Since its indefinite extension in 1995, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been on the sidelines, with its utility eroding in the post-Cold War security environment, as new instruments took over the anti-proliferation mantle. Being the cornerstone of the regime and near-universal in character, the NPT has nonetheless survived despite a host of challenges threatening its existence. Its future, however, is imperilled unless the member states take remedial actions, including a restructuring of the treaty to suit 21st century requirements.

This article examines the feasibility and advisability of India joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Before India came out openly as a nuclear-armed state, it could find, in many quarters, sympathy—if not actual support—for its disdainful stance toward the NPT. Since the indefinite extension of the NPT and India's nuclear test explosions, nothing whatsoever is gained by remaining aloof from the NPT community which is, for all intents and purposes, the rest of the world. Without formally adhering to the treaty, India should embrace it wholeheartedly and be an exemplary nuclear-weapon state, showing the way ahead for the treaty's nuclear-weapon states.

India's nuclear development has been accompanied by a dual track strategy of developing and building weapons while criticising the non-proliferation regime as discriminatory and simultaneously making public statements and proposals in favour of nuclear disarmament. But with international progress likely on aspects of nuclear disarmament over the next few months, India will be in the spotlight at the forthcoming 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference to help move the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda forward.