India and NPT: Change or Continuity?

According to a recent analysis by David P. Fidler and Sumit Ganguly, India wants to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a Nuclear Weapons State (NWS). Is such a development feasible or even desirable?

Fidler and Ganguly’s conclusion is not based on complicated analysis but simply on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s forthright comment:
“On November 29, 2009, Manmohan Singh, India’s Prime Minister, stated on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS show that India wants to join the NPT as a nuclear-weapons state (NWS) and become the sixth NPT-recognized nuclear power. Although Indian diplomats have raised this idea in private in years past, Singh’s statement represents the first public announcement by a high-ranking official that India wants to be a NWS within the NPT. Indian press reports indicate that Singh is serious about this proposal, despite opposition within India.”
P.M. Singh’s aspirations will have to take cognizance of few compelling realities:
1) Is India a nuclear-weapon state? According to K. Santhanam, a former official with the Defense Research and Development Organization, the thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb tests - the first and most powerful of the three tests conducted on May 11, 1998 - did not produce the desired yield. Santhanam has also advised “We can’t get into a stampede to sign CTBT. We should conduct more nuclear tests which are necessary from the point of view of security.” According to Brahma Chellaney, a leading defense analyst, more than 11 years later, India has still not weaponized the thermonuclear technology, even though the test in 1998 was supposed to have catapulted the country into the big-power league.
2) What about India’s traditional opposition to NPT as discriminatory? Since 1968, when the NPT was opened for signature, India has refused to sign the treaty on the grounds that it is discriminatory. India has over the past four decades maintained that, instead of addressing the central objective of universal and comprehensive non-proliferation, the treaty only legitimized the continuing possession and multiplication of nuclear stockpiles by those few states possessing them. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said during a visit to Tokyo in 2007: “If India did not sign the NPT, it is not because of its lack of commitment for non-proliferation, but because we consider NPT as a flawed treaty and it did not recognize the need for universal, non-discriminatory verification and treatment.” How will P.M. Singh reconcile his decision to sign the NPT to India’s traditional opposition for the same?
3) Impact on the South Asian security balance? India’s entry into the NPT as a NWP would bolster Pakistan’s claims on similar grounds. Moreover, how exactly does India plan to counter China’s opposition to any such move? Is India prepared for a “two-front diplomatic war” for securing its entry into the NPT regime as NWS?
4) Will political opposition and public reaction acquiesce to the decision? Accession to the NPT is bound to have major political implications for any Government in India. There seems to be no effort on the part of the Manmohan Singh Government to initiate a political and public dialogue on the question of signing the NPT. The popular perception in the country is still that India has not and will not sign the NPT because it is discriminatory. P.M. Singh can’t expect the Indian electorate to gauge change in official policy by listening to his comments on Fareed Zakaria GPS. Given the political difficulties faced by P.M. Singh in his first term over the Indo-U.S. Civilian Nuclear Deal, the necessity for political dialogue on the issue cannot be ignored.
Were P.M. Singh’s comments (it cannot be referred to as a ‘decision’ yet) motivated simply by enhancing India’s image as a responsible nuclear power? At a time when there is international debate over the very rationale of the NPT, why is the Singh Government showing interest in it? The NPT has failed in checking proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology. So why does India want to become a part of this “failed treaty”? Simply because it would internationally credit India as a nuclear weapon state.
Another confirmation of George K. Tanham’s observation that status and symbolism matter greatly in India’s strategic calculations.

P.S. May 2010 Annual Review of the NPT. Will P.M. Singh ‘decide’ by then?