By IPS Correspondents
NEW DELHI, Mar 8 1996 (IPS)

The Indian government has hardened its position on the Comprehensive (nuclear) Test Ban Treaty, now being negotiated in the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, putting its fate in the balance.

A week ago, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao told Parliament that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the CTBT as proposed are “defective” and “ineffective”. The two are “linked”, and India will not budge from its stand of making the CTBT conditional upon a definite time-frame for complete nuclear disarmament. “We are absolutely firm on this,” he said.

The stand represents a major departure from the well- established Indian position in favour of an unconditional CTBT. India was the first nation to demand a CTBT, as early as in 1954.

Although the Indian delegation moved amendments on this issue at Geneva on January 25, this is the first time that Prime Minister Rao has personally expressed his opposition to a CTBT not linked to time-bound nuclear disarmament.

The nuclear-weapons states (NWSs), as well as a majority of the G-21 oppose the linkage. This is one of several issues of contention in the CTBT talks, the others being the scope of a test ban, verification of compliance, implementing and monitoring organisations, mechanisms for triggering on-site inspections, and entry into and exit from the treaty.

The nuclear states are reluctant to accept nuclear disarmament obligations and resisted a true zero-yield test ban until last September. Many non-nuclear states believe that linking the CTBT to a time-bound framework risks losing the treaty altogether.

The delegations of Indonesia and Mexico in Geneva say they would be satisfied with a commitment to nuclear disarmament, stated in the Preamble of the CTBT text, but do not believe that it is necessary to stipulate a specific means of procedure of achieving that objective.

Indonesia, Mexico, Egypt and Morocco are lobbying the Indian delegation in favour of dropping the amendments it moved five weeks ago, one of which goes as far as making the CTBT’s entry into force conditional upon a commitment to nuclear disarmament in a “well-defined time framework (of ten years)”. (The brackets indicate that the span is negotiable.)

Until a few weeks ago, these countries were India’s allies at the conference, and active in extracting commitments from the NWSs in favour of nuclear arms reduction.

India is not unique in its growing differences with the non- NWSs. China too has an extreme position on the treaty’s scope, which finds no resonance. Beijing would like so-called peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) to be exempted from the CTBT. These are technologically indistinguishable from weapons test explosions.

If India and China persist with their stands, they could block the CTBT. The CD functions by consensus, and each one of its 37 members has veto power. The CD is mandated by U.N. General Assembly resolutions to complete the CTBT negotiations so that the treaty could be presented to the Assembly in September. This means reaching basic agreements on the principal issues by June and then polishing up the text.

At the moment, the 100-page plus “rolling text” is replete with square brackets (1.211 of them) which indicate disagreement. Meanwhile, Iran and Australia have produced “compromise” drafts, but these are yet to be discussed.

On scope, there are major differences in the CD. While the United States, Britain and France, would like the CTBT to prohibit all nuclear test explosions, India and, to some extent Pakistan, would like the ban to be all-inclusive and cover laboratory testing too. Russia, in the grip of political uncertainty, is ambiguous on this.

New Delhi, Islamabad and Beijing fear that the Western nuclear states, which are more advanced in computer simulation and other sophisticated techniques, will use sub-critical tests (involving no explosion) to develop new-generation weapons, thus defeating the CTBT’s purpose.

“However, scientists and experts generally agree that it is virtually impossible to develop new-generation weapons or modernise existing ones without full-fledged test explosions,” says Sverre Lodgaard, director of the U.N. Institute of Disarmament Research at Geneva. “An all-encompassing ban is not necessary.”

On verification too, there are sharp differences in the CD. The Western bloc insists on tough procedures and challenge inspections with a deterrent effect: as soon as a suspected test is reported, the country concerned must allow an international secretariat to conduct inspections. The G-21 favour no inspection

unless agreed by the secretariat. (These differences are related to perceptions of national sovereignty.)

Such differences could be narrowed down provided there is some agreement on scope and linkage. That is where uncertainty lies. This is related to domestic factors (forthcoming elections in India, Russia and the United States), as well as regional security equations (especially China’s role in Asia-Pacific.)

In India, the government is under pressure both from a section of the Opposition, which believes that it has compromised too readily with the West, and the bomb lobby. This lobby oppose the CTBT because it will narrow India’s nuclear weapons option, and make it difficult for New Delhi to develop a sophisticated nuclear arsenal.

However, the nuclear hawks couch their opposition in sanctimonious arguments about how the CTBT is discriminatory, unequal and unrelated to nuclear disarmament. This all-or-nothing (either full nuclear disarmemnt or unfettered proliferation) approach does find some echo in the policy-making establishment drowning more sober voices.

Moral posturing — masking the intent to keep the nuclear option indefinitely open — is also the easiest option, especially for the embattled Rao government, now caught in a major corruption scandal.

However, it is by no means clear that New Delhi has calculated the true costs of staying out of a CTBT or scuppering it. It is still possible that it could moderate its stand and adopt a consensual posture.

If that happens, and the NWSs too come around, a CTBT could be completed this year, signifying the end of the nuclear arms race, and probably triggering other restraint agreements.

If the talks fail, then the treaty could be indefinitely deferred, as happened in 1963, 1977-80, and 1991. Worse, existing arms control agreements could be dismantled and new-generation weapons could be developed.

Excerpt: