India and the Global Non-Proliferation Regime

India and the NPT

• India has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
• The treaty splits the world into two groups: recognised nuclear states and the rest.
• Only countries that tested a device before 1 January 1967 count as recognised.
• India says this is unfair. The line is drawn by date, not by behaviour.
• Read the full story in NPT and India. The companion treaty is in CTBT and India.

The NSG

• The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was formed in 1975, after India’s 1974 test.
• It restricts nuclear trade with states outside the NPT.
• This long limited India’s access to nuclear technology and fuel.

Joining other treaties anyway

• India has signed and ratified major conventions on weapons of mass destruction.
• This includes the Chemical Weapons Convention, even though India stays outside the NPT.
• The body that oversees it is described in OPCW.

The 2008 waiver

• On 6 September 2008, the NSG granted India a special waiver.
• It opened the door to civilian nuclear trade, though India stayed outside the NPT.
• A waiver is an exception. It is not membership.
• The deal behind it is in The NSG and the India-US Nuclear Deal.

A selective stance

• India combines staying outside the NPT with active support for other disarmament goals.
• That makes it a deliberately selective approach, not a blanket rejection.
• India argues that commitments should be judged by a state’s actual behaviour and safeguards, not only by the treaties it has signed.

Beyond the waiver

• India has also sought full NSG membership, a formal seat in the group that once restricted it.
• It applied in 2016. China has blocked consensus, saying a non-NPT state should not join.
• Wanting a seat, not just a waiver, shows these are two different goals.

The wider export-control web

• The NSG is one of several export-control regimes.
• India joined the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in 2016.
• It joined the Wassenaar Arrangement in 2017.
• That rounded out India’s membership in the major regimes on sensitive exports.
• Read about missiles in Missile Technology Programmes and the doctrine in India’s Nuclear Doctrine.

What India objects to

• India does not oppose non-proliferation or disarmament in general.
• It objects to the NPT’s two-tier structure between recognised and unrecognised nuclear states.
• Staying outside the NPT while ratifying WMD conventions shows a selective stance, not a rejection of the whole system.

Rules can bend

• The NSG waiver shows that rules can adapt without India changing its treaty status.
• It created a middle path between full compliance and continued exclusion.
• Other states have studied it as a precedent.
• India’s push for full membership shows a wider pattern: it wants a real seat at the table, not special exemptions from rules set by others.

Nuclear law, rewritten

• Parliament passed the SHANTI Act in December 2025.
• It repealed the 1962 Atomic Energy Act and the 2010 Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act.
• It allows limited private-sector entry into nuclear power.
• It also eases foreign vendors’ fears by dropping the operator’s right to sue suppliers over defective equipment.
• The goal is 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047.
• But foreign officials note that China’s veto, not India’s domestic law, remains the real obstacle to NSG membership.
• Source: PIB, December 2025.