'Nuclear weapons, energy distinction should never be lost'

The global debate in the past three decades has been characterised by both sophistication and sophistry. Much lip service has been paid to the need for nuclear disarmament. Public protest movements in the United States and several European countries emerged but failed to make a lasting impact. In the meantime, the number of declared and undeclared nuclear weapon powers has increased with the threat of further proliferation looming large on the horizon.

In 1996, and on a reference from the UN General Assembly about the “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons”, the International Court of Justice at Hague ruled by eight votes to seven that “it cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake”. The Court also held, unanimously, that there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament under strict and effective international control.

In its submission before the Court, India had contended that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance, whether as a means or method of warfare or otherwise, is illegal or unlawful under international law”. In October 2006, India presented a Working Paper in the UN focusing on the building confidence in the international community for universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable nuclear disarmament.

Indeed, now that India has become a State with Nuclear Weapons, its credibility to raise the issue of Global Nuclear Disarmament is even higher. India has, thus, become the first and only nuclear power to be in the forefront of unambiguously advocating a detailed, eminently practical and comprehensive roadmap to rid the world of the danger of instant annihilation.

The validity of the case for non-proliferation rests essentially on the Nuclear Weapon States demonstrating their commitment to the processes envisaged in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT to cap, reduce and eventually eliminate their capacity to make war with nuclear weapons. While these countries have been zealous in pursuing and enforcing the goal of horizontal non-proliferation, they have been regrettably tardy in preventing and reversing vertical non-proliferation.

It was in this context that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh constituted a group of experts, headed by Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar, who had been associated with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s initiative in 1988, to examine ways in which the ideas contained in the Action Plan might best be pursued in contemporary times.

The Group, taking full note of the Working Paper circulated by the Indian delegation to the UN General Assembly in 2006, and subsequently to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva, has concluded that the several aspects of the diplomatic, political and military situation in the world are far more favourable today than they have been at any time since Hiroshima and Nagasaki to purse India’s traditional nuclear disarmament agenda with all deliberate speed. It has found that although full commitment to the Indian goal of universal, time-bound, phased and verifiable nuclear disarmament is still to be endorsed in its entirety, more governments than ever before, especially governments of Nuclear Weapon States, backed by an unprecedented upsurge of public opinion and a host of non-governmental organisations and think-tanks in these countries, is prepared to work towards ending the omnipresent threat to the survival of humankind and our Planet Earth by ridding ourselves of weapons of mass destruction.

Ironically, at this juncture that is more favourable than the since the onset of the Cold war to working towards meaningful disarmament, the permanent Conference on Disarmament in Geneva is deadlocked over the question of a Fissile Materials Cut-Off Treaty. Therefore, the group’s Report has recommended that:

• India might initiate a series of bilateral dialogues with strategic and other partners, moving progressively outwards from the core States, that is, the United States and the Russian Federation, who between them hold about 90 per cent of all nuclear weapon stockpiles, through a series of concentric circles of Nuclear Weapon States; then, States with Nuclear Weapons; to States with nuclear umbrellas; and Non-Nuclear Weapon States to advocating the cause of multilateral negotiations to secure an international convention on nuclear disarmament, even as earlier agreements have been secured to ban other weapons of mass destruction. 
   
• As the time is not ripe for initiating multilateral negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament, India might initiate a series of mutually reinforcing bilateral dialogues aimed at eventually setting the stage for multilateral discussions in Geneva, leading from there, hopefully, to such a raising of the pitch of world opinion that the commencement of multilateral negotiations is facilitated. 
   
• The importance be emphasised of harnessing the growing power of civil society, especially in the United States and other Nuclear Weapon States, in favour of sharp reductions in nuclear arsenals, leading, hopefully, to the eventual dismantlement of nuclear stockpiles and ending the manufacture of these dreadful weapons.

The Report is admittedly idealistic in its hopes and ambitions – but not impractical. From this arises the need to build public opinion in favour of a major thrust by India in this direction. A word of caution here would be in order. The distinction between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy for peaceful purposes must never be lost. The former is destructive while the latter opens doors to innumerable benefits for the good of mankind. The latter, if utilised prudently, can be of immense benefit to humanity. We cannot allow the present and succeeding generations to remain content with our having become a State with Nuclear Weapons, but recognise that notwithstanding this immense scientific, technological and strategic achievement, an India with nuclear weapons remains as vulnerable as a world with nuclear weapons to error, accident or deliberate decision plunging all of us – belligerent nations or innocent bystanders - into unimagined disaster.

Excerpts from Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s speech at National Outreach Conference on Global Nuclear Disarmament on August 21 in New Delhi