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Title: Raised a discussion on the statement made by the Prime Minister in the House on 27.5.98 on the recent nuclear tests in Pokhran. (Not Concluded) 14.39 hrs MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, the discussion on the statement made by the hon. Minister under Rule 193 has been admitted in the names of Shrimati Geeta Mukherjee and Shri V.V. Raghavan. They have now requested me to allow Shri Indrajit Gupta to raise the discussion on their behalf. I have allowed Shri Indrajit Gupta to raise the discussion.

As I said, if Pakistan chooses to go in for what you may call a sort of tit-for-tat policy then there is a grave risk of nuclear arms race being triggered of in this part of the continent.

The Prime Minister has said nothing about the economic cost of producing nuclear weapons. He has not specifically said anything about the impact of sanctions or the threat of sanctions. But I think our country, our Government, along with development of nuclear testing should give a clear-cut commitment that we are not going to go in for the first use or the first strike of such weapons. We should say that the first strike will never be by India and invite all other countries to join in this commitment and ask them to respond to it and if they do not respond, they will automatically be exposed.

So, these American companies who are very conscious of the huge market which exists here in India, even if the official agencies impose sanctions, and nothing that we have done will dissuade or should dissuade the American private investors and multinational corporations from taking advantage of these various projects. So, on the balance, we may not lose, we may even gain.

The Prime Minister mentioned this morning that they have declared a voluntary moratorium. I would like to know a little more about this. What exactly do you mean by this `voluntary moratorium'? We have already said that we would consider signing some aspects of this CTBT. Nobody has clarified, what is meant by `some aspects of the CTBT'. One of the main conditionalities of the CTBT is that nuclear testing should be stopped. This applies to all signatories to the CTBT. If we have already unilaterally declared that we are going to go in for a voluntary moratorium, now does it mean that one of the conditionalities of the CTBT is, in fact, being accepted by us by the back-door and that is the signal that we want to send out? Whatever it is, let the country and the Parliament be taken into confidence. There should be transparency now about these things and we should be told what exactly the Government is preparing to do.

MR. SPEAKER : Please do not disturb him.

... (Interruptions)

SHRI K. NATWAR SINGH : Now, Sir, what has happened is that the nuclear test are behind us. If the hon. Prime Minister and the BJP had simply said that in their manifesto they had said that they will review the defence policy, the strategic policy; there will be a National Security Council which will examine this and they will then re-evaluate their policy and then they will go for nuclear weapon programme and exercise the nuclear option, we could understand that. But it is not so. The reason given by the Government in the letter to President Clinton, as has been said by Shri Indrajit Gupta, is that there is a security threat from China. Now, we are entitled to know from the hon. Prime Minister when did this threat begin? Did it begin on the 19th of March when he took over? Or, did it begin on the 8th of April when he gave the green signal to his scientists? How serious was this threat? Have the Chinese forces moved round to our borders? Have the Pakistanis mounted an exercise which threatened the city of Amritsar? I think we are entitled to ask these questions because he has had no time to review the threat perception obviously between 19th of March and the 8th of April. Mr. Prime Minister, if you had done the review the House would like to be told what these findings are of the high-level review of India's security concerns.