The latest in the series began with the New York Times (NYT) article on American suspicions of India preparing for its first nuclear test since 1974, which the US was reportedly working to discourage. It spoke of spy satellites having recorded scientific and technical activity at Pokhran in Rajasthan, where India had conducted its first test.
Naturally it set off alarm bells in the region and the Indian Government rushed to deny that it was planning such a test. Since then speculative reports have flooded the media and there is talk of sanctions being imposed on India if it conducts a test. For his part, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee described the reports in the US media as "speculative and baseless", adding that Washington had said nothing officially to India on this subject.
But that was precisely the point. The US intention was to convey its worries about the Indian nuclear programme, especially in the context of the on-going negotiations on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). There has been growing public debate in India that the CTBT may not be the disarmament tool it is being touted as. Besides, the pressures of electoral politics in both countries have resulted in a hardening of stands on both sides.
Asked if the NYT report was factually correct, a top US official in the New Delhi embassy told a senior Indian diplomat that the issue was not whether India was actually preparing to conduct a nuclear test. According to him, there is a fair groundswell of opinion in both India and Pakistan for nuclear weaponisation and so instead of reacting at the last minute, it was necessary to take advance measures to caution everyone concerned.
But this is only a half truth. The crux of the issue is the CTBT, which the US desperately wants sewn up by its target of April 1996. And it is very worried about the Indian Government's belated reassessment of its position on the CTBT and linking it to timebound, total nuclear disarmament. The US official defended his government's concern about the Indian stand on the CTBT, saying the issue was too important vis-a-vis the international security environment for the US to have the limited objective of manipulating India without any basis. In the interim phase, he conceded, the CTBT regime may be discriminatory, but its eventual aim is total nuclear disarmament.
There was a method in the way the NYT report was leaked out. American Ambassador to India Frank Wisner had just returned from Washington when the report came. American officials concede that the Clinton Administration going public naturally affects the desirability for quietude and flexibility in reasoning with South Block and that Wisner had felt a little constrained after the item was published. Observers wonder if the leak reflects differences between the State Department on the one hand with the CIA and the Pentagon on the other over the manner of handling the issue.
But such a hamhanded method is hardly expected to further US goals. If anything, it has raised everyone's hackles, added to the growing anti-American feeling in the pre election period and brought the opposition parties also behind the Government. Besides, it has helped South Block to gloss over its mishandling of this issue.
Without total, timebound disarmament being the motivating factor, the US has an instrumental approach to the CTBT, the approach being to cap India's nuclear programme. Having failed to force India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Clinton Administration has made no bones about the fact that it wants to use the CTBT and the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT), which is still being negotiated, to achieve its objective of capping India's nuclear programme. In a lecture delivered in early November at Georgetown University, John Holum, director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, said that with the US having conducted "well over 1,000 nuclear tests—hundreds more than any other country", it was keen to prevent "tests by others, including rogue states who could derive quantum leaps of capability from even a few tests". He added: "The CTBT will make us grateful that we locked all nations into place on the nuclear learning curve. Our nuclear arsenals have been more than sufficiently tested." The US wanted the FMCT to at least cap the programmes of the threshold states—India, Pakistan and Israel, he noted.
Brahma Chellaney of the Centre for Policy Research argues that the CTBT is "now being sold as an end, as a new measure of applying a fix to the problem of proliferation". Says he: "India now finds itself in a bind. The CTBT will neither serve the cause of disarmament nor enhance India's security. Signing the CTBT will be like a noose around your own neck. Next year will make or unmake India's defence preparedness. India's interest lies in seeing that the CTBT is part of a process of disarmament within a definite timetable."
The US problems with India came to the surface when India refused to co-sponsor the CTBT resolution in the UN General Assembly this year. India, which has been proposing a comprehensive test ban since the '50s, had co-sponsored the CTBT resolution in 1993 and 1994, along with the US and other states. Earlier Arundhati Ghosh, India's permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, told the Conference on Disarmament in September that India's demand for total nuclear disarmament within a given timeframe "has been seen as unrealistic and idealistic on the grounds that nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented. This is a disingenuous argument". If chemical and biological weapons could be banned, then nuclear weapons could also be eliminated, she reasoned. Referring to the reluctance of the big powers to agree to a timeframe, she said the CTBT and the FMCT "will be seen as narrow and futile exercises aimed at controlling non-nuclear weapons states, further strengthening the discrimination inherent in the non-proliferation regimes which exist today".
Around the same time, Dr R. Chidambaram, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, told the International Atomic Energy Agency that the nuclear tests conducted by some states after the signing of the NPT "will have repercussions on the CTBT", and emphasised the need for a universal, comprehensive and non-discriminatory disarmament regime. "A sincere attempt to reach this goal is conspicuous now by its absence," he said.
But a non-discriminatory regime has been ever elusive. Says Savita Pande, of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis: "Ever since the debate on the CTBT started, all the nuclear weapons powers have sought some exception or the other to the comprehensive test ban. Although some exceptions have been withdrawn, doubts remain as to how comprehensive the test ban would be."
While Indian of ficials are quick to point to the hypocrisy in the stand of the world powers, none is willing to answer the questions: what led to the rethinking in India's position? And has a policy really been formulated? There is a strong suspicion in informed circles that the Indian Government has not carefully thought out the whole issue of disarmament. In fact, the Indian policy on this issue is rather inconsistent. Says Chellaney sarcastically: "Two and a half people handle disarmament in the Ministry of External Affairs(MEA)."
However, one thing is certain. There is no coordination between the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the Atomic Energy Commission and the MEA on such issues. Some senior scientists are known to be opposed to the idea of joining the CTBT. Obviously they were not consulted when India co-sponsored the CTBT resolution along with the US in the last two years. A senior PMO official said the issue was being discussed with the scientists, but "unless we are clear about our achievement level and intentions, it is difficult to adopt a negotiating stance".
To now argue that India's stand has been changed because the NPT has been extended indefinitely or that France and China are still carrying out the tests is not enough. The hypocrisy of the nuclear powers has been known for a long time. India should not voluntarily give up its right to conduct a test when the nuclear powers are talking in terms of mini nukes, sub-zero yield tests or simulated tests at the laboratory level. While France and China are conducting tests, the other three nuclear powers do not need to do so. The FMCT is also coming along. The CTBT text still has over hundred technical glitches to be sorted out. It is time Indian policy makers took the Indian public into confidence.
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