"I feel good about the nuclear tests. I don't care what the foreigners say
about us," said Arundhati Ghose, India's chief negotiator at the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) talks, to a roar of applause at St
Xavier's College. She spoke on the nuclear issue on Monday.
Ms Ghose had touched a chord in the youthful audience, apparently chuffed
with national pride. Dressed in a crisp cotton tangail sari, the
tough-talking negotiator who, some would say, did at the CTBT talks what
Phantom did to the louts at the sleazy saloon who sneered when he ordered
milk, said flatly, "It is not in our interests to sign the CTBT now or
ever. We must stand up to pressure, however much it is.
"You must remember that India's nuclear programme has been under sanctions
for 24 years because of our first nuclear explosion at Pokhran and our
refusal to sign the NPT. So let us not be in a hurry now. Let us use our
huge, power-starved country as a market to lure investors in the nuclear
power sector. If Enron can't get what it needs from the U.S., maybe we
should go to France," said MS Ghose, who has lost none of her fire after
retiring from the Indian Foreign Service last year.
Brushing off suggestions about her political affiliations, she said, "I
don't belong to the BJP or the Hindutva lobby. And we must remember that
nuclear weapons don't make a country great or strong, they only ensure our
security in a nuclear world. The strength of a country depends on its
economic abilities, its capacity to feed, clothe, give shelter and
education to its citizens," she cautioned.
The talk was jointly organised by the Association of Youth for a Better
India and the Sociology Department of St Xavier's College.
Ms Ghose later told this correspondent that she failed to see a fundamental
hypocrisy in India's declamation about the need for nuclear disarmament
while simultaneously testing nuclear bombs. "We are now in a stronger
position to ask the others to disarm since we will also have to make a
sacrifice. So, it's not just a moral thing any more. We are in a better
position to be listened to."
She spoke with cautious optimism of India's position in the new world
order, which will be the subject of her talk at the Nehru Centre on Tuesday
evening. "Kissiriger has written in his book, Diplomacy, about the
possibility of the current pyramidical global power structure changing in
the next century to a polygonal reconstruction in which the U.S., India and
other players are various sides of the structure. It is really economic
power that can get us there," she said.
If the ASEAN forum was essentially set up to contain China, was India
likely to be viewed any differently after the nuclear tests? "China has
successfully deflected attention from the Sino- Indian problem to the
Indo-Pak one, but basically ASEAN doesn't care a hoot about India."
She also felt that the BJP's association with the bomb was not a
premeditated move as was generally suspected, "since it takes a long time
to assemble these things and it had been undertaken during previous
governments. If (former prime minister) Gujral did not test the bomb, it
was only because his government was so weak".
Ms Ghose said the fear that the threat of nuclear war would gobble up
precious developmental resources was unfounded. "'The amount India spends
on military expenditure is pathetic-less than 2.5 per cent of its GDP. And
the tests will not lead to an arms race. We need only a minimum nuclear
deterrent, that's all. In fact, nuclear weapons are cheaper than
conventional weapons, and that is the real danger now."
Has Ms Ghose now tired of CTBT and nuclear issues? She smiled and nodded.
"I really would love to work on human rights," she admitted. Her plans
after retirement? "I have built a house in Gurgaon. And I'm planning to
study law. So let's just say I'm reconstructing."