Saturday, September 06, 2008

At last, a clean NSG waiver for India!

India has received a clean waiver from the NSG meet at Vienna. Let us review the facts first and then decide whether it is time to celebrate:

1. India has achieved a nuclear deterrent capability and is accepted as a de-facto Nuclear Weapons State by the international community.

2. India has a declared no-first-use policy as published in the draft report of the NSA Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine. 

3. India has been a pariah in the Nuclear community since Pokhran I and India's progress in the nuclear sphere has been curtailed  since then, because the raw materials for nuclear fuel are not naturally occuring in India, in feasible quantities.

4. India does not have an immediate need for Pokhran III. What India needs is the expansion of its civil nuclear energy sector because that is what is needed for India's continuing economic development. With increasing economic clout, the need to develop a nuclear arsenal diminishes.

5. What we do not need to do is keep re-inventing the wheel, that is what we have been trying to do for the last four decades and our efforts have been constrained by our natural resources and the state of our technological infrastructure.

6. The BJP and its percussor the JanaSangh have been the only Indian political party which has actively supported nuclear armament for India. Their opposition to the Indo-US deal is not an ideological one, but politically motivated. Had they been in power, they would have ardently supported the deal.

When I look at the above facts, I believe it is time to celebrate!!!

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