What's In It For New Delhi?

Mention signing the treaty by nest September and cautionary flags go up amongst most sections of the Indian establishment. The government is giving it all away, say hardliners. (Never mind that post-Pokhran II, the government indicated it might sign the CTBT, everything remaining a bit unequal.) Strike a more amiable posture on participating in discussions on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), and the disapproving hums speed up to a gale. The US has changed its tune, shout the hardliners, it would like India to put a moratorium on the production of fissile material—something not mentioned in earlier discussions.(Never mind that Indian nuclear reactors have not stopped producing fissile material, and nor is there any indication that they are likely to do so. And unless there is enormous pressure on the Indian government to stop production, this is simply one more move by the other side in the bargaining game.)

"Once our security concerns have been safeguarded, what more do you want out of this situation?" asks defence expert K. Subrahmanyam. He adds that although the CTBT brings India no closer to total worldwide disarmament, nor does it hurt India anymore. "We are joining it because it will assuage the feelings of the international community which we have been defying in a substantive way. Why keep out and create trouble?"

This opinion is echoed in government circles as well, with an official saying, "You can't continue to antagonise a vast majority of countries, just for some sort of perverse satisfaction."

INDEED, some analysts believe that the prime minister's men have done a reasonable job in the negotiations. "We have made no statement about a deadline for weaponisation, and this has given us some leverage with those who wish us not to weaponise," says Kanti Bajpai of JNU. It indicates an effort to meet the Americans halfway. In turn, "the Americans have indicated an understanding of our security concerns vis-a-vis China...and that if we want to test Agni II (delivery vehicle), they could sort of live with it."

바카라 웹사이트And although the US has denied India the privilege of joining the exclusive nuclear club, there is no way India or Pakistan can be ignored when any major discussion about denuclearisation takes place—a fact Washington underplays. "This is not the Gymkhana Club where you go to play bridge every evening," says former prime minister I.K. Gujral. "It is just the arrogance of power that prevents them from accepting us into the club. The fact remains that we have the power now whether we say it or not."

However, Subrahmanyam concedes that Indian diplomacy has been hindered in the absence of a clearly defined stance. "The politician likes to be like a sultan, he does not want to be bound by any written policy. Here also, Jaswant Singh says that we are now in an era of nuclear diplomacy and our people are not acquainted with it," he says. "We are trying to run the government on oral traditions." Utter confusion on the diplomatic front is complicated by the fact that the BJP-led coalition does not speak with one voice on most important issues.

This has hurt New Delhi's bargaining powers, notes Bajpai. "We are not even sure what we want from the Americans," he says, referring to India's request for concessions on technology. Off the record, the Americans accuse the Indians of not doing enough homework on a "concrete wish list"—whether it be for dual-use technology or any other nuclear technology. According to Bajpai, the Americans would probably be more comfortable with requests a la the North Korean deal. "The Americans also need to be sure what they are giving, they would hardly be satisfied with some sort of vague principle."

Nor are the Americans about to part with high-technology knowhow, says another analyst. "Why should they?" asks Matin Zuberi, former head of the disarmament studies department at JNU. "They don't even give it to the Japanese who are their close allies!" Zuberi says India is hoping for a deal without understanding its own objectives or, for that matter, what America is really offering. "The Americans believe that any concessions made to India will only encourage proliferation and the refusal to recognise India as a nuclear weapons state implies that it wants to push India back to a threshold status."

바카라 웹사이트Zuberi believes New Delhi would do well to wait and see what form the evolving nuclear world order takes before signing the CTBT or FMCT, which has been viewed as a sort of backdoor entry into the nonproliferation regime. A recent announcement from Washington postponing the visit of US president Bill Clinton to India only strengthens the view that the American administration remains antagonistic to New Delhi.

Oh well, perhaps India can request some items on the lower hi-tech rung, because if it gets no technological concessions, it will emerge virtually emptyhanded. According to Bajpai, amongst other things, India needs safety equipment for hazardous reactors, computer software and, most importantly, renewed contact with the nuclear and sophisticated weapons community. "Otherwise we have to reinvent the wheel all the time." Others say New Delhi also needs to make sure that the countries sponsoring the CTBT ratify it before India signs, nor should it be amended by the US Senate.

If none of this comes through, the government's only success will be a lifting, or easing, of economic sanctions—which in any case India has maintained are not particularly onerous. "You'd still have bad relations with China, Pakistan, you would have raised Kashmir to an international problem level," says Bajpai. "And to say that relations with the US have improved through all this dialogue is really scraping the bottom of the barrel." Bajpai believes that along the way New Delhi may even have alienated those Americans who continued to support India even when it went out of fashion a few years ago.

But as of now, former foreign secretary S.K. Singh says it's too early in the bargaining process to tell who's winning. But, he adds, the economic development of the country should take precedence over all other considerations in the bilateral negotiations. "Hardliners who say we aren't negotiating enough are probably ignoring our present economic problems which are uppermost in the minds of people like Jaswant Singh. Let us hope that the government has decided to buy time because all parties want development and do not wish to antagonise the developed nations," he says.

And any country which has to worry about the price of onions on the one hand and the price of missiles on the other may find its hand gets played out much faster than it would like. But as Yogi Berra, a Baseball Hall of Famer once said, "It ain't over 'til its over."