Nuclear Supplier Group

• Established in 1975, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is comprised of 48 states that
have voluntarily agreed to coordinate their export controls to non-nuclear-weapon states.
• The NSG governs the transfers of civilian nuclear material and nuclear-related equipment
and technology.
• There is a Trigger List and items from the list are forbidden to be exported to Non-NPT
member countries.
• The NSG aims to prevent nuclear exports for commercial and peaceful purposes from
being used to make nuclear weapons.
• The US created the NSG, after India's 1974 nuclear test, solely to deny advanced
technology to India, and isolate and contain India.
• China became a member only in 2004.

Credentials /Grounds for India’s membership:

• India has behaved as a responsible nuclear power and its non-proliferation credentials are

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• India has a self-imposed moratorium on future nuclear tests and has brought its civilian
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nuclear installations under IAEA safeguards.

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• India’s vibrant democracy, its economic and military strength, increasing global stature
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and its membership to other three export control regimes further strengthen the ground.
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Benefits of India’s membership to the NSG:

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• NSG membership is an assertion of right. When the one-time NSG waiver was granted to
India in 2008, India agreed that it would abide by any rules that NSG may make in the
future. Being inside would mean participating in that rule-making.

India won’t have to be dependent on its friends at the NSG and can have its own voice in
formulating policies related to future of nuclear trade.

• Membership of the NSG would not make a substantive difference except that it would
make the conditions for international civil nuclear commerce and cooperation more
predictable in the long run and also ensure that in any future amendments to NSG
guidelines India is an active participant.
• It will legitimise India’s nuclear weapon program and India as the nuclear state.
 • It will increase India’s nuclear trade with its partners and ensure that its nuclear power
plants can operate at their maximum efficiency.

• This will also enable India to export its indigenously developed nuclear power plants and
make it a major player in global nuclear trade.

• This will also help in research and development in the field of nuclear technology and
will strengthen India’s quest to achieve success in its three stage nuclear programme.

• NSG membership will give India a chance to expose Pakistan’s terrible proliferation
record.

• Strategically, it will take India out of India-Pakistan hyphenation and club it with China
in the Asian geopolitics. Thus the membership can be another step towards achieving a
stable Indo-Pacific in the wake of rising China.

But Unlikely to happen anytime soon:

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• India seeking membership of the NSG is like Russia seeking membership of North
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Atlantic Treaty Organisation: the NSG was invented to prevent Indian advance towards
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possession of nuclear weapons after the technology demonstration test of 1974. If India
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joins it, the very nature of the NSG will change and dilute its fundamental position that
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all members should be signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

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The NSG operates by consensus. So, all its 48 members have to agree to any such
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decision. There is little chance of such consensus at the moment.

• India’s bid for membership being blocked by China and some other nations like South
Africa, Norway, Brazil, Austria, New Zealand, Ireland and Turkey on the ground of
India being a non-signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

China demands a non-discriminatory procedures for entry of the countries that haven’t
signed NPT. It insists that a criteria-based rather than a country-specific approach should
be adopted in order to avoid the charge of discriminatory practice.

China to further obstruct India’s membership demand, has clubbed India's membership
bid with that of Pakistan’s. However, Pakistan’s credentials for membership is
 extremely inaccurate.

Also, the other side of the argument is that India no longer needs NSG membership.
There is no material benefit to be gained that has not been won by the waiver of 2008.
1. The 2008 waiver ensures India’s access to technology; and, no foreign reactor supplier
is actually waiting for India’s NSG membership. According to two Former heads of the
Atomic Energy Commission India can live without NSG membership.
2. It does not matter in terms of uranium supply. India has hammered out agreements
with Canada (April 2013) and Australia (November 2014), and other countries such as
Kazakhstan have been supplying too.

3. Membership of the NSG will have no impact on India’s nuclear energy program. The
reason that nuclear energy is such a small fraction of India’s electricity generation—
around 3 percent—is because nuclear plants are hugely expensive.
Indeed, imported nuclear power plants are even more expensive than domestically
designed ones. So, more imports will only make electricity more costly.
(According to an India-briefing document of World Association of Nuclear Operators,
Areva was seeking a tariff of ₹9.18 a kWhr, while the Department of Atomic Energy
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would not go beyond ₹6.50. In contrast, Kudankulam units three and four are expected to
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sell at ₹3.90 a kWhr. Energy from India-built nuclear plants are much cheaper. For GE-
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Hitachi and Westinghouse-Toshiba, the liability issue is a big risk, and if they factor the
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risk in costs, their energy will also be pricey.)

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4. Membership of the NSG will only mean greater pressure on us to sign the NPT and
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the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and commit in advance to a

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Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, which would impose restrictions on existing stockpiles
of fissile material.

5. China has given scant attention to the NSG guidelines and has violated them in the case
of Pakistan by claiming to act under an agreement reached before China joined the NSG.
But the NSG did not even challenge the supply of two new reactors to Pakistan by China.
The NSG’s ineffectiveness in countering proliferation makes it even less attractive as
a group India should join.

In that case, why is China taking such a hard line against India?

• It cannot be only to aid Pakistan’s entry, although to say that helps India’s posturing.
 • Possibly China is taking a tough line now for driving a harder bargain with India at
a later date on another issue. It could make a show of climbing down and easing India’s
entry, for instance, in return for New Delhi not acting as the spearhead of US-led military
interests in the “Indo-Pacific”. China can also seemingly “sacrifice” its stand for
something else, such as New Delhi taking a softer line on the South China Sea issue. It is
a bargaining chip, which China keeps drawing attention to at every NSG meeting.

• Therefore, in the emerging transactional relationship with China, the less interest New
Delhi shows in NSG membership, the stronger would be its hand for dealing with Beijing
on a range of issues that involve give and take.

Conclusion:

• The high-level pursuit of NSG membership may give the impression that India is
unrealistic in its expectations from the international community.
• It will be better for India to concentrate on one or two fundamental objectives rather than
fritter away our diplomatic resources on matters of marginal interest.
• Also, though India is not a member of the NSG, it got a waiver for nuclear trade in 2008.
This has legitimized India’s credentials as a responsible nuclear power.

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