NEW DELHI, Nov 14: The Western-inspired attempt to continue to isolate India at the UN was rejected yesterday, when as many as 67 countries supported a resolution introduced by New Delhi on reducing nuclear danger in the world.The surprising vote in the First Committee of the UN which debated and passed the resolution, exactly six months after India went nuclear, was 68 countries in favour, 44 countries against and 12 abstentions.The voting pattern reflected not only the will of the small and middle-level powers to censure the hypocrisy of the nuclear five and their allies, foreign policy analysts said, but also indicated that they were giving notice of their unwillingness to be taken for granted in the post-Cold War world.Four out of five nuclear weapons powersthe US, UK, France and Russia - voted against the resolution, which also seeks ``immediate and urgent steps to reduce the risks of unintentional and accidental use of nuclear weapons.'' China abstained because it wanted adherence to the NuclearNon-Proliferation treaty (NPT) mentioned in the text.``The vote shows that India's credentials to undertake such an initiative is widespread, and that the US-led attempt to describe this proposal as one that diverts attention from our own nuclear tests won't work,'' government sources said.They admitted that since the Indian resolution was introduced about a fortnight ago, Western powers were trying to insinuate that New Delhi was seeking ``nuclear status through the back door.''In effect, yesterday's vote became a sort of unstated referendum on India's nuclear status : while a powerful US sought to ``twist the tails'' of all those within its sphere of influence to vote against, India too went into overdrive, calling in old allies and engaging potential allies. Ministry sources pointed that ``nothing was left to chance.''The result was partly predictable: most US allies, who preach homilies about the end of N-tests to India, voted against the resolution. The ``Western club'' includes countrieslike Australia, Canada, Austria (the current president of the EU), Belgium, and even Scandinavian states like Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway.Central European states like Bulgaria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, who in recent years have been in dire need of aid transfusion, voted with their Western friends. Interestingly, Central Asian republics like Kazakhstan, Kyrghyzstan abstained, while Turkmenistan (heavily dependent on US oil and gas money) voted with India. The big surprise was Japan, which broke ranks with its US partner and abstained.The message, said the sources, is that ``nuclear weapons are essential for the security of the big powers despite the end of the Cold War, but not for others. And that even though the nuclear five have conducted thousands of tests themselves and continue to do so, it is India's and Pakistan's tests which are more dangerous.''Yesterday's vote actually comes within 24 hours of another vote in the UN on deploring testing in South Asia, this time co-sponsoredby Australia, Canada and a slew of countries like Lesotho, the Solomon Islands and Belgium. The government sources explained how the non-aligned world swung to support India: evidently, countries like Sri Lanka (on behalf of Saarc), Nigeria and Zimbabwe, South Africa, India as well as Pakistan had tried to introduce amendments to the Australia-Canada resolution, but were procedurally prevented from doing so.India's own resolution on reducing nuclear danger, moved the next day, was also seen by its supporters to be ``realistic'' as well as an end to the preachification it has indulged in over the last decade on nuclear disarmament.
