The original proponent of a nuclear-free world had all but forgotten the idea, till it was revived two years ago, ironically by former US officials
NEW DELHI: India is hosting a high-powered conference on nuclear disarmament from Monday. The original proponent of a nuclear-free world had all but forgotten the idea, till it was revived two years ago, ironically by former US officials who fought all their lives for nuclear supremacy over the former USSR.
None other than former US Cold War warriors such as Henry Kissinger, George P Schulz, William J Perry and Sam Nunn are now advocating a nuclear-free world. When British prime minister Gordon Brown was in New Delhi last year, he too spoke passionately of a nuclear weapons-free world.
The conference is being organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs with ICWA, a leading Delhi-based think-tank. It has the powerful backing of the government. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the conference and vice-president Hamid Ansari will deliver the closing address on Tuesday. UN high commission representative for disarmament Sergio Duarte will be in attendance.
The end of the Cold War reduced the risk of confrontation between the two main nuclear rivals of the past, the US and the former Soviet Union. The threat now is terrorism. The fear is terrorists may one day get hold of nuclear weapons and aim them either at Israel or the US. As such, it suits the US now to speak of a nuclear-free world.
A resurgent Russia with Vladimir Putin still in control can go for the state-of-the-art micro nuclear technology. All this has prompted the unofficial US voices to talk of a nuclear weapons-free world. The emphasis will now once again be on a comprehensive test ban treaty.
Arundhati Ghosh, India’s former ambassador to the disarmament conference in Geneva, says the US is so far ahead in conventional weapons than other countries that it does not make sense now for it to maintain an expensive nuclear programme. Washington realises that sooner or later, Iran will have nuclear weapons and that could endanger “its world peace”. So, the campaign for a nuclear weapons-free world suits it.
When former prime minister the late Rajiv Gandhi spoke at a special session of the UN in 1988 for elimination of nuclear weapons, the world shrugged off his appeal as an idealistic and impractical suggestion. The government is now ready to revive the concept and make a point that the late prime minister had been ahead of his times.
Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee had said earlier this year India had always called for a nuclear-free world and today, it had something to bring to the table. If the rest of the nuclear weapons countries were ready, India was willing to stop its nuclear weapons programme, he said.
g_seema@dnaindia.net
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