure of satisfaction from the fact that the number of countries possessing nuclear weapons today has not reached double digits, there is a powerful lobby, particularly in the US and in the European Union, which demands “universalisation” of the NPT and measures to pressure such non-signatories as India to accede to the NPT.

China, which has a notorious record of violating the NPT by continuing transfers of nuclear weapons designs and technology to Pakistan, adopts a holier-than-thou attitude, by demanding that India should give up its nuclear weapons and accede to the NPT.

Meaningless clauses

India, unfortunately, shows a lack of spine, by refusing to allude publicly to these Chinese transgressions of the NPT. Similarly, India has been less than forthright in joining others to point out that NATO nuclear sharing agreements which have led to Belgium, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey currently receiving nuclear weapons, which Canada continued to receive till 1984 and Greece until 2001, grossly violate of NPT obligations.

Finally, the second “pillar” of the NPT which requires Nuclear Weapons States to pursue negotiations leading to a “treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control” has been rendered meaningless, by the reluctance of nuclear weapons powers to either give up nuclear weapons or even agree to refrain from the use or threat of use of these weapons. Moreover, the promise to help non-nuclear weapons states to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes has been undermined by discriminatory restrictions imposed on countries developing nuclear fuel cycle facilities.

Finally, the five “recognised” nuclear weapons powers have rejected proposals to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict, by de-alerting of their nuclear forces and the removal of nuclear warheads from missiles. These are issues that India needs to more actively focus international attention on, in global forums.

India has now to prepare for the likelihood of the finalisation of two treaties — a Treaty on a Comprehensive Test Ban (CTBT) and a Fissile Material Cut off Treaty (FMCT), in the not too distant future, especially if Barack Obama is elected as the next US President.

As our former Ambassador to the UN, Arundhati Ghosh recently noted, Prime Minister Vajpayee has already committed in the UN General Assembly in 1998 that apart from observing its unilateral moratorium on testing, India will, in addition, bring its discussions with the US “to a successful conclusion”, so that “the entry into force of the CTBT is not delayed”.

Earlier commitments

Thus, despite protestations to the contrary, both former Prime Minster Vajpayee and the then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh have committed that India would acceding to the CTBT once countries such as China and the US ratify it. It would be difficult for any future Government in India to go back on these earlier commitments.

The real challenges India is going to face will arise when negotiations commence to conclude a FMCT, which will lead to an end to production of fissile material for producing nuclear weapons. (Conclusion of a FMCT will be a high priority in the event of an Obama Presidency in the US). It is here that India should stand firm, holding that it will accede to such a Treaty only if it is non-discriminatory and internationally verifiable.

Any loophole that permits China to either build up its arsenal while India is prohibited from doing so, or permits China to clandestinely transfer know-how and fissile material to Pakistan should be categorically rejected.

It would be worthwhile to convey this in unambiguous terms to key partners such as the US, the UK, France and Russia, to other members of the G8 and to friendly countries such as South Africa and Brazil.

India should reaffirm that while it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons, it will also resist pressures to accept treaties that will undermine the efficacy of its nuclear deterrent. We will also have to recognise that while global nuclear disarmament is desirable, the prospects for nuclear disarmament in the foreseeable future are virtually non-existent.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)

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