Abstract
Although there is a wide array of academic foreign policy and strategic studies literature on India’s nuclearisation, practically all of it is pro-establishment, or it is of the habitual realist, non-partisan variety. As the seventeenth anniversary of India’s Pokhran-II nuclear tests of May 1998 passes by, Achin Vanaik’s new book stands apart. It is a welcome addition to the very rare dissenting views with regards to India’s nuclear programme. The book consists of essays by the author, some of which have appeared earlier and some which are unpublished, but all are richly updated and woven together for this volume.
The author directs his book at those ‘who, if not altogether opposed to, are certainly willing to question the conventional wisdom that nuclear weapons are a “necessary evil”’ (p. 18). The book traverses a range of subjects on the trajectory of India’s military nuclear programme. This book is structured around six chapters, besides an introduction and a conclusion.
Chapter one deals with the composition of ‘India’s Nuclear Elites’. The backdrop for this is the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the ensuing ideological disarray and tilt towards the United States (US) and the emergence of an aggressive nationalism in India. The rise of the Hindutva movement, a shift towards the right among the economic elites of the US and the United Kingdom (UK) and the propagation of neoliberal economic thinking found takers in India among the elites, as also among the emerging new middle class that broke away from the idiom of a Nehruvian past. The Hindutva circles had always stoked the nationalism issue, while its political arm, the Jan Sangh, had stated that it wanted a nuclear-armed India as early as in the 1950s. So, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did come to power, it broke away from India’s nuclear ambiguity and gave the green signal to the atomic scientists. The author has a rare distinction in that he predicted India going overtly nuclear should the BJP come to power.
Vanaik defines the nuclear elites as essentially a core of decision makers, implementers and opinion makers. He breaks them into four categories: (a) ideologues (of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [RSS]/BJP) who took the political decision in May 1998; (b) key technocrats and scientists from government departments like the Department of Atomic Energy and the Defence Research and Development Organisation; (c) politicians/administrators involved in decision making on the nuclear programme from 1998 onwards; and (d) strategic experts who provided the arguments in defence of the nuclear weapons programme, along with consultants and members of the National Security Advisory Board.
There are the nuclear elites, but there are also their subordinates and workers running the operations. The book stops short of answering questions such as: What is the size and scale of the nuclear economy, that is, money under both civil and defence programmes to manage and implement the nuclear weapons programme? What is the scale of money and personnel involved? These are areas for future investigation and enquiry.
Getting a full-blown sense of these elites would be interesting. In itself, this merits a whole body of scholarly work but, unfortunately, historians and anthropologists in India seem uninterested in studying the nuclear establishment. So, we will have to wait for scholars from elsewhere to probe this tribe with their rituals and shapes—not an easy task given the secrecy and out-of-bounds territory that it is.
Chapter two focuses on the ‘Principle of Deterrence’ and the problems of stability in South Asia. The first part on deterrence is a powerful 10-point dismantling of the very logic of nuclear deterrence. Its style reminds us of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament pamphlets from the UK. In the subsequent discussion on deterrence and stability, the author highlights the distinctiveness of the permanently tense India–Pakistan situation, and the nature of hot and cold rivalry between the two countries, which is not based on systemic socio-economic differences as in the Cold War standoffs between the US and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
The third chapter deals with the issue of ‘Nuclear Terrorism’ and basically dismisses any threats from non-state actors (in this case, the Al-Qaeda, etc.) to nuclear weapons establishments as overestimations. It is one thing to question the propaganda motives of defence establishments to further the war on terror, but to deny the serious nature of threats from fundamentalists inside Pakistan is a grave error. There have been attacks on major military installations in Pakistan in the recent years. For example, the attack on the main headquarters of the Pakistani Army in Rawalpindi, instigating a 22-hour standoff in October 2009; the attack on the Mehran naval aviation base in Karachi in May 2011 and on an army aviation base in Quetta in August 2011; the August 2012 attack on the Minhas air base at Kamra near Islamabad; and the 2014 attack on the Karachi naval dockyard. Howsoever asymmetrical state and non-state terror, the terrorism of the non-state actors cannot be wished away and left only to states to deal with (as in the war on terror): it has to become a concern for the peace movement.
Chapter four cogently critiques the writings of the former senior advisors of the US and Indian governments who played a key role in the Indo-US nuclear deal. It provides a fascinating account of roles played by Ashley Tellis for the US and Shyam Saran for India and the nature of strategic thinking they represent. The uneven writings of both are reviewed and discussed to unravel how India went nuclear and also the inconsistencies in India’s nuclear doctrine. While discussing Saran, we are given a fleeting sense of the operational structures in the nuclear command. A future edition of the book should expand its gaze on this restricted zone.
The author describes the makings of Indo-US civilian nuclear deal and its implications at various locations in the book. The narrative recounts how the US administration decided to accelerate the process of crafting a strategic partnership with India and its willingness to initiate an Indo-US nuclear deal that meant rewriting US domestic regulations and stage-manage, at the international level, the Nuclear Supplier Group’s provisions by rewarding India—not a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)/Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)—in return for a strategic alignment with the US. Ideally, it should a have found place as a separate chapter. Given the left-wing orientation of the author, there is hardly any discussion on the stance of India’s official left parties in this matter, particularly since they pulled out their support to the United Progressive Alliance government on this matter.
Chapter five is devoted to unpacking and critiquing the updated Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan (RGAP). The original RGAP of 1988 and its updated version of 2011 have neither had an adequate echo or debate within the media nor within civil society circles. The chapter poses fundamental questions on it and suggests that peace movement circles should debate it and make counter-proposals.
Chapter six goes into the issues of regional and global disarmament and argues why India needs to go beyond the NPT to ensure a world free of nuclear weapons. The NPT came up in a large measure following the nuclear test of India in 1974 to prevent other countries from misusing dual-use civilian nuclear technology. India never signed the NPT and tested its bomb for the second time in May 1998; this was driven by considerations of status in the world. India does have a higher international profile today than in 1998, which is not because of the nuclear weapons it has but because of its economic performance.
While paying lip service to the goal of nuclear disarmament, all nine nuclear-armed states—the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—are modernising their warheads, delivery systems and infrastructure. India and Pakistan, which are not NPT members, are engaged in a nuclear arms race reminiscent of the Cold War.
It seems hard to imagine that nuclear weapons can remain indefinitely in the arsenals of the big five powers—and in the arsenals of India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea—and not get used one day. The danger seems great in South Asia. Pakistan and India are building up their nuclear arsenals as fast as they can. India is testing its first nuclear-powered submarine to carry nuclear-armed missiles. Pakistan is testing short-range battlefield nuclear weapons. But 17 years after India and Pakistan became declared nuclear powers, the world has become rather blasé about the risks of a subcontinental nuclear confrontation.
Chapter six and the conclusion make a strong case for reducing tensions and taking the route to peace. Among proposals suggested is one to push for a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone (WMDFZ) in the Middle East and another, for a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone on both sides of the ceasefire line in Kashmir. It also recommends that the anti-nuclear movement enlarge its focus from nuclear matters to include militarism and to encourage public discussion on the question of risks of nuclear conflict and absence of civil defence.
This book is important for substantively demolishing the common sense surrounding the discourse regarding nuclear weapons and for raising significant questions that need further interrogation. It needs to be translated into Hindi and other Indian languages by the peace movement in India.