India on the global stage

THE global power arrangements are premised on a number of organisations that maintain a stranglehold over the transfer of sensitive technologies — meaning hardware that can be used in conventional arms as well as in advanced instruments of war — long- range missiles, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. By getting admitted as the 42nd member of the Wassenaar Arrangement last week, India crossed a threshold that will make it easier to negotiate for some sensitive technologies for its industry and war machinery. India had earlier joined the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in June last year. These two — Wassenaar Arrangement and MTCR — are among a group of four multinational clubs that control the global trade in sensitive technologies. The other two are the much-talked about Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the relatively lesser-known Australia Group.

China is prominent among countries blocking India’s entry into the NSG but Italy had prevented India’s membership in Wassenaar over the trial of two of its marines for the killing of Indian fishermen. China, incidentally, has made too many strides in self-sufficiency to bother about joining Wassenaar Arrangement and MTCR.  For India, struggling to keep up with its bigger neighbour, the memberships are a passport for entering into talks for advanced technologies with the West. It had carried on so far without joining any of these bodies, primarily on the strength of its ties with Russia.

The NSG, however, is where global politics intersects with technology control. And it is here that the Modi government has been found wanting. The Chinese spanner in India’s NSG membership is based on cold realism: both Pakistan and India are eligible and should be given NSG membership. Pakistan is held up for Abdul Qadeer Khan’s illegal superstore of nuclear technologies but the cold truth is that some nations suspect that India too had erred once in the past. To enter NSG, the Modi government faces hard choices: swallow its nationalist pride and accept NSG membership along with Pakistan; or, make up with China to an extent that it is prepared to desert Pakistan. The government’s zero-sum approach to its neighbours has, in this case, become counterproductive.