India was quick in its condemnation of North Korea’s nuclear test on Monday. It was on the target when pointing to the Pakistan link in the North Korean proliferation. Yet, there is nothing to suggest India has either learnt much from the nuclear nexus between Islamabad and Pyongyang, or that it is prepared to address the longer term consequences that flow out of the nuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

India is certainly right in underlining its own impressive record on nuclear non-proliferation. Unlike either China or Pakistan, it has not assisted the nuclear weapon programmes of other countries. As a rising power in the international system it must, however, be a little better than simply being good. Great powers by definition take responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

What, then, is holding India back from undertaking a more assertive nuclear policy? That it took so long to declare itself a nuclear weapon state, precisely 34 years after China exploded its first device in 1964, was part of the problem. Having proclaimed itself a nuclear weapon power in 1998, and gained acknowledgement from the US in 2005 that it is a responsible nuclear weapon state, India should be shedding its past inhibitions about taking leadership on the non-proliferation front. Despite voting twice in the International Atomic Energy Agency against Iranian proliferation during 2005-06 and proclaiming that it is opposed to the further spread of weapons of mass destruction, India’s nuclear diplomacy finds it hard to break out of self-generated delusions.

... contd.