India and the NSG Vote: Did Delhi Misread the Tea Leaves?

India did not get the consensus of the 48 member NSG, which is disappointing for Delhi, but not surprising.

India’s formal admission into the NSG group has been pushed down the road. (Photo: The Quint)

India did not receive the required consensus of the 48 member NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) at the Seoul plenary meeting on 24 June and hence the formal admission into this group will have to be pushed down the road.

Did Delhi misread the tea-leaves ?

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India’s NSG membership had acquired prominence in our domestic discourse, and the fact that Prime Minister Modi also put his shoulder to the wheel accorded the issue a political profile that was distinctive.

Individual nations were persuaded by the Modi government to lend their support to the Indian application and given the US commitment, it was expected that a repeat of late 2008 (when the NSG agreed to an exceptional status for India) would be the final outcome.

This did not happen. While this is disappointing for Delhi, it is not surprising. China had indicated unambiguously in the run-up to the Seoul meeting that the admission of non-NPT signatories (euphemism for India and Pakistan) was not on the agenda.  

Furthermore, an op-ed comment in an influential English daily (Global Times) was disparaging about India’s “unwarranted nuclear ambitions.”

The Indian Foreign Secretary Dr Jaishankar made a quiet visit to Beijing in the week preceding Seoul and at a press conference, the Foreign Minister Ms Sushma Swaraj assured the media that China was not quite opposed to India’s admission to the NSG but had raised certain procedural issues.

The inference that was encouraged was that Beijing had been prevailed upon and that all the other NSG members would support India at the appropriate time.

This was not the way Seoul unspooled. While China’s public posture and Pakistan’s determined lobbying against India were predictable, what was perhaps not anticipated is the manner in which some other participating governments withheld their support for India’s application.

It is understood that the list includes Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, Switzerland, Ireland and New Zealand.

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Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar. (Photo: AFP)

Some of these countries had earlier indicated that they would support India and this includes both Brazil and Switzerland.

PM Modi had visited Switzerland prior to the Seoul meeting and was assured of Berne’s support.

However this was differently nuanced at the plenary wherein one faction – encouraged by China– dwelt on the need for a criteria based approach to admit new members and not a country-specific one that only identified India.

Brazil, which had been supportive of the Indian case cast its lot with the criteria faction. This led to a nasty ‘surprise-surprise’ for Delhi.

The reasons for this divided support for India and the hesitation on the part of some others is embeded in the larger nuclear domain which is both complex and contradictory.

Domestic debates are also riddled with bitterly opposed views on the nuclear issue and to wit, there are constituencies in India that aver that the May 1998 nuclear test was a blunder; and within the USA, there is a strong non-proliferation lobby that is still opposed to the nuclear rapprochement with India, initiated by the Bush administration.

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ) has created two kinds of states the NWS (Nuclear Weapon States) - the big five viz: USA, Russia, UK, France, and China - and non NWS.

India, Pakistan and Israel are the exceptions: They are non-NPT signatories with nuclear weapon capability.

States like Brazil and even Turkey are deemed to be threshold states – meaning that they had acquired the necessary technological perch to become NWS but were prevailed upon ( or perhaps compelled) to renounce this capability.

Hence the exceptional status accorded to India has caused certain reservations and a degree of latent envy. The (un)articulated question is – ‘why more exceptions for India?’

China and India have been having issues pertaining to the NSG. (Photo: Reuters)

Some members like South Africa had actually acquired NWS capability covertly – but renounced it when apartheid ended.

The bitter quip at the time was that a white South Africa could be trusted with the nuke – but not Nelson Mandela! And there are nations such as New Zealand that have an evangelical commitment to the NPT and related non-proliferation norms and this was on display at Seoul.

Notwithstanding the dismay at how Seoul panned out, India can derive satisfaction from its entry into the MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) which will be formalised this week.

As noted earlier, the Modi government will have to re-calibrate its approach to the NSG application and a more circumspect, below the radar approach may perhaps be more productive.

The China-Pakistan nexus will be an obstacle for Delhi and it will be in India’s interest not to predicate the India-China bi-lateral on this one issue. Nor should it allow the hyphenation with Pakistan to become the template for NSG admission.

Despite the tactical setback, Seoul has been a valuable learning experience in gauging the global nuclear orientation. Admission to the NSG is a desirable objective for India that began in July 2005 and Beijing’s ability to block the goal post will call for more adroit dribbling by South Block.

Whether China acknowledges it or not– the reality of AQ Khan and what such an illicit network portends is one set of tea-leaves that cannot be misread!