Our nuclear nightmare (Prashanth G.N. In ‘The Hindu’ dated 12^th June 2003) 

N-competitiveness: after the test by India on May 11, 1998, Pakistan followed in a fortnight with a counter test.

WAS IT prudent for India to go nuclear and has nuclear weaponisation fostered security in the region? A panel of five — Amulya K.N. Reddy, C. Rammanohar Reddy, Sanjay Biswas, Vishwambar Pati, and Ramachandra Guha — discussed the implications of Indian's recent nuclear thrust at a seminar, India's Dangerous Tryst with Nuclear Weapons, organised by Orient Longman last week, in the context of the launch of the book, Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream, edited by M.V. Ramana and C. Rammanohar Reddy.

The panel felt that nuclear weapons had not enhanced security in India in particular, and in South Asia in general. If anything, the weaponisation had only made the region more volatile. Nuclear weapons were distinct from conventional weapons, not only in literal, physiological, and psychological terms, but also in very fundamental, moral terms. Their capacity for mass murder and destruction is uniquely different in scale compared to conventional weapons.

The members were, however, divided over the effectiveness of the anti-nuclear, peace movement, with some observing that the movement had lost steam over the years, and others seeing hope in the recent protests in Europe and the United States, against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But all agreed that nuclear weaponisation was hurting India's economic, social, and ethical interests, and had intensified the possibilities of nuclear exchange, particularly with Pakistan, given the history of the two nations and their current tensions over Kashmir.

Prof. Amulya Reddy, an energy expert, observed that the development of nuclear weapons is not justified morally, economically, politically, or for reasons of security.

Dr. Reddy, economist and journalist with The Hindu, argued that nuclear weapons had not enhanced security. After we acquired nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan have almost gone to war thrice, of which Kargil was a serious, conventional war, even if unofficial. "Kargil was really the result of nuclearisation and the first conventional war between two nuclear weapon states," he said. Acquisition of nuclear weapons by smaller states makes very little difference to what superpower like the U.S. could do, as was evident in the case of Iraq. Angola, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan, backed by the former U.S.S.R., a nuclear power, did not stop the U.S. from waging proxy wars. He also observed that India's nuclear policy was open ended, moving away from the no-first-use strategy, as per the suggestion of the National Security Advisory Board.

Prof. Biswas, from the Indian Institute of Science, observed that the nuclear establishment in India was the creation by a certain elite. A section of the Indian scientific community had not taken its lessons from anti-imperialist strains and instead come to imitate Western modes of scientific practice, primarily defence-related. This was a section, he said, not accountable to any agency and worked in total secrecy. "Such science is also irrelevant to society at large," he felt. His hope, however, was in the recent, large-scale protests in Europe, and the U.S., against the invasion of Iraq, which he believes has been unprecedented in scale, compared even to the times of the bombing of Japan.

While Prof. Biswas struck a positive note, Dr. Pati argued that the peace movement had not enlarged its constituency despite years of campaign. Its tiring methods of protest, contempt for people who disagreed with its views, and the public's excessive faith in the government has brought the peace movement to the crossroads.

Mr. Guha, historian and sociologist, also agreed that the peace movement in India faced certain limitations. He pointed out that we had, in C. Rajagopalachari, renowned Gandhian, one of the earliest critics of nuclear weaponisation and recollected Rajaji's trip to New York to participate in the disarmament conference of 1962, at the age of 83, as a member of the Gandhi Peace Foundation. Rajaji discussed moves for disarmament with the then U.S. President, John F. Kennedy.

Mr. Guha pointed out that the peace movement ignored the difference between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, especially for a power-starved country. The distinction assumes importance in the face of claims that the positive use of nuclear energy could help enhance generation of power in the developing world. The peace movement, which began in the wake of the Gandhian Movement, came to be dominated by the Communists in later years. It would have to free itself to gather momentum. Arguing that the nuclear weapons industry was the only one not open to scrutiny like a private or public company, Mr. Guha said it was essentially anti-democratic.

While the discussion raised serious questions on the effects of nuclear weapons and their difference from conventional weapons, the objectives of nuclear policy, failure of the concept of deterrence, and the essentially immoral nature of such systems of war, it did leave a few other questions unaddressed. For instance, can one assume that the development of nuclear weapons is independent of national identity? Or, is it possible to imagine a nation without armed forces in the context of nationalism born in the 19th and 20th centuries?

The question of military power was central to international relations at the height of the Cold War, in the mid and late 20th Century, which, among many other factors, was responsible for the nuclearisation of countries, specially the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.. In the Indian context, the "self" has largely been defined vis-à-vis the "other", Pakistan. The history of nation formation in India is really a history of this "othering", which, one can contend, pushed India into developing a strong conventional military.

Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream, throws light on the nuclear question in the context of international, strategic relations, primarily, the India-China-Pakistan axis. It addresses issues of command and control, science and ethics — in terms of the morality of such weapons, the relations between state, democracy, and nationalism in the context of the nuclear bomb, the economics of building such a nuclear apparatus, the damage to developmental-educational projects, and the massive environmental, physiological, and psychological effects of nuclear bombs.

Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream has essays by authors including Kanti Bajpai, Admiral Ramdas, Zia Mian, Ejaz Haider, Ye Zhengjia, Amartya Sen, Amulya K.N. Reddy, M.V. Ramana, Siddharth Mallavarapu, Jean Dreze, V. Krishna Ananth, Srirupa Roy, C. Rammanohar Reddy, Surendra Gadekar, and Thomas George.

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