Ever since the end of World War II, industrialised and developed countries have tried to control the spread of strategic goods and dual-use technologies. Following the onset of the Cold War in the 1950s, these efforts gained further traction among the developed world keen to restrict the proliferation of such goods and technologies to the Soviet Union and its allies. Export control regimes including the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), and Australia Group (AG) were used as effective mechanisms for such purpose; since then, this had gained prominence in the East-West or the North-South context as well. In the recent years, there is a new determination in making the technology control regimes more inclusive and democratic, and expanding their scope by bringing in new members who can contribute to their further strengthening. The current process of bringing India into these regimes is a case in point.

For long, the international community has viewed India and its policies as being against the interests of these export control regimes. This is despite the fact that India has consistently remained an ardent anti-proliferationist. This perspective from the global non-proliferation community has made India look at these regimes as means to deny developing countries access to technology. Nevertheless, the changing nature of threats to international security and the increasing strategic convergence between India and the major global powers are beginning to create new dynamics within the non-proliferation regime. Importantly, this has led to a growing recognition of India as a “like-minded partner” with similar non-proliferation objectives. This in turn has pushed India to approach these regimes in a more positive light; New Delhi has taken significant steps to integrate with the current regimes. While this in itself is a positive development, the journey to full integration is not easy and there are a handful of countries that continue to have reservations about India's accession.

This paper gives an overview of the Wassenaar Arrangement and India's evolving approach to it. It begins by capturing the origins and objectives of the Wassenaar Arrangement. The following section describes Washington's interests and priorities which have influenced the rules of engagement within the Wassenaar Arrangement; after all, it is the US which played a major role in establishing global rules on the transfer of advanced dual-use technologies. The paper then proceeds to discuss the control lists under the Wassenaar Arrangement, an understanding of which is required in order to appreciate the scope of its export controls. The final section provides a sketch of India's evolving approach to the broader global non-proliferation architecture which provides the rationale for the country's membership to the export control regimes, including the Wassenaar Arrangement. The paper concludes by highlighting India's position with particular reference to the membership criteria of the Wassenaar Arrangement, including both political and technical requirements, while underlining the merits of India's membership both from New Delhi's perspective as well as that of the regime.