Thin skin and thick heads

The Indian aim, rightly irreversible, has been andremains to build a deterrent which would be sufficient for India8217;s security needs but need not go up to making India a global nuclear power. The American aim continues to be to get India to sign on the dotted line so that the CTBT may be in place by the due date. Can the two aims be reconciled in the post-Pokharan world?Before the tests India could have become a recognised nuclear weapon power without becoming a proclaimed one, and in this fudged situation it might have considered signing the CTBT without signing away its right to use the ultimate weapon in an ultimate crisis. On its part America, in a very ambivalent relationship with China at that time, might have considered winking at India8217;s unproclaimed status and accepted its signature on the treaty. Now both India and America will find it more difficult to reach covert compromises. India says it cannot abrogate its new status. America says it must. The result is an open battle of wills.

A few things have shifted against India in this battle. First,the fall in its economic staying power. Second, signals from Pakistan on July 5 that it may sign the CTBT without waiting for India to do so, which would expose India8217;s flank, unprotected by America8217;s unwillingness to press a former ally too hard and the difficulty America would face in discriminating too blatantly between Pokh-aran-II and Chagai-I.

Third, the dangerous precedents which are being created on Jammu and Kashmir and which could be dangled before Pakis-tan in order to pressurise India. The international Contact Group8217; on the Kosovo dispute itself a precedent as a way of 8220;internationalising8221; the Kashmir dispute has held that the Kosovo Liberation Army, for which convenient parallels have been created in Kashmir by mujahideen-turned-terrorists, must be accepted by Serbia as a party to the dispute. Fourth, even trusted Russia has turned critical in the person of Yevgeny Primakov.

Fifth, by seeking so thoughtlessly to make China its gendarme in South Asia, Clinton has tried to undermineSino-Indian relations, which France rightly sees as the key for resolving Asia8217;s nuclear dilemma. Sixth, by the same act he has also reduced the possible usefulness of the impending Indo-Pak summit, because China is a part of the problem, not of the solution, in South Asia. In the midst of what BBC once called his 8220;love-fest8221; with China, Clinton has turned a blind eye to the evidence, mostly American, that China fueled the nuclear fires which Clinton now claims he is trying to put down with China holding the hose for him.

But of the things which have moved adversely for India since Pokharan-II, the worst have been moved by India itself. It had several good reasons for developing its nuclear deterrent, but by blaming it all on China it has antagonised the very country which had come closer than any other to India8217;s position on Kashmir; had cooperated quite well in improving relations; had opposed and ultimately ended the exclusive nuclear hegemony of the West; and is the only country which urgedno-first-use treaties, which are a key element in India8217;s own nuclear position.

India8217;s verbal explosions against anyone who questioned the need for the tests, or the wisdom of carrying them out when the Indian economy is so vulnerable, has offended quarters which might have been better persuaded by reasoned explanations of our security compulsions. It has been distressing to see the contrast between the verbal postures of India and China.

Without giving away much, China got a lot out of Clinton, including his presence at Tiananmen Square, by quietly letting Clinton criticise China for the sake of impressing his own critics back home, even though he touched China8217;s most sensitive spots: Tibet, Taiwan, human rights, democracy. On the other hand Indian authorities reacted intemperately even against critics who only expressed legitimate concern over the situation in South Asia, or advocated what India itself has been proposing: comprehensive talks with Pakistan and resolution of its problems with China.Anyone who wishes to discuss these problems even bilaterally is rebuffed as a meddling mediator.

Since temper is not a good medium for diplomacy, it is not surprising that India has been ineffective in putting across the best part of its current nuclear policy: the lengths to which it is willing to bend to contain the danger of a nuclear flare-up in South Asia. Nor has India done much in recent weeks to convince the world that it is united behind resolute economic and security policies. There is no agreed strategy to face up to sanctions in the long haul by building up economic stamina and conserving economic resources. There is no agreed security strategy for coping with the problems of the post-Pokharan world. There has not even been a serious effort to build a national consensus, let alone success in achieving it. The domestic discourse is as unfocused as before the tests. By flying in the face of facts to heap one-sided and partisan credit on the BJP coalition for India8217;s nuclear standing, thegovernment has created the impression that the tests had less to do with security than with the BJP8217;s electoral prospects.

A great deal will have to change in the next few weeks if India is to win the test of wills which has been forced upon it. Unless it wins that test it will not be able to insist on its own terms for signing the CTBT, nor will it be able to extract much in exchange for going along with the terms others may have in mind.