MORE THAN JUST 1-2-3

A DELICIOUS IRONY
The arrival of India on the global nuclear scene by becoming a full-fledged member of the NSG on the 6th of September 2008 could not have had a more delightfully ironic ring to it. The Nuclear Suppliers Group or the NSG came into existence after India’s nuclear explosion at Pokharan in 1974; it was formed with the intention of regulating tightly the global nuclear business and more importantly keep India then a nuclear outcaste out of the nuclear mainstream. With Pokharan-2 in 1998 India effectively demonstrated the will to make, possess and maintain nuclear weapons for the purposes of deterrence in an insecure, volatile neighbourhood. India’s determination in shrugging off the sanctions that followed and going ahead with her convictions, succeeded in wilting off the global opposition that existed against her. Also, a rapidly changing geopolitical situation in the world, post 9-11, saw the USA which was already on the threshold of a paradigm shift with respect to India during the end of the Clinton presidency accelerate its embrace of India, once its worries over the Afghanistan and Iraq crises settled. Thus, India without signing the NPT or the CTBT entered the NSG as a de facto nuclear weapons power welcomed by the very powers that founded the organization to keep India in nuclear isolation!

GEOPOLITICAL COMPULSIONS
The Americans see India as a region of hope and as a fellow working democracy, the people of which, by and large do not view USA through a hostile prism. In the Arc of countries in the Indian Ocean, right from the middle-east to south-east Asia, India is the only stable haven which can be cultivated for bringing peace in an otherwise incendiary strife-torn region, at least the Americans like to foresee India in this role. A stable and powerful India, even for India’s own sake is in the interests of America’s geopolitical planning. India and the USA do have areas of security concerns/interests that overlap. USA’s war on terror, especially the Afghan-Pakistan part of it has great relevance to India’s security interests. The establishment of American and allied troops in Karzai’s Afghanistan is an assuring bulwark that limits Pakistan’s nefarious criminal strategic depth meant to be used against India (recall the IC-814 hijack to Kandahar). Another aspect of the American geopolitical calculation – China, in more ways than one, converges with India’s strategic worries. China, an authoritarian country with an expanding economy has a history of aggressive and perfidious intent towards India. Both Pakistan and China have territorial designs on India; China has been a horizontal proliferator of nuclear weapons technologies to North Korea, Pakistan and Libya; Deng and Mao before him were in favour of all nations developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes irrespective of their energy requirements – a truly destabilizing anarchist recipe for an already insecure world! The Sino-Pakistani stance at IAEA and later China’s duplicitous role in trying to scuttle and then delay the NSG waiver is already an indication of how China presents itself as a threat in our security calculations.

DOMESTIC DISCORD
The joy of having reached a significant milestone in the international arena was poisoned by the bickering of the opposition parties over this achievement. The left had an “ideological” objection to it and Ameriphobia is a natural component of the left’s ideology. Whether by coincidence or by design, the political behaviour of our communists has always made them seem like China’s cat’s-paws. But how can we come to terms with the BJP’s antics? Here is a party that wants to disown its legacy; somewhere down the line the dream of shining India seems to have given way to a juvenile almost infantile rant about India’s sovereignty being undermined which clearly doesn’t seem to be the case. There are suggestions being made by spokespersons of the BJP that if they come to power they would renegotiate the treaty – which means effectively killing the deal! The moot point of all the political opposition to the arrangement is centered on India’s right to test nuclear devices/bombs.

In today’s nuclear world nuclear weapons testing is not exactly a polite gesture, it is diplomatically unwise and controversial. Both the USA and Russia have not tested any nuclear device since 1992. In any case, with the geo-political situation evolving precariously, with USA needling Russia over Georgia and trying to get former Soviet countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia into the NATO, and then freezing/canceling the US-Russian nuclear deal and Russia engaging in naval exercises in the Carribean with Venezuela; all this points to an atmosphere in the future, where even if India tests a nuclear device the possible sanctions this time around would be perhaps non-existent given the fact that both USA as well as Russia would be desperate not to lose a potential ally! But, ideally speaking, India should not test, unless and until it is absolutely necessary.

There are other ways of getting around the nuclear test problem by doing sub-critical tests, by doing supercomputer simulations; even doing ultra-sub-kiloton tests without advertising them to the world - remember that the sub-kiloton tests of 0.5 and 0.3 KT carried out on the 13th of May 1998 were not detected by international seismic monitoring stations and the world would not have known about them had not the then Indian Government stated to the world in a press release:- “In continuation of the planned programme of underground nuclear tests begun on the 11th of May, two more sub-kiloton nuclear tests were carried out at Pokharan range at 12:21 PM on the 13th of May, 1998. The tests have been carried out to generate additional data for improved computer simulation of designs and for attaining the capability to carry out subcritical experiments, if considered necessary. The tests were fully contained with no release of radioactivity into the atmosphere. …” Clearly India has the wherewithal and will to manufacture, maintain and renew its nuclear deterrence; otherwise the former National Security Advisor and the principal secretary to the then Prime Minister Mr. Vajpayee Brajesh Mishra, the ex-president Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and various other BARC personnel would not have gone along with this deal. The present BJP set-up must realize that you have consequences for nuclear testing even if you do not have the deal. In any case, present day India is diplomatically and strategically a far more powerful entity than it was in 1998 and it should reflect that reality instead of being hysterical about nuclear testing.

Our polity especially those who get voted out into opposition should learn to see at things in a balanced way and not through partisan lenses. Even if the BJP is rightly miffed with the present Government for repealing of the POTA; it constitutes no reason for them to suggest that they would renegotiate the nuclear deal, if they come to power! This is political churlishness at its best and doesn’t do much good for their prospects at the forthcoming Loksabha elections.


PLAYING THE CARDS
Our successive Governments have played their international roles in India’s self-interests creditably. India’s successful entry into the NSG should not be viewed just through the prism of the “ending of nuclear isolation”; it is much more than that. India and the USA are cozying up to each other in more ways than one; this itself serves as an economic and strategic engine which if properly primed by successive governments will ensure in the coming decades a higher rate of sustained GDP growth rate of 10% or more. Indian administrations should look forward to issues of reforms in the labour and financial sector that will boost the spirit of entrepreneurship in the common man.

It is up to our diplomacy to see that our foreign policy decisions are guided by self-interest first and last. A remarkable expression of such policy was India’s steadfast refusal to send soldiers to Afghanistan in the war on terror during Manmohan Singh’s tenure as a Prime Minister. In an increasingly fast changing and remarkably unstable geopolitical climate, with an enraged Russia and an equally self-righteous USA facing off, genuine non-alignment guided by a strong dose of self-interest has become more relevant than ever.