ABSTRACT

Why would a country with a remarkable record of activism towards halting the spread of nuclear weapons decide to reject a treaty fashioned specifically for this objective? India’s decision to stay out of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) remains a puzzle that has yet to be conclusively explained. An official narrative has emerged over the past decades on why India refused to accept the NPT.1 In a nutshell, the Indian government termed the treaty as “discriminatory” for failing to enshrine a balance of obligations and responsibilities between the nuclear-weapon states (NWS) and the non-nuclearweapon states (NNWS). Thus, India contended that the treaty was not a credible instrument towards the elimination of nuclear weapons, and was instead sustaining a world of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” While many of these arguments have been subsequently confirmed by developments within the NPT regime, it remains unclear whether such ideational factors were the primary reason for India’s decision to remain outside the treaty. For that matter, there are not many competing views on what factors drove India’s decision. Rather, the official government position is widely accepted as a consensual national perspective. Few academic studies have inquired whether the NPT decision was driven by considerations of national interest, by ideological perspectives, or by an assortment of both. A historical analysis of the decision-making process and geopolitical conditions during the years when the NPT was being negotiated may throw up many indicators on why the declared rationale may not have been the paramount reason for India’s NPT decision. For, many behavioral patterns pertaining to India’s strategic thinking and its responses to the security environment of that period remain as key explanatory gaps in the understanding of the decision-making process. Some studies point to how most of NNWS preferred to accede to the NPT not on the basis of the “vague” promises of disarmament, but on their value judgments of individual gains, including the prospect of mitigating the presence of nuclear weapons in their neighborhoods and accessing resources for peaceful uses of nuclear energy.2 India, while placing the centrality of disarmament as its ideational objective, was also deeply concerned about the security implications of nuclear weapons introduced in its neighborhood. Contrary to the sentiments of many NNWS that were comfortable with the status quo of existing arsenals in

the hands of a few even while supporting the disarmament cause, India could not seemingly accept the reality of its rival (China) possessing nuclear weapons and a nonproliferation treaty limiting its own options to deal with this challenge. India’s eventual NPT decision seems to be an outcome of this peculiar dichotomy – of wanting a disarmament end-goal, but not at the expense of its security interests – a conundrum that probably defined Delhi’s complex positioning on issues like pathways to disarmament, the feasibility and prudence of security guarantees, as well as securing the right to undertake peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs), among others. An underlying conflict was seemingly at work with the leadership caught between its ideological commitments and the pressure of policy realism to keep options open within a looming threat environment. Therefore, the quest to understand India’s NPT decision has to take into account some questions and inferences on India’s approach to various structural issues that were integral to the NPT construction process. First is the perceptible inconsistency on the issue of disarmament. Why did India challenge the validity of Article VI as a durable disarmament roadmap, despite its earlier position that disarmament could realistically be pursued only in a phased manner? Was it the absence of preambular provisions for measures like, for instance, stockpile elimination, ending fissile materials production, or a comprehensive test ban that caused India’s minimal faith in the NPT as a route to nuclear disarmament? Second is the issue of security guarantees and the complexities of India’s activism. Why did India reject Resolution 255 of the UN Security Council (UNSC) despite seeking assurances from the nuclear powers? Why did India engage Moscow and Washington if it perceived a conflict with its non-alignment ideals? Was seeking a China-centric guarantee from the nuclear powers India’s real objective? Third is the extent of the impact of the Chinese challenge, imprinted on the Indian psyche through the 1962 border war and amplified by the 1964 nuclear test. The circumstantial role of this threat matrix on India’s NPT decision has largely been confined to conjectures without substantive empirical evidence on whether India perceived the NPT as a hindrance in preparing a nuclear quid pro quo to the Chinese nuclear challenge. Did India see it as untenable to sign the Treaty when China was not party to the NPT negotiations and yet qualified as a NWS? Relevant to this context is the Indian domestic debate on pursuing a nuclear weapons program or keeping this option open. A number of questions arise on this correlation: Why India did not prefer to test before 1967? Did the leadership misjudge the implications of the NPT on its strategic calculus, or did elites keep false hopes of a balanced treaty? And did a late realization drive the eventual NPT decision? Fourth is the enigma surrounding India’s nuclear test of May 1974, and its linkage to the NPT decision. During the negotiations within the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament (ENDC), India had vouched for securing the right to PNE as inherent to peaceful uses of nuclear energy, despite very few articulations on how this technology will be used. The timing of the 1974 test, four years after the NPT entered into force, and the branding of it as a peaceful explosion,

raised speculations as to whether it was a technological demonstration of India’s weapons capability with the intention to keep all options open. Considering the fact that India had abstained and not voted against the NPT resolution at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), it could also be speculated whether India had considered accession to the NPT after undertaking the PNE.3 These issues point to the broad picture of ideational and political difficulties that marked India’s nuclear policy-making during this period. Adding to it was a complex mixture of bureaucratic incertitude, regional security impulses, domestic politics, scientific activism, and absence of collective and informed strategic wisdom, which could have caused an incoherent understanding on what the NPT augured for India’s strategic future, and the role nuclear weapons could have played in it. However, the decision to undertake a nuclear explosion some years later could be hinting at a larger game plan with an intrinsic link to the NPT decision – the initiation of India’s nuclearization phase, by building a sustainable nuclear infrastructure that could anchor a self-reliant nuclear energy program and provide the flexibility of exercising a nuclear weapons option, if and when necessary. A major part of the available literature examined the core issues in their complexities and entirety, though not precisely pointing to a tipping point on what led to the NPT decision. T.T. Poulose put together a compilation of analyses in 1978, at a time when the aftermath of the PNE and resistance to the NPT began to play out on India’s external relations.4 This compilation analyzes the debates on issues like safeguards, PNE, and security guarantees, but also justifies the Indian arguments on discrimination, inequity, and disarmament. Writing in the same volume, G.G. Mirchandani offers an insightful glimpse in the domestic debate on nuclear weapons and the political confusion on the options to deal with the Chinese threat while sustaining the Nehruvian way.5 J.P. Jain produced two volumes capturing the disarmament and nonproliferation debates, along with a superlative collection of relevant documents.6 Another important analysis was done by Ashok Kapur in 1976, which provided an extensive survey of India’s diplomatic endeavors, an overview of various schools of thought within the establishment, and an analysis on how the core issues were dealt with at the negotiating table.7 Departing from the tenor of the publications of the early years is a variegated collection by K. Subrahmanyam, published from the late 1960s onwards. Subrahmanyam largely focused on the feasibility of the nuclear weapons option, the arguments in favor or against it, and his own analysis of the strategic environment, which gives indications of a potential strategic scheme.8 However, the most comprehensive book detailing the evolution of India’s nuclear program has been by George Perkovich, which attempts to explain through a large collection of oral narratives the major milestones and policy shifts in India’s nuclear history. Published soon after the 1998 tests, Perkovich’s book charts the course towards weaponization, but spares little on key decisions like the NPT.9 Most of this literature provides the analytical framework within India’s nuclear discourse, but does not explain the actual considerations weighed by the

leadership in its decision-making. Adding to this lacuna is the problem of minimal access to official records in India, especially pertaining to nuclear policy. Most of the accessible records are confined to parliamentary debates and diplomatic documents, which propel the official position without shedding light on the strategic program or its impelling connection with the NPT question. A holistic explanation of the NPT decision, hence, may still remain beyond convincing reach. Nonetheless, the rest of the chapter will continue this quest through two inquisitions: (1) understanding India’s approach to the treaty construction process; and (2) examining the underlying factors that determined India’s approach to the NPT.