DISARMAMENT-INDIA: Nuclear Bomb an Election issue

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Mahesh Uniyal

NEW DELHI, Apr 21 1996 (IPS) - India’s main opposition leader Atal Behari Vajpayee declared in a recent TV interview recently that if he wins the coming elections his government will make the nuclear bomb.

The assertion came as no surprise, as Vajpayee’s right wing Bharatiya Janata Party has repeatedly said India must have a bomb to neutralise the threats to its security from Pakistan and China.

What is puzzling observers, however, is the fact the ruling Congress party has shied away from speaking on the sensitive nuclear issue to electors.

The BJP manifesto declares: “The BJP will re-evaluate the country’s nuclear policy and exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons.”

But Congress has not spelt out its position on an issue that will be on top of the list of things to be done for the government that will take over in New Delhi after the general elections. The party, alone among the three main poll rivals, remained silent on the U.N.-proposed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Both the BJP and the alliance of centrist and left parties say they are opposed to a test ban until it is linked to a nuclear disarmament time table.

That this is the same as the stand taken by the Congress government at the CTBT talks makes the party’s silence intriguing and has given rise to speculation that the party may back off from its firm stand taken so far in Geneva.

Instead the Congress has reiterated its known position on nuclear weapons, which is that the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty is unequal.

Talks in Geneva have made little headway with India insisting that test ban should be linked to a disarmament timetable, which observers think is unlikely to be accepted by the nuclear-haves.

Rather than play the spoiler and block the test ban treaty, New Delhi may decide to abstain as it did in the case of the NPT, they say. The United States is contemplating diplomatic pressure and commercial sanctions on recalcitrant nations.

Rejecting “a world of nuclear apartheid”, the BJP says it will not agree to the CTBT “unless there is a simultaneous agreement for a time-bound global elimination of nuclear weapons in their entirety.”

The Janata Dal, one of the key constituents of the centre-left alliance, says it will “continue to oppose the NPT (Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty) and its adjunct, CTBT.” The Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPI(M), the main left partner of the alliance too asks voters to oppose “attempts to impose” the NPT and the CTBT on India.

India’s representative at the Geneva talks has said the CTBT will not be effective unless the five nuclear powers agree to a deadline for dismantling their arsenals.

Indian Premier P.V. Narasimha Rao told Parliament last month that the government would not shift from its stand on making the CTBT conditional on definite time-frame for disarmament. “We are absolutely firm on this,” he had said.

Though not stated explicitly, the Indian opposition to the CTBT in its present form is that like the NPT, it will legitimise the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a few nations.

However, New Delhi is expected to come under intense pressure from the United States not to break the near consensus on the CTBT which Washington wants ready before the U.S. Presidential polls. Each of the 37 members of the Conference on Disarmament have veto power.

Strategic affairs experts here say that Washington has firmed up its determination to achieve its non-proliferation goals. They cite a recent study released by U.S. Defence Secretary William Perry on the threat from the spread of weapons of mass destruction and ways the United States can counter this.

Besides preventive institutional mechanisms like the NPT, the CTBT and the fissile cut off treaty, Washington is said to be in favour of diplomatic pressure and commercial sanctions on recalcitrant nations. If these do not work, the United States is said to be even willing to use pre-emptive force.

“To minimise the vulnerability of our forces abroad to weapons of mass destruction, we are placing a high priority on improving our ability to locate, identify and disable arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, production and storage facilities for such weapons and their delivery systems,” says a U.S. National Security Strategy document quoted by the Indian daily, ‘The Hindu’.

India’s ruling party, however, says it is for retaining the country’s right to use its capability to make nuclear weapons if necessary for the nation’s security.

“Congress favours a nuclear weapons free world and will continue efforts for total and complete disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament,” says its manifesto.

Although its nuclear policy “is geared for peaceful purposes”, it will “be constrained to review her policy” if India’s arch- foe, neighbouring “Pakistan persists in the development and deployment of nuclear weapons,” it adds.