by Harsh V Pant
The other prominent factor shaping India’s nuclear policy has been at the level of domestic politics. Being a pluralistic democracy, nuclear policy has been not only vigorously debated in the Indian Parliament but also engendered different schools of thought on India’s nuclear choices, ranging from complete renunciation of the nuclear weapons to building the bomb, from the very beginning. These schools of thought have dominated India’s nuclear policy discourse depending upon its external circumstances and the internal power structures. For example, the right-wing political parties such as the Jan Sangha and the Swatantra Party, and its progenies such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have always been pro-bomb. The fact that these pro-nuclear parties remained on the margins of political power during the first 50 years of India’s independence is critical to understanding India’s nuclear ambivalence. Similarly, the Indian National Congress, which dominated the political scene during the first five decades, had some inherent resistance in openly embracing nuclear weapons given its ideological history, and also the momentum of the policies enunciated under Prime Minister Nehru where disarmament had become a prominent foreign policy goal. Yet, there was a political consensus to maintain India’s nuclear option and to steadfastly defend its strategic autonomy. India’s resistance to the diktats of the non-proliferation regime engendered out of this political consensus. India’s pushback against nuclear non-proliferation treaties, such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), therefore enjoyed popular domestic support. Another factor in domestic politics is the role (or the lack of it) certain institutions have played in steering India’s nuclear policy. The nuclear scientific enclave has played an active role as the expertise of civilian nuclear scientists provided them considerable influence in charting India’s nuclear choices. The military, on the other hand, has remained at the margins of India’s nuclear decision-making.
Finally, the role of key individuals in charting India’s nuclear trajectory has been equally consequential. During the first two decades, Prime Minister Nehru and Homi Bhabha singlehandedly decided India’s nuclear trajectory. They laid down the foundations of its atomic energy programme, created institutions, and pronounced the thrust of its nuclear policy. This also led to concentration of nuclear decision-making in two institutions: the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The prime minister and the secretary of the DAE (to a lesser degree), therefore, remained the two most important individuals in deciding India’s nuclear policy. Depending upon the individual convictions of the prime minister and the secretary, DAE, India’s nuclear policy shifted gears. The stark contrast between the thinking of Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai was a case in point, and so were the ideological convictions of leaders such as Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. As we will see in subsequent chapters, the prominence of individuals in India’s nuclear policy often lends it an idiosyncratic character.
The sources of India’s nuclear policy can be traced to an interaction among the previously mentioned four variables, with one sometimes dominating the other depending upon India’s external environment, the constellation of domestic power structures, and the ideological and personal convictions of individual leadership. The consequences of India’s choices have also been equally pronounced.
India’s Nuclear Choices and Their Consequences
India’s nuclear policy before 1998 can be divided into three major themes: nuclear ambiguity, selective defiance of the global nuclear order, and a crusade against nuclear weapons. Post-1998, however, India has followed a policy of nuclear certainty, where it openly accepts the logic and necessity of nuclear weapons, and in the process has become a ‘normal’ nuclear power. Yet, it maintains both a restrained and responsible nuclear profile. However, both these phases of India’s nuclear policies have had certain consequences not only for its nuclear programme but also for its national security and foreign policy.
The policy of nuclear ambiguity where India maintained a peaceful exterior while developing threshold nuclear capability neither helped its security requirements nor did it fulfil its quest for major power status. Nuclear reluctance, in fact, costed her a seat in the global nuclear order which was first enshrined in the NPT of 1968. If India would have gone nuclear before the NPT was finalized, it would have been considered as a nuclear weapons power and would have cemented its major power status in the global nuclear order (Trivedi 1975). This nuclear reluctance was in part inspired by India’s resource crunch; the era in which India suffered its worst food crisis did not provide its decision-makers the luxury to pursue a full-fledged nuclear weapons programme.1 However, if the Indian state would have decided to go nuclear, resource-crunch alone could not have halted its nuclear steps. It is therefore important to underline that India’s quest of ‘moral superiority’ and its inclination to prove that it was an exceptional major power was an equally important factor behind its nuclear reluctance. Yet, in the realm of international politics where military power remained the ultima ratio in inter-state interaction, such nuclear morality found no takers. In hindsight, India’s moral leadership was only an outcome of Nehru’s exceptional political leadership and his recognition as a statesman of international repute. With his demise, India neither had a moral nor a material claim to major power status in international politics. Its nuclear reluctance turned out to be an additional burden.
However, India could not renounce its strategic autonomy and give up its nuclear option. It, therefore, defied the global nuclear order, which it considered both unsustainable and discriminatory. It first refused to sign the NPT in 1968, and then conducted a PNE in May 1974. Afterwards, it became the principal target of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, resulting in technology denials which crippled its nuclear energy programme. If its nuclear reluctance stymied its quest for a major power status, its defiance of the non-proliferation regime only brought her additional pain in the form of economic and technological sanctions. This defiance was selective insofar India’s nuclear policies confirmed to the larger principle of non-proliferation. Even when it publicly supported the need for technological cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy, in private it refused to share its nuclear technology and material with other states lest it would lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons. However, this responsible nuclear behaviour did not bring her any respite. On the other hand, open proliferators like China were not only accommodated in the global nuclear order but were allowed to build up their nuclear arsenal.
From Nehru’s call for cessation of nuclear tests in 1954 to Rajiv Gandhi’s appeal at the United Nations (UN) for complete elimination of nuclear weapons in 1988, disarmament remained one of the pivots of India’s nuclear policy. Yet, its moral crusade against nuclear weapons was largely ignored by the great powers largely because India remained an ambiguous nuclear power. Without material power, its moral and ideological claim against nuclear weapons had no major appeal for great powers. India’s diplomatic disappointment in creating a nuclear weapon-free world was a direct result of its nuclear reluctance. Until the tests of 1998, it remained on the margins of the global nuclear order.
The nuclear tests of 1998 ended not only India’s nuclear ambiguity but also signalled its intention to deal with global politics in the language of power. Unlike years of nuclear ambiguity, it now embraced a policy of ‘nuclear certainty’ where nuclear weapons became fundamental to its security and identity, especially in a world where great powers were reluctant to embrace a nuclear weapon-free world. In hindsight, the consequences of a policy of nuclear certainty have been extraordinarily generous to India. Its rise as a major economic, political, and military power has taken place in the post-1998 period, even when many had argued that the tests would jeopardize its economic transformation and bring her nothing more than international opprobrium. In fact, within a decade, India was accommodated in the global nuclear order. The Indo-US nuclear deal created an exception in the global nuclear
order where India is the only non-NPT state to have a recognized nuclear weapon programme. The transformation in India’s nuclear identity has been nothing less than phenomenal. In the last two decades, India has also marched rapidly in advancing its nuclear arsenal. Yet, it still remains a restrained nuclear power which considers nuclear weapons, primarily, as political tools rather than instruments of warfighting. If nuclear restraint is one aspect of its post-1998 nuclear policy, nuclear responsibility is another. On the one hand, it openly supports the principle of non-proliferation and actively contributes to efforts aimed at stopping further spread of nuclear weapons. On the other, this responsible nature has also been evident in its restrained response to the grave provocations by Pakistan since 1998. In crisis after crisis, where India faced either armed conflict or terrorism from Pakistan, it has acted with great restraint in dealing with Pakistani adventures.
Yet, in the coming times, Indian nuclear policy is likely to face complex challenges. First of all, India’s accommodation in the global nuclear order will continue to be the focus of its nuclear policy. Even though the Indo-US nuclear deal granted India an exceptional status of being the only non-NPT nuclear weapon state with dedicated military and civilian nuclear programmes, this accommodation remains partial. India intends to become a full member of the global nuclear order, which is evident in its continuing quest for the membership of the NSG. However, India’s efforts have not yet yielded the desired results. Future negotiations on India’s nuclear status would require not only keen diplomatic acumen but also marshalling of India’s economic, military, and technological influence. This process would also entail some give and take on the part of Indian leadership, especially on arms control treaties such as the CTBT and Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT). India’s emergence as a global nuclear power would also create frictions with the other Asian nuclear giant, China. As India’s nuclear status provides her the platform to challenge China’s hegemony in Asia and beyond, Beijing would remain cautious in accepting India as a legitimate member of the global nuclear order. It would continue to resist India’s rise, as evident in China’s opposition to New Delhi’s NSG membership. Moreover, the tense equation between India and China over the latter’s claims on Indian territory and her attempts to limit the former’s influence in South Asia will make sure that the nuclear rivalry would remain potent. India is still some distance away from mastering a credible second-strike capability against China and therefore, the quest for a stable deterrent equation with Beijing would drive the technological advancement of India’s nuclear forces. However, Pakistan would remain the prickliest of all challenges. Its penchant for nuclear risk-taking and her inclination towards first use of nuclear weapons has grave consequences for crisis stability in South Asia. How India ensures its security while facing a revisionist nuclear state prone to inciting crisis is a question which the Indian decision-makers will continue to grapple with. Lastly, India’s nuclear identity would also be influenced by the political churning within. Historically, centre–right political parties such as the BJP have championed India’s overt nuclearization and have found little traction with the moralistic tendencies of its Nehruvian past. With the coming of the Narendra Modi government, there has been an expectation that India’s nuclear profile will undergo some important changes. The amount of diplomatic capital Modi has invested in India’s NSG membership vis-à-vis the previous Congress-led government is a case in point. Domestic political changes are likely to be an important factor in shaping the future of India’s nuclear trajectory.
Indian nuclear policy remains a work in progress. The way it evolves over the next few years will have an important bearing on India’s global profile, as well as on the larger global non-proliferation regime.
1 For a detailed discussion on India’s policy choices after the Chinese nuclear test, see Joshi (2017b).
1
The Promise of the Atomic Age
India’s tryst with the atom followed her tryst with freedom. Soon after India gained independence in August 1947, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru initiated an atomic energy programme. If freedom from colonial rule provided India an independent identity, science and technology, in Nehru’s worldview, provided an avenue for a rapid march towards modernity. Atomic research, at the time, was at the vanguard of this scientific modernity. Nehru was highly impressed by the prestige associated with this field of scientific enquiry. On the one hand, it would make India a leading scientific power among the Third World countries and on the other hand, it would also generate respect among the technologically advanced countries of the West. Indian political leadership had criticized the use of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and expressed a deep moral indignation for such weapons of mass destruction. Yet, Nehru also could not ignore the reality of a nuclear world: nuclear weapons provided a nation state the ultimate military capability. This ambiguity in Nehru’s approach to the atom was to be a defining feature of India’s nuclear policy for decades to come.
This chapter traces the beginning of India’s nuclear polices, its atomic energy programme, and the nature of its nuclear intentions. The first section of this chapter throws light on the ideas of its nuclear pioneers: Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Homi Bhabha. These two individuals remained at the helm of India’s nuclear policy till the mid-1960s and shaped not only the origins of India’s atomic programme but also its development in the first two decades after India’s independence. It also elaborates on how these nuclear pioneers initially conceptualized India’s atomic programme, created institutions, and put in place mechanisms to harness the promise of the atomic age. The second section delineates the international dimension of India’s nuclear programme and the cooperation agreements India signed with major nuclear powers such as the UK, Canada, and the US. India’s role in shaping the debate on international control of atomic energy is the focus of the third section. It specifically deals with India’s approach to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the system of safeguards on nuclear technology. The last section discusses one of the major pillars of India’s nuclear policy during the first two decades of its existence: its approach to nuclear disarmament.
India’s Nuclear Pioneers and the Atomic Establishment
Nehru’s interest in atomic energy was shaped by three ideological vectors. First, he was a man of ‘scientific temper’ (Nehru 1986: 409). He considered modernity as synonymous with advancement of science and technology. It was on the role of modern science and technology in India’s future as a nation state that he sharply disagreed with Mahatma Gandhi, his political mentor. Gandhi saw in modern science the real origins of colonialism and in his book, Hind Swaraj, had severely critiqued the idea of ‘modern civilization’ primarily built upon Western advancements in science and technology. Nehru, on the other hand, claimed that it was the lack of scientific progress that allowed India to be colonized. His strong belief in the virtues of modern science led India’s first prime minister to invest heavily in creating an environment where science and technology could prosper (Andersen 2010).
Second, if the promise of atomic energy animated Nehru, its destructive potential imbued in him a moral aversion to nuclear weapons. As he argued in August 1947 during the Constitutional Committee debate, ‘in essence today there is a conflict in the world between two things, the atom bomb and what it represents and the spirit of humanity’ (cited in Massey 1991: 160). This moral aversion to the bomb was a strong motivation for Nehru’s support for nuclear disarmament. Yet, it was also a political aversion based on a rational assessment of India’s national interests. Nuclear weapons represented a threat to world peace. A nuclear war between great powers would have also engulfed most of the globe, including India. Nuclear arms race also engendered severe tensions between the two great powers and therefore complicated India’s policy of non-alignment. A stable international system where India could seek help from both great powers was essential to its economic and political development. Lastly, given the shortage
of material power, the cause of nuclear disarmament provided Nehru a moral heft in international politics.
The third vector was Nehru’s realpolitik instincts in understanding world politics. Moral aversion notwithstanding, his political calculus against nuclear weapons was also inspired by his deep understanding of the importance of power in inter-state politics.1 For an independent India, as Nehru had confessed in February 1947, ‘defence’ was a ‘primary need’. It was for this reason that Nehru also saw in the development of atomic energy an option for India’s nuclear weapons future. He argued, explaining India’s defence policy in February 1947, ‘the probable use of atomic energy in warfare is likely to revolutionize all our concepts of war and defence. For the moment we may leave that out of consideration except that it makes it absolutely essential for us to develop the methods of using atomic energy for both civil and military purpose.’2 This strategy of ‘hedging’ against the duality of the atom made Nehru invest heavily in research and development (R&D) of atomic energy in India (Narang 2016). Nuclear science, therefore, may help with both development and, if the need be, India’s defence. This ambiguity in Nehru’s approach towards the atom drove India’s nuclear trajectory under his leadership.
If Nehru was the political force behind India’s atomic journey, Homi Bhabha was his comrade-in-arms (Deshmukh 2003). During his early research career, Bhabha, a Cambridge-educated scientist, had worked with leading nuclear scientists of the early atomic era, such as John Cockcroft, Paul Dirac, Neils Bohr, and Wolfgang Pauli. Upon his return to India in 1939, Bhabha took on a professorship in the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. By 1940, his work on cosmic rays had earned him the prestigious Fellowship of the Royal Society at a young age of 31. His heart, however, was in atomic research. In 1944, Bhabha established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) through a grant provided by his uncle and one of India’s leading industrial tycoons, Sir Dorabji Tata. The reasoning behind the institute, as Bhabha had explained to J.R.D. Tata, was to create an indigenous scientific manpower which could help India master the nuances of atomic research:
