Why delay signing the CTBT?

By Jagat S. Mehta

THE QUINQUENNIAL review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has ended with no definitive progress towards nuclear disarmament but there is unmistakable impatience that the Nuclear Five (n-5) show more sensitivity to the consensus amongst non-nuclear nations. The Government of India is yet to identify a national consensus on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Since the U.S. Senate itself has refused to ratify the Treaty, it was not difficult to skirt the question during the Clinton visit. But the CTBT has relevance not just to our relations with the U.S. but to the broader parameters of our foreign policy which, since independence under Nehru's priorities, focussed on decolonisation and then economic and social development which implied resisting extravagant militarisation.

Some latter-day analysts, Indian and foreign, who belong to `strategic enclaves' have sought to make out that Nehru at heart was really a permissive nuclear hawk who only fluttered in the plumage of a dove. These accusations do less than full justice to Nehru's lifelong revulsion for the abuse of atomic power for destructive purposes. The contention that if faced with a dire challenge Nehru would have permitted India to develop nuclear weapons is based on quoting from replies to loaded questions or alarmist parliamentary interventions. They overlook the overwhelming evidence of suo motu statements which more truly reflected his convictions. Nehru was the first statesman in the post-Hiroshima world who, as early as 1954, commissioned Dr. D. S. Kothari, an eminent physicist, to study in cooperation with Dr. Homi Bhabha, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, the consequences of nuclear explosions. Nehru himself wrote that forewards both to the first (1956) and the second (1958) editions. Referring to the possibility of death on a colossal scale, Nehru wrote, ``there can be no doubt that the people all over the world passionately desire some agreement amongst those who control the frightful engines of destruction and to put an end to the fear that haunts humanity.'' In 1961, at the first Non-Aligned summit in Belgrade, in a speech, without a written text, Nehru articulated the demand that all nuclear testing be stopped. He was behind the despatch of special envoys to Washington and Moscow to plead for the discontinuance of the resumed testing by the superpowers.

The world came nearest to a nuclear armageddon in October 1962. The post-detente revelations from KGB archives show that U.S. apprehensions of a planned nuclear blackmail were far from the Soviet intentions. The Cuban missile, however, brought home the danger of nuclear conflict by misperceptions.

What role Nehru's pleas in 1961 had is not known, but within nine months of the Cuban missile crisis the recognition of a common interest to prevent radiational hazards culminated in the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTB) sponsored jointly by the U.S., the Soviet Union and the U.K. In the past, agreements had been concluded to limit existing military capabilities such as the U.K.-Japan Naval Treaty of 1922, but never before had there been an agreement to inhibit future sophistication of weapons between sworn adversaries. Even though China and France and some other countries kept aloof from it, Nehru publicly welcomed the PTB (China now upholds this Treaty but at that time, it vehemently denounced the PTB and in 1968 the NPT as attempts at superpower hegemony). Nehru instructed the Indian envoys in the three capitals to be the first to sign the PTB Treaty. I recently asked Mr. B. K. Nehru, who was then Ambassador in the U.S., and he confirmed that on instructions he was indeed the first envoy to sign the Treaty in the U.S. State Department.

After Nehru's death India continued to be in the vanguard in demanding nuclear disarmament. We welcomed the ban on biological weapons, proposed a nuclear freeze in (1982) and were the first to propose a comprehensive end to all nuclear testing.

The CTBT is not without its flaws, especially, its implicit acquiescence to the nuclear apartheid in the NPT. The thrust of Nehru's foreign policy was that while projecting the vision of general nuclear disarmament he went along with incremental progress which would ease the dangers of nuclear radiation and nuclear wars. Independence poses multiple and competitive demands which require constant review of the nature of the external threat and the priorities of economic growth and social stability, the needs of civil governance, environmental imperatives - which put together pose certain dangers of internal insecurity. The collapse of the USSR is an instructive case study of distorted and uncorrected priorities. The immediate question for us is whether, while committed to build a credible nuclear deterrent, we are to concentrate on diplomatic efforts at being ``accepted'' as a nuclear weapon power by the n-5, or, we are to revert to the crusade for nuclear disarmament. Not that in our policy statements we have omitted the goal of disarmament, but our primary goal seems to have shifted to joining the exclusive club of nuclear weapon powers and away from the overwhelming consensus of countries which having renounced the nuclear option are pressing the n-5 to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

The other major item on our foreign policy agenda is the permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council. Three out of five of the nuclear weapon powers and the U.N. Secretary-General have now publicly endorsed that, considering its economic strength and potential, India fully qualifies for this privileged responsibility. But there are other claimants and the question hinges on the whole package of reform of the U.N. structure. Most if not all the 182 countries which decided to permanently accept non-nuclear status are as strongly critical of nuclear apartheid as we are. India's original constituency was this vast fraternity of small and poor nations. We still cherish their support in the NAM, the G-77 and the WTO. India's chances of being vote a permanent member of the Security Council will greatly improve if, in addition to most permanent members, we had the ballast of active support of the General Assembly.

Having earlier been in the forefront of favouring disarmament for development, India should not appear to break ranks with the have-nots on the nuclear weapons question. It amounts to a wholly implausible diplomatic brief to argue that the 182 signatories or a sizeable number of them have surrendered their sensitivity on national security by explicit or implicit acceptance of the nuclear umbrella of a big power. The one dominant feature of our times is that a small country, be it Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya or Serbia, is capable of defying big country coercion.

To realise the full potential of India in the 21st century, we should revert to the spirit of Nehru's policies - balanced defence postures with vigorous diplomacy on disarmament. Instead of risking suspicions of exceptionalism we can reaffirm faith in collective security, which can be combined with our advantage as a credible example of democracy and a new leader in the knowledge revolution. It is to the credit of the NDA Government that it announced that India will exercise a moratorium on testing and not obstruct the CTBT from coming into force. It is surprising that some in the Congress(I), overlooking the legacy of Nehru, should stand against a consensus on the CTBT. Even Rajiv Gandhi's proposal in 1988 envisaged an incremental progress towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. India must subscribe to the Treaty, regardless of when or whether the U.S. or others ratify it. This would be a signal to our old partners that India has not diluted its commitment to feasible steps towards nuclear disarmament. We could thus get back the leadership role of the fraternity where we once shone and not be left in lonely isolation, bracketed with Pakistan and Israel.

(The writer is a former Foreign Secretary.)

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