Last year a country holding almost 40 percent of the world’s known uranium reserves decided to review and consequently lift its ban on nuclear trade with India recognising it as a responsible nation with an impeccable record of non-proliferation. Indeed, it was a remarkable policy U-turn for a nation that held a very conservative view on both nuclear energy as well as nuclear weapons. Australia’s decision to lift its ban on nuclear trade with a non-NPT signatory state was viewed as a remarkable achievement in the Indian diplomatic circle.

However, it has been almost a year since Canberra’s decision has moved any further. Prime minister Julia Gillard’s three-day visit to India in October reiterated the question of uranium sale as she made it clear that even the negotiation of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguard agreement with India would still take anywhere between one to two years – thus, further clarifying that there is still some more wait for India before it becomes a beneficiary of receiving uranium from one of the world’s largest reservoir state.  

The point is that the decision to sell uranium to India with its growing economy matched with its rising energy demand is then not merely a question of economics. There is indeed a great deal of politics that either drives or hinders this economic rationale of trade.

To elaborate, India even after having received the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver in 2008 continues to remain outside the NSG. Therefore, full membership of the NSG is still far as there remains a strong opposition within the group towards India’s acceptance into the nuclear cartels as a non-NPT signatory. Like the Australian uranium sale, India’s membership to any of the nuclear cartels such as the NSG, the Wassenar Agreement, the Australia group and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), still remains a rather ambitious plan. This might also imply that New Delhi has not yet reached that stage of clout in the nuclear realm that would enable it to enjoy unconditional privileges that it either expected or perceived were promised to it post Indo-US civil nuclear agreement.

Today, there might be a higher degree of recognition for India’s claims of being a ‘responsible nation with an impeccable non-proliferation record’ even as a non-NPT state. However, the extent to which this recognition and acceptance for India’s status has transformed into hard real-politik decisions is yet to be seen. This further begs the question as to whether nations other than the United Sates, which has been at the forefront of promoting and endorsing India’s ‘responsible status’ pre and post its nuclear deal, are today genuinely persuaded of India’s impeccable record. They might pretend to be persuaded but whether it is because of an innate belief or the politics of it remains an unanswered question.

This also is reflective of the status quo in the nuclear realm despite minor quakes. Of course, much can be expected after the US presidential election. A lot of these decisions such as India’s NSG membership, future nuclear agreements and uranium sales are put on hold and will probably be revisited after the presidential elections in the country that opened the side gate for India’s entry in the first place way back in 2008 with president George W Bush.  
However, how far India is able to go with this will be determined not just by its endorser but also by these other nations in the international community that are stakeholders in the nuclear realm and also signatories of the non-proliferation treaty, which grounds the norms of non-proliferation. Importantly, these other nations will continue to remain important players in the nuclear realm because of economic, politics or normative reasons.

As one renowned political thinker and leader of our time whom I had the privilege to interview for my research put it, ‘It is not as if China persuaded the international community but today the international community is persuaded by China.’ It might then be the case that India has not reached that stage of a political and economic clout that might be used to influence other states in the nuclear realm and therefore India would need to build on that before the international community ‘is to be persuaded by India’. Or maybe the other main hurdle really is that India’s non-proliferation record is not that impeccable after all!