One group says it’s out of conviction, another says it signed under “peer pressure” and yet another group head said he believed in the opposite of what he signed in the petition.

Meet the groups from India who have signed the petition to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to kill the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The NSG begins its meeting in Vienna tomorrow.

Nine organizations from India are signatories to the petition, piloted by the Washington DC-based Arms Control Association (ACA). The only two individuals who have signed it are Praful Bidwai (political commentator and author) and Achin Vanaik (professor of international relations in Delhi University). Both are known for their strong advocacy on nuclear non-proliferation.

Ironically, in the debate in the House over the nuclear deal, no political party echoed their stand.

Except for one Indian group, eight of them do not have any website which talks about their credentials, their philosophy or their mission statement.

In fact, the US-based ACA, which has been campaigning against the Indo-US nuclear deal, claims that “a prestigious and broad array” of more than 150 experts and nongovernmental organizations from 24 countries have urged that the NSG should reject a George W. Bush administration proposal to exempt India from longstanding global nuclear trade standards.

The Indian Express spoke to six of the nine groups to ask why they signed a petition which essentially asks India to sign the NPT and CTBT — which have been widely considered to be “discriminatory” in nature by the government and political parties sweeping across the spectrum from the Left to the BJP, and the Congress.

... contd.