Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
about India's tests or its lack of progress on signing the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT).
Putin noted that 'I would like to see India participate in the CTBT', but added,
'However, we realize that the signing of the CTBT should be based on strategic
vision and interest of India and the local populace.'
15
This visit underscored how
far the Russians had traveled in accepting India's new status, evidently without
having received any political concessions from India.
However, some ambivalence remains in Russia's position reflecting to a large
degree international pressures which the Russian leadership is struggling to
reconcile. The Russian reaction to some Indian commentators' suggestion that
Russia might circumvent restrictions on cooperating in the nuclear sector with a
non-nuclear state that does not adhere to full scope safeguards by 'temporarily'
declaring India a nuclear state, is telling. Putin made the following observation:
'We do not believe that new nuclear weapon states have emerged on the global
arena and we do not think that our recognition of this fact will lead to positive
consequences for those states that claim for such recognition'.
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Yevgeny Adamov, the former Atomic Energy chief had offered the opinion
during a visit to India in December 2000 that he viewed sanctions by the west on
India 'unconstructive' in forcing India to forfeit its nuclear option, and pointed
out that 'We are against a policy of sanctions and did not impose them even
when India conducted its nuclear tests'.
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On the contrary, within three months
of Pokhran II, an agreement was signed to sell India $15 billion worth of Russian
arms over 10 years.
18
As for Russia's role in India's global strategy, the post-Cold War Indian
leaderships seem to have made a virtue out of the difficulties forced on them by
the loss of their principal ally. P.V.Narasimha Rao's government as early as 1992
began chalking out a 'look east' policy which attempted to redress the
longstanding neglect of the Asia-Pacific region, by cultivating ties in particular
with Singapore, Korea and to a lesser extent, Japan. The most dramatic shift was
the breakthrough achieved in Indo-US relations culminating in Bill Clinton's
hugely successful visit in March 2000-despite the nuclear tests two years before,
and the beginning of what has been termed 'an India first' policy by some
Americans.
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If anything, the Bush administration has been pressing forward even more
vigorously, with a decision to lift nuclear tests related sanctions placed on India
well before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the attendant decision to
lift them against both India and Pakistan, in light of the American need for
Pakistan's cooperation against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
While the post-September 11 turn by the US toward Pakistan is surely going to
complicate India's foreign policy, there is little doubt that India wants to
maintain its move toward casting the US as a critical, if not the primary, partner.
