India's Deterrence Doctrine

T.T. Poulose eorge Bernard Shaw observed prophetically in We have a reliable size, weight, performance and envi- his famous work, Man and Superman: “in the ronmental conditions for nuclear weaponisation.”3 R. Gart of killing man outdoes nature itself…. When Chidambaram, chairman of the Atomic Energy Com- he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism mission (AEC), corroborated, “Weaponisation is now that lets loose at the touch of his finger, all the hidden possible.”4 molecular energies and Far from being simple leaves the javelin, the arrow, instruments of state policy the blow pipe of his fore-fa- or a national consensus, 1 thers far behind.” This is VIEWPOINT: these scientists were “the precisely what Indian INDIA’S DETERRENCE most persistent and power- nuclear scientists achieved ful group lobbying for when India blasted its way DOCTRINE: A India’s overt nuclear- into the nuclear club on May ization.”5 This has recently 11 and 13, 1998, with a se- NEHRUVIAN CRITIQUE been made clear by former ries of five nuclear tests. The Prime Minister Deve scientists and defense offi- by T.T. Poulose Gowda. He noted that these cials loudly trumpeted this “scientists had approached achievement and its sup- two previous governments posed benefits for India, but their arguments miss real- to continue the tests in 1995 and 1997.” He also dis- ity. The theory of deterrence that they have put forward closed: “I was requested to make a decision. I convinced to justify the tests is specious. And the economic costs the scientists that the time was not ripe.”6 Strangely, the of trying to create a real nuclear deterrent would seri- nuclear establishment in India (unlike the enlightened ously hurt India’s development needs. In this viewpoint, political leadership, which campaigned for the abolition I argue that India was better served by its earlier con- of nuclear weapons) was for the “bomb” from its forma- sensus on the legacy of India’s first prime minister, tive years. Dr. Homi Bhabha, the first AEC chairman, Jawaharlal Nehru. A policy that maintained nuclear headed this small group of top scientists in India. This ambiguity while seeking disarmament, and emphasized dedicated group was determined to build nuclear weap- development over military power, created more secu- ons and ballistic missiles for India. But the political lead- rity than the current effort to declare a minimum nuclear ers vacillated for the last 50 years, until the Bharatiya deterrent without the existence of a clear second-strike Janata Party (BJP), the right-wing Hindu nationalist capability. party (as it is described in the Western media) achieved political power. THE ROLE OF SCIENTISTS Raja Ramanna, the father of the first atomic test by Many of the original Manhattan Project scientists were India in 1974 (referred to as “Pokhran I,” after the desert modest and even repentant about the first-ever atomic site where tests are conducted) claimed that, with this bomb test, the Trinity test conducted at Alamagordo, year’s tests (“Pokhran II”), “science has given security New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. Robert Oppenheimer exclaimed, quoting from the Bhagavat Gita, “I am be- T.T. Poulose is Professor (retired) and former Chairman come death, destroyer of worlds.” Earlier, Nils Bohr cau- of the Disarmament Division of the School of tioned President Roosevelt on July 3, 1944, “a weapon International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New of unparalleled power is being created which will com- Delhi, India. During 1980-81, he was a visiting scholar pletely change all future conditions of warfare.”2 at the Center for Science and International Affairs, The Indian scientists were more provocative and im- Harvard University. He has published several books, modest about India’s nuclear tests. India’s “missile man,” including The CTBT and the Rise of Nuclear the chief scientific advisor to the defense minister, A.P.J. Nationalism in India (Lancers, 1996), The United Abdul Kalam, boasted that the tests conferred on India a Nations and Nuclear Proliferation (D.K. Publishers, capability to neutralize any nuclear threats to the coun- 1988), and Nuclear Proliferation and the Third World try. He added, “Nuclear weaponisation is now complete. (ABC Publishers, 1982). The Nonproliferation Review/Fall 1998 77 T.T. Poulose to India.”7 He declared in the Indian Parliament on May program. The Chinese possess a strategic triad consist- 28, 1998, that the nuclear scientists should not be in “sus- ing of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles pended animation” about the nuclear tests.8 The ratio- (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles nale of the scientists has been expressed by Abdul Kalam, (SLBMs), and long-range strategic bombers. India is as “strength respects strength.”9 Beyond their dubious really a nuclear infant when compared to China, let alone security claims, the scientists have also promised with the Cold War-era superpowers. While Indian nuclear sci- these weapons of mass destruction to make India a de- entists talk arrogantly about their recent achievements, veloped country by 2020. they should instead be guided by these enormous short- Political sociologist Ashis Nandy has exposed the ex- comings. Such limitations should also act as a sobering aggerated claims of the nuclear scientists: influence on misguided politicians like George It is also becoming increasingly obvious that Fernandes, India’s defense minister, with his unbridled what is touted as a great scientific achievement utterances about China as India’s “potential enemy num- is nothing of the kind. It is technology of the ber one.” 1950s and 1960s, recycled and flaunted as a major breakthrough. The knowledge on which NATIONAL SECURITY IMPLICATIONS the Indian explosions are based would not fetch Nuclear tests have serious security implications. With a research degree in even a second rate uni- a great sense of national pride, one can argue that, in versity. Most resources for Indian nuclear defense of the supreme national interest, a government weapons are stolen from India’s nuclear en- might even have to defy the international community ergy program. They were diverted from the and be prepared to pay the price for its decision to go program that was supposed to be peaceful and nuclear. But it would be tragic if India’s tests turn out to development-oriented but was floundering in be the misguided decision of a small group of scientists both efficiency and delivery. or of a government simply trying maintain power to fur- He added, “Most of the resources used in nuclear weapon ther its narrow, jingoistic ideology. research were foreign, now they are mostly Indian in There are serious security consequences arising as a the sense in which Coca Cola and Cadbury’s are In- result of Pokhran II. First, in one stroke India has made dian.”10 itself a potential target of six nuclear adversaries, con- Although the Western media emphasized the domes- sisting of the five nuclear weapon states and Pakistan. tic support for these nuclear tests, in fact they generated Second, the induction of nuclear weapons in India is al- a storm of protest among the scientific community, most ready heightening tensions on the sub-continent and with prominently among the younger generation of Indian China. The low intensity conflict in Kashmir is escalat- scientists. The protesters even included 92 senior scien- ing. Nuclear weapons will also have a deleterious effect tists belonging to the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, on the territorial disputes between India and Pakistan, the Defence Research and Development Organization, on the one hand, and India and China, on the other. It and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. has virtually frozen all their territorial disputes. Nuclear According to a statement issued by the scientific orga- weapons cannot help resolve local disputes, and it will nization that sponsored one protest march, these scien- prove counterproductive for broader political relations tists were asking: “Can we feel happy and secure in a in the region to have sought leverage from the bomb. world in which every country feels proud of its nuclear Third, the chances of India getting U.N. Security weapons capability and is convinced of the deterrence Council membership have been ruined by its nuclear tactics?”11 tests. The United States and China will certainly use their The Pokhran II tests have demonstrated that India has veto, if necessary, to prevent India’s membership in the mastered the technological prowess to design a variety Security Council. of nuclear weapons, including the hydrogen bomb. It Fourth, after India and Pakistan crossed the Rubicon has also proved India’s superiority in nuclear weapon by conducting nuclear tests, the South Asian nuclear non- technology relative to Pakistan. But the fact remains that proliferation regime lost its relevance. As long as both India lags far behind the Chinese operational nuclear countries pursued a policy of nuclear ambivalence, there force, as India has yet to complete its weaponization 78 The Nonproliferation Review/Fall 1998 T.T. Poulose was a slender chance of rescuing the effort to establish a Muslim, Mushahid Hussain, on April 22, 1985: “I have nuclear-weapon-free zone in South Asia. In fact, after never subscribed to the view that terror balances…. A India’s nuclear explosion in 1974, Pakistan introduced nuclear arms race in the subcontinent would only sub- the first U.N. resolution in the General Assembly for the ject both our people to the worst possible fate on earth.”13 establishment of a South Asian nuclear-weapon-free The Indian bureaucracy, while serving their political zone (NWFZ). India had been a supporter of regional masters, often reflected the official thinking in their writ- nuclear-weapon-free zones, and hence it supported the ings.

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