Should India Sign the CTBT? - Essay, UPSC MAINS | Course for UPPSC Preparation - UPPSC (UP) PDF Download

Should India Sign the CTBT?

structure

(1) Opening    —    The tests at Pokhran.

(2) Body    —    Economic sanctions after the test.

—    Cause of India's refusal.

—    Previous intiatives by India.

—    The conferencce of Disarma-ment (1994).

—    Deficiencies of CTBT.    

—    A decisive nuclear disarma-ment in a timebountd  fram- ework was needed.

(3) Closing    —    The test carried out  will not lead us further if.....

With the 20th anniversary of Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty this year, there is renewed debate in the west about its.

The tests at Pokhran the logical conclusion of the process which began at Pokhran 44 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 had declared economic sanctions against India. They had also demanded that India must not proceed with manufacturing nuclear weapons and that it should sign unconditionally the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) without delay. The G-8 nations in a joint communique had adopted at the Birmingham summit, 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. Vajapayee during a telephonic conversations 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.” Seeing the historical perspective what next?

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 proliferations 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 are 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. 

As of 2016, eight Annex 2 states have not ratified the treaty : China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States have signed but not ratified the treaty, North Korea and Pakistan have not signed it.

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 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 Libya, 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. 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.

Since its inception, India has had a number of reservations about the CTBT. While it has stood by its demand for a nuclear weapon free world, various principal, procedural, political and security concerns have stood in the way of its support for the CTBT. For these reasons, India is unlikely to be willing to participate in the Treaty in the event of a UNSC resolution.