Can India be denied NSG membership for long?

Not an NPT signatory yet

Those who oppose India’s membership include the Arms Control Association, which is a US based non partisan body, with a mission of educating the people about the need for arms control, thus building up support for arms control policies

 

The Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) comprising 48 member countries was set up as a response to India’s 1974 test explosion. The test demonstrated that peaceful nuclear technology transferred for peaceful purposes could be used to make bombs. India had acquired the technology from Canada and heavy water from the US. The idea behind the formation of the NSG was to regulate the global trade of nuclear technology. It is ironical that India should be trying to seek its membership now.

India is keen to join the NSG to have access to state of art nuclear technology and training facilities which it can use for both peaceful and military purposes. Among the peaceful uses is building nuclear reactors to generate clean energy, thus replacing coal based power projects that cause pollution. Radioisotopes and radiation have also applications in agriculture, medicine, industry and research.

India has very modest reserves of uranium. Opening civil nuclear trade with India would allow New Delhi to import uranium for its civil nuclear program, thereby easing constraints on uranium availability in India. This, in turn, could enable India to use more domestic uranium for its nuclear weapons program.

What stands in the way of India’s membership is the current requirement that the applicant has to be a signatory of Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). India is one of the three countries, with Israel and Pakistan, which have yet to sign the NPT.

Those who oppose India’s membership include the Arms Control Association, which is a US based non partisan body, with a mission of educating the people about the need for arms control, thus building up support for arms control policies. The Association argues that giving India membership will have serious implications for non-proliferation.

It could for instance give India access to modern nuclear technology and opportunities to train scientists and engineers that it can transfer into its weapons program. India’s so-called civil-military separation plan is not credible and the plan for facility-specific international safeguards on Indian civil nuclear power plants is inadequate and leaves India’s military nuclear facilities outside of international safeguards.

The Association maintains that the Indian record of breaking promises is dismal This is established by the way Indian has acted after US-India civil nuclear agreement.

As part of the 2008 deal, the Indians promised they would be “ready to assume the same responsibilities and practices” as other nations with advanced nuclear technology. India has however fallen far short by continuing to produce fissile material and to expand their nuclear arsenal.

According to the Arms Control Association Obama’s proposal for Indian membership in the NSG must not be entertained. The proposal could potentially undermine the NSG’s ability to ensure that India respects the nonproliferation commitments that it made in order to win the NSG’s support for the September 2008 decision. The decision by the group had exempted New Delhi from most of its rules and guidelines.

These commitments by India include a voluntary, unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing; a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons; working with others towards the conclusion of a multilateral fissile material cutoff treaty in the Conference on Disarmament that is universal, non-discriminatory, and verifiable; an existing, comprehensive system of national export controls and a commitment to adhere to Missile Technology Control Regime and NSG guidelines.

Allowing India to join the NSG would make it difficult if not impossible to revisit the September 2008 decision to exempt India from NSG guidelines in the event that India violates any of those pledges in the future.

As part of the 2008 deal, the Indians promised they would be “ready to assume the same responsibilities and practices” as other nations with advanced nuclear technology. India has however fallen far short by continuing to produce fissile material and to expand its nuclear arsenal.

Despite all these violations India enjoys the support of at least 38 NSG members.

The US supports India’s case for two major reasons, ie commercial and strategic. The US is keen to build India into a state that can neutralise China in the Asia-Pacific region. For this it has to provide India supply of nuclear technologies.

Powerful corporate interests play an important role in providing support to India.

The countries who have taken a ‘principled’ stand against India’s membership are neither big producers of weapons nor suppliers if nuclear material or technology

 

The deal under which the Westinghouse Electric Company is to undertake construction of six nuclear power plant reactors in India is an example of the sale of lucrative nuclear technology. The deal is worth tens of billions of dollars.

The French president was in India this year as the chief guest at the surreal nationalist military parade of January 26, 2016. He was accompanied by a high-powered delegation and several multilateral deals got signed between the two countries. The big ones concern the sale by France of nuclear power plants and of jet fighters worth $8.8billion.

After members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group eased under American pressure long-standing restrictions on nuclear trade with India, they developed an interest in seeking for India NSG membership. Australia has committed to providing India with uranium. India has also received uranium from France, Russia, and Kazakhstan and struck supply agreements with Mongolia, Argentina and Namibia.

A number of influential NSG member states have state of art conventional weapons to sell. There being strong rivalry among arms producers they are likely to bargain with India over NSG membership. India also offers a big market for nuclear technology and related material. The countries specialising in the field would also like to favour India.

Influential countries like the US, France, Germany, Britain, Canada have a number of smaller countries under their influence.

Amid China’s opposition, the US has asked members of the elite club to support India’s entry into the grouping during the ongoing plenary meeting in Seoul.

“We believe, and this has been US policy for some time, that India is ready for membership and the United States calls on participating governments to support India’s application at the plenary session of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG),” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.

“At the same time, participating governments will need to reach a consensus decision in order to admit any applicant into the group and the United States will certainly be advocating for India’s membership,” Earnest said as the 5-day annual plenary session of the 48-member club began in the South Korean capital on Monday.

The countries who have taken a ‘principled’ stand against India’s membership are neither big producers of weapons nor suppliers if nuclear material or technology. Of these, three countries with a strong anti-nuclear posture – Austria, Ireland and New Zealand — are in the forefront of questioning the rationality of allowing India to become a member of the NSG. Others who raised questions included China, Brazil, Switzerland, and Turkey.

With powerful countries in the NSG motivated by strong commercial and strategic incentives to provide NSG membership to India, the time may not be far when they will change laws that stand in their way. Principles are subservient to corporate interests in market economies. The only deterrent in the way is the specter of unregulated growth of weapons of mass destruction. It remains to be seen if greed or fear of destruction is a more potent force.