During the darkest days of the World War I, the Austrian poet, Karl Kraus wrote: “If we still had imagination, we would no longer wage war”. But human innovative proclivity towards destructive pursuits, it appears, often draws curtain over imagination. The creation of the doomsday machine - the atomic bomb - brings the most frightening prospect of what has been characterized as the “nuclear winter”. It is not a fantasized popular end-of-the-world-dread, but “gives concrete substance to that image; using a just small portion of our nuclear stockpiles, we may so impair our habitat, the earth, that it no longer can sustain human and other forms of life.”1 Andrei Sakharov also reiterated: “A very large nuclear war would be a calamity of indescribable proportions and absolutely unpredictable consequences, with the uncertainties tending towards the worst.... all-out nuclear war would mean the destruction of contemporary civilization, throw man back centuries, cause the death of hundreds of millions or billions of people, and with a certain degree of probability, would cause man to be destroyed as a biological species.”2
The apocalyptic predictions are made by the very scientists, who under the spell of creative impulse had forsaken humanity. In 1982, Admiral Hymen Rickover, who is characterized the father of the America’s nuclear navy, said, “I think we’ll probably destroy ourselves”, and added, “I’m not proud of the part I played”.3 Robert Oppenheimer, who had initially favoured using the atomic bomb, had later disowned the responsibility for the second-generation H. Bomb weapon systems, and in the report of the Advisory Committee, US Atomic Energy Commission, October 1949, had voiced the concern: “The extreme danger to mankind inherent in the proposal (by Edward Teller, and others to develop thermonuclear weapon) wholly outweighs any military advantage.”4
It is a bewildering dilemma that nuclearism draws both the proponents and the opponents. Very often one discerns what Lifton calls the “retirement syndrome”: “One has to assume psychologically that the man-weapons constellation is so pervasive while a person is in office, the pattern of nuclearism so dominant, that the world is seen through a prism of nuclear weapons, and therefore nuclear weapons-centered policies are promulgated. At the movement of retirement, however, a person can take a step back and, prodded by conscience, voice doubts that were previously suppressed ... Eisenhower’s famous warning about the military - industrial complex, was a retirement speech.”5
Nuclear weapon unfortunately is a weapon of expediency and politics. One would agree with Jasjit Singh when he says ... “if we look beyond the superficial, it has been clear that nuclear weapons were more an instrument of politics rather than a military instrument of war-fighting. The end of the Cold War, by ending the militarized confrontation has, if anything, made this aspect even more clear.”6 One is not inclined to agree when he says, that Mahatma Gandhi - the apostle of peace - kept silent for months, when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were victims of atomic bombs, for the reason that he feared that this weapon could be used against India to deny her independence and that only after he was certain that the commitment to India’s independence was unambiguous, he joined the anti-bomb campaign. In the first place, it is too far-fetched a logic to buy, and secondly, if it is accepted, to be the “reason,” why instant condemnation was not made of the crime against humanity - what Hiroshima and Nagasaki tragedies symbolized - it does not lend much justification for the prefix-Maha, before Aatma, connoting a “super soul”, which ought to be transcendental and rise above the mundane, and realpolitik considerations. “Terrible ifs accumulate”, Churchill had lamented. Evil is evil. Any predilection to qualify it, would proliferate nuclear politics and non-proliferation would remain “will-o’-the-wisp”.
Indian strategic thought, has always felt uncomfortable with moral choices. K. Subrahmanyam makes the following assertions:
· “Unfortunately in this country whether it is Gandhiji’s non-violent struggle against the British colonialism or Nehru’s non-alignment, the strategies which are eminently justifiable on the basis of strict rationality, have been diluted by mixing them with moral choices and in the process the further evolution of strategic thought has been smothered by platitudinous verbiage. Gandhiji’s non-violent credo did not stand in the way of his strongly supporting the use of the Indian Army in Kashmir nor did Nehru’s non-alignment prevent him from accepting military assistance from both US and the Soviet Union in 1963, when the country’s security compulsions demanded it.
· Americans could not distinguish the nuances of difference between non-alignment and neutrality but it is unfortunate that many Indians too failed to do so. The essence of non-alignment was the freedom of exercising options on the basis of perceived national interests.
· .....Indian policy on Afghanistan - private disapproval of Soviet intervention and publicly refraining from condemnation - [was not] a violation of non-alignment.”7
Just as non-alignment was a national strategy to suit the imperatives of the bipolar world, the nuclear policy has undergone transformation which suits the requirements of the ‘polycentric world”. In jockeying for power in the Post Cold War calculus, India asserted that it need not be apologetic about its overt nuclear status. Dubbing the Pokhran-I, explosion - a peaceful one and naming it “Smiling Buddha”, were the compulsions that Congress, used as a ruse to camouflage, the latent motive. Actually, South Asia was nuclearised in May 1974, as has been testified by Raja Ramanna - the former Chairman of the Indian Energy Commission. It is on this account that Jaswant Singh is critical of nuclear duplicity - a wrong policy of its own making. “In 1974”, he says, “with an underground explosion, India demonstrated an ability, but disclaimed the intent. In retrospect, this step is to be faulted on both counts. India ought either not have carried out such an experiment at all; a simple explosion as a capability demonstrated, would have sufficed if it intended to deny itself the capability thereafter. By demonstrating the ability, India had effectively and explicitly entered the world of nuclear capability. Had it then conducted a series of other such tests and established its intent clearly, all its confusion of subsequent years, also these current international pressures, and all other difficulties of today would have been easier to cope with. Instead, India went into nuclear trance; pretense replaced policy.”8 It is this logic which propelled the BJP government, under the influence of Jaswant Singh, the defence and external affairs expert, who made it explicitly clear: “the currency for the conduct of international relations is “power” and that remains, atleast for the present irrefutable.”9
One can readily see why Pokhran II was named Shakti - the invincible power symbol. Linked with this issue was the credibility factor of the party-in-power, as it had to fulfil the promise made as part of the election manifesto to make India overtly nuclear. Though this government survived only thirteen months, it did bring out South Asia out of the nuclear closet. From state of nuclear ambiguity and benign non-weaponised deterrence, India and Pakistan were brought to a nuclear eye-ball to eye-ball confrontational posture - a state of brinkmanship.
It has been denied by Jasjit Singh. “India”, he said, “does not require nuclear weapons for prestige or status”.10 To support his argument, he contends: “It (India) is the largest democracy in the world that is in the middle of human history’s most ambitious experiment, to transform a traditional culture into a modern society, an agrarian de-industrialized economy into a developed system, a stratified social system into a more equitable order, all through consultative political process. Our strategic priority continues to be the socio-economic development of the nearly one-sixth of humanity that constitutes our nation.”11 In the first place, if the strategic priority were socio-economic development, and not security concern in terms of defence expenditure - conventional and nuclear - India’s profile is far from laudable. According to an estimate; in India, 291 million adults are still illiterate; 135 million people are denied access to primary health care; 226 million are without safe drinking water and 640 million are without basic sanitation facilities. Forty four percent of the total population lives in absolute poverty. Almost one-third of the world’s poor live in India.”12 It is not intended to convey that Pakistan in any sense is economic haven: Far from it, as over two-third of Pakistan’s adult population are illiterate; 17 million children were out of primary school in 1995; 60 million people do not have access to health facilities; 67 million people are without safe drinking water, and 89 million people are deprived of basic sanitation facilities. There are more than 36 million people who live in absolute poverty.”13
The military stomach of India and Pakistan is disproportionately roly poly, and over- blown as compared to the rest of the structure, and particularly the economic feet, which are frail and tiny, presenting a funny appearance. Late Mahboob ul Haq rightly pointed out that while the rest of the world was heading towards peace and prosperity, these “two countries are spending $ 20 billion a year on defence, twice as much as Saudi Arabia, a country 25 times wealthier. Both countries have six times more soldiers than doctors ... How tragically comic that after bleeding their economies to fund their defence expenditures, the two governments beg and submit to all sorts of conditionalities from international lending institutions. The economic costs of the continuing confrontation between Islamabad and New Delhi are prohibitive, but policy-makers in the respective capitals seem unable to recognize what is obvious to every one else, that human security is the most important element of national security.”14
According to an estimate Pakistan is spending Rs. 315.76 million a day; Rs. 13 million an hour; Rs. 219280 a minute and Rs. 2654 a second on defence.15 If the two countries could value investment in human priority areas, by diverting a portion of their defence expenditure, they could ensure universal primary education, within a span of fifteen years - 1995 to 2010, (India by spending $ 1536.7 and Pakistan $ 527.9 per year). Similarly for health care (India required $ 1268.5 and Pakistan $ 407.72) and for safe drinking water for all (India needed $ 162.96 and Pakistan $ 43.69 annually). In other words, the two countries by earmarking $ 4434.8 and $ 1372.5 annually, could catch up with the developed countries to attain position of respectively in meeting the fundamental economic rights of their people. But the priorities are so grossly inverted that weaponisation and maintenance of nuclear programme have further lowered the socio-economic profile of India and Pakistan, which falls behind even sub Saharan Africa.16
Pakistan’s economic predicament is not one of its own making. It is hostage to India’s overbearing posture to dominate the region, and extend it even beyond. A Russian scholar writes: “The core of Brezhnev - Indira doctrine is legitimizing of Indian interference into neighbouring state’s affairs in cases when Delhi perceived even a potential threat to its interests. India could react by subversive operations, resort to ultimatum - impose unequal treaties, start wars or occupy part or the whole of territory in question. Some examples of this doctrine application are Indian strategic dictate to Nepal, prevention of its getting equidistant status between India and China, encouraging separatist movement in [the] East Pakistan, which resulted in partition of Pakistan, invasion on Maldives and temporary occupation of Northern Sri Lanka ... Nowadays the system of regional stability in South Asia remains basically unchanged.”17 It is essentially a system of recycled antagonism, which persists even after the Cold War. Pakistan’s security anxiety is legitimate, as Indian endowed with a hegemonic mind-set has fourth largest Army, fifth largest Navy and sixth largest Airforce in the world. Pakistan - one seventh the size of India, and being subjected to three wars within a span of half-a-century, is living under a perpetual threat - how, to protect its integrity and sovereignty? Several examples of India’s hegemonic disposition, which have bearing on India’s nuclear self image, may be cited:
· India’s determination, following its military victory in the war of 1971, which dismembered Pakistan is, to assert a right to hegemony over the smaller nations of South Asia. Priding itself, on its large and modernized army, its air armada, and blue water navy, its nuclear weapons, rockets and satellite-launching capabilities, India considers itself entitled to recognition by the international community as a great power. Both the Soviet Union and the United States have committed themselves through the transfer of the most modern weaponry or state-of-the-art military technology to the realization by India of its ambition to become a great world power within the shortest possible time”. (Agha Shahi)18
· Pannikar, in his book “India and the Indian Ocean”, had argued: To the Indian Ocean, then we shall turn as our ancestors did when they conquered Socotra (Sukhdara) in the Arabian Sea and established empire in the Pacific, which lasted for 1500 years.19
· Barbra Crossette said: Politically, every one of India’s smaller neighbour has been the victim of Kautilyan intrigue since the death of Nehru in 1964 and the subsequent consolidation of power by his daughter, Indira Gandhi, a few years later. Except for two brief historical moments, in 1977-79, under a Janata Party government and in 1989-90, when Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh and his foreign minister, Inder Kumar Gujral pledged to stop playing dirty tricks on the neighbours, Indian policy making on Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and to some extent Maldives and Pakistan (a special case) was a game for intelligence agents, schemers in the Ministry of External Affairs, and viceregal diplomats in imperial cloaks.”20
Nuclear programme of India from its very inception was power and status driven, contrary to the view expressed by Jasjit Singh. Concluding a debate on the Atomic Energy Bill in the Legislative Assembly on 6 April 1948, Jawaharlal Nehru said: “Consider the past four hundred years of history. The world developed a new source of power, i.e., steam and the industrial age came in. India with all her many virtues did not develop that source of power and it became a backward and a slave country because of that. Now we are on the verge of atomic age. If we are to remain abreast in the world as a nation which keeps ahead of things, we must develop this atomic energy quite apart from war ... Ofcourse, if we are compelled as a nation to use it for other purposes, no pious sentiments of any one of us can stop the nation from using it that way.”21 Homi Bhabha was the Indian nuclear scientist, who found in Mr. Nehru, an ardent supporter of his nuclearised vision of India.
Strobe Talbot - US Deputy Secretary of State - had made an interesting disclosure that “the dispute over nuclear weapons has been part of the subject of US-Indian relations from the earliest days of India’s independence from Britain. Even at the dawn of the nuclear age, Indian leadership had foreseen the possibility of the bombs looming large in the coming phase of international politics.”22 While it may be true that India’s intentions were known, there was no systematic attempt to dissuade India from doing so, particularly, taking the reality into cognition that at that time when India was trying to sneak into nuclear club, it faced no threat at all from any quarter. Actually, the Super Powers were so much engrossed in themselves that horizontal proliferation at that time was of no serious concern to them, and perhaps, they also under-estimated the Third World capability to become nuclear. Their overriding concern was to keep Japan and Germany - the World War II allies - from acquiring nuclear bombs, and this they achieved remarkably well. India thus got practically a free hand in developing its nuclear weapons and for development of missile technology uninterrupted and, in fact, even a very facilitative climate to fulfil its objectives.
Pandit Nehru, was quite conscious of the power dynamics of a nation. India, with a billion population, he thought had the requisite potential of having a “tryst with destiny”, particularly being a successor to the British paramountcy which extended from the Red Sea to the strait of Malaca. Pakistan’s creation was conceived a great set-back to that grandiose a dream, and it has been the Congress Party’s obsession since then, to cripple Pakistan from the day one it came into existence. Nuclear ambition flows from the coercive power that it deemed vital to attain. Mr. Nehru, made it quite explicit to the Indian parliament on 25 February 1955: “We feel, in so far as international policy is concerned that right and wrong counts. But it is not the rightness of a proposition that makes it listened to but ... the country which says so and the strength behind that country”?
Mahatma Gandhi held a similar view, that those nations who have atom bomb are feared even by their friends. Taking the cue, the 11 May 98, three nuclear detonations, and followed by two more subcritical tests on 13 May 1998, the Indian leaders embarked upon a systematic campaign of intimidation, so that Pakistan, gets frightened and eventually surrender to the strategic dictates of India. The euphoria was indeed overwhelming, as if Pakistan was totally knocked out of the nuclear arena. There was a clear manifestation of a feeling that Pakistan’s nuclear bluff was exposed, and that India being the only nuclear actor in South Asia, would bring Pakistan to a state of total servitude. Some utterances of Indian leaders may be cited:
· Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpai came out with a very proud proclamation that India had the Big Bomb. “It is not a conferment, we seek, nor is it a status for others to grant.” In other words, it was an achievement - “an endowment to the nation by our scientists and engineers.”23
· The Indian Interior Minister L. K. Advani, did not refrain from issuing blunt warnings to Pakistan. He “vowed to end the Pakistani menace”24, and that “a qualitative new stage of India - Pakistan relations has been brought about by the country becoming the nuclear - weapon state”.25
· M. L. Khurana - a Minister in the Indian Cabinet said without mincing words that India was now fully prepared to “fight a fourth war with Pakistan, and that, it should tell us the place and the time, and we are ready.”26
Pakistan’s nuclear communication by five counter-blasts on May 28, 1998 and an extra one - two days later on 30th May, brought about an element of “nuclear sobriety” in the region. The tone and tenor of India markedly changed from out-right belligerence and buoyancy to one of a deflated ego. Pakistan’s 17-day restraint was to gauge how the international world opinion reacted to India’s blatant defiance of non-proliferation regime. It was nothing beyond a ritualistic condemnation. Pakistan was counselled to exercise restraint without any firm assurances to augment its security and taking no notice of the fact that the Indian Prime Minister had unequivocally asserted: “India is now a nuclear weapon state and it would not hesitate to deploy nuclear weapons.”27 To be a nuclear timid was not in the psyche of Pakistan. It did what any respectable nation would have done under a humiliating nuclear black-mailing. The gravity of the South Asian nuclear predicament, was only realized by the Foreign Minister of P-5, after Pakistan gave a befitting nuclear response. They felt constrained to issue a joint communiqué: “To reinforce security and stability in the region, the Five strongly believe that India and Pakistan should adhere to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty immediately and unconditionally, thereby facilitating its early entry into force. The Five also call upon India, and Pakistan to participate in a positive spirit and on the basis of the agreed mandate in negotiation with other states in the conference on Disarmament for a Fissile Material Cut-off Convention with a view to reaching early agreement. The Five will seek firm commitments by India and Pakistan not to weaponise or deploy nuclear weapons or missile. India and Pakistan should also confirm their policies not to export equipment, materials or technology that could contribute to weapons of mass destruction or missiles capable of delivering them and should undertake appropriate commitments in that regard.”28
The international concern as expressed by P-5 communiqué has in a way gone to the advantage of Pakistan in ways more than one. The upsurge of Hindu Fundamentalism backed by Indian militarism, brought a new dimension of threat of nuclear arms proliferation in South Asia, by an abrupt demolition of covert and non-weaponised deterrence, which had provided an element of strategic stability. Non-weaponised deterrence also provided safety and security against accidents, entailing nuclear catastrophe for the region. The onus of a rash and irresponsible demonstration of being an overt nuclear power went to India. Pakistan was left with no choice, and the Chaghi nuclear test explosions, brought Pakistan at nuclear parity with India, and it emerged as the seventh nuclear power in the world. For this the credit must go to India. Although Pakistan had to suffer the consequences of sanctions, there was a genuine global appreciation that Pakistan could not be equated with India on nuclear crime - throwing the non-proliferation regime into jeopardy. In other words, Pakistan acquired the nuclear status without the stigma, which India must carry with itself no matter how high it may climb the nuclear ladder.
Indian Defence Minister George Farnandes, contrary to all common sense came out with a very startling depiction of China as India’s enemy No. 1. Why, seemingly such a preposterous statement was made, baffled the strategic analysts, particularly cognising the fact that during the past few years, China-India relations were positively on the increase. President Jiang Zemin had visited India and showed marked conciliatory gestures and later when he visited Pakistan his theme was towards promoting understanding between the two Asian neighbours, and that India and Pakistan must resolve their differences through dialogue and negotiation. Just prior to India’s nuclear Pokhran II explosions the head of People’s Liberation Army had made his first visit to India. There was no justification for such a provocative statement by the Indian defence minister, as China never nourished any expansionist tendencies. A country which had built the Great Wall, against centuries of aggressions, could never be an empire- builder. Even with a country like Taiwan, on which China lays its claim, it has shown no predilection for any military action. Patience and strategic restraint are the hallmark of Chinese diplomacy.
Using China factor for Indian nuclear test explosions also defies logic. India was sufficiently well advanced in nuclear technology and was on the threshold of making bomb, when China exploded the device in 1964. Even if it had not emerged a nuclear power, India was destined to achieve this status sooner or later. Moreover, when China had initiated its nuclear programme, the relations were quite cordial with India. There is thus a method in madness in conjuring up the image of China as an enemy. These are:
· India has to justify its enormous military budget, which is sheer mind boggling, as it may run into 100 billion dollars over the next decade and perhaps even more. To be able to maintain a credible nuclear deterrence, investments into delivery system of missiles, both Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), and other paraphernalia like early warning systems, consisting of satellite and other intelligence gathering measures, communication systems, other demands of command and control and construction of hardened silos for storage of nuclear warheads, and missiles to be able to withstand any pre-emptive strikes, entailing exorbitant costs.
· There is a deliberate design behind projecting China as an enemy to get maximum military and economic favours from USA, which is perceived to follow policy of strategic ambivalence towards the fast growing preponderance of China as a formidable global actor, by dexterously blending the military and economic parameters of power. India’s wishful ambition to seek nuclear parity with China entails colossal risk that whatever élan and vitality it may have achieved, will melt under the excessive heat of nuclearization.
By dubbing China as an enemy, India has benefitted Pakistan, as the tie of friendship between these two Asian neighbours has further been strengthened. As some of the Chinese strategists maintain that China’s relations with India is of tactical nature, with Russia it is based on strategic considerations and with Pakistan it is of a comprehensive nature. Not only understanding between China and Pakistan is getting maturer and stable, the pressure of security on Pakistan is also diminishing. If China is a threat to India, it is for the former to deal with the exigency and why should Pakistan bother, who would be quite content with its minimal deterrence capability, which is good enough to protect its integrity.
Howsoever, India may boast of being the sixth nuclear power, yet its status is far behind the five nuclear nations. It can only claim to attain a credible deterrence in South Asia, but it cannot match even France and China, what to speak of the other two great nuclear powers - USA and Russia. Muchkund Dubey, former Foreign Secretary of India, maintains that sheer atomic tests do not lend nuclear deterrence to India. “It has only displayed a nuclear-weapons capability, there is still a long way to go before acquiring a credible deterrence.”29 Deterrence flows not from weapons as much, as from the will of a nation to press the button and not merely in having it. The absurdity with which deterrence works has been mentioned by Mikhail Gorbachev. “The ultimate absurdity,” he said, “of relying on nuclear weapons was drastically revealed to me, and I am sure to President Bush as well, when we met in Washington in the summer of 1990. During that visit, we shared a helicopter ride together to Camp David. Near President Bush sat a military aide with the nuclear codes enabling him to destroy the Soviet Union. Near me sat, my military aide with the codes required to destroy the United States. Yet President Bush and I sat together on that small helicopter talking about peace. Neither of us planned to ever use the awesome power we each possessed. Yet we possessed it and we both knew how ordinary and fallible we both were.”30
Deterrence worked in the case of two super powers during the Cold War as has been dramatically brought to light by Gorbachev. Pleading for one standard, Jaswant Singh maintains: “India’s nuclear policy remains firmly committed to a basic tenet, that the country’s national security in a world of nuclear proliferation lies either in global disarmament or in exercise of the principle of equal and legitimate security for all.”31 He believes disarmament to be “unrealistic politics”, and discards the apprehensions with respect to India becoming nuclear. “If the permanent five’s possession of nuclear weapons increases security, he says, “why would India’s possession of nuclear weapons be dangerous?”32 To come at par with the five nuclear nations, is the driving motive. “If the permanent five continue to employ nuclear weapons, as an international currency of force and power, why should India voluntarily devalue its own state power and national security?33 He therefore poses a fundamental question: “If deterrence works in the West as it so obviously appears to, since western nations insist on continuing to possess nuclear weapons - by what reasoning will it not work for India”.34
Dr. Bowen, questions the efficiency of seductive super power model, which in his view, is wrong. “Such a logic”, he said, “would be persuasive if several things were always true; if leaders were always logical; and of perception of the situation in the real world were always reasonably accurate. After having gone through it, my take on the Cold War is that the super powers get through it with a consistent streak of luck as much as through the careful and wise decisions of national leaders. It was not western superiority that was decisive in preserving peace but prolonged luck”.35 The second argument is that US and USSR did not share common geography as the South Asian rivals do. The super powers shared a buffer -thousands of miles of Ocean between them - but this is not the case with South Asia. “Even with the fastest ballistic missiles”, he said, “the time from launch to impact was 30 minutes. A half-hour may not be much time, but it is generally enough to pause to assess a warning that something drastic is about to happen, to determine if the warning was a false one, or simply to give a chance for cooler heads to prevail.”36
In the case of South Asia, it would be “a tenth of the time the super powers had - 30 minutes isn’t much, but it’s a lot better than three minutes”. It is on this basis that “progress on weaponization, on inducting weapons into the armed forces, and deployment of these nuclear forces should stop. Each step up the ladder, each additional rung, places the region closer to the point where some accident or miscalculation could lead to nothing but disaster. The nuclear genie cannot be put back in the bottle - but the genie need not be allowed to dictate how weapons and missiles go from the drawing board to the battle field.”37 One can thus see the futility of “non-first-use” of nuclear weapons proposition put forward by India, as the geography makes it utterly impossible to determine as to who was the “trigger happy”, within a span of three minutes.
The conflict-ridden South Asia has become all the more vulnerable after its nuclearization as historical animosities, may escalate into nuclear confrontation with horrendous consequences. Nuclearization is very often a precursor of nuclear competition, which exerts a dynamics of its own, where irrational fears, cloud rational thinking and misperceptions guide judgments. By altering the non-weaponised nuclear character of South Asia, India has triggered a snow-ball impact on the continent of Asia, and even beyond. Iran, may feel threatened and may opt to become nuclear. The nuclear fear waves may touch the shores of South East Asian countries, who would legitimately be concerned about their ‘security’ and maintaining the pace of their economic development. Similarly, with the prospect of Indian nuclear submarine, freely playing in the Indian Ocean - reportedly in the making in collaboration with Russia - Australia and Japan would have reasons to worry about and choose options to meet the threat.
In the global context also the long twenty five years efforts geared towards creating an attitudinal climate for freeing the world from the menace of nuclear weapons has received a substantial set-back. The nuclear nations may also find an easy excuse not to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), due to addition of two more nuclear countries in South Asia. One cannot easily reconcile to the fact, that when India had attained nuclear superiority over Pakistan by its 1974 test explosion, it chose to attain nuclear parity with Pakistan by 1998 detonations. The Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has pointed out this irony: “At a heavy cost, India has managed to convert its advantage over Pakistan into one of a complete Balance of Power.”38
The compulsion to attain nuclear nation dejure status, and thereby earn the requisite credential to be a permanent member of the Security Council, were perhaps the determinants of Pokhran II nuclear adventure. These ambitions were dashed to the ground. The P5 and Security Council refused to accept it even as defacto nuclear power in view of its limited nuclear capabilities. Pakistan never made such claims. The NPT - which now stands extended indefinitely, recognizes only 5 countries as nuclear power states, who have exploded a nuclear device prior to January 1, 1967 as per Article IX(3) of the NPT. To admit new members, the NPT would have to be amended, which would be impossible as many more states would like to enter the so-called ‘nuclear club’ as they have the capability to produce nuclear weapons at very short notice. Moreover, the dream to be a member of the Security Council is not likely to be fulfiled on the ground that India is a nuclear state, for it would tantamount to setting a wrong precedence and violate the very spirit of the non-proliferation regime.
The Kashmir liberation movement, which India is ruthlessly trying to crush assumed international visibility and the G-8 members unequivocally asserted the need to initiate direct dialogue between India and Pakistan, so that the root causes of the tension are removed including the contentious issue of Kashmir. It is being intensely realized that peace would never come to South Asia without resolving the core issue of Kashmir - which is now a nuclear flash point. The struggle initially indigenous in nature is now assuming extra-territorial dimensions, which has ominous bearing for the peace of the region. It is not within the competence of even Pakistan to stop infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC), as it has assumed a momentum of its own.
The freedom struggles all over the world, since World War II, depict a typical pattern that the forces of repression, as they swelled to a proportion of over five million figure, the stamina to sustain it had started wearing out. The logistical support for such high profile engagement results into serious psychological impact - drain on the economy, and deep depression on the hearts and minds of the policy makers. Symptoms of withering of morale of Indian soldiers, resulting in grave acts of indiscipline are reportedly on rise. This is the military logic which ultimately prevails, and determines the outcome of war of liberation and ultimately will also determine the fate of Kashmir war of liberation.
Jaswant Singh rightly feels that the end of Cold War did not result in the end of history. “The great thaw that began in the late 1980’s”, he said, “only melted down the ancient animosities of Europe. We have not entered a unipolar order. India still lives in rough neighbourhood. It would be a great error to assume that simply advocating the new mantras of globalization and the market, makes national security subservient to global trade. The 21st Century will not be the century of trade. The world still has to address the unfinished agenda of the centuries.”39 It is only logical that leadership in India, addressed the unfinished agenda of the partition of the subcontinent and honour its solemn commitment made to the people of Kashmir to determine for themselves through plebiscite, either to choose to be with India or Pakistan? The nuclear sanity will prevail in the region when India takes a strategic leap to settle the Kashmir imbroglio. This shall be the recipe to peace in the region.
Pakistan has to objectively assess as to what extent it can limit its nuclear capability without jeopardizing its security imperatives. It is therefore interesting to know that Pakistan, as early as 1989, on its own volition, had undertaken the requisite steps which were in keeping with the policy of Strategic Restraint adopted on the rational assessment that Pakistan had achieved the objectives of the nuclear programme which late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto initiated in 1975 and that there was no reason to pursue it any further. Therefore, measured decisions were taken by the Pakistan’s Nuclear Command Authority in 1989: Maintain a low level, non-weaponised minimum credible deterrence; ban on nuclear tests; cut-off in fissile material production and first use option to be retained as an essential element of deterrence. An important element of the above decision was that Pakistan’s nuclear programme was India specific and therefore it was of no consequence to Pakistan what other nuclear powers decided for themselves. Under the Policy of Strategic Restraint, adopted in 1989, the non-weaponised deterrence, which Pakistan deemed a functional imperative, was however changed into weaponised deterrence, when India exploded the device in 1998. It is therefore not difficult to distinguish who nourishes the objective of peace and who is propelling nuclear dread, in the region.
The divergence in policy and precepts between India and Pakistan on nuclearization makes convergence of interests difficult, yet that precisely is the challenge, both have to accept and surmount. Pakistan does not nourish any regional or global aspirations. It is not wedded to nuclearism. Maintaining a minimum nuclear deterrence is the life saving drug, which despite its attendant side effects, is deemed necessary to keep breathing. Taking the reality into perspective that India and Pakistan are nuclearised nations, what is the best option for them to follow? It is necessary to determine what is the core issue? The issue is how India and Pakistan, both possessing advanced nuclear capability, can maintain nuclear restraint. That must be addressed rather than chasing the elusive goal of nuclear weapon-free zone, and pursuing the unattainable goal of seeking to induce India and Pakistan to give up their nuclear options. The focus must shift to a policy to defuse nuclear holocaust. Such a policy would seek to freeze the stockpile of fissile material, the development of military related nuclear capabilities and production and deployment of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles by both the countries.
CTBT, therefore may be signed by Pakistan as it would not make any material difference. It would only tantamount to a formal declaration of its policy of Strategic Restraint it had voluntarily adopted in 1989 and was subsequently vindicated in 1998. All apprehensions about CTBT therefore are ill founded, yet the following must be kept in view:
CTBT is not targetted to the roll back of our nuclear programme.
· It does not entitle foreign agencies to inspect our nuclear installations, and that our freedom in this respect would be maintained.
· There is no discriminative clause in CTBT, and all nuclear nations would be treated at par.
· The inspection teams will inspect only that site, which would be earmarked for nuclear tests and that too not without our concurrence.
· It would be in the best interest of both India and Pakistan to sign the CTBT, simultaneously.
Pakistan has achieved the objective of a “minimum low-level credible nuclear deterrence”, and it is vital that it is maintained at that level. Pakistan has remarkably achieved its security needs and it need not worry any more. It has also stockpiled sufficient number of nuclear weapons and the fissile material. To determine what is the “minimal credible deterrence”, is the responsibility of Nuclear Command Authority (NCA). It is the nuclear attitude which makes the difference as it is the primary function of the political and military decision making process. Pakistan certainly is for limiting rather than accelerating it, which is different from the philosophy of nuclearism which grips the mind of Indian strategic thinkers.
Both India and Pakistan must learn the lessons of the nuclear age. It is a myth that nuclear secrecy enhances security. Perhaps survival in the nuclear age depends upon transparency in the nuclear field. This is because too much secrecy leads to suspicion which can, in turn, lead to unpredictable behaviour, based on fear and mistrust. Both Pakistan and India have moved in the right direction by signing an agreement not to attack each other’s nuclear installations. But much more needs to be done to defuse nuclear tension. “Nuclear hotlines” may be established to exchange nuclear information.
It took both, the US and ex-USSR several years and massive investments to guard against real dangers and build an effective Command, Control and Communication system. But Pakistan and India may neither have the resources nor the capability to develop such a system for ensuring nuclear safeguards and security. It therefore makes a great deal of sense, if the other nuclear powers share with us the know-how for storage of fissile nuclear materials, and for Command, Control and Communication systems to avoid nuclear accidents. The recent incident of leakage of heavy water from coolant channel in the nuclear power station at Kalpakkam, Madras, even though it is characterized as “zero category”, should be a matter of grave concern.
There is a general consensus that a nuclear policy, if applied symmetrically to both countries would be accepted by the domestic public, which is increasingly anxious over a nuclear arms race in South Asia. Security a regional standstill rather than a roll back would be the first, eminently a durable part of a non-proliferation package. Of late, ideas along these lines have emerged among intellectuals, who recommend a shift from a focus on non-proliferation in South Asia to a policy designed to maintain nuclear restraint. What makes some of these ideas reasonable, is that they appeal to public opinion in the sub-continent. By first levelling the nuclear playing field, the stage would be set to effectively pursue the goal of non-proliferation. This will provide a way out of the current nuclear impasse.
Let us remind ourselves what Lifton said: “I have in mind the spiritual aberration that I call nuclearism, the exaggerated dependence upon, even worship of, nuclear weapons. We embrace the weapons for purposes of safety and security, and seek in them a means of keeping the world going, a form of salvation. Nuclear winter contributes to our imagination by making it clear that the end point of nuclearism is extinction.”40
1. Robert. J. Lifton. Imagining the Real Beyond the Nuclear End. The Long Darkness Yale Univ. Press. 1986, p.8
2. Andrei Sakharov. Foreign Affairs 61, 1001 (1983).
3. Robert J. Lifton.. opt. cit. p.97
4. Quoted by Carl Sagan, Nuclear war and Climatic Catastrophe: Some Policy Implications, in the book Long Darkness opt.cit.p.8.
5. Ibid. P. 97.
6. Jasjit Singh, (Editor) Nuclear India, Shri Avatar, Printing Press. New Delhi 1998, p.11
7. Defending India by Jaswant Singh, Macmillan India 1992. Chapter Introduction by K. Subrahmanyam, pp. ix-8.
8. Ibid. p. 290.
9. Ibid. p. 291.
10. Jasjit Singh, Nuclear India. opt. cit. p-9.
11. Ibid. Pp. 9-10.
12. Munim Kumar Barai, Economic Impact of Nuclearization: Challenges for Bangladesh. BIISS papers Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies. No. 17, Dec. 98. Pp. 100-101.
13. Ibid. p.101.
14. Mahboob-ul Haq, Poverty and Military Spending in South Asia. Frontier Post. 8 April 96.
15. Zia Mian, The Poverty of Security. The News (Pakistan) 30 July 97.
16. Mahboob-ul Haq, Human Development in South Asia 1997. Quoted in Munim Kumar Barai, opt. cit. pp. 102-103.
17. International Affairs, Jan. 1993, Russia and South Asia. Pp. 73-74.
18. Agha Shahi, Pakistan India Relations: Prospects of Durable Peace, Compiled by Rafiq Ahmed, Pakistan, India Relations, Lahore 1976. pp. 4-5, selected speeches of Quaid-i-Azam, Univ. of Punjab.
19. Quoted in Ghani Eirabi; Quest for Balance of Power, Dawn. 25 Sept. 1998.
20. Babra Crossette, India and its neighbours. Pakistan Outlook. Vol. 4, No. 23, 1993.
21. Constituent Assembly Debates. Vol. 15, Second Session, 6 April 1948, pp. 3326-38.
22. Quoted in US Nuclear Gods in South Asia by Afzal Mahmood, Dawn (Daily, Pakistan) 12 March 99.
23. The Statesman, Delhi, 28 May 1999.
24. Asian Age, New Delhi, 19 May 1998.
25. The Telegraph, Calcutta, 19 May 1998.
26. Asian Age, 22 May 1998
27. India Today, 25 March 1998.
28. Dawn, 6 June 1998.
29. Mainstream, New Delhi, 27 June 1998.
30. Mikhail Gorbachev. The Search for a New Beginning: Developing a New Civilization, Harper, San Francisco. 1995. Pp. 4-5.
31. Jaswant Singh. Against Nuclear Apartheid. Foreign Affairs, Sept./Oct. 1998, p.41.
32. Ibid. P. 43.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Dr. Clayton P. Bowen, Nuclearization of South Asia: Challenge for Regional Stability, Strategic Studies Nepal Institute of International and Strategic Studies Nov. 98. P.50.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid. P.51.
38. Defence Journal (Pakistan), April 1999. P. 18.
39. Jaswant Singh, Against Nuclear Apartheid. Opt. Cit. P-52.
40. Robert Jay Lifton. Opt. Cit. P-96.