The European Union's hypocritical demand asking India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and respect other international non-proliferation agreements needs to be resolutely rejected. Quite apart from the fact that the EU resolution takes no note of India's security concerns, the "sign-CTBT-or-else" ultimatum is unworthy of the democracies that constitute the Union. India needs to point out overtly -- if subtlety doesn't work -- that Britain and France, despite the absence of any defence threat to them whatsoever, and despite the availability of the US nuclear umbrella, continue to maintain their strategic nuclear deterrents. India, on the other hand, is being asked to embrace nuclear abstinence when there is a nuclear-armed totalitarian state in the neighbourhood and a terrorism-promoting fundamentalist one at the doorstep.However, national interest is not the only reason for India's recent nuclear tests. As a long-time promoter of the idea of a nuclear weapons-free world, India's tests are a potentreminder to the western world that unequal treaties like NPT and CTBT are not worth the paper they are written on. It needs no repeating that these treaties are instruments of nuclear apartheid, and India must do everything to replace them with genuine non-proliferation measures that impose equal obligations on the nuclear haves and havenots.
There can be no question of signing the CTBT as long as the US and others refuse to tie themselves down to a timeframe for the elimination of nuclear weapons. They, not India, need to give binding commitments to the world that they are serious about nuclear disarmament by stopping sub-critical nuclear tests.
As a country wedded to peace, India needs to do two things. One, it must launch a global offensive for total nuclear disarmament -- and put the onus on the nuclear-weapons powers to prove their peaceful credentials. To call their bluff, India could offer to voluntarily give up nuclear weapons, provided the UK, France and China do so simultaneously. The US andRussia can follow later. If this offer is rejected, the world will know who the real nuclear rogue states are. If countries which face no possible security threats whatsoever cling to their nuclear weapons, the world will recognise the western governments' stand on the Indian nuclear tests as a sham.
Second, India must totally reject the EU attempt to link trade, World Bank aid and GSP benefits to nuclear testing. Having crossed the nuclear rubicon, the country needs to take another resolute step: to opt out of multilateral aid, if it comes with strings attached, and go instead for private capital flows. In the short term this may mean higher costs, but there is no other way to fight blackmail. The only way to silence bullies is to stand up to them.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
