New Delhi
25 August 2009
The India - US nuclear deal is a done deal, but debate over its implications for
India's national security is far from over.
On a day when Indian ambassadors and high commissioners to 112 countries gathered
at Vigyan Bhavan to hear Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a group of concerned
individuals from various professional backgrounds met not far from there to discuss
whether India should sign on to CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) or not.
The discussion, held under Chatham House rule, centred around the following: Is India's
nuclear deterrent credible enough to rule out need for further testing? Can India afford to
support CTBT without all nations accepting a time table for complete nuclear
disarmament?
Also engaging the attention of the discussants was whether India has the technology to
carry out simulated nuclear testing without resorting to explosive tests, and whether
India has gathered enough data from the 1998 "Shakti" nuclear tests to preclude the
need to conduct future tests.
Opinion was divided, with some maintaining that India should not sign CTBT, at least not
till the complex interplay of equations between and among countries was understood.
This section was of the opinion that if India was not satisfied with the thermo nuclear
device tested in May 1998, India should test the device on priority, which would require
India to reconsider her position on CTBT.
Others felt that since India has forfeited conduct of nuclear tests consequent to the India -
US nuclear deal, some more countries should be made to adopt the CTBT so that they do
not test further.
A third view was that India's disagreement arose over the fact that multilateral treaties
took into account only the security interests of nuclear weapon states. The US sought to
persuade countries such as India to accept strict and punitive non-proliferation
measures without it linking CTBT to disarmament.
On March 30, former foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon told a news conference on the
eve of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit for the G-20 Summit that the treaty in its
current form did not satisfy New Delhi.
Earlier in March, Prime Minister's special envoy Shyam Saran told an interaction
organised by The Brookings Institution in Washington that CTBT should be explicitly
linked to the goal of nuclear disarmament. "... if the world really moves categorically
towards nuclear disarmament in a credible timeframe, then India-US differences over the
CTBT will probably recede into the background," Saran said.
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