NEW DELHI: Faced with mounting international pressure on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) the Deve Gowda Government has partially compromised on India’s opposition to the CTBT which does not pave the way 9 a complete elimination of mu clear weapons. External Affairs Minister LK. Gujral’s “statement in Parliament July 15th that India will not block the CTBT although it does not address this country’s concerns is tantamount to giving in to a demarche from the US government that New Delhi should not veto the treaty.

“We do not want to be spoilers or obstruct the treaty, but we have to safeguard our national interest,” Gujral said in identical statements before both the Houses of Parliament. “If other countries reach their own consensus that is their sovereign decision. We would expect that all countries will respect our decision and ensure that the treaty with which we will not be associated not impose any obligations on India,” he added. Gujral said, “We will remain engaged in the discussions” on the CTBT draft when they resume at the UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva on July 29.

The Minister’s statement, which reiterated India’s decision not to sign the CTBT in its present form, puts an end to speculation that the Deve Gowda Government may either exercise the right to veto the draft in Geneva or walk out of the talks to underline its total dissociation from the treaty, But by ruling out a veto, India is laying itself open to punitive measures, including sanctions for its failure to sign the CTBT. The text of the CTBT draft presented to negotiators in Geneva before they went into recess last month proposes an international conference three years from now to decide the future course of action if India and other nuclear threshold states do not sign the treaty. Although members from across the political spectrum in the Rajya Sabha supported the Government’s resolve not to sign the CTBT, it was clear from their responses that there was widespread doubt about the Gowda Government’s ability To Stand up to mounting international pressure. In an effort a ensure that the Government did not give in to blackmail by the nuclear powers, Pranab Mukherjee, former external affairs minister, proposed that the both Houses should adopt a resolution reflecting the national consensus against the CIBT in its present form. “Before July 29, in order to strengthen the hands of our negotiator in Geneva and to express the national consensus in broad terms. . .perhaps they (the government) can come out with a resolution expressing the opinion of Indian Parliament clearly and constructively,”

Mukherjee, who has steered the Indian policy on CTBT as Gujral’s predecessor said. Mukherjee also resented Gujral’s use of the word “spoiler” with reference to India if the country had, indeed, decided to veto the CTBT draft. “There are occasions, when, to protect our principled stand, we need not be too much worried even if we are isolated. If there is any spoiler in this game, it is not India or any of the developing countries but the nuclear weapon states’’ Mukherjee added.

Mukherjee’s guarded reservations over the Government’s Stand on the test ban treaty are significant because Congress president P.V. Narasimha Rao had expressed serious doubts about the Gowda Government’s resolve in opposing the CTBT at his party’s Working Committee meeting last week. Cautioning his party colleagues on this score, Rao asked them to be vigilant against any deviation from India’s nuclear policy which his Government had forcefully enunciated at the CD and elsewhere.

Sikander Bakht, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, agreed with the Government’s resolve not to sign the CTBT, but criticized the pressure being brought to bear on South East Asian nations to criticize the Indian stand on the treaty. Bakht’s colleague from the BJP criticized the US for putting pressure on India to sign the treaty. Later, at the BJP’s regular news briefing, Jaswant Singh, former finance minister, said India had no option but to block the adoption of the CTBT in Geneva. Biplab Dasgupta (CPM) said Western powers were arm twisting India and called for a diplomatic offensive to check the arms race in South Asia.

Article extracted from this publication >>  July 17, 1996