What is India’s stand on the issues of nuclear proliferation? Explain.

Core stand

• India never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), calling it discriminatory because it freezes 1967 weapon states and treats later programmes as illegitimate.
• After the 1998 tests, India declared a doctrine of credible minimum deterrence and no first use, with retaliation only if nuclear weapons are used against India or Indian forces.
• India supports complete nuclear disarmament in a non-discriminatory, verifiable time-bound frame, and has backed a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty in the Conference on Disarmament — without accepting a freeze that locks an unfair stockpile gap.
• India has not signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), citing the same equity problem and the need to keep a testing option until the treaty is universal and the deterrent is mature; it observes a voluntary moratorium on tests.

Proliferation behaviour India claims

• India separates civilian and military nuclear streams under the 2008 India–US civil nuclear understanding and the NSG waiver, with an IAEA Additional Protocol on civilian facilities.
• It joined MTCR, the Wassenaar Arrangement, and the Australia Group, and seeks NSG membership so that export rules bind it as a responsible vendor, not a proliferator.
• Domestic law (WMD Act, 2005) and SCOMET export lists criminalise transfer of nuclear and dual-use items to terrorists or unsafeguarded programmes.
• India opposes nuclear weapons in the hands of extra states or non-state actors, including in its neighbourhood, while refusing to roll back its own arsenal under NPT Article VI as currently written.