Rajiv Nayan

Dr Rajiv Nayan is Senior Research Associate at Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi. He has been working with the Institute since 1993, where he specialises in international relations, security issues, especially the politics of nuclear disarmament, export control, non-proliferation, and arms control. He was Visiting Research Fellow at Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), Tokyo, where he published his monograph “Non-Proliferation Issues in South Asia”. He was also Senior Researcher at Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College, London and Visiting Fulbright Scholar at Center on International Cooperation (CIC), New York University. He holds a PhD and a Master of Philosophy in Disarmament Studies and a Master of Arts in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. In his doctoral dissertation, he studied the implications of Missile Technology Control Regime for Indian security and economy.

Dr Nayan has published books as well as papers in academic journals and as chapters in books. His single-authored book Global Strategic Trade Managementhas been published by Springer in 2019. His edited book The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and India was published by Routledge in 2012.

Select Publications

  • Export Controls and India, CSSS Occasional Papers 1/2013, King’s Colloge, London.
  • Limited Wars in South Asia: Against the Nuclear Backdrop, Defence and Security Alert, January 2012
  • “The Relevance of Sanctions in the Contemporary International System: An Indian Perspective,” in Greg Mills & Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, eds., New Tools for Reform and Stability? Sanctions, Conditionalities and Conflict Resolution (SAAIA, 2004).
  • “India and the Missile Technology Control Regime,” in Amitabh Mattoo, ed., India’s Nuclear Deterrent: Pokhran and Beyond (Har-Anand Publishers, New Delhi, 1998).
  • Non-Proliferation Issues in South Asia, Occasional Paper 32 (Japan Institute of International Affairs, March 2005).
  • “Trends of the Missile Technology Control Regime,” Strategic Analysis, September 1998.
  • “Chemical Weapons Convention: The Challenges Ahead,” Strategic Analysis, March 1998.

Senior Research Associate

Publication

The NPT and India: Accommodating the Exception

In different international bodies and in statements by various world leaders, universalisation and a possible revision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are figuring quite frequently. Certainly, in the emerging context for universalisation, the relationship between India and the NPT may be reviewed. Several relevant options are emerging to define the relationship between India and the NPT. This has put the relationship between India and the NPT in the international limelight.

Special Editor’s Introduction

The failure of the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference (RevCon) almost signalled doom for the treaty. The NPT, since it came into force, has always travelled a slippery slope encountering various hurdles on the way. Its problem did not end even after it acquired the ‘near universal’ status. With the exception of India, Pakistan and Israel, all countries have joined the treaty, though North Korea withdrew from it and later conducted a couple of nuclear tests.

The Nuclear Agenda of the Obama Administration

After eight years of governance by a Republican Administration, the United States elected a Democrat as its president. The Democrat President, Barack Hussein Obama, assumed presidency and appointed several key officials to implement his agenda. Though some believe that democracy forces political parties to evolve a common agenda and towards consensus on several key issues, there are others who see differences between the Republican agenda and those of Democrats.

A Q Khan Release and Non-Proliferation

On February 6, 2009, the Pakistani judiciary acquitted Abdul Qadeer (AQ) Khan, the symbol of Pakistani involvement in clandestine nuclear commerce. Since 2004, he had been under house arrest after the proliferation network, linking several countries, including Pakistan, was uncovered. Though he has been put under ‘unspecified security measures’, yet the release of AQ Khan – dubbed by the United States State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid as a ‘serious proliferation risk’ – is considered to be a disturbing development for the non-proliferation regime.

Nuclear Weapons and War

The November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that shook the world again had tangible links to the security and intelligence establishment of Pakistan. The emergent situation is forcing the policy-making community to take appropriate action so that the culprits are brought to justice and the elements sponsoring the terror attacks in India are adequately deterred. Several options were being exercised and explored for the purpose. As the Pakistani Government is undertaking only cosmetic and deceptive steps to ward off international pressure, the world and India appear far from convinced.

Is NPT Membership as a Nuclear Weapon State an Option for India?

Today, it is necessary for India to respond to the current crisis of the NPT and weigh its options vis-a-vis the Treaty. This paper is an attempt to explore answers to the question of what ought to be India's policy in the light of the new nuclear reality. It analyses three policy options that India could pursue and concludes that India must strive to join the NPT as a nuclear weapon country, because joining the non-proliferation regime by evading the NPT is likely to prove costly and is also unlikely to remove destabilizing irritants.