Kautilya: Sign CTBT, it suits Us

India Today
September 14, 1998

KAUTILYA
Sign CTBT, it Suits Us

The Talbott-Jaswant talks could lead to a great strategic future.

Jairam Ramesh

Four rounds of Indo-US talks have been held in the past three months. Quite rightly, the Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbott meetings have been kept away from the media's gaze. Five issues have figured in the talks which look like being wrapped up in the next few weeks. These are:

India signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT);
India joining the discussions and negotiations on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT);
India legislating export controls on the transfer of nuclear and missile technology to other countries;
India's plans for deployment of nuclear weapons;
Confidence-building measures (CBMs) to minimise the risk of nuclear confrontation in south Asia.

While there are no serious differences on any of these issues -- except our weaponisation plans -- the CTBT is the most contentious domestically. Fortunately, there is now growing recognition both in the Government and among security and foreign policy experts that after Pokhran II, signing the CTBT will be in India's interests.

The very commentators who spearheaded India's opposition to the CTBT in the past two years -- K. Subrahmanyam, Muchkund Dubey, J.N. Dixit, Brahma Chellaney, Jasjit Singh and Raja Mohan -- have changed their stance. They now believe that the May 11 and May 13 nuclear tests have made India's objections to the CTBT irrelevant.

But the CTBT remains an emotive issue to many sections of our political class, which react on emotion and dogma, not facts. There will be an orchestrated outcry if the government signs the CTBT. It should just ignore these protests.

The world could never understand why India opposed the CTBT in the first place. After all, it was Jawaharlal Nehru who initially proposed such a treaty way back in 1954. It was Nehru again who got India into the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963. In 1988, India presented to the UN an action plan for total nuclear disarmament. It included a CTBT. In 1993, India co-sponsored, along with the US, the CTBT at the UN.

Given this anti-nuclear commitment -- unmatched by any country, including Japan -- India's aggressive opposition to the CTBT when it came up for finalisation at Geneva in 1996 was baffling. In a forthcoming article in World Affairs, Subrahmanyam, India's leading security expert, has tried to explain this paradox. His argument is that what changed between 1993 and 1996 was the extension of the 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The NPT sees the world in two categories. First, the five nuclear haves, those countries (the US, the UK, Russia, China, France) which had nuclear weapons before January 1, 1967. Second, the nuclear have-nots, among them India. In 1995, the NPT was indefinitely extended. This made India a permanent non-nuclear power.

If India had signed the CTBT in 1996, then it would have forever foreclosed its nuclear option -- whereas our policy had been to keep this option open. As it turned out, after an attempt in 1995 by P.V. Narasimha Rao and another in 1997 by Inder Kumar Gujral, we finally exercised the option in 1998. The basic scenario has, therefore, changed.

Going by Atal Bihari Vajpayee's statement in the Lok Sabha, it is apparent that the Indian nuclear establishment believes no further tests are necessary to build and deploy a minimum, credible deterrent. The prime minister has announced India's unilateral moratorium on further nuclear explosions, thus accepting the spirit of the CTBT. This statement could have been made either to calm an anxious world or to signal that no further tests are, in fact, required by India. Both explanations are probably true.

Thus, signing the CTBT will not harm India. We could stipulate conditions while signing -- like the US has done. Pakistan has already announced its intention to sign. We may well be the only country left outside the CTBT. This is a document the world takes as a test of commitment to nuclear non-proliferation.

Many in India still believe the CTBT, like the NPT, is discriminatory. This is not true. The CTBT does not differentiate between haves and have-nots. Neither does it preclude computer-aided design and testing and laboratory experiments. India has strong capability in these. Further, it is likely that all sanctions on India will be lifted if we sign the CTBT. It is also possible that curbs on technology transfer and collaboration in the defence, nuclear and space industries will get eliminated progressively. But for this we have to keep the US engaged in constructive dialogue and be serious about CBMS with Pakistan and China.

The ball is in Vajpayee's court. He should have had all living former prime ministers standing next to him on May 11, as he announced India's tests. This would have acknowledged the continuity and consensus in our nuclear policy.

Uncharacteristically, Vajpayee behaved in a partisan manner. He can make amends by taking other political parties into confidence on the fallout of the Singh-Talbott talks. He should also look beyond his government and put together a panel of experts to prepare a blueprint for nuclear policy, strategy and diplomacy. The CTBT is just the beginning.

The author is secretary of the AICC's Economic Affairs Department. The views expressed here are his own.

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