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Fuzail Jafferey

India must go nuclear and take its rightful place in the world

It is clear the United States of America has a very strong and influential lobby in India. This lobby, consisting of certain sections of high profile journalists, university professors and senior fellows attached to various research centres, funded directly or indirectly by the US state department, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, try hard to prove that they are more loyal than the king.

Whenever the question of India's nuclear option or its claim to a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council surfaces in national or international fora, this US lobby becomes active in denouncing the Government of India in the harshest possible terms. Ever since Prime Minister I K Gujral visited America in September 1997and did some plainspeaking about the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and other related matters, our native Americans are vying with one another in condemning the prime minister's simple and straightforward pronouncements.

During his 30-minute meeting with President Clinton, Gujral minced no words in declaring that unless the five nuclear weapons powers destroy their arsenals, India would neither review its known stand on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the CTBT, nor give up its nuclear options. The prime minister reiterated his assertion at the UN General Assembly, and again while he was addressing the Asia Society in New York. Gujral's policy statement cannot be described either as ambiguous or outrageous by any standards.

Unfortunately, some media sharks in the country have criticised Gujral, often most uncharitably, of suffering from ambiguity, confusion, and contradiction on India's nuclear policy. A section of the press described Gujral's pronouncement "meaningless" and aimed at getting applause back at home. They also said that India has retreated from the Nehruvian policy on non-proliferation which was initiated in the early 1950s.

Worse, some journalists and self-styled defence experts are shamelessly downgrading the country, attaching little significance to the fact that in spite of all odds, drawbacks and political upheavals, India continues to be the largest functioning democracy in the world. Notwithstanding the fact that millions of Indians have crossed the poverty line over the past two decades and the literacy rate has gone up, they gleefully describe India as "the largest collection of poor and illiterates in the world". These prophets of doom proudly declare that India can never become an Asian tiger or be in the same league as China.

India is advised to accept America as the sole superpower and be in its good books by quietly signing the CTBT. It is further argued that if India behaves like a 'good boy', the Clinton administration may go soft on the Kashmir issue. The so-called nuclear analysts also tell India that nuclear weapons take away security rather than enhance it.

Such free and unsolicited advice and warning by the Western powers and their Indian supporters are clearly motivated, mischievous and misleading. The nations which advocate the capping, reduction and elimination of the nuclear capabilities of South Asian countries in general, and India in particular, in the name of regional security and a non-nuclear culture, are least interested in dismantling their own nuclear arsenals.

Non-proliferation is nothing but a ploy for the major powers to retain and enhance their nuclear oligopoly in the international arms market. Way back in 1963, when the United States, supported by the then Soviet Union and Britain, decided upon a Partial Test Ban Treaty, India was the first among the non-nuclear countries to join the treaty with a view to achieving the goal of universal disarmament.

Again, in 1970, when the five nuclear weapons power states expressed their commitment to complete nuclear disarmament, India gave them wholehearted support, believing they were serious about abolishing their own nuclear stockpiles. Twenty-seven years later, they are nowhere near achieving their declared objective. It is true that India has not signed the CTBT, but why are the nuclear states unwilling to set a deadline to destroy their entire arsenals?

The utter dishonesty of the major powers can be gauged from the fact that a few days before the CTBT was signed, both China and France tested their nuclear devices. China is not only increasing and modernising its nuclear arsenal, but it is getting all possible help from America, which has been trying very hard to block the sale of nuclear reactors to India by Russia.

Also, America and France face no threat to their security, while India is in a vulnerable position. It was attacked by China in 1962 and had to suffer great losses in life and property. Again, it was forced to go to war against Pakistan more than once. President Nixon confessed in 1985 that the US would have surely launched a nuclear attack against India in 1971 had the latter tried to destabilise West Pakistan. Under these circumstances, it becomes pertinent for India to develop a strong security network without which no country can be expected to make any economic and social growth or progress.

Those who talk of the enormous economic progress made by China forget that during the 1960s and early 1970s, the Middle Kingdom was considered one of the poorest in the world. Mass starvation and death by hunger often made headlines in America and Britain. Rumours were rife that China had such an acute shortage of foodgrains that its people were compelled to eat cats, rats and snakes. All of this, however, did not deter China from going ahead with its nuclear programme. China exploded its first nuclear device as early as in 1964. Finally, the West had to admit China into the nuclear club, raising the number of its number from four to five. In China, economic progress clearly followed the nuclear progress.

Let us come back to the Indian scenario. The charge that Indian leaders are deviating from Nehru's policy is baseless and without substance. There is no doubt that Nehru sincerely believed in a nuclear-free world. International peace, brotherhood and friendship were top priorities on his political agenda. At the same time, he had visualised the future shape of events. Within a year of Independence, he set up the Atomic Energy Commission with Dr Homi Bhabha as its chairman and Nobel Laureate C V Raman as an advisor to "produce all the basic materials" of strategic significance. As Brahma Chellaney pointed out in an article (The Times of India, August 8, 1997), "India acquired the basic materials for nuclear arms before the NPT was born, but for three decades, it concentrated its efforts on saving its nuclear option rather than securing peace through deterrence.”

India now, perhaps, cannot afford the luxury of keeping its nuclear option ‘open’ at the cost of its national and international interests. There is no reason why a country with almost a billion people, the second largest army, ranked seventh in the world in scientific and technological progress, should shy away from developing and testing its nuclear devices, both as a deterrent as well as for peaceful purposes. Incidentally, it is the one issue on which a national consensus exists. The Carnegie International Endowment's conference held in Washington in 1994 demonstrated this national consensus as Indian participants, belonging to different political parties, spoke in one voice against any treaty which brazenly discriminated against India vis-a-vis the nuclear powers.

The US is no longer the richest country in the world. Britain and France have lost the political clout they enjoyed till the middle of the present century. China has altered its political agenda time and again in order to be closer to the West. In spite of all this, these countries continue to have a greater sway and say in international affairs only because they possess nuclear weapons. India too must recast its nuclear policy in order to become a global power rather than continue as a regional mini-giant.

In an objective study of India, China, and Pakistan, The Economist, London, has rightly pointed out that now “India is trying more determinedly to modernise its economy. It wants a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and since it has the ability to launch not just the satellites, but also missiles carrying nuclear warheads, it would like to be considered a world power.” It is quite heartening to see that India is moving in the right direction and that its efforts are not in vain any more.

Thomas Pickering, US undersecretary of political affairs, visited New Delhi in September to initiate the first-ever strategic talks between India and America. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday and her visit will be followed by President Clinton’s state visit early next year – the first visit by a US president to India since 1978. Since the US has started realising India's strategic importance in the South Asian region, it is the duty of Indian leaders to convince the US administration that while India does not want any confrontation with the US or for that matter with any other country, it cannot allow itself to be bullied or manipulated on any pretext. All India wants is recognition of its due place in the world arena.

Fuzail Jafferey