HVK Archives: India, the other country that can say 'No'
India, the other country that can say 'No' - The Observer
Maurice H Bood
()
14 September 1996
Title : India, the other country that can say `No'
Author : Maurice H Bood
Publication : The Observer
Date : September 14, 1996
Remember the book written by two Japanese, one of
whom
was president of Sony, titled Japan A Country That Can
Say No? A `No' addressed to the United States. this time
India become the other country that can say `No'. In so
doing it blocked a nuclear test ban treaty that two years
of discussions and is to be United Nations General Assem-
bly this autumn. This is a `No' to the world.
Thus, India stood up to the five nuclear powers (namely
the United States, Great Britain, France, China and
Russia) this last month and to so-called thresholds
nations with a potential arsenal such as Israel, Pakis-
tan, Iraq, North Korea and possibly Brazil. In fact it
challenged most of the members of the United Nations, two
of which stand on its frontiers with bombs and missiles.
What is it all about?
Called the `Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty', it is aimed
at eliminating all nuclear testing. In itself a step
forward. But India does not consider it enough. The
reasons were clearly presented by Inder Kumar Gujral, the
foreign minister, while in Singapore. First, according to
him the treaty does not correspond to the UN mandate:
second, only nuclear blasts would be eliminated. Third,
modern technology will enable a few select countries to
carry on their testing in laboratories. Fourth, Western
coercion to have India signed the treaty will not work.
(A strong smell of colonialism by the more powerful
nations on earth permeates the air). Fifth, the treaty
ought to have a timetable for general nuclear disarma-
ment. All being said, the text appears to be unacceptable
to the Indian government. And was duly mediatised
throughout the world. What are the reactions?
Ramesh Thakur, head of the Peace Research Center at
the
Australian National University, argues that "an end to
the spread of nuclear arms and to continuous weapons
upgrading is worth a treaty in its own right, on the road
to nuclear disarmament".
Stephen P Cohen, director of the arms control program at
the university of Illinois who watched India's nuclear
efforts since 1965 wrote that "both the United States and
India made very serious misjudgments and miscalculations.
Washington assumed that, because India did not try clock
the indefinite extension last year of a treaty banning
and proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology that
Indian complaints were not serious". And he added "the
USA has not offered a sweetener of any sort, as it did,
for example with North Korea". According to him, the
actual government of India is weak enough to be dismissed
on a foreign policy issue.
"If the US had not gone into this with the arrogance of
power and if the Indians had been more honest with us and
others about their real security objections, perhaps a
compromise could have been worked out". Another
American
erudite academic. Prof Sumit Ganguli, teaching political
sciences at Hunter College in New York argues that "the
issue could be purely domestic politics and that.... It
was a good rhetorical position to adopt".
Several items are noteworthy in this confrontation. Two
of the larger economic powers of the moment, Germany
and
Japan, gave little coverage to the issue, even though
Japan has suffered from the first two nuclear blasts
inflicted on humanity some 40 years ago.
Western Europe going through its rather wet summer
vaca-
tion and a rising unemployment crisis paid little heed.
Social upheavals fostered by the trade unions are on
everybody's mind. Most European "men in the street" had
little to say or even cast a "no comment" on the issue
not aware of the details of the treaty, of the issues at
stake and of its direct consequences.
International politics called by some diplomatic "tan-
goes" - an Argentinian dance which launches partners on a
one step forward and two steps backwards whirl - and the
muddling through of several deadly issues such as North-
ern Ireland, Bosnian, and Chechneya battles are enough to
obliterate a nuclear test treaty which, under other
circumstances, would see the German Green party and
the
Nordic ecologists up in arms.
France, which in its own time had to fight the USA to
acquire a nuclear arsenal, took notice. The French and
the American clash in the early 1960s saw the USA govern-
ment forbid the sale of a huge Cray computer to France.
The French tests in the Sub Sahara severed French links
with Nato, with the USA and with the small nuclear club
made of great Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union. This
was the time. And not necessarily the only reason, for De
Gaulle to ask the American dominated NATO to move its
headquarters out of the country.
The question in most European minds remains is whether
India really aims at the ideal solution losing sight of
the practical aspect of the treaty.
Back
Top
|