Technology for All: India’s Quest for Fair and Non-Discriminatory Transfer Regimes

Access to advanced technology is one of the quietest yet most decisive battles in international relations. A nation’s ability to build missiles, power its cities with nuclear energy, manufacture vaccines, or fight climate change often depends not on its own ingenuity alone, but on whether wealthier nations are willing to share what they know. For decades, India has argued that the global rules governing this exchange are tilted in favour of a privileged few. The demand for non-discriminatory technology transfer regimes sits at the core of this argument, and it has become a defining objective of India’s foreign policy.

What technology transfer regimes actually mean 🔗

Technology transfer is the process by which knowledge, technical know-how, equipment, and innovation move from one country or organisation to another. This can happen through trade, foreign direct investment, licensing agreements, joint ventures, or international treaties. When this movement is governed by a set of international rules, agreements, and institutions, we call it a technology transfer regime.

The problem is that many of these regimes were designed by a small group of technologically advanced nations after the Second World War and during the Cold War. They often decide who gets access to sensitive technologies and who is kept out. A regime becomes discriminatory when it grants certain countries privileged access while denying others, not on the basis of objective conduct, but on the basis of when a country joined the club or whether it signed a particular treaty.

India’s foreign policy position is straightforward in principle: technology meant for peaceful development should flow freely and fairly, and the rules deciding access should apply equally to all. The reality, however, has been far more complicated.

The NPT and the charge of nuclear apartheid 🔗

The clearest example of what India considers a discriminatory regime is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Opened for signature in 1968 and entering into force in 1970, the NPT aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote disarmament, and allow the peaceful use of nuclear energy. On paper, these are noble goals. India has refused to sign it from the very beginning.

The reason lies in how the treaty divides the world. India maintains that the NPT is discriminatory because of the imbalance between the obligations of the five recognised nuclear-weapon states (the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China) and everyone else, who are classified as non-nuclear-weapon states. The treaty only recognises nations that tested nuclear weapons before 1 January 1967 as legitimate nuclear powers. Since India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, it was permanently locked out of the nuclear-weapon-state category.

This created what former Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh famously described as “nuclear apartheid”. India’s argument is that the treaty allows the five declared nuclear states to keep their arsenals indefinitely without a credible timeline for disarmament, while binding everyone else to permanent non-nuclear status. In India’s view, this perpetuates a hierarchy of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots”.

India’s position is not anti-disarmament 🔗

It is important to understand that India’s refusal to sign the NPT is not a rejection of non-proliferation itself. India has consistently stated that it supports the goal of global, verifiable, and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament. The Indian government’s position at the United Nations has been that nuclear weapons remain integral to its national security pending such universal disarmament, and that India will not join the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state.

In other words, India’s objection is to the structure of the treaty, not its underlying aspiration. India wants disarmament that applies to all nations equally, rather than a regime that freezes an unequal status quo.

How exclusion blocked access to technology 🔗

The consequences of staying outside the NPT were not merely symbolic. After India’s 1974 nuclear test, a new institution called the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was created to control the export of nuclear materials and technology. For nearly three decades, India was denied access to this and other exclusive groupings known as the Multilateral Export Control Regimes.

This exclusion affected both India’s military and civilian sectors. India struggled to import advanced dual-use technologies, nuclear fuel, and equipment needed for energy production and scientific research. A country with a billion people and growing energy needs found itself cut off from technologies that were freely traded among treaty members. This experience shaped India’s deep scepticism towards regimes that use treaty membership as a gatekeeping tool.

The turning point of 2008 🔗

The situation began to shift with the historic India-United States Civil Nuclear Agreement, negotiated in the mid-2000s. In 2008, the NSG granted India a special waiver allowing it to engage in civilian nuclear trade despite not being an NPT signatory. This was a remarkable diplomatic achievement. It effectively acknowledged India’s strong non-proliferation record and its status as a responsible nuclear power, even outside the formal treaty framework.

The waiver opened the door for India to import nuclear fuel and technology for its civilian energy programme. It also signalled that the international community was willing to make a place for India based on its conduct rather than its treaty status.

From outsider to insider: India joins the regimes 🔗

Following the 2008 waiver, India launched a sustained diplomatic campaign to join the four main Multilateral Export Control Regimes. The results came steadily. India became a full member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in 2016, the Wassenaar Arrangement in 2017, and the Australia Group in 2018.

Each membership carried tangible benefits. MTCR membership gave India access to high-end missile technology and allowed it to pursue joint development programmes. The Wassenaar Arrangement, which governs the transfer of conventional arms and dual-use goods, enhanced India’s ability to acquire critical technologies and strengthened its non-proliferation credentials despite its non-signatory status under the NPT. Notably, China is not a member of the Wassenaar Arrangement or the MTCR.

There is a certain irony here. India was admitted into these regimes precisely because of its consistent adherence to non-proliferation norms, the very norms the NPT was meant to enforce, demonstrating that conduct could matter more than treaty membership.

The Nuclear Suppliers Group remains out of reach 🔗

One door remains firmly shut. India is still not a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Its repeated bids have been consistently blocked, primarily by China and some other members, on the ground that India is not an NPT signatory. China has insisted on a uniform, non-discriminatory criterion for admitting non-NPT states, and has at times sought to link India’s bid with that of Pakistan.

This is a striking example of the very discrimination India objects to. Membership in a body that controls access to peaceful nuclear technology is being denied based on treaty status rather than on a country’s actual track record. India’s exclusion from the NSG keeps the debate over non-discriminatory access very much alive.

Beyond nuclear: the wider development agenda 🔗

The demand for fair technology transfer is not confined to the nuclear sphere. It extends to areas that directly affect the lives of millions in the developing world, particularly public health and climate change. Here, the debate often centres on intellectual property rights rather than weapons control.

The TRIPS waiver and vaccine access 🔗

During the COVID-19 pandemic, India and South Africa led a landmark proposal at the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive certain intellectual property protections under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. The goal was to ensure quick and affordable access to vaccines and medicines for developing countries. India argued that patent barriers were preventing poorer nations from manufacturing the vaccines they desperately needed.

The proposal eventually drew support from dozens of low-income countries and even the United Nations Secretary General, although wealthy nations and pharmaceutical companies initially resisted it. India, with its enormous vaccine manufacturing capacity, positioned itself as a champion of equitable access. The episode reinforced India’s long-standing message that knowledge essential to human survival should not be locked behind exclusive commercial barriers.

Climate technology and the green divide 🔗

The same theme appears in climate negotiations. The 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change explicitly requires developed countries to promote, facilitate, and finance the transfer of environmentally sound technologies to developing nations. Yet India argues that these promises have largely gone unfulfilled.

In its reports to the UNFCCC, India has stated that it has not received significant technology transfer under the climate regime, forcing it to divert national resources to develop solutions on its own. India has urged developed nations to remove intellectual property barriers that slow the adoption of clean technologies like solar, wind, and electric vehicles. The argument is consistent: nations on the front lines of climate change should not be denied the tools to fight it because of cost and patent restrictions.

Why this objective matters for India’s foreign policy 🔗

The pursuit of non-discriminatory technology transfer regimes ties together several threads of India’s worldview. It reflects India’s commitment to strategic autonomy, the principle that India should not be forced into unequal arrangements. It expresses solidarity with the wider developing world, positioning India as a voice for the Global South. And it advances India’s practical national interest in acquiring the technology needed for security, energy, health, and growth.

India’s approach has evolved from one of principled refusal to one of active engagement. Rather than simply staying outside discriminatory systems, India now works to enter them, reform them from within, and reshape the rules so that access depends on responsible behaviour rather than arbitrary categories. The journey from being labelled a target of nuclear apartheid to becoming a member of three of the four major export control regimes captures this shift well.

The underlying goal remains constant. India seeks a world where the technological gap between rich and poor nations narrows rather than widens, where advanced tools serve peaceful development, and where the rules apply to everyone equally. Whether the subject is a nuclear reactor, a vaccine, or a solar panel, the principle is the same.

What do you think? Is it fair for a country’s access to peaceful technology to depend on whether it signed a particular treaty decades ago, or should access be judged purely on present conduct? And as India moves from being an outsider to an insider in these regimes, can it still credibly champion the interests of less powerful developing nations?

References

1. https://thebulletin.org/2010/05/reforming-the-npt-to-include-india/
2. https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/news/india-and-multilateral-export-control-regimes-mecrs-apartheid-active-engagement
3. https://pmindiaun.gov.in/Cdgeneva/statement_content/MjA3
4. https://www.orfonline.org/research/indias-membership-to-the-nuclear-suppliers-group
5. https://www.clearias.com/mtcr/
6. https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/editorial/indias-wassenaar-entry-milestone-2037829
7. https://www.drishtiias.com/to-the-points/Paper2/multilateral-export-control-regimes
8. https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-asian-age/20210613/281934545893382
9. https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/cchange_e.htm
10. https://www.outlookbusiness.com/planet/sustainability/lack-of-tech-transfer-slowing-climate-action-in-india-govt-to-unfccc