India eying for thermonuclear tests

India considered nuclear shopping as a top agenda item when Modi’s government stepped into power in 2014. In order to accomplish that agenda, membership of the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) was deliberated as the best platform and the Indian government accelerated its diplomatic efforts to participate on the NSG’s high tables as a full-fledged member.

The membership can offer numerous benefits to India which includes uninterrupted access to nuclear technology. This will put India in a position to pursue manufacturing and trade of nuclear-related equipment. India can relax its dependence on domestic nuclear fuel reserves after acquiring the NSG membership. The reason behind the Indian pursuit of nuclear mainstreaming through the NSG is to secure foreign sources of nuclear fuel — so it can use its domestic reserves for the nuclear weapons programme.

Experts have already shown apprehensions that India is building a top-secret nuclear city to produce nuclear fuel from domestic reserves for thermonuclear weapons. India has designated two secretive agencies to safeguard the nuclear city project and experts have labelled this facility as a nuclear complex for military purposes to produce centrifuges, atomic-research laboratories and weapons. In this context, a clean NSG membership for India will expedite its capability to recommence nuclear testing to complete the development of a thermonuclear device.

Indian capability of thermonuclear weapons has appeared as a controversial subject when Delhi claimed in 1998 that it conducted a successful test of the fusion device. Indian scientists are anticipating that the test was a fizzle, as the yield of fusion device never produced the desired results. Scientists are asserting the Indian government to evade signing CTBT because it needs more thermonuclear device tests. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has already given green signal to the Indian government to conduct more nuke tests. It has ratified Indian capability of conducting a nuclear test at short notice.

Reports suggest that India has expanded its domestic nuclear facilities to stockpile the weapons-grade material for later use in military modernisation programmes. Indian policy pundits suggest the government in Delhi to expand its strategic force by stockpiling 300-400 nuclear weapons. So, India has intentionally kept most of its nuclear reactors out of the safeguards and monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency. It is seeking appropriate stockpile of nuclear fuel to resume nuclear testing to achieve the required yield for thermonuclear weapons.

These developments are reinforcing the fact that the pledge of a unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing has failed to generate a positive signalling that it would end nuke testing by India. The neighbouring nuclear weapons countries are not satisfied with this loose commitment because India can revoke its decision of non-testing at any time. Under this prevailing instability, Pakistan on many occasions proposed its offer to India for a bilateral arrangement on a nuclear test ban. India confronted this proposal by opposing regional solutions for disarmament objectives. If India is serious about the non-resumption of nuclear tests, then Pakistan’s suggestion is practical and worthy of reconsideration.

After acquiring unremitting flow of nuclear fuel from international sources through the NSG, India is eyeing for an extra stockpile of domestic enriched uranium fuel that will ultimately be spent in new hydrogen bombs. Meanwhile, the international partnership with India to build the largest nuclear fusion reactor makes this task easy to accomplish.

India’s road to the NSG is paved by nuclear giants without taking other stakeholders in confidence. This journey will end in the shape of a fresh nuclear arms race in South Asia. Instead, the members should press India to seriously deliberate Pakistan’s offer of bilateral nuclear test ban arrangement. This bilateral commitment will strengthen the global norm against nuclear testing and promote regional stability.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2018.

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