INDIA, which conducted three nuclear tests so that it might be taken more seriously by the rest of the world, now waits nervously to see the results. In India itself there was jubilation, and newspaper headlines proclaimed that India was now next only to the United States and Russia in nuclear technology.

It has certainly pushed up the ratings of the right-wing Hindu nationalist party, the BJP. Prime Minister Vajpayee's Government has done more in two months than the previous Congress and leftist alliance parties did in two years. Though leading a fragile coalition after the nuclear tests no-one either within or outside the Government will challenge the Prime Minister.

The BJP is now confident that it can call an election and win a comfortable majority to rule on its own. Certainly the nuclear explosion has had a populist effect and has done much to raise sagging morale of the country. But what lies beyond?

The expected bombshell of sanctions has not come, more than 24-hours after the explosion. The Americans are wavering, as are the Japanese who are pondering whether to continue their $1000m aid package to India. The political committee of the European Union at the level of directors-

general is meeting either in London or Brussels and there will be a united reaction of the 15 member states.

China and, surprisingly, India's old ally, Russia, have condemned the tests, but the only ones to act have been New Zealand and Australia who have recalled their ambassadors from New Delhi for ''consultations''.

There are two reasons for American reticence. First, US trade with India has grown enormously; both the Americans and Europeans will have to take into account the effect it will have on their own export earnings if they impose sanctions against India.

The second point is a strong hint by a spokesman of the Indian Prime Minister's office that India may be willing to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) now that it has conducted four tests (one in 1974 and three now), and will no longer need to go in for more explosions.

Speaking a few hours after the tests, the Principal Secretary of the Prime Minister noted: ''India would be prepared to consider being an adherent to some of the undertakings of the CTBT. But this cannot obviously be done in a vacuum. It would necessarily be an evolutionary process from concept to commitment and would depend on a number of reciprocal activities.''

A US spokesman said that if India signed the CTBT sanctions would not be imposed.

From India's point of view it has broken the Western shackle of constantly being seen in the same light as Pakistan. Its nuclear know-how matches China more than Pakistan

and India's nuclear weapons are aimed at China.

Of the three tests, the thermonuclear test is the most important. It will provide a delivery system for India's intercontinental missiles, most of which are aimed at Chinese targets. The other two tests were with a fission device and a low-yield device. These are for short-range missiles but will help in the accuracy of the missile which will now be able to hit their targets better.

Apparently India spurred its nuclear experiments after Pakistan tested a medium-range missile with Chinese and North Korean assistance. It was not so much the Pakistani missile as the Chinese assistance to Pakistan through North Korea that concerned India. This, along with Chinese nuclear missiles in Tibet and increasing Chinese military presence in Burma and in the Burmese island of Coco, close to Indian territory, led India to believe that it was being encircled by China. There is little doubt that the Chinese did begin a strategic encirclement of India through Pakistan, Tibet, and Burma.

Much of Chinese strategy was aimed at North-eastern India and in the Indian Ocean. Indian vulnerability made it act rather than react.

Critics of the Clinton administration in the United States say the Government should have censured Pakistan and China on the missile test. By not doing so the Clinton administration made India feel isolated and vulnerable.

Too stringent sanctions could be counterproductive. They would affect Western trade in a huge market and would help China become stronger in the region. India's eclipse in Southern Asia would be a Western defeat because in many ways an Indian bulwark against China is as much in the interest of the West as it is of India.

Western sanctions would bring nationalism to the forefront in India and if anything would further strengthen the nationalist BJP Government rather than weaken it.