PYQ Vault · Paper 2 · India & the Nuclear Question

Examine the evolution of India’s role in the global nuclear order.

How the answer moves

The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.

Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes

Route 1 principled outsider accommodated de facto power never joined the central treaty

Route 2 Pant: security universal disarmament tension India as first critic, then claimant

Body flow

early advocacy + institutions + implicit umbrellas (Kennedy) 1974 PNE = latency NPT rejected as “nuclear apartheid” (Jaswant Singh) 1998 Pokhran-II = self-declared NWS sanctions normalisation 2005–08 deal + 2008 NSG waiver MTCR / Wassenaar / Australia Group Chacko & Davis: “responsibility” reframed as equality compliance as resistance

Counter-view

still outside NPT, CTBT, TPNW order now unravelling New START lapse (Feb 2026) + NPT credibility test (2026 RevCon) clean record + regimes still sustain de facto power but standing rests on great-power restraint India cannot command

Conclusion routes

Route 1 outside advocate de facto power that turned exclusion into a case for reform accepted in practice, apart in law

Route 2 reframed responsibility as India’s lever next test: holding its standing as the order decays

Model answer

Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.

Handwritten model answer — UPSC PSIR 2021, India & the Nuclear Question