India fails to enter MTCR club, wins support

By Gulshan Luthra

India has failed in its maiden attempt to win consensus support for its entry to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

But, inspiring hope for India, the outgoing Norwegian chairman of the grouping, Roald Næss, tweeted after the meeting concluded on October 9: “Broad support for Indian membership in MTCR, but regrettably no consensus yet. I remain optimistic.” The 34-member voluntary grouping ended its 29th annual session in the port city of Rotterdam in Holland that day without any decision on India’s application for membership.

India had formally submitted an application in June 2015 with active support from the US and France. Although an odd country may have opposed India’s proposal, there is considerable victory for the country insofar as most members of the various denial regimes have come to appreciate New Delhi’s persistent non-proliferation policies on nuclear weapons and missiles. Exterl affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup observed that India’s application was “received well and it remains under consideration”.

Although India was the target of some of these denial regimes right after its first nuclear test in 1974, New Delhi indicated its willingness to join them after its second nuclear tests in 1998. In April 2012, then foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai told strategic experts at the Institute for Defence Studies and Alyses (IDSA) in New Delhi that it was time for India to join these four regimes, beginning with the NSG.

This was the first formal, and categorical, move by India, and ever since, diplomats handling disarmament at the exterl affairs ministry have successfully engaged various capitals.

The MTCR holds its plery session in October. Whether India’s application will now be considered a year later next October, or sometime before that, is to be seen.

Details of the MTCR plery, held October 5-9, were not disclosed but there are indications that Italy, peeved over the prolonged trial of two of its marines in India in a shooting case, asked for time. There was no confirmation though.

Acceptance in MTCR will eble India to gain several restricted technologies, like some of the aircraft jet engines or cryogenic rocket systems. Indian diplomats will now shift their focus to another goal: entry to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Admission into either the MTCR or NSG will be a landmark development for India.

In the latter though, New Delhi could face hurdles as Chi insists on parity with Pakistan despite Islamabad’s record of nuclear and missile proliferation.

The NSG was, ironically, initiated by the US specifically to target New Delhi after India’s 1974 nuclear test. Significantly now, Washington is supporting India’s entry into all the four denial regimes - NSG, MTCR, the Wassear Arrangement and the Australia Group.

I recall prime minister Indira Gandhi telling me in an informal chat that India deserved to be in the UN Security Council (UNSC), and that India’s nuclear test in 1974 was as much aimed at deterrence as much at this high table in New York. The US has come around to this also, and during his recent visit to the US, PM rendra Modi disclosed that President Obama had promised him full support in this regard.

The MTCR was set up in April 1987 by seven countries - Britain Cada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States - to check proliferation of ballistic missiles with over 300 km range and 500 kg of bomb payload. In 1992, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that can deliver Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) were included, and later, even software for such delivery systems was covered.

India hasn’t signed any of the denial regimes but has voluntarily adhered to them. The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile for instance, which India makes in collaboration with Russia, adheres to the MTCR ambit. As Mathai pointed out three years ago, India has “a law-based export system, covering about nine different legislations,” and that “the tion’s export controls are in line with the highest intertiol standards”.

It may be recalled that although Indira Gandhi demonstrated India’s nuclear capability, she did not allow it to be weaponised. She did want nuclear-powered submarines, and possibly nuclear attack capable, also because of the perceived threat from Chi, but she chose not to translate this capability into hardware.

It was only in 1988 that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi gave the go-ahead for nuclear weapons after India’s exterl intelligence agency, RAW, informed him that Pakistan had already done so. The inputs were shared with Washington, where unfortutely, the presidency of George H.W. Bush ignored them till the CIA filly had to admit before the US Congress that Islamabad had indeed done so. (IANS)

(Gulshan Luhtra writes on stretegic affairs. He can be contacted at gulshan.luthra@indiastretegic.in)