India joins the NPT debate

By C. Raja Mohan

IT WAS Groucho Marx, the American comedian, who once famously said that he would not join any club that would have him as a member. India's position on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is somewhat similar. The Sixth Review Conference of the states party to the NPT, now under way at the United Nations, might indeed call upon India to join the Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state. Responding to that sentiment, the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, has told them, in effect, ``forget it''. In proclaiming that he had no time for any club that offered him membership, Marx was not being facetious. He was in fact making a major political statement about the world in which he was living. His remark, legend now has it, was in reference to an exclusive ``whites-only'' club in California.

Discrimination was indeed at the heart of India's rejection of the NPT. India's opposition to the Treaty over the last three decades was based on the argument that the NPT was both unjust and ineffective. India, in fact, was among those few countries that had called for the negotiation of a non-proliferation treaty in the mid-1960s. Deeply concerned by the first Chinese nuclear test in October 1964, India turned to the international community to address its nuclear insecurity. But the NPT that came out of those negotiations left India stranded. It neither met India's security concerns nor provided a framework to effectively manage the threat of nuclear proliferation.

Since then, India has been the prize catch the NPT managers were looking for. But New Delhi remained firmly rejectionist in its approach to the NPT. Much has changed, however, since the NPT came into being three decades ago. There is a new political legitimacy to the NPT as more and more states have joined up. Only four countries - Cuba, India, Israel and Pakistan - are now holding out.

Near-universal membership does not, however, mean that the Treaty has stopped being discriminatory or that the member-states are no longer unhappy at the way it is being implemented. The debate at the Review Conference in fact reflects the enormous frustrations of the member-states about the manner in which the Treaty is being run. Five years ago, the member-states agreed to extend the Treaty, unconditionally and indefinitely. And exactly two years ago today, India conducted nuclear tests and proclaimed itself a nuclear weapon power.

As a consequence, the tension between the NPT and India has sharpened. At the NPT Review Conference, the nuclear weapon states have issued a statement that they will not recognise India as a nuclear weapon state, despite its nuclear tests. And they have urged India to abide by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172 passed in June 1998 in the wake of the South Asian nuclear tests. The resolution calls on India, among other things, to abide by the NPT.

Many non-nuclear states, particularly in the Arab world, are also demanding that the international community enforce universal membership of the NPT. Their efforts are not targeted against India, but against Israel which has nuclear weapons. Although motivated by regional concerns, there is no question that India gets trapped in the Arab-Israeli nuclear wrangle in various multilateral fora.

Mr. Jaswant Singh's statement explaining India's approach to the NPT is an important political contribution to the ongoing debate at the NPT Review Conference in New York. The intervention was particularly necessary since India is not present at the Conference. India had the option to be represented as an observer, but having always kept out of the NPT meetings in the past New Delhi was wary of attending this time. With much of the world present there and debating the full spectrum of nuclear issues, it is important that India clarifies the policy direction it has set for itself after the May 1998 nuclear tests.

The unambiguous message from Mr. Singh was that ``the NPT community must understand that India cannot join the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state''. Implicit in his assertion is the interesting question whether India could join the NPT as a nuclear weapons state. There may be two ways in which to admit India into the NPT as a nuclear weapon state. One is to amend the Treaty language and acknowledge India as a nuclear weapon state. The other is to add a protocol to the NPT recognising the reality of India as a nuclear weapon power. But the prospects for either move are indeed remote. The procedures for the amendment of the NPT are extremely complex. And there is no real political support at this stage to either amend the Treaty or expand it to include India as a nuclear weapon power. India itself has not really sought the legal recognition from the international community as a nuclear weapon state. The Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, had declared that the status of a nuclear weapon state is not something for others to confer on India.

The conundrum, then, remains. The NPT is here to stay as a perpetual treaty. It cannot legally accept India as a nuclear weapon power. But the practical reality is that New Delhi is in possession of nuclear weapons, and will not give them up unilaterally. India has sought to circumvent this problem by engaging the major powers to get them to politically accept the fact that India will build and maintain a credible minimum deterrent, so long as other nations maintain them.

Indian diplomacy since Pokhran II has had considerable success in nudging the major powers in that direction. Most of them have come around to accepting that India will not give up its nuclear weapons and that there is need to find a modus vivendi with New Delhi on nuclear issues at the bilateral level. But at the multilateral level there is tension between India's nuclear weapons and the legal fiction of the NPT that there are only five nuclear weapon powers. Mr. Singh's message to the NPT review conference highlights the irrevocable reality that India is a nuclear weapon power. At the same time, he has also begun to position India for a long-term engagement with the NPT system. Mr. Singh is not only claiming that India is a nuclear weapon state but also drawing the significance of that fact to the NPT regime in operational terms.

For the first time, India has now claimed that it is in compliance with the obligations that the NPT imposes on a nuclear weapon state. Mr. Singh said ``Though not a party to the NPT, India's policies have been consistent with the key provisions of the NPT that apply to nuclear states.'' On the responsibilities of the nuclear weapon states under the NPT to prevent proliferation and promote disarmament, India is now saying its record is far superior to those of the five nuclear weapon states party to the NPT. While this is a well-known fact, India has never articulated it within the NPT framework.

In reformulating its nuclear approach after Pokhran-II, India is also reaching out to the vast majority of non-nuclear states who are party to the NPT and have grievances of their own. To them, India is reaffirming its commitment to negotiate a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, as well as address their other nuclear security concerns. Mr. Singh is making it clear India is empathetic to the demands of these states for a no-first-use of nuclear weapons, nuclear weapon-free zones, and negative security assurances.

It will be a while before the message from India is digested at the Review Conference. But the new approach towards the NPT now outlined by India allows it to intervene effectively in the nuclear debate at New York.

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