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Rajeev Srinivasan

The End of Nuclear Virginity: all things considered, this had to be

I believe, based on my reading of Indian history, that one of India's problems has always been the perception, and the reality, of her being a "soft state". For the past 50 years, naive Nehruvian ("Hindi-Chini etc") vacillation and craving for the approval of the foreigner made a laughing stock of the nation. Shrill, yet spineless scolds, the world, with justification, has determined India to be. And proceeded to merrily support terrorists and secessionists in India. No fear of retribution.

It's time to do stop turning the other cheek, and I am glad the government has shown some backbone by going ahead and ending the coy nuclear virginity of "will she or won't she." This, and George Fernandes's rude but truthful assertion that China is, and will be, India's biggest enemy, are eye-openers. Shocking, but true, there is "an India that can say no," an India that is not so worried about what others might think; an India, in short, that can pursue its own interests!

For the very first time in its history as an independent nation, India simply and brazenly articulated her interest when she stood up to mostly Western bullying and refused to sign the CTBT. Dire consequences were predicted at the time, by the usual suspects; but absolutely nothing happened -- the heavens really didn't fall.

Now comes the second time, as "The Buddha Smiles" again. I am a little disappointed that the nation chose Buddha Purnima, the birthday of its greatest son -- and a born pacifist at that -- to detonate weapons of mass destruction. But I like the continuity: almost 24 years to the day from India's previous test. No impartial observer could possibly accuse India of not having waited patiently for the rest of the world to pursue disarmament.

But to no avail, of course, thanks to the Big Five stand that they and they alone had some divine right to possess nuclear weapons. I was amused by the rationalisations of the US State Department spokesman, James Rubin, as he responded to questions about India's nuclear tests. He said, in so many words, that a lot of nations were prepared to accept the fact the US and pals had nukes, so why couldn't India? He practically whined. It was a pathetic display.

It is as though the Big Five have some divine dispensation -- like the Papal Bulls in medieval Europe that, for a large sum of money, absolved the rich and powerful of all their sins? What exactly gives China, one of the most aggressive and imperialistic nations ever to exist on the planet -- witness their treatment of Tibet, or their bullying of Southeast Asian nations over the Spratly Islands, or their saber-rattling against Taiwan -- the right to possess dangerous weapons?

Or for that matter, has-been powers like Britain and France? Why exactly must they have a force de frappe? Or the US, the only power to have ever used a nuclear weapon in anger -- what right does the US have to sermonise about the responsible use of these fearsome weapons? After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Americans have no moral leg to stand on.

I have been to Nagasaki more than once; I have been to the Peace Park, where there are sculptures from many nations (but not the US). I have seen the remains of the schoolyard that was close to the epicentre of the blast, with the melted steel of the playground, and it is easy to imagine the vaporised children. No, nukes are not pretty; but it is too late to put the genie back in the bottle. Therefore India really has no recourse but to develop its own weapons as a deterrent.

There is the oft-repeated concern about the deleterious effects of an arms-race in the Indian subcontinent. American defence experts are particularly wont to express concern about this as "one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the world." However, there has been deafening silence from these worthies when satellite pictures showed that China was happily shipping M-11 missiles to Pakistan. I guess the arms race is defined as India building weapons: Chinese nukes in Tibet's high plateau and Pakistani IRBMs apparently don't contribute to instability.

There is the threat of American sanctions to "punish" India. These can be fairly unpleasant, but then Bill Clinton's team has recognised that India is a Big Emerging Market, and it is bad policy to be terribly rude to a BEM. Any American action will be temporary and muted, I believe, because at bottom, Americans respect strength of purpose. Furthermore, India poses little threat to American security interests, and might be a counterbalance to the growing Chinese menace.

There are others who might be upset: for example Southeast Asians, East Asians and so forth, who would genuinely want a nuke-free Asia. However, with their economies in tatters at this point, I doubt if they will bother too much. I predict ASEAN and Japan will essentially accept that this is something India simply had to do. Chinese imperialist posturing in the South China Sea (which it considers its private lake) and further afield (Australia should worry too) are not going unnoticed.

For, let us be very clear: the hydrogen bomb that India exploded on May 11 is a signal strictly meant for Chinese consumption. Pakistan is a minnow -- admittedly a minnow with nuisance value, and full of religious hatred, as seen in their naming their missiles after Muslim invaders (conveniently ignoring the fact that these were not Pakistanis, but Afghans).

I have a mischievous idea: I wonder what Pakistanis would do if India named the atomic bomb the "APJ Abdul Kalam"? I mean no disrespect to the great scientist, but wouldn't it repudiate yet again Pakistan's very raison d'etre, the idea that subcontinental Muslims need a homeland? That an Indian Muslim leads the development of India's weapons must be very bitter medicine for Pakistanis: the victory of India's egalitarianism over their own apartheid.

Nevertheless, it is China that's backing Pakistan in its activities in Kashmir as part of the 'containment' of India in a tactical sense, and the 'clash of civilisations' in a strategic sense. Professor Samuel P Huntington, in his provocative book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order suggests that there is a major clash brewing among the Western, the Islamic, and the Chinese civilisations.

Huntington believes that China is deliberately allying itself with the Islamic centres of power in an attempt to form an axis in what it foresees as acts of war with the West. For instance, he quotes the following statistic from a 1995 paper from the US Institute for National Strategic Studies, 'Explaining and Influencing Chinese Arms Transfers':

Selected Chinese Arms Transfers, 1980-1991

	Iran	Pakistan	Iraq
Main Battle Tanks	540	1100	1300
Armored Personnel Carriers	300	n/a	650
Antitank Guided Missiles	7500	100	n/a
Artillery pieces/rocket launchers	1200	50	720
Fighter aircraft	140	212	n/a
Antishipping missiles	332	32	n/a
Surface-to-air missiles	788	222	n/a

Says Huntington: "Beginning in the 1970s China and Pakistan developed an extremely intimate military relationship... China became Pakistan's most reliable and extensive supplier of military hardware, transferring military-related exports of virtually every description and destined for every branch of the Pakistani military. China also helped Pakistan create production facilities for jet aircraft, tanks, artillery and missiles. Of much greater significance, China provided essential help to Pakistan in developing its nuclear weapons capability: allegedly furnishing Pakistan with uranium for enrichment, advising on bomb design, and possibly allowing Pakistan to explode a nuclear device at a Chinese test site. China then supplied Pakistan with M-11, 300-kilometer range ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear weapons, in the process violating a commitment to the United States. In return, China has secured midair refueling technology and Stinger missiles from Pakistan."

Very cozy arrangement indeed. India has been turning the other cheek quite a lot; and our sanctimonious friends the Americans have been turning an extremely blind eye, haven't they?

I suppose the Indian communists see the hydrogen bomb as a warning to China too; presumably, this made them critical of the test. I have to wonder, do these people's passports read "Indian" or "Chinese"?

There are those who object to the nuclear tests on the basis of principle -- that the money would have been better used for the poor of India. There is truth to this statement, but then they forget that those very people became poor in the first place because they were defenceless. In the Economics 101 question of guns versus butter, India always chose butter. So India always had surplus wealth, which is what attracted the barbarians to begin with.

It is an interesting fact that before the age of European colonisation, China accounted for about 33 per cent of the world's manufactured goods, and India for about 25 per cent. Astonishing figures, but this just shows that India has no inherent reason to be poor (nor does China). There was a precipitous decline in this number, as soon as the British barbarians came. Within 50 years of their arrival, and their deliberate policy of de-industrialisation, India's share of world manufacturing fell to 8 per cent. It now stands at about two per cent.

Ergo, there is a direct relationship between defence and poverty: if we can't defend ourselves, if we don't have security, then there is likely to be no prosperity either. Because the vandals will be at our gates as soon as we become prosperous, and with superior weapons will take away our prosperity.

I sometimes think of the Battle of Thermopylae, where a mere 50 Spartans died to the last man, yet held at bay -- at a mountain pass -- a huge Persian army, some 2,500 years ago. Indians, to our shame, never figured out how to do this at our own passes, the Khyber and Bolan. We were too busy making butter, that is gold and other easily lootable items, I suppose.

Maybe Pokhran is India's Thermopylae. Yes, there will be some pain, but it will be worth it, because nuclear weapons means India will be safer for Indians.

Rajeev Srinivasan