The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

My Dear Indians,

Let us assume….the residential colony where you live has 195 children of your age. Out of these 195 children, 5 are bullies (दादागिरी करनेवाले )

One fine day these 5 bullies decide that all 195 of you should sign an agreement that no one in the group would bully others. However, these 5 bullies will continue to be the way they are and would ‘try’ to change themselves.

My question to you is-

Will you agree to this ? Will you sign the agreement ? And why ?

 .......

I know you would say NO to this biased agreement.

 ........

Now let us assign names to the characters and places in the above story………..

The residential colony is – The world

The 195 children are- The 195 countries in this world

The 5 Bullies are-  USA, USSR/ Russia, China, UK, France

The agreement that these 5 Bullies have proposed is – The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or Nuclear NPT that became effective on 5 March 1970

 

As per the United Nations Organisation (UNO)-

The NPT is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. The Treaty represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States.

 

Let us put this in simple terms-

In the 1960s a committee of UN discussed and drafted this treaty.

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is an international treaty whose stated objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Countries of the world started signing this treaty beginning 1968.

5 March 1970 was the date when this treaty became effective.

Initially this treaty was made for 25 years ending in 1995.

On 11 May 1995 the parties to NPT met and agreed to extend the validity of this agreement indefinitely.

Till date, 191 out of 195 countries of the world have signed NPT.

Four countries that are not a part of NPT are India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea.

An organization by the name International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was formed under NPT. As per IAEA its objective is to "to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world."

In simple words- IAEA visits various countries and atomic stations to inspect and verify whether a particular country is complying with the rules of NPT or not.

These were the facts of Non-Proliferation Treaty.

 

Now let us talk about what has happened in the real world with regard to NPT.

The idea behind NPT was to make the world a safer place by ensuring that no fresh nuclear weapons are produced. The non-nuclear countries should stay as they are and the nuclear countries should reduce and ultimately destroy all nuclear weapons that they have.

However, there is no evidence to prove that the five nuclear countries have reduced or eliminated their nuclear weapons.

India conducted nuclear tests in Pokhran (Rajasthan) in 1974 and then in 1998 and declared itself a nuclear power. India has taken a stand that NPT is biased. How can a few countries have special privilege of owning nuclear weapons and compel other countries to not go nuclear ? India is a responsible democracy and had assured no-first-use after1998 tests.

Pakistan as always tries to match up with India and has thus claimed to have conducted its nuclear tests. Some are of the view is that China and North Korea have helped Pakistan acquire nuclear power.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its nuclear status but has refused to sign NPT.

North Korea had signed the NPT in 1985 but withdrew from NPT in 2003.

 

Capability to produce nuclear arms, possession of nuclear arms and suspicion that nuclear capability may be used for military purposes have been used as an alibi by strong nations to threaten other countries.

For instance –

Capability to produce nuclear arms

Iran is said to be developing nuclear capabilities that ‘may’ be used for wrong reasons. IAEA wants to inspect and verify nuclear facilities of Iran. When Iran resisted, USA imposed sanctions.    

Possession of Nuclear arms

In the year 2003, the USA under President George Bush attacked Iraq. The reason put up was – Iraq is in possession of “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. The President of Iraq- Saddam Hussein- was deposed and finally put to death by the USA. But no weapons of mass destruction were ever recovered from Iraq !  

(“Weapons of Mass Destruction” literally mean any weapon that can kill a large number of people. This could be nuclear weapons, biological weapons or chemical weapons.)

Suspicion (or a created suspicion) that nuclear capability may be used for military purposes

India is a self-declared nuclear power. History is enough evidence that we have never been offensive. Apart from nuclear capability for military purposes we also have the capability to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes like generation of electricity. For this we need supply of input materials, uranium being one of them. 

Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is a group of supplier countries that have taken the responsibility upon themselves to control the supply of nuclear materials so that it is not misused. 

The most hilarious part of NSG is that all the five nuclear countries (The 5 Bullies who own nuclear weapons) are members and have not allowed India to become a part of this group because India is not a signatory to NPT. 

If we assume for a moment that India signs the NPT still they would find out some other alibi to keep India out of NSG because if India becomes a member, we will have better access to nuclear supplies and we would grow stronger. This is precisely what they do not want. They want to continue their control over the world.  

Do you know The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was created immediately after India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974? This was clearly an attempt to create obstacles for India because India had the courage to stand against a biased treaty.

India has not signed the NPT and has no intentions of doing so in the future. The entire NPT community (The bullies and their 'yes men') is against us but no one has been able to stop us on the path of development.

 

My Dear Young and Little Indians,

What is the learning for us?

 

The learning is –

Be Good. But be strong as well.

The weak can never be good. You need strength to stay good by standing up against what is wrong.

The first step to being strong is to have faith in yourself and your capabilities.

Swami Vivekananda said-

Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.

 

My Indians,

Fill yourself up with self-confidence and self-respect.

Have faith in yourself and your country.

Work hard to make yourself and your country stronger.

 

Jai Hind !