#dnaEdit: India’s NSG blues

It was perhaps a mistake on the part of India to have been elated by the full-throated support of the United States for the country to become member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The NSG decides on the basis of consensus, and even a lone dissenter can prove to be the spoilsport. China has voiced its opposition to Indian’s entry into the US, but it has shifted its stance as to why it was opposed. To begin with, it said that it was not opposed to India as much as it wanted clarity from the NSG. Then it said that it was not alone in objecting to India’s membership but there were others too who shared the same view. Then it said that it would want Pakistan’s request to be a member of the NSG considered along with that of India. Its final stance was the issue of the entry of India and Pakistan to the NSG was not on the agenda at the plenary of meeting at Seoul slated for June 23-24.

Pakistan on its part has been quite immature in displaying its happiness that it has been able to thwart India’s bid to be member of the NSG, for the moment at least. Pakistan does not seem to realise that if India is admitted to the NSG, it would strengthen, and not weaken, its own bid to be member of the NSG. But then the sense of pique and rivalry in Pakistan with regard to India is such that it would not be satisfied unless it is given the same importance as India gets. Pakistan desperately seeks parity with India on all counts. In the real world, the differences between the two countries are such that it would be difficult for the world to accord the same importance to Pakistan as it does to India. Of course, Pakistan is not willing to accept the fact that India is more respected in the comity of nations than itself. Now, the US, India’s vocal supporter, is not in a position to influence China’s thinking on India, or China’s calculated support to Pakistan as a way of needling India. 

It seems that India should have played its cards with a little more cunning and it did not. There was a bit of tactlessness when India went about thinking that membership in the NSG was almost clinched because the US backs it. Indian leaders must have made their overtures to China but they should not have taken China’s support for granted. It was also necessary to have anticipated Pakistan’s pique and its own bid to create hurdles for India. As a matter of fact, Pakistan has no locus standi to bid for NSG membership because it has not worked out the exemption from the nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that India did on the basis of the India-US civil nuclear agreement. The US had consistently refused to enter into a similar agreement with Pakistan. The truth is Pakistan’s credibility is quite low on the issue of nuclear safeguards. Unlike that of India, Pakistan’s nuclear programme does not have the non-strategic component, generation of nuclear power for purposes of electricity. 

India may have to go back to the drawing-board and rethink its strategy. It has to be insisted that Pakistan cannot claim parity with India in the matter of nuclear safeguards because the Indian record is impeccable and it is not so in the case of Pakistan.