Advocating for Disarmament: India’s Commitment to Global Arms Reduction

Few countries carry as long and consistent a record of speaking against weapons of mass destruction as India does. Since independence in 1947, every government in New Delhi has argued that a world overflowing with nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals is a world living on borrowed time. Yet India also possesses nuclear weapons. This apparent contradiction sits at the heart of one of the most debated objectives of Indian foreign policy. Understanding how India reconciles its push for global arms reduction with its own security posture reveals a great deal about how it sees its place in the world order.

What disarmament actually means 🔗

Disarmament refers to the reduction, limitation, or complete elimination of weapons. In foreign policy discussions it usually splits into two broad categories. The first is the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), which covers nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons capable of killing on a massive scale. The second is the control of conventional weapons, meaning the tanks, missiles, small arms, and other equipment that make up the bulk of any military.

It is important to separate disarmament from non-proliferation. Non-proliferation aims to stop the spread of weapons to states that do not already have them. Disarmament aims to reduce and ultimately remove weapons from the states that do. India has long argued that the two must go together. A regime that only stops new countries from acquiring nuclear weapons, while letting existing powers keep theirs, is something India views as fundamentally incomplete.

Horizontal and vertical proliferation 🔗

A useful distinction in this debate is between horizontal and vertical proliferation. Horizontal proliferation is the expansion of the nuclear weapons club to new members. Vertical proliferation is the expansion of arsenals held by states that already possess weapons. Indian diplomats have repeatedly pointed out that what matters is not just the spread of weapons to new states but also the continued growth of existing stockpiles. This framing lets India criticise the established nuclear powers for preaching restraint to others while expanding their own capabilities.

India’s disarmament tradition 🔗

India’s advocacy did not begin with its own nuclear programme. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was among the first world leaders to call for a halt to nuclear testing and the elimination of these weapons. From the 1950s onward, India tabled proposals and resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly arguing for universal nuclear disarmament. This was a moral and strategic position rooted in the country’s broader commitment to peaceful coexistence and non-alignment during the Cold War.

The single most comprehensive expression of this tradition came in 1988.

The Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan 🔗

On 9 June 1988, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi presented the Action Plan for a Nuclear Weapon Free and Non-Violent World Order to the Third Special Session of the UN General Assembly devoted to disarmament. The plan laid out a three-phase schedule spread over 22 years to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons by 2010. It was, and remains, the only detailed roadmap for nuclear abolition ever presented to the UN by a head of government.

In his address, Rajiv Gandhi famously described nuclear deterrence as the ultimate expression of the philosophy of terrorism, holding humanity hostage to the presumed security needs of a few. The plan called for a universal, comprehensive, and legally binding commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons in a time-bound and verifiable manner. Crucially, it went beyond the existing treaty framework by refusing to accept a permanent division of the world into nuclear haves and have-nots.

The world of 1988 was still locked in Cold War politics, and the Action Plan was largely ignored. But it set the template for India’s disarmament diplomacy for decades. As late as 2010, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set up an informal group of experts to consider how the plan’s ideas could be carried forward in the changed circumstances of a nuclear-armed India.

Why India built nuclear weapons 🔗

If India campaigned so hard for abolition, why does it hold nuclear weapons today? The answer lies in the regional security environment and in India’s frustration with the existing global order. India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974 and then a series of tests at Pokhran in May 1998, after which it declared itself a nuclear weapon state.

The 1998 decision came after years of watching the disarmament agenda stall while neighbouring threats grew. Critics argued the tests were a betrayal of India’s principles, yet the Indian representative at the time insisted the country remained fully committed to the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons through universal, non-discriminatory, and verifiable agreements. India’s position was that disarmament must be a collective process, not a unilateral surrender of security in a region where other powers were arming.

Credible minimum deterrence and No First Use 🔗

India’s nuclear doctrine rests on two pillars that distinguish it from many other nuclear states. The first is credible minimum deterrence, which means maintaining only enough capability to inflict unacceptable damage on an attacker, rather than building a vast arsenal. India explicitly refuses to participate in a nuclear arms race.

The second pillar is the No First Use (NFU) policy, a pledge that India will never be the first to launch a nuclear strike. India has also committed to not using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states. New Delhi presents this restrained posture as proof that its weapons are held out of necessity, not ambition, and that it sees no contradiction between maintaining deterrence and pursuing nuclear disarmament.

India and the global treaty framework 🔗

India’s approach to international arms control treaties is selective and principled. It supports instruments it considers fair and universal, while rejecting those it views as discriminatory. This pattern explains many of its most contested positions.

The NPT and CTBT 🔗

India has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The treaty recognises only five states as legitimate nuclear powers, and India would only be able to join as a non-nuclear-weapon state, which it refuses to do. New Delhi has stated plainly that nuclear weapons remain an integral part of its national security pending non-discriminatory and global nuclear disarmament.

India similarly stayed out of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Although it was supportive during negotiations, India ultimately objected that the treaty contained no time-bound disarmament schedule for the nuclear weapon states and would not advance disarmament because it banned only explosive testing. The common thread is India’s insistence that any restriction on its own options must come with a genuine commitment by the major powers to eliminate their arsenals.

FMCT, TPNW, and outer space 🔗

India supports a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT), provided it is universal, non-discriminatory, and verifiable. However, it argues the treaty should ban only the future production of fissile material rather than touching existing stockpiles. On the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), India did not participate in negotiations and maintains it is not bound by obligations from a treaty to which it never gave its sovereign consent. India also backs international efforts to prevent the placement of weapons in outer space, reflecting a forward-looking concern about new domains of conflict.

Chemical and biological weapons 🔗

India’s stance is markedly more accepting when it comes to chemical and biological weapons, because the relevant treaties apply equally to all states. India is a signatory to both the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). It established a National Authority under the Chemical Weapons Convention Act, 2000 to implement its obligations and liaise with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. India describes the BTWC as a key global and non-discriminatory disarmament convention that prohibits an entire category of weapons. The contrast with the nuclear treaties is telling: India objects not to disarmament itself, but to arrangements it sees as unequal.

Conventional weapons and the wider agenda 🔗

Disarmament is not only about WMDs. India has supported efforts to regulate conventional arms, though again on its own terms. It remains committed to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which brings together the main producers and users of major conventional weapons. At the same time, India abstained from the Arms Trade Treaty in 2013, judging that the text fell short of being clear, balanced, and impartial. The pattern is consistent across the board: India engages with frameworks it considers genuinely universal and balanced, and holds back from those it finds tilted.

The principle that ties it together 🔗

One word appears again and again in India’s official statements: non-discriminatory. India’s entire disarmament philosophy can be summed up as a demand that the rules apply equally to everyone. It rejects a permanent two-tier system in which a handful of states keep their weapons indefinitely while everyone else is told to abstain. Its leaders have consistently called for a universal, non-discriminatory, and verifiable prohibition leading to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

This is why India can simultaneously hold weapons and advocate for their abolition without seeing itself as hypocritical. From New Delhi’s perspective, it is willing to give up its arsenal, but only as part of a global, time-bound process that binds every nuclear power equally. Until that process exists, India argues, its minimum deterrent is a reluctant necessity rather than a goal in itself.

Challenges and criticism 🔗

India’s position is not without its critics. Some argue that by staying outside the NPT and CTBT while building its own arsenal, India weakens the very non-proliferation system it claims to support. Others note that decades of advocacy have produced little concrete reduction in global stockpiles, and that the deteriorating security environment has only deepened the gap between India’s ideals and the world’s reality. Within the disarmament community there is also debate about whether holding a deterrent can ever be fully consistent with calling for abolition.

India’s defenders counter that the country has maintained an impeccable record on preventing the spread of sensitive technology, backed by stringent export controls, which is part of why international civil nuclear cooperation with India opened up in 2008. They argue that India’s continued moral pressure keeps the goal of abolition alive even when the major powers show little interest. Whether one finds these arguments persuasive depends largely on how one weighs principle against security in an unequal international system.

Why this matters today 🔗

The relevance of India’s disarmament stance has not faded. As of recent UN sessions, India continues to maintain that its commitment to universal, non-discriminatory, and verifiable nuclear disarmament remains undiminished, achievable through a step-by-step process backed by an agreed multilateral framework. With renewed great-power tensions, modernisation of nuclear arsenals worldwide, and new frontiers such as space and emerging technologies, the questions India raised in 1988 are arguably more pressing now than they were then.

For students of foreign policy, India’s approach offers a case study in how a state can pursue an idealistic objective while navigating hard security realities. It shows that disarmament is rarely a simple matter of being for or against weapons. It is a continuous negotiation between vision and vulnerability, between what a country believes the world should be and what it judges it must do to survive in the world as it is.

What do you think? Can a country credibly advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons while keeping its own arsenal, or does possession inevitably undermine the message? And if global disarmament remains stalled, should India keep championing a cause that the major powers continue to ignore?

References

1. https://www.nids.mod.go.jp/english/event/symposium/pdf/2009/e_06.pdf
2. https://pmindiaun.gov.in/Cdgeneva/statement_content/MjE0
3. https://thediplomat.com/2011/08/toward-nuclear-disarmament/
4. https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/rajiv-gandhi-plan-on-nuclear-disarmament-is-more-relevant-even-after-30-years
5. https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/atomicage/?p=7534
6. https://press.un.org/en/1998/19980515.dcf332.html
7. https://pmindiaun.gov.in/Cdgeneva/statement_content/NDg0
8. https://www.deccanherald.com/india/india-declines-join-npt-club-2564490
9. https://www.shankariasparliament.com/current-affairs/gs-ii/comprehensive-nuclear-test-ban-treaty-ctbt
10. https://pmindiaun.gov.in/Cdgeneva/statement_content/MTI2
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13. https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/india-nuclear-disarmament/