HVK Archives: Should India sign the CTBT?
Should India sign the CTBT? - The Hindu
By Pranab Mukherjee
()
May 26, 1998
Title: Should India sign the CTBT?
Author: By Pranab Mukherjee
Publication: The Hindu
Date: May 26, 1998
AFTER the successful completion of a series of five nuclear tests
at Pokhran, the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, claimed
that "India is a nuclear weapon state." In a formal statement
issued at the press conference on May 17, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam,
Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister and Dr. R.
Chidambaram, AEC Chairman, said that India possessed both nuclear
weapons and their delivery system.
These tests are the logical conclusion of the process which began
at Pokhran 24 years ago when Indira Gandhi had the first nuclear
explosion done in 1974. The scientific and technological
competence of the Indian scientists and engineers reflect the
vision of Jawaharlal Nehru, who laid the foundation for these
development. This was carefully nursed and developed by the
successive Congress Prime Ministers.
Reacting to the nuclear explosions, the U. S., Japan and a couple
of other countries have declared economic sanctions against
India. They have also demanded that India must not proceed with
manufacturing nuclear weapons and that it should sign
unconditionally the Non-Proliferation Treaty (N-PT) and the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) without delay. The G-8
nations in a joint communique adopted at the Birmingham summit on
May 17, asked India and Pakistan not to deploy nuclear weapons.
The British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, conveyed what he
termed the G-8's " strong exception" to India's nuclear tests and
claimed that he had obtained an assurance from Mr. Vajpayee
during a telephonic conversation that New Delhi would start
negotiations on the CTBT and that the G-8 countries were now
awaiting "delivery on commitments made by Vajpayee to me."
The question is whether India should sign the CTBT and the NPT.
India's refusal to sign the treaties was based on its principled
stand articulated over the years. India's aversion to nuclear
weapons was first expressed by Mahatma Gandhi when atom bombs
were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, causing
unprecedented devastation. He said it was the most diabolical use
of science. We were, therefore, appalled that instead of stepping
back from the road to nuclear ruin, the nuclear weapon states
sped faster and faster down it. As they accelerated, India tried
unsuccessfully to apply the brakes.
In 1954, Nehru called for a "standstill" agreement to halt
nuclear tests, to be followed by discontinuance of production and
stockpiling of nuclear weapons. In 1965, India proposed
principles for an NPT. In 1982, it called for a convention to
ban the use of nuclear weapons and for an end to the production
of fissile material for nuclear weapons. In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi
proposed to the U.N. a comprehensive action plan for a world free
of nuclear weapons. However, the nuclear weapon power states did
not heed the advice. Before the signing of the CTBT, the five
nuclear weapon states had conducted 2,047 tests since 1945, the
U.S. accounting for more than half (1,032) followed by Russia
(715), France (210) and the U.K. and China (45 each). China and
France carried out nuclear tests even at the end of the
penultimate stage of negotiations on the CTBT and after the
indefinite extension of the NPT.
In January 1994, the Conference on Disarmament adopted an
unambiguous mandate to conclude the " CTBT which would contribute
effectively to the prevention of proliferation in all its
aspects, to the process of nuclear disarmament and, therefore, to
the enhancing of international peace and security." It reflected
a balance among the different objectives that the delegates
sought to achieve. India's constructive approach in the
negotiations had been to try and ensure this balance so that the
treaty did not become a flawed instrument aimed only at curbing a
horizontal proliferation. For India had visualised the CTBT as
part of a step-by-step process of global nuclear disarmament,
leading to the complete elimination of nuclear weapon with a time-
bound framework. In fact, at the special sessions of the U.N. in
1988, the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, placed a concrete
action plan for a universally negotiated treaty based on equality
with the objective of not only preventing proliferation but also
completely eliminating nuclear weapons over a definitive time-
frame.
Based on India's position on the CTBT, concrete Indian textual
proposals or amendments were tabled on June 26, 1996. The
proposals served to link the CTBT to the objective of elimination
of nuclear weapons within an agreed time-frame. As the proposals
were not taken on board, India made a definitive statement that
it could not subscribe to the CTBT in its present form as it was
not conceived of as a measure towards universal disarmament. It
was also not in India's national security interest. India pointed
out the deficiencies of the CTBT in the form it was presented:
It was not aimed at nuclear disarmament. it was not an effective
instrument to create a nuclear weapon-free world; it was not
really comprehensive as it did not arrest the qualitative
development of nuclear weapons. it does not enhance the global
security for which the mandate was received at the Conference on
Disarmament in January 1994; both the NPT and the CTBT were
unequal and flawed and both the treaties were discriminatory and
recognised the concept of "deterrence" in favour of the five
nuclear weapon states.
To enhance global security, a decisive nuclear disarmament in a
time-bound framework was needed. Therefore, India informed the
CD on June 26, 1996 that as the treaty had not lived up to its
mandate, the country would no longer be able to maintain its
offer of CTBT monitoring facilities as part of the international
verification system and requested that references to monitor
facilities located in India be deleted from the draft treaty. On
June 28, in the draft text presented the reference to the
monitoring stations in India was deleted but a new article xiv
was inserted which made the entry-into-force conditional upon
ratification of the treaty by 44 countries including India. This
was unacceptable to India. It opposed the adoption to the draft
treaty by the ad hoc committee and its submission to the CD
plenary.
Subsequently, India also opposed the transmission of the special
report by the CD to the 50th U.N. General Assembly as there was
no consensus on the draft treaty text. However, on the basis of a
resolution moved by Australia, the non-consensus draft treaty
text was adopted in the resumed session of the 50th U.N. General
Assembly on Sept. 10, 1996. India, along with Bhutan and Lybia,
voted against the resolution while Cuba, Tanzania, Lebanon, Syria
and Mauritius abstained. A total of 158 countries voted in favour
of the resolution and the CTBT came into existence and 144
countries have so far signed, including the five nuclear weapon
states.
Against this background, it is to be considered whether India
should sign the CTBT. If India is not recognised as a nuclear
weapon state and does not enjoy an equal status with the five
nuclear weapon power states, then it will have to bear the
obligations and will not have any benefit. The tests carried out
will not lead us further as the upgrading of technology would be
prevented by the international monitoring system. Not only on the
nuclear sector, inquisitive inspections would hamper the normal
industrial and technological developments.
Nowadays most of the sophisticated technologies have a dual use.
Restrictions on export of these dual-use technologies imposed by
the industrialised countries are already standing in the way of
technological upgradation of the developing countries.
Strengthened by the monitoring and inspection under the CTBT, the
curbs on use of imported technologies would increase. Therefore,
if India agrees to sign the CTBT unconditionally without
obtaining adequate safeguards for its future plan, it would not
be able to consolidate its gains obtained through the tests.
This is a crucial issue on which a national debate should take
place. As the Government will have to respond to the adverse
impact of economic sanctions, it should initiate a dialogue with
all the major political parties and others on the strategies to
be adopted as they resume negotiations on the CTBT and the NPT.
(The writer is a senior member of the Congress(I) and a former
Union Minister.)
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