Recently, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to New Delhi after quick travel to five countries to seek help for its membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). A New York Times editorial spoiled the show by declaring that India’s NSG membership did “not [have] merit” until the country meets the group’s standards. India is trying hard to enter the NSG, a 48-nation club dedicated to curb nuclear arms proliferation by controlling the export of weapon-producing material. This organisation was created due to India’s act of proliferation. A number of NSG-member states argue that the cartel’s criterion of accepting only signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) should be followed in letter and spirit. This means that India will not get membership till it signs the NPT. And India does not want to take the NPT’s obligation because then it would not be able to retain nuclear weapons.
Earlier, the 48-member NSG group met on June 9-10 in Vienna on June. Reportedly, a few countries like New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa and Austria opposed India’s bid because granting India NSG membership would further weaken nuclear nonproliferation efforts. The US is India’s ardent supporter and wants to arm-twist these states into accepting India’s request in the main plenary meeting at Seoul, scheduled to be held on June 23-24. Pakistan has been engaged with the NSG since 2005, and following up on its keen interest in joining the NSG, it has also sent in its formal request for admission into the group.
India does not have a clean nuclear track record, which is an important requirement for its membership. India’s diversion of fissile material for weapons development was the sole reason behind the creation of the NSG. The plutonium used in India’s so-called peaceful nuclear test in 1974 was diverted from the “safeguarded” reactors supplied by Canada. Resultantly, India was subjected to international sanctions, and specifically, it was barred from nuclear trade by the United States and other major countries.
Currently, there seems not a slight indication from India’s nuclear posture that it wishes for global nuclear disarmament. On one hand, it aims to be a part of the prestigious nuclear club, and on the other, it has been engaged in building a top-secret nuclear facility in Karnataka to produce thermonuclear weapons; the project is said to reach to completion in 2017. This secret facility is going to be the subcontinent’s largest military-run complex of nuclear centrifuges. India’s intention is clear: it needs foreign nuclear assistance so that it could divert its indigenous resources solely for weapons development.
Today, most of the nuclear experts are unanimous in their view that deviation from a criteria-based approach to country-specific approach is likely to undermine the credibility of the NSG. If the expansion of the NSG is necessary, then it will have to be decided in accordance with the fundamentally accepted principles. Earlier, the US opened a Pandora’s box by exempting India from the NSG requirements, which enabled the latter to strengthen its stance to enter the elite nuclear club without adhering to the basic prerequisites. This country specific act has already degraded nuclear parity in South Asia.
The US wants India to counter the peaceful rise of China. India is happy to serve the purpose as in return it gets US’s conditional assistance in its quest for the NSG membership. In efforts to contain China by forming an axis with India, the US will successfully fail the non-proliferation regime that it has championed for decades. In pushing NSG’s participating governments to violate their norms and only allow India into the group, the US will irreparably undermine the non-proliferation regime and politicise a non-proliferation cartel. The US has a unique record of making mistakes and committing more to correct the original ones. One can only hope that a big power develops the capability to learn from the history of its past behaviour.
The writer is PhD scholar in English Language Education. He can be reached at [email protected], and on Twitter @yaserhturi