India has a real desire for a nuclear free world, says Sumit Ganguly. Don’t be fooled by its complicated past on the issue.
At last week’s nuclear security summit in Washington, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once again reiterated his country’s interest in global nuclear disarmament. This vision of a nuclear-free world has long been on the minds of a host of Indian political leaders, right back to the nation’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
There’s little question, polemical claims on the part of some uninformed commentators notwithstanding, that his commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons was genuine. As far back as 1953, Nehru helped introduce a United Nations resolution calling for a ‘standstill agreement’ on all further nuclear testing.
Of course, such an outcome has yet to materialize, so it’s certainly tempting to dismiss Singh’s reiteration of India’s continuing interest in global nuclear disarmament as mere empty rhetoric designed for public consumption.
But there’s an alternative explanation for his invoking the prospect of a world free of nuclear weapons. Thanks to Nehru’s spirited opposition to such weapons in the 1950s and 1960s, a segment of India’s attentive public still believes that it’s both possible and desirable to seek a nuclear weapons-free world.
To understand the persistence of this view, it’s instructive to look at India’s tortured history over the issue of nuclear weapons.
After Nehru’s demise in 1964, India actually embarked on a nuclear weapons programme, the Subterranean Nuclear Explosions (SNEP) project. This effort was undertaken largely because of its defeat at the hands of the People’s Republic of China in a border war in 1962 and China’s subsequent acquisition of nuclear weapons capabilities in 1964. In addition to this endeavour it also sought a nuclear guarantee from the great powers. To the dismay of its national leaders, no such guarantee proved to be forthcoming.
Despite its own quest for nuclear weapons, thanks to the sheer weight of the Nehruvian legacy, India continued to publicly espouse the cause of universal nuclear disarmament. The nuclear weapons programme, thanks to a perceived threat from China, nevertheless went ahead in fits and starts. Accordingly, India refused to join the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of 1968. Its objections were twofold. At one level it did little to stop the vertical proliferation of nuclear weapons. On the other, it merely exhorted the existing nuclear weapons states to eventually dispense with their stockpiles. What Indian policymakers didn’t publicly articulate, however, was the obvious: since it had not yet tested nuclear weapons joining the treaty would have effectively foreclosed India’s nuclear weapons option.
Thanks to a combination of both domestic and external policy concerns, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered India’s first nuclear weapons test in May 1974. However, faced with a firestorm of global condemnation and a raft of sanctions on a vulnerable Indian economy, she chose not to carry out any further tests. When domestic political difficulties forced her out of office, her successor, Morarji Desai, a Gandhian, chose to briefly suspend work on the nuclear weapons programme.
Photo Credit: Uniphoto Press
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Bob
If the West is coming at Iran with sanctions because of their suspicion of developing a nuclear bomb then why the hypocrisy regarding India, Pakistan and Israel! They must all be forced to sign the NPT as non nuclear states, full stop, period!!!
Riaz Missen
India has problem with China, Pakistan with India and Israel with every one on the Arabian peninsula. You may dubb the whole situation as Asian dilemma. The problem with Iran is not yet known. It is why it is under pressure.
John Mulcahy
Who are those three persons drive freely their vehicles on the roads and streets without holding driving licenses and without following any rules and regulations of the streets? India, Israel and Pakistan. All of these nations are not the members of NPT and yet they are receiving all sorts of help from the ”so called the leader of the civilzed world”. Israel received so far 300 billion dollars outright grants with no hinges attached and free nuclear technology. India signed a 7-star deal with America for free flow of nuclear technology. Pakistan gets help for its war on terror. Iran, the driving license holder never broke the law of the streets, never attacked any country in 300 years and being attacked by others and yet is subject to the greatest sanctions in the history of mankind asa NPT member. And guess what? Yesterday only, the new nuclear enrichment sites were inspected by IAEA and Europe rejected that too. America and the world should pull their Ambassadors from Pakistan, India and Isreael until they get their driving licenses by signing NPT and until then all the trades and investments must be stopped. Get out of hypocricy boys.
MT
MR BOB, who are you to force India to sign the NPT as non nuclear states…. it will remain a dream for you.
Siddharth
Bob,
A laughable comment by you. Do you think that only the West has legitimate right to protect itself?
Aditya
And who will make us sign these papers … US Hahahah forget it we will never sign these until we are the Super power of this planet
Muhammad Talut
It the desire from his heart not from his brain!