Breaking the chains of nuclear apartheid

DB Venkatesh Varma

The month of May is associated with two key events of nuclear India. The first nuclear test was conducted in Pokhran in May 1974, followed by the second in May 1998. Both changed India and its place in the world.

Marking the 25th anniversary of the 1998 tests, we salute the courage and vision of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for making India a declared nuclear power. All other Prime Ministers kept India’s nuclear option open despite tremendous international pressures. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh oversaw the Civil Nuclear deal that mainstreamed India in the international nuclear order. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken steps to further develop India’s nuclear deterrence capabilities, including fully operationalizing the triad. India is today a respected and responsible nuclear power.

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The times were different 25 years ago. By 1998, India faced a major strategic challenge. The 1995 indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the pressure to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty restricted India’s options. The tests of May 1998 signalled Vajpayee’s resolve to protect India’s national security interests in a permanently nuclearized international security environment.

Twenty-five years later, with the international situation further imperilled, with no prospects of global nuclear disarmament in sight, the decisions of 1998 can be termed as one of the most consequential decisions of independent India, comparable to the 1967 decision by Indira Gandhi not to sign the NPT, which would have consigned India as a non-nuclear weapon state to the status of B grade country forever.

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India’s path forward was not easy. The western Sanctions on India following the nuclear tests were only gradually lifted. Intense international engagement, through the India-US civil nuclear deal, yielded major success – the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s restrictions were lifted; numerous bilateral and multilateral agreements were signed and India’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency was expanded. India became a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement.

India’s nuclear military programme has grown unimpeded as part of our credible minimum nuclear deterrence policy, even while international cooperation with our civilian nuclear programme has proceeded apace. India’s role as a responsible nuclear partner is now well recognized. India’s traditional support for global nuclear disarmament, which is universal and non-discriminatory, remains unchanged.

Breaking the chains of nuclear apartheid, strengthening capacity for strategic autonomy, maintaining adequate nuclear weapon capacity when China has the fastest growing nuclear programme in the world, is perhaps the most important investment that India has made for securing its future this century.

For this, the country should be grateful to its leaders, who through thick and thin did not yield to international pressure; to our nuclear scientists, who despite the heaviest odds did the country proud with key technological breakthroughs; our diplomats, who prevailed in some of the toughest negotiations, and the people of India, who kept faith that through the decades that no one can deny India its rightful place in the world.

The Pokhran II tests will be remembered for long as a golden step in India’s journey, not just as a nuclear power, but as a resilient country, capable of overcoming immense adversities through national vision and will.

(The writer is a former ambassador of India to the Conference on Disarmament, Russia and Spain. He was a key member of India’s negotiating team for the civil nuclear deal with the US and related initiatives with IAEA, NSG and the UN)