India in the Nuclear Global Order: Responsible or Inevitable?

Ladhu Ram Choudhary
Assistant Professor,
Department of Political Science,
University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India.
E-mail: ladhuram88@gmail.com

India is considered as an outlier in the nuclear global order. India’s nuclear behavior is a mixture of multiple puzzling behavioral tendencies. This paper attempts to unravel the puzzle pertaining to the judgment of the international community on India’s nuclear behavior. The key question that this paper addresses is: Why is there a shift in the popular perception of the international community on India’s nuclear behavior? For instance, in the 1970s and the 1990s, India was labeled as a nuclear revisionist state, but this perception has been shaded since 2005. What are the key drivers of this transition? The paper establishes that the characterization of India as a ‘responsible nuclear state’ is based on limited rationality, which curtails India’s normative contributions and serves the strategic interests of the US and its allies. The paper argues that India’s nuclear behavior needs to be appreciated from the vantage point of India’s normative contribution over the material gains. From this vantage point, the deep roots of responsibility condition India’s inevitability in the nuclear global order.

Introduction

The contemporary trends in global politics suggest that the nuclear global order is taking many ‘new turns’.1 On May 08, 2018, the announcement of the US President Donald Trump to withdraw unilaterally from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, is a most recent turn.2 This would have serious implications for international security and peace.3 The hope of rapprochement between North Korea and the US also indicates that the global nuclear order is unfolding towards an unpredictable direction. At this juncture, India is celebrating its 20 years of nuclearization, since it has challenged the established nuclear global order on May 11 and 13, 1998. India’s nuclear behavior has been a source of major debates on nuclear politics—nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament, proliferation, and nuclear commerce and governance.4 Herein, it is necessary to underline that India’s nuclear behavior is a representation of multiple puzzles.

The most recent analysis of India’s nuclear behavior points out that along with advocacy for nuclear disarmament, India “has also joined several international efforts to underscore that it is a responsible state”.5 It implies that India has been active participant in all negotiations on nuclear issues. Moreover, the shreds of evidence insinuate that the international community has implicitly or explicitly supported India’s nuclear ambition in the post-Pokhran II era. For instance, on the occasion of the launching of Agni-V in 2012, the then US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner, in an interview, stated that India had been “very much engaged in the international community and nonproliferation issues”, had attended nuclear security summits, and could demonstrate a ‘solid nonproliferation record’.6 However, the US’s praising of India’s nuclear behavior is full of contradictions. For instance, it was the US and its allies who had earlier treated India as a nuclear pariah since 1974.

However, after the 2005 nuclear deal, the US has played an instrumental role, not only in mainstreaming nuclear India but also establishing an exceptional status—‘a responsible nuclear state’.7 Notwithstanding, these concessions for India through the deal have invited more controversies to nuclear politics. For instance, the Sino-Pakistan ties have intensified ever since the Indo-US nuclear deal.8 Moreover, one of the ‘new contestations’ in Sino-Indo relation has emerged since the Indo-US nuclear deal—China’s repeated stonewalling of India’s membership bid into the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG).9

In this regard, the purpose of this paper remains twofold: to analyze India’s nuclear behavior and to clarify its status in the nuclear global order. To do so, the paper surveys the existing literature and discourses and thereby attempts to relocate India’s behavior in the nuclear global order. The purpose is to unravel India’s normative contributions to the global nuclear order. The review of the literature indicates that very few scholars have tried to assess India’s nuclear behavior from this standpoint.10 Lantis (2018) underlines that the Indo-US nuclear deal is a case that shows the notion of “how and when states could be trusted to participate in strengthening the nonproliferation norm” has changed among the US elites and strategic community.11

It seems that the normative content in India’s nuclear behavior has been appreciated to suit the strategic interests of the US and its allies. This paper claims that the understanding of India’s nuclear behavior through instrumental rationality and strategic logic tends to be misleading. It is because the strategic lens is incapable of grasping the comprehensive picture of India’s puzzling nuclear behavior. India’s nuclear behavior is not generic in nature. It symbolizes consistency in contradictions. Therefore, the paper maps out why the normative quotient in India’s nuclear trajectory demands greater attention than strategic over-celebration.

In this vein, it is argued that India’s nuclear behavior needs appropriations from the perspective of global nuclear politics rather than a perspective of international relations. This is because the existing literature on India’s nuclear behavior stands to be state-centric. The state-centric approach is pregnant with status quo bias. In this frame of reference, the emphasis has been given to explain the existing nuclear positions rather than engaging with the changing realities. Thus, state-centric approaches do not address the emerging scenarios related to the global nuclear challenges and India’s behavior towards these challenges, for example, issues of nuclear terrorism, nuclear accidents and transfer of nuclear technology, emerging situations in the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East after the US withdrawal from the Iran deal.

India’s Nuclear Behavior: A Historical Perspective

India’s nuclear history can be categorized into four major periods. First, the Nehruvian period in which technological modernization and ethical argument for disarmament was India’s first preference. In this period, almost there was no argument for the nuclear bomb. The second phase begins with India-China war (1962) and ends on May 18, 1974, popularly known as Pokhran I, India’s first Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE). After the 1962 war, arguments were in favor of nuclear weapons. For instance, after the 1962 war, Ramachandra Bade, a member of the Jan Sangh, said in the Parliament: “Only those who wish to see Russians or Chinese ruling India will oppose the development of nuclear weapons”.12 Many followed this argument thereafter. This has led to public demonstration of ‘bomb’ on symbolic nomenclatures—‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ under the leadership of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Despite the nuclear test, the traditional pattern of strategic thinking remained intact.

Ashok Kapur aptly argues that after 1962, “the power politics approach gained some ground but it remained subordinated to the moral approach”.13 Moreover, the forms of ambivalence have intensified after the 1974 nuclear test. Indian political leadership has made tremendous normative contributions in creating the norms of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament while participating in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).14 Moreover, India has made an assertive position that every sovereign state has legitimate right to be technologically independent including the nuclear technology. The moral supremacy of nuclear disarmament and the fundamental rights of a sovereign postcolonial state to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful use were put forward to challenge the western hegemony and to assert the notion of responsibility for global peace and security. In this regard, Priya Chacko rightly asserts that modernization through acquisition of nuclear technology has become India’s prime motive since 1947 to overcome India’s sense of postcolonial inferiority and insecurity.15

The third phase could be carved out from 1974 to 1998 as in this period India implicitly developed its nuclear weapon program and maintained a high moral ground at the international level, for instance, the Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan and co-sponsoring CTBT negotiations. Cohen, an American expert on South Asian politics argues that the main drivers of India’s nuclear behavior were political rather than mere security considerations and tactical. For example, Cohen elucidates that prior to the 1962 war, India was a ‘nuclear-abstaining state’, following the war, it has become a ‘nuclear threshold state’, and then a ‘self-declared nuclear state’ in 1988.16

The fourth phase of India’s nuclear trajectory begins with India’s massive weaponization program initiated during the Rajiv Gandhi era.17 One of the triggers for mass mobilization of resources for nuclear weapons program and development of the delivery system was the rejection of the “Action Plan for Ushering in a Nuclear-Weapon-Free and Non-Violent World Order” by the US in June 1988. For instance, the US rejection of India’s complete disarmament plan has made it clear that “the West would continue to factor nuclear weapons into military calculations”.18 This realization contributed to breaking the discriminatory nuclear order established by the NPT on January 1, 1967.19

The 1998 nuclear tests and then Prime Minister Vajpayee’s declaration—India is ‘a nuclear weapon state’—was a revolutionary act ‘against nuclear apartheid’.20 This marked the turning point in India’s nuclear history. A former defence and external affairs minister, Jaswant Singh, asserts that nuclear weapons have augmented India’s “sense of responsibility as a nation committed to the principles of the UN Charter and to promoting regional peace and stability”.21

The fifth phase of India’s nuclear behavior lies between 1998 and 2005. The post-1998 period has made India an exceptional, inevitable and responsible nuclear actor in the global nuclear order. The Pokhran II had changed many underlying principles of Indian foreign and security policy. For instance, one of the renowned experts of India’s security policies, Tellis (2001) argues that India’s nuclear tests “signaled a critical shift in its strategic thinking”. However, the then US President Clinton declared that with the nuclear tests India is on ‘wrong side of history’ and categorized the tests as an act of irresponsibility.22 However, this judgment was reversed in July 2005, when India and the US signed a joint agreement that has led to the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.23

This historical categorization suggests that India’s position on various nuclear-related issues shifted with the change in time. It also suggests that within the strategic community, there was no monolithic argument for a particular nuclear issue. In a sense, within the strategic community and academic community, there is no consensus on any of India’s nuclear policy. There are more differences than convergences on nuclear policy in the strategic and academic community.24 This suggests that there are various schools on India’s nuclear behavior within these historical periods.25 For instance, ‘morality-modernization school’ represents Nehruvian thinking on nuclear weapons and technology. ‘Security-enhancing school’ argues that nuclear weapons guarantee the security of India. The ‘neoliberals’ argue that nuclear commerce and nuclear energy must be a vital component of any policy on nuclear negotiations. For example, the advocates of the Indo-US nuclear deal adhere to this school. Another school could be conceptualized as a ‘pro-disarmament school’.26 This school argues for the annihilation of nuclear weapons from the universe and advocates responsible use of nuclear energy. Herein, responsibility includes the liability of the nuclear firms in case of accident and equipment/technological failures. However, the analysis shows that these four schools are not like parallel tracks with no crossing end, rather these schools interact and enrich each other without losing their innercore. In short, then, the argument is that the contradictions in India’s nuclear behavior emerge from diverse schools, but all schools are not equally influential in terms of decision making and determining India’s nuclear behavior.

This difference of influence of various schools shifted within different periods. For instance, the pro-disarmament school was very powerful during the leadership of Prime Minister Morarji Desai. The neoliberal lobby was more influential than any other school during the Manmohan Singh regime that led to the Indo-US nuclear accord.

India’s Nuclear Status: Real or Perceptional?

A historical perspective on India’s nuclear behavior suggests that the various schools symbolize pluralism of rationalities. For instance, the Nehru era and the Desai era were guided by the rationality of high moralism. On the contrary, the contemporary discourses on India’s nuclear policy suggest that India’s nuclear behavior is guided by the strategic rationality.27 The point is India’s contradictory nuclear behavior is rationalized through different logics. For example, the utopian logic regards ethics and the realist logic regards power. In this scale of rationality (ethics to power), India’s nuclear behavior indicates a complex case, which rationalized its nuclear policy through the extensive use of symbolism and linguistic plays. For instance, Gandhian principles are often evoked to support India’s stand on disarmament and the symbolization of the PNE as ‘smiling Buddha’. Thus, Ashley J Tellis has rightly argued that “the truth about India’s strategic environment, nuclear capabilities, and evolving doctrinal preferences, as well as the technological and organizational tasks facing New Delhi, is far more complex than is commonly acknowledged”.28 Then, the point is that India has legitimized its nuclear policies through rhetorical and self-righteous stands. This has helped India to establish its ‘nuclear exceptionalism’.29

India has always exaggerated its nuclear potential and status. India has stated its state of nuclear weapons and positions in many political speeches and declarations. In the government’s first major statement in the Parliament after the 1998 tests, the then Prime Minister A B Vajpayee noted: “India [is] mindful of its international obligations, shall not use these weapons to commit aggression or to mount threats against any country; these are weapons of self-defence and to ensure in turn that India is also not subjected to nuclear threats or coercion”.30 He added that “India shall not engage in an arms race. India shall not also subscribe [to] or reinvent the doctrines of the Cold War”. However, the international community has not taken India’s commitments seriously and imposed sanctions. Put differently, India had been made the nuclear pariah till 2005, when it was accommodated as a nuclear partner.31 However, this partnership has emerged primarily because of the geopolitical fallout in the region; for instance, the 9/11.

Thus, the relations between India and the US had taken a ‘U-turn’ and India received unprecedented rights to civil nuclear trade with the US. By 2008, a civil nuclear agreement was in force between the two countries, and India had been granted significant trading allowances by key international non-proliferation institutions such as the MTCR, Australia Group, and Wassenaar Arrangement.32 With the leading support of the US, India had turned from a nuclear foe to a nuclear friend. Thus, it is being argued that “the world has grown to accept India as a responsible and stable nuclear power”.33 Moreover, the Indo-US nuclear deal has given India “a chance to redefine a role for itself (India) in the global nuclear order”.34

However, from an alternative rationality, it could be argued that the Indo-US nuclear deal does not address the inherent contradictions within India’s nuclear behavior. In other words, the deal engages with very few parameters of India’s nuclear policy and non-proliferation. For instance, the international community has not considered poor safety mechanisms and accountability level while signing the accords with India for nuclear commerce.35 Similarly, a former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), A Gopalakrishnan, asserted that India’s aggressive push for civil nuclear programs had invited a major catastrophe as the systems were not ready for such a sophisticated technology.36

In this backdrop, the paper highlights India’s nuclear status and its role in the global nuclear order. The argument is that the image of India as a responsible nuclear state is based on selective parameters. For instance, India’s identity has been ascribed as ‘responsible’ on strategic importance rather than on its qualification of adherence to global nuclear norms and performance on the domestic front. It could be deduced that India’s presence is inevitable in the global nuclear order due to its strategic importance rather than the essence of responsibility. For instance, India’s nuclear establishment has miscalculated plutonium production and consumption.37 India’s nuclear establishment acts as a state within the state and maintains unnecessary secrecy.38

In the same fashion, a US-based nuclear expert argues that the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has become so powerful that it has acquired immunity against any kind of public scrutiny. For instance, the DAE is not even answerable to the Indian Parliament.39 However, answerability is an important element to define responsibility. Another argument is that the appreciations of the international community regarding India’s status as ‘a responsible nuclear state’ do not correspond with its performance in the nuclear arena at the sub-systemic level. Moreover, India’s superficial accommodation in the global nuclear order de-values India’s normative contribution towards the just nuclear order. Since the deal, India has also been cautious about taking an independent stand on nuclear issues that have global implications. For instance, in the case of North Korean and Iranian nuclear problems, neither India has taken a proactive stand, nor it has been consulted by the major powers. It suggests that the deal has put an unwritten limit on India’s freedom in the nuclear realm.

The Contemporary Nuclear Order, the Deal, and India

Today, the binary of Nuclear Weapon State (NWS) and Non-Nuclear Weapon State (NNWS) is obsolete. The nuclear NPT has been undermined. The so-called universal acceptance of the nuclear non-proliferation regime has shattered, not only in terms of nuclear disarmament but also in terms of non-proliferation (i.e., North Korea).40 Nonetheless, it is an established fact that an inherently discriminatory treaty cannot be strengthened by further discrimination. Some analysts argue that this common sense was the rationale of the deal.41 In fact, the agendas, objectives, issues and approaches towards nuclear order have taken fundamental shifts both strategically and politically. For instance, nuclear terrorism has become an evident threat to international order. As the UN’s International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (2005) says, “Acts of nuclear terrorism may result in the gravest consequences and may pose a threat to international peace and security”.42

Moreover, the debate on clean energy and green energy is taking new turns in the technologically advanced states.43 For example, the Fukushima accident has raised serious concerns about the desirability of nuclear energy as a viable option. Moreover, the nuclear disarmament movement has taken rebirth under the US leadership (more rhetorically than realistic). For instance, the global zero debate is inspired by a speech of the then President Barack Obama at Prague in 2009.44 In fact, this speech was a follow-up of an initiative for ‘A World Free of Nuclear Weapons’ taken by some of the leading US strategic elites.45

These shifts and the emerging nuclear threats suggest two major trends. On the one hand, it suggests that the contemporary reality of nuclear politics does not resemble the traditional Western prescriptions, for instance, control over the transfer of nuclear technology. Moreover, it is a shift from non-proliferation to counter-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. On the other hand, the post Indo-US nuclear deal developments suggest that India’s voice on nuclear disarmament is relatively at low pitch.

Despite the fact that India’s historic, visionary, and argumentative contribution to global nuclear debates gives it an extraordinary leverage (for instance, India has been an active participant in shaping the nuclear discourses on non-proliferation, disarmament, and nuclear technology control regimes), these contradictory trends necessitate analyzing the politics behind the deal. One of the most visible reasons for the deal is to keep nuclear India in the fold of established nuclear order. It is because, for the Western nuclear countries, the physical security of nuclear material becomes a priority over nuclear non-proliferation in the contemporary nuclear global order. As Graham Allison argues, “Thefts of weapons-usable material and attempts to steal nuclear weapons are not a hypothetical possibility, but a proven and recurring fact”.46

Therefore, to deal with these complexities, contemporary nuclear global order demands partnership at multiple levels among a range of actors. For instance, it requires partnership and cooperation between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states; a partnership among nuclear technology and fuel-cycle suppliers, states that want nuclear energy, and the IAEA; a partnership among states, private sector, and international agencies; a partnership among developed countries, developing countries, international development institutions, and the IAEA.47 In this context, India is a state with nuclear weapons is inevitable, which cannot be kept out of the nuclear nonproliferation loop to cope with global nuclear challenges and to make ‘a more secure world’.48

Therefore, it is difficult to ensure stability in the existing nuclear global order without India’s accommodation. However, for India, the cost of accommodation is very high, as India has compromised its traditional stand on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament as well as strategic interests.49 Thus, without India’s support, it is impossible for the US and its allies to achieve strategic interests in this complex interdependent anarchical international system.

The second critical dimension of the deal is political economy of civilian nuclear commerce/power.50 India has huge potential in nuclear business given its demand for power and consumption capabilities.51 In the post-2008 financial crisis, the US nuclear power companies/lobbies overpowered the nuclear non-proliferation lobbies.52 However, the champions of nonproliferation have forgotten that the NPT is already weakening with the North Korean withdrawal in 2003 and the US Congress’ rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Whereas others argue that strategic compulsions have altered the nonproliferation priorities.53 However, the agreement between India and the US has contributed towards converging the perspectives of India and the US on nuclear technology and disarmament but the underlying differences on these issues remain unaltered. Thus, the deal is very instrumental in nature and scope.

The third critical aspect of the deal is the nuclear identity. For instance, the deal “establishes India’s identity as a ‘responsible’ nuclear state and emphasizes a norm of ‘responsible’ nuclear behavior—a norm relatively absent among de jure nuclear powers”.54 The notion of responsibility is defined as “the ability and willingness to provide global public goods, i.e., goods that are non-excludable and non-rival, and thereby also harder to supply because of the temptation of free-riding”.55 India’s track record in international nuclear non-proliferation and its legacy of self-restraint adds value to its status as a responsible nuclear state. It is because, along with “the ability and willingness to provide global public goods”, the self-restraint on global sins such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons also constitutes a responsible act.

However, the point to note is that the US certification of India as a responsible nuclear state devalues India’s power as an exceptional nuclear state rather than enhancing it. This is because the US has been inconsistent and biased in its commitment towards nuclear nonproliferation and use of nuclear weapons.56 The most recent example of the irresponsible behavior of the US on nuclear issues is the unilateral withdrawal from the Iran deal. However, India has not condemned this act of irresponsibility.57 Given the fact that India has high stakes in Iran and the implications, this unilateral withdrawal would have far-reaching consequences on India’s relations in the Middle East region.58

The fourth significant visible trend in the post-deal era is India’s diminishing role and participation in the emerging nuclear challenges. For instance, India is not considered an important player in dealing with Iran. This despite the fact that India has better access to Iranian leadership and society. India can understand the underlying motivations of Iranian nuclear program better than any other country. The Iran deal was signed in 2015 between Iran and P5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France, Britain + Germany).59 In a nutshell, the point is that the Indo-US nuclear agreement has not worked as a force multiplier to support India’s great power ambition and potential. More importantly, Harald Muller rightly pointed out that after 20 years of nuclearization, India is ‘not unimportant but still marginal’.60 To do away with this marginality, India must give up what Bharat Karnad calls “the desire to please the US and the West” and must prioritize national security aspects.61

Therefore, the Indo-US nuclear agreement might have helped India materially to access its long-denied ‘inalienable’ right to acquire nuclear technology and ensured participation in global nuclear trade, but the deal brought a huge devaluation to India’s long-earned high normative position in the nuclear global order. India fell into the US trap, which seemed to minimize India’s role as a creator and shaper of norms. India’s vote against Iran is an example. Therefore, India’s accommodation in the ‘elite nuclear club’ is superficial. Thus, this selective accommodation against global consensus is motivated by the strategic interests of the US and its allies. This is against the theory and practice of non-proliferation and notional essence of responsibility. Therefore, the argument is that the deal adds less in terms of India as a responsible nuclear state.62 Rather India’s nuclear behavior qualifies the criteria of a responsible nuclear state on the basis of its constitutive nuclear behavior and international normative nuclear contributions: the standstill agreements, the Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan, self-restraint, no-first use, and voluntary and unilateral moratorium on nuclear explosive testing.

The deal helps India in branding its image at the global level because responsibility is not discovered, it is decided.63 But who decides? The deciders are most of the time powerful actors who have the capacity to decide (in this case the US). Therefore, it is a kind of politics that differentiates ‘responsible’ states from ‘revisionist’ nuclear states. Hence, major attribution of responsibility depends on who is judging and in which context, and on what grounds and issues. It is stated that politics involves judgment and choice.64 Therefore, it is a matrix of power that dominates attribution and ascription of a status of a responsible nuclear state. However, the perceptional transition towards India’s nuclear status has to do with India’s inevitability in the global nuclear order.

1. William Walker (2000), “Nuclear Order and Disorder”, International Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 4, pp. 703-724.
2. Editors (2018), “Assessing the Iran Deal Pullout”, The Harvard Gazette, May 8, 2018, available at https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/05/harvard-analysts-assess-the-iran-deal-pullout/. Accessed on May 20, 2018.
3. Happymon Jacob (2018), “A Time to Think Fast: On the US Exist from the Iran Deal”, The Hindu, May 12, 2018, available at http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a-time-to-think-fast/article23857189.ece. Accessed on May 21, 2018.
4. Scott D Sagan (1997), “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb”, International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 54-86; George Perkovich (2000), India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation, Oxford University Press, New Delhi; Andrew B Kennedy (2011), “India’s Nuclear Odyssey: Implicit Umbrellas, Diplomatic Disappointments, and the Bomb”, International Security, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 120-153.
5. Rajiv Nayan (2018), “Guest Editor’s Introduction”, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 179-180.
6. Cited in Kate Sullivan (2012), “How the World Warmed to a Nuclear India”, available at http://inside.org.au/how-the-world-warmed-to-a-nuclear-india/. Accessed on March 5, 2018.
7. C Raja Mohan (2006), Impossible Allies: Nuclear India, United States and the Global Order, India Research Press, New Delhi.
8. Mehmood Hussain (2017), “Impact of India-United States Civil Nuclear Deal on China-Pakistan Strategic Partnership”, Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 13-25.
9. K J M Varma (2017), “China Continues to Say No to India Joining NSG”, The Wire, June 24, available at https://thewire.in/external-affairs/china-india-nsg-membership. Accessed on May 19, 2018.
10. Jeffrey S Lantis (2018), “Nuclear Cooperation with Non-NPT Member States? An Elite-driven Model of Norm Contestation”, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 399-418.
11. Ibid., p. 414.
12. Cited in Perkovich (2000), op. cit., p. 56.
13. Ashok Kapur (2006), India – From Regional to World Power, p. 28, Routledge, New York.
14. Lavina Lee (2011), “The Indian Nuclear Energy Programme: The Quest for Independence”, in Yi-chong (Ed.), Nuclear Energy Development in Asia, Palgrave, London.
15. Priya Chacko (2010), “The Search for a Scientific Temper: Nuclear Technology and the Ambivalence of India’s Postcolonial Modernity”, Review of International Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 185-208.
16. Stephen P Cohen (2001), “India as a Nuclear Power in India: Emerging Power”, reprinted in Scott Gates and Kaushik Roy (Eds.) (2011), The Nuclear Shadow Over South Asia, 1947 to the Present, pp. 157-197, Routledge, New York.
17. Dipanjan Roy Chaudhary (2017), “Under Rajiv Gandhi, India was Ready with H-Bomb to Counter Pakistan’s Nukes”, The Economics Times, January 24, available at http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/56743176.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst. Accessed on May 18, 2018.
18. Sandeep Dikshit (2010), “Rajiv Gandhi Plan: A Valuable Solution”, The Hindu, August 9, available at http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Rajiv-Gandhi-Plan-a-valuable-solution/article16124741.ece. Accessed May 10, 2018.
19. One of the provisions of the NPT underscores that the nuclear weapon states are those states who have built or tested a nuclear device before January 1, 1967. The NPT provides the legal basis of the international nuclear order. India has been against this cut-off date eversince the drafting of the treaty. India’s nuclear tests in May 1998 has challenged this order.
20. Jaswant Singh (1998), “Against Nuclear Apartheid”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 5, pp. 41-52.
21. Ibid., p. 46.
22. James Bennet (1998), “Nuclear Anxiety: The President”, The New York Times, May 14, available at https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/14/world/nuclear-anxiety-president-clinton-calls-tests-terrible-mistake-announces.html. Accessed on May 15, 2018.
23. Office of the Press Secretary (2005), “Joint Statement by President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh”, July 18, available at https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/sca/rls/pr/2005/49763.htm. Accessed on May 16, 2018.
24. Kanti Bajpai (2014), “Indian Grand Strategy: Six Schools of Thought,” in Kanti P Bajpai et al. (Eds.), India’s Grand Strategy, pp. 113-50, Routledge, New Delhi; Rahul Sagar (2009), “State of Mind: What Kind of Power Will India Become?”, International Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 4, pp. 801-816.
25. Rohan Mukherjee and Rahul Sagar (2018), “Pragmatism in Indian Strategic Thought: Evidence from the Nuclear Weapons Debate of the 1960s”, India Review, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 12-32.
26. P Bidwai and A Vanaik (2001), South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
27. Deepa Ollapally and Rajesh Rajagopalan (2011), “The Pragmatic Challenge to Indian Foreign Policy”, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 145-162.
28. Ashley J Tellis (2001), India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal, p. 36, RAND Corporation, New York.
29. C Raja Mohan (2007), “India’s Nuclear Exceptionalism” in Sverre Lodgaard and Bremer Maerli (Eds.), Nuclear Proliferation and International Security, Routledge, London.
30. The Indian government’s paper, ”The Evolution of India’s Nuclear Policy,” reprinted in Amitabh Mattoo (1998) (Ed.), India’s Nuclear Deterrent: Pokhran II and Beyond, p. 359, Har Anand, New Delhi.
31. Happymon Jacob (2015), “From Pariah to Partner: India and the International Nuclear Order”, The Australia India Institute, Melbourne University, Australia, available at http://www.aii.unimelb.edu.au/publications/emerging-leaders-report-volume-four. Accessed on July 10, 2016.
32. Kate Sullivan (2012), “How the World Warmed to a Nuclear India”, available at http://inside.org.au/how-the-world-warmed-to-a-nuclear-india/. Accessed on March 5, 2018.
33. Ravi Nessman (2012), cited in Sullivan (2012), Ibid.
34. Rajesh Rajagopalan (2009), “India in a Changing Global Order”, in Arvind Gupta (Ed.), India in a Changing Global Order, p. 120, Academic Foundation, New Delhi.
35. D Albright and S Basu (2006), “Neither a Determined Proliferator Nor a Responsible Nuclear State: India’s Record Needs Scrutiny”, Institute for Science and International Security.
36. A Gopal Krishnan (2016), “India Must Pause Its Nuclear Expansion Plans: Dr A Gopalakrishnan”, DiaNuke.org, February 4, available at http://www.dianuke.org/why-india-must-pause-its-nuclear-expansion-plans-dr-a-gopalakrishnan/. Accessed on May 25, 2018.
37. M V Ramana (2012), The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India, p. 40, Penguin, New Delhi.
38. Itty Abraham (1999), The Making of The Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy and the Postcolonial State, Orient Longman Limited, New Delhi.
39. Ramana (2012), op. cit.
40. Michael Barletta and Amy Sands (Eds.) (1999), “Nonproliferation Regimes at Risk”, Occasional Paper No. 3, available at https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/op3.pdf; United Nations (2014), “Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Unimplemented, Becomes ‘Place-Holder’ for States to ‘Insert Disarmament Measures Here’, First Committee Told”, available at https://www.un.org/press/en/2014/gadis3507.doc.htm. Accessed on May 20, 2018.
41. Amitai Etzioni (2015), “The Darker Side of the US-India Nuclear Deal”, The Diplomat, February 13, available at https://thediplomat.com/2015/02/the-darker-side-of-the-u-s-india-nuclear-deal/. Accessed on May 10, 2018.
42. United Nations (2005), “International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism”, available at https://treaties.un.org/doc/db/terrorism/english-18-15.pdf. Accessed on May 20, 2018.
43. Joel Rindelaub (2017), “The Great Nuclear Power Debate”, Paste, February 3, available at https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/01/the-great-nuclear-power-debate.html. Accessed on May 20, 2018.
44. The Editor (2009), “Barack Obama Launches Doctrine for Nuclear-Free World”, The Guardian, April 5, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/apr/05/nuclear-weapons-barack-obama. Accessed on May 27, 2018.
45. George P Shultz, William J Perry, Henry A Kissinger and Sam Nunn (2007), “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons”, The Wall Street Journal, January 4, available at https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116787 515251566636. Accessed on May 5, 2018.
46. Graham Allison (2004: 9) cited in Robert Jackson and Georg Sørensen (2016), Introduction to International Relations: Theories and Approaches, p. 279, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
47. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (2008), “IAEA Annual Report 2008”, p. 5, available at https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/reports/2008/anrep2008_full.pdf. Accessed on May 20, 2018.
48. United Nations (2004), “A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility”, available at http://www.un.org/en/events/pastevents/a_more_secure_world.shtml. Accessed on May 19, 2018.
49. P K Iyengar et al. (2009), Strategic Sellout: Indian-US Nuclear Deal, Pentagon Press, New Delhi.
50. Etel Solingen (1994), “The Political Economy of Nuclear Restraint”, International Security, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 126-169.
51. Online Web, “Nuclear Power in India”, available at http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/india.aspx. Accessed on May 18, 2018.
52. Vandana Bhatia (2012), “The US-India Nuclear Agreement: Revisiting the Debate”, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 612-623.
53. Harsh V Pant (2009), “The US-India Nuclear Pact: Policy, Process, and Great Power Politics”, Asian Security, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 273-295.
54. Vandana Bhatia (2012), “The US-India Nuclear Agreement: Revisiting the Debate”, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 612-623.
55. Amrita Narlikar (2011), “Is India a Responsible Great Power?”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 9, pp. 1607-1621. For the concept of responsibility, See: Viktor Friedmann (2014), “Great Powers and Responsibility”, PhD Thesis, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.
56. Lynn Rusten (2018), “The Trump Administration’s ‘Wrong Track’ Nuclear Policies”, Arms Control Today, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-03/features/trump-administrations-wrong-track-nuclear-policies. Accessed on May 10, 2018.
57. Government of India (2018), “Official Spokesperson’s Response to Media Queries on the Recent Developments Regarding the JCPOA”, May 09, available at http://mea.gov.in/media-briefings.htm?dtl/29880/Official_Spokespersons_response_to_media_queries_on_the_recent_developments_ regarding_ the_JCPOA. Accessed on May 27, 2018.
58. Tanvi Madan (2018), “What Trump’s JCPOA Withdrawal Means for India”, Brookings, available at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/05/09/what-trumps-jcpoa-withdrawal-means-for-india/. Accessed on May 27, 2018.
59. BBC (2018), “Iran Nuclear Deal: Key Details”, May 8, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33521655. Accessed on May 10, 2018.
60. Harald Muller (2018), “Pokharan 20 Years After: Did the World Change?”, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 194-207.
61. Bharat Karnad (2018), “Walking Back Delusional Nuclear Policies”, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 181-193.
62. For inconsequential gains of nuclearization, See: Ramesh Thakur (2014), “The Inconsequential Gains and Lasting Insecurities of India’s Nuclear Weaponization”, International Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 5, pp. 1101-1124.
63. Will Cartwright (2006), “Responsibility: A Puzzle, Two Theories, and Bad Background”, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 167-176.
64. Steve Smith (2004), “Singing Our World into Existence International Relations Theory and September 11”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 1, p. 503.

Conclusion

The existing literature tends to focus on the narrow concepts of India’s nuclear behavior, such as India’s quest for nuclear technology, India’s track record on disarmament diplomacy and nuclear weapons for security concerns and domestic political constraints. This literature misses a fundamental point about India’s normative contribution to global nuclear discourses. The high normative position of India has not been highlighted in the emerging discourses and policy prescriptions.

Secondly, it argues that signing of the Indo-US nuclear deal has been attributed as an overwhelmingly positive step in image building of India in conventional wisdom and dominant discourses on India’s nuclear behavior. The deal is projected as an enhancer of India’s nuclear status in the nuclear global order. It is perceived as a tool for the promotion of India’s nuclear identity. Yet, the deal has brought significant decay in India’s normative image. The dragging of India into the nuclear elite club is materialistically favorable to India but normatively India lost more than what it got out of the deal. It has limited India’s role as a constructive actor in shaping nuclear discourses.