Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream 9788125050407

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PRISONERS OF THE NUCLEAR DREAM

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Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream

edited by M.V. RAMANA and C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY

Orient Blackswan Private Limited Registered Office 3-6-752 Himayatnagar, Hyderabad 500 029 (A.P.), INDIA e-mail: [email protected] Other Offices Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Ernakulam, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, New Delhi, Noida, Patna © Orient Blackswan Private Limited 2003 First Published 2003 Reprinted 2003 eISBN 978 81 250 5040 7 e-edition:First Published 2013 ePUB Conversion: Techastra Solutions Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests write to the publisher.

For a world free of nuclear weapons

Contents Notes on the Contributors Preface Introduction M.V. RAMANA and C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY PART I Issues of Strategy and Foreign Relations 1. Strategic Threats and Nuclear Weapons: India, China and Pakistan KANTI BAJPAI 2. Nuclear Weapons and National Security ADMIRAL L. RAMDAS 3. A Nuclear Tiger by the Tail: Problems of Command and Control in South Asia ZIA MIAN 4. Managing Nuclear Weapons in South Asia: In Search of a Model EJAZ HAIDER 5. China-India Relations YE ZHENGJIA PART II Issues of Science and Ethics 6. India and the Bomb AMARTYA SEN 7. Designing Nuclear Weapons: The Moral Question AMULYA K.N. REDDY 8. La Trahison des Clercs: Scientists and India's Nuclear Bomb M.V. RAMANA 9. A Mandate for Nuclear Prudence: International Court of Justice on Nuclear Weapons SIDDHARTH MALLAVARAPU PART III Issues of Militarisation, Politics and Economics of Nuclear Weapons 10. Militarism, Development and Democracy JEAN DRÈZE 11. The Politics of the Bomb: Some Observations on the Political Discourse in India in the Context of Pokhran II V. KRISHNA ANANTH 12. Nuclear Frames: Official Nationalism, the Nuclear Bomb, and the Anti-Nuclear Movement in India SRIRUPA ROY 13. Nuclear Weapons versus Schools for Children: An Estimate of the Cost of the Indian Nuclear Weapons Programme

C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY PART IV Issues of Environment and Health 14. The Price We Pay: From Uranium to Weapons M.V. RAMANA AND SURENDRA GADEKAR 15. The Last Deadly Sin: Effects of Nuclear Weapons on Humans THOMAS GEORGE Bibliography

Notes on the Contributors V. KRISHNA ANANTH is Senior Assistant Editor at The Hindu, a leading national newpaper in India, where he writes on political issues. KANTI BAJPAI, a political scientist, is Professor, Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His essay was completed while he was Visiting Fellow, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., USA. JEAN DRÈZE, a well-known economist, has worked extensively on issues related to poverty, and is presently Honorary Professor, Delhi School of Economics, New Delhi. He has co-authored a number of books with Amartya Sen including Hunger and Public Action and India: Development and Participation. SURENDRA GADEKAR, a physicist by training, is at the Sampoorna Kranti Vidyalaya (Institute for Total Revolution). He edits Anumukti (Liberation from the Atom), South Asia's only anti-nuclear journal. THOMAS GEORGE is a medical doctor, who is concerned about the impact of nuclear power and weapons on people's health. EJAZ HAIDER is News Editor, The Friday Times, and Foreign/Op-Ed Editor, The Daily Times, Lahore, and has been the Project Coordinator for Asia—Europe Dialogue, a project of Heinrich Boell Foundation. He is a member of the International Intitute for Strategic Studies in London, the Pakistan National Coordinator for Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and has been involved in Track II dialogue between Pakistan and India since 1996. ZIA MIAN is a physicist on the research staff of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Princeton University, USA. He is the editor of Pakistan's Atomic Bomb and the Search for Security. He has co-edited with Iftikhar Ahmad Making Enemies, Creating Conflict: Pakistan's Crises of State and Society, and with Smitu Kothari, Out of the Nuclear Shadow. M.V. RAMANA, a physicist by training, is Research Associate, Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Princeton University, USA. He is the author of Bombing Bombay? Effects of Nuclear Weapons and a Case Study of a Hypothetical Explosion. ADMIRAL L. RAMDAS, former Chief of Indian Navy, is Chairman of the India Chapter of the Pakistan— India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy. AMULYA K.N. REDDY, a renowned chemist and energy systems analyst, is President, International Energy Initiative in Bangalore. He is one of the co-authors of Energy for a Sustainable World, and has co-edited The Technological Transformation of Rural India. C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY, an economist by training, is a Deputy Editor at The Hindu where he writes on economic issues. SRIRUPA ROY teaches political science at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA. Her research on official nationalism in postcolonial India and the social-historical underpinnings of South Asian nuclearisation has been funded by grants from the Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Foundation on International Peace and Security. She has published in journals such as South Asia and Interventions. AMARTYA SEN is Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, UK, and Lamont University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He has served as President of the Econometric Society, the Indian Economic Association, the American Economic Association and the International Economic Association. In 1998, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. SIDDHARTH MALLAVARAPU is a research scholar at the Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His

dissertation will be on the politics of norm creation in the context of the historic International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion of July 1996 on the legality of nuclear weapons threat or use. He is currently coediting an anthology on International Relations theory in India. YE ZHENGJIA is a Senior Fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, Beijing. He is also a member of the Standing Council of the China Association of South Asian Studies. He was earlier a diplomat with the Government of China and worked on Sino-Indian issues.

Preface One of the fallouts of the nuclear tests of May 1998 has been an explosion in the number of books on India's nuclear weapons programme. These books have been written by academics, journalists, retired military personnel and that unique brand of opinion-makers who surface during times of tension between countries— defence strategists. Why then another? The answer is simple. When Orient Longman commissioned this volume we felt there was a need for an explicit critique of nuclear weapons and the nuclearisation programme adopted by India. We therefore decided that this book would give voice to those who have been critical of the nuclear tests and consequently drowned out by the orchestrated applause that followed Pokhran 1998. Our basic premise is that nuclear weapons do not provide security and that the decision by India and Pakistan to go nuclear has resulted in a deterioration of the security environment in South Asia. We wanted to highlight several other negative outcomes that have been largely ignored by the contemporary literature. The books published in recent years by Indian intellectuals have almost uniformly espoused the dominant paradigm favouring India's acquisition of these weapons of mass destruction. While a large majority of the public intellectuals in the West have traditionally been critical of nuclear weapons, the Indian intellectuals appear to have, by and large, abandoned their critical role and preferred to embrace the agenda set by the establishment. We feel that Indians who want to form an independent opinion on this very important issue could use a critical discussion of nuclear policy. We hope this collection offers such a perspective. The authors have dissected the security and strategic justifications offered in support of the decision to go nuclear. They have examined the political compulsions that led to the Indian government's decision. They have assessed the economic and environmental costs of nuclear weapons in India. They have discussed the role played by the Indian scientific community in driving the agenda. They have also addressed the immorality of nuclear weapons and the illegality of nuclear weapons use or threat of use. The authors come from a range of backgrounds, which have informed their perspectives. While allowing for these differences, we have sought to maintain a broadly constant standard of writing. We therefore have a collection of well-researched and fully documented essays that are, at the same time, accessible to the thinking individual who is interested in this alternative set of arguments. A number of people have made this collection possible. If Nandini Rao of Orient Longman had not approached us with a proposal to prepare this collection, we would not have bestirred ourselves to start on this project. The idea of this volume was hers first, and for that we are indebted to her. We must thank Zia Mian for suggesting the title (apologies to Mike Davis and his wonderful book, Prisoners of the American Dream). R. Sivapriya of Orient Longman showed us how editing could dramatically improve the quality of the essays and it was because of her meticulousness that we were able to notice and fill some glaring gaps. Any remaining errors are, of course, ours. To Hemlata Shankar and Vidya Rao, also of Orient Longman, our thanks for seeing through the volume in its final stages and suggesting the excellent cover. Our appreciation as well to Rakesh Khemani of Orient Longman for rushing to meet a number of last-minute deadlines in the production of this volume. We are grateful to the Ploughshares Fund for supporting our efforts at publicising this book. This book would not have been possible without the cooperation and constant support of Geetha and Nandini, and it is our pleasure to acknowledge that. Finally, we are indebted to all the authors of the essays here for responding to our requests, patiently bearing with us and contributing to what we believe is an excellent critique of the dangerous tryst India has undertaken with nuclear weapons.

December 2002

M.V. RAMANA C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY

PART I Issues of Strategy and Foreign Relations

Introduction M.V. RAMANA AND C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY Beneath the atomic bomb's monstrous mushroom cloud, human skin was burned raw. Crying for water, human beings died in desperate agony. With thoughts of the victims as the starting point, it is incumbent upon us to think about the nuclear age and the relationship between human beings and nuclear weapons. —Takashi Hiraoka, Mayor of Hiroshima, Statement delivered at the International Court of Justice, 7 November 1995 May 11, 1998: There can hardly be a more significant date in the recent history of India and Pakistan. At 3.45 p.m. on that day, the Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee announced that three nuclear devices had been exploded in the Pokhran desert. Two days later two more devices were exploded and Vajpayee proudly announced that India was now a nuclear weapon state. By the twisted logic that drives the acquisition of nuclear weapons, it was inevitable that Pakistan should follow suit. Pakistan's leaders, who had been nurturing a nuclear weapons programme for over two decades, used this opportunity to conduct six explosions on 28 and 30 May 1998. The future of South Asia would never be the same. The half-century old conflict between India and Pakistan would now have a nuclear edge. Nuclear weapons are not new. The possibility of nuclear war has been a threat to humanity since 6 August 1945, when the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb packed the destructive power of approximately 15,000 tonnes of TNT (a chemical explosive) and killed an estimated 110,000 to 130,000 people. 1 Three days later the US bombed the city of Nagasaki as well, killing an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 people. Numbers of deaths, however, do little to capture the horror of the bombings, where, it is said, the survivors envied the dead. Nuclear weapons, then, are instruments of mass murder and destruction. The rationale given for the acquisition of nuclear weapons is that they are for deterrence. Apparently, because of their immense destructive power, the possession of these weapons would deter other countries from attacking with nuclear weapons; it is even claimed that they would prevent war altogether. In other words, they would guarantee security— by threatening mass murder. Ironically, it was India that gave an excellent description of this pernicious doctrine a few years ago. In its submission to the International Court of Justice in 1996, India called nuclear deterrence "abhorrent to human sentiment since it implies that a state if required to defend its own existence will act with pitiless disregard for the consequences to its own and its adversary's people 2 The concept of deterrence has been the basis of the nuclear dream of perfect security that the US claimed for itself. But US monopoly did not last long; the Soviet Union soon followed, and with that began an arms race of epic proportions. At the height of the race, the two superpowers possessed over 70,000 nuclear weapons between them. The next set of 'dreamers' were the UK, France and China. Though not officially acknowledged, Israel too developed a nuclear arsenal that is said to include up to 200 nuclear weapons. 3 With their nuclear tests, India and Pakistan have also bought into this dream and are now in this league of countries that plan for mass murders. The most official statement on how India envisions dealing with its nuclear arsenal is to be found in the draft Indian Nuclear Doctrine (dIND) of August 1999, which calls for the use of nuclear weapons to ensure "rapid punitive response" and to "inflict damage unacceptable to the aggressor. 4 "In other words, when some political or military leader deems it appropriate, these weapons would be exploded over some cities or 'military targets', each killing hundreds of thousands of people. Pakistan too has

similar plans for its nuclear weapons. The people of India and Pakistan for their part have to now come to terms with Robert Jay Lifton's assertion: "The central existential fact of the nuclear age is vulnerability" 5 The nuclear dream only makes us prisoners of insecurity.

Taking Stock While the nuclear dream might be rationalised through the belief that nuclear deterrence would ensure the non-use of nuclear weapons, all nuclear weapon states implicitly admit to the possibility that deterrence could fail. This is why they make plans for the use of nuclear weapons, in effect, preparing to fight a nuclear war. As British historian E.P. Thompson noted, "It has never been true that nuclear war is "unthinkable". It has been thought and the thought has been put into effect." 6 The variance between the ideal of possessing nuclear weapons for deterrence and the practical reality of keeping these weapons primed for use on an everyday basis has been eloquently clarified by General Lee Butler. Before he retired from service, Butler served as commander in chief of the United States Strategic Command, a position in which he had planning and operational responsibilities for all US strategic nuclear forces. With the benefit of this intimate inside experience, he observes: The goal—the wish, really—might be to prevent nuclear war, but the operational plan had to be to wage war. After all, actual nuclear "deterrence"—which is to say a mental state of restraint brought about by terror of annihilation—was nothing that we could bring about by ourselves. In the last analysis, it was up to the enemy whether he would be deterred or not. What both sides had to do in the meantime was plan for nuclear war. Wish and plan collided at every point— psychologically, intellectually, but, above all, operationally 7 India and Pakistan are now at this stage of making plans for the operational use of nuclear weapons and planning for nuclear war. Contrary to what they had been saying, nuclear advocates now claim that just testing nuclear weapons was not sufficient for deterrence. Rather India has had to take the land of steps it had criticised for decades: India has not only adopted nuclear doctrines and practices similar to those of nuclear weapon states, in particular the US, but it has also embarked on the acquisition of the paraphernalia necessary for the adoption of these doctrines, thus making for a nuclear arsenal primed for use. This includes components of an early warning system; the development of newer delivery vehicles, and training the military to use them; the setting up of a command and control structure; and attempts to procure an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defence system. Simultaneously, expenditures on non-nuclear military activities and acquisitions of conventional weapons has also increased dramatically. This is in direct contradiction to the erstwhile claims of nuclear advocates that the acquisition of nuclear weapons would reduce expenditure on conventional weapons. Among the requirements that the dIND lays out is that India should have "operationally prepared" nuclear forces to be delivered by a "triad of aircraft, mobile land-based missiles and sea-based assets 8 The dIND envisages "assured capability to shift from peacetime deployment to fully employable forces in the shortest possible time 9 (emphasis added). Though it is widely believed that India and Pakistan have neither mated warheads to missiles nor loaded nuclear bombs onto aircraft, the two countries appear to be taking preliminary steps towards deploying their weapons 10 Deployment of missiles by India and Pakistan carries unique dangers. With missile flight time of 10 minutes or less between the two countries, there is no possibility of reliable early warning of launch. Therefore the danger of use of nuclear weapons through accident or miscalculation in a crisis is high. 11 With the ongoing conflict and near-war conditions in Kashmir, crises are relatively frequent. This possibility becomes more real if the authorisation to use these weapons is given to the military regiments possessing the weapons.

The Kargil Military Crisis

Kargil was the first large-scale military engagement between any two nuclear weapon states. For the first time since 1971, India called on its air force to launch attacks. In response Pakistan scrambled its own fighters; airraid sirens were tested in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Both countries conducted army exercises at various points along the borders and the navies were put on alert. Voices in both countries, especially in India, called for a more aggressive war with the opening of other fronts or the bombardment of Pakistani supply-routes to Kargil. More disconcerting is the fact that during this war, Indian and Pakistani officials and ministers delivered indirect and direct nuclear threats to one another about a dozen times. 12 Though not official, equally worrisome was the rhetoric of the Panchjanya, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) mouthpiece. The time has come again for India's Bheema to tear open the breasts of these infidels and purify the soiled tresses of Draupadi with blood. Pakistan will not listen just like that. We have a centuries-old debt to settle with this mindset. It is the same demon that has been throwing a challenge at Durga since the time of Mohammad Bin Qasim. Arise Atal Behari! Who knows if fate has destined you to be the author of the final chapter of this long story. For what have we manufactured bombs? For what have we exercised the nuclear option? 13 The close ties between the RSS and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) give these words semi-official status, and offer a sampling of the views of the more extreme members of the Sangh Parivar. 14 Though perhaps not as colourful, similar rhetoric was to be found on the other side of the border. In the end, however, US intervention was necessary to get Pakistani soldiers and others to withdraw from their posts in Kargil. This is made clear in the 2002 report by Bruce Riedel, formerly the senior director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the US National Security Council. 15 The cause for real concern is Riedel's revelation that the US had detected the Pakistani army preparing its nuclear weapons for possible use, unknown to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Riedel's report also shows that India, and Prime Minister Vajpayee, did not stop the war fearing Pakistani nuclear weapons. Ultimately it was US reassurance that Prime Minister Sharif would order Pakistani troops back from the Line of Control (LoC) that set the conditions for the cease-fire at Kargil. This revealing account goes in the face of the often-parroted claim that nuclear weapons protected Pakistan and kept the war from escalating. Or for that matter the belief – or hope – that nuclear weapons act as a deterrent to war. Indeed, many have argued that the Kargil war was actually caused by nuclear weapons. 16

However, inasmuch as high-level Pakistani officials believe that nuclear weapons contained the Kargil crisis and prevented it from becoming a general war, they may continue to see their nuclear arsenal as providing a shield behind which they can continue to intervene militarily in Kashmir. 17 This is a profoundly dangerous view to hold, and the danger may be exacerbated by the fact that the head of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, was the architect of the Kargil affair.

Nuclear Use: Scenarios and Consequences Though nuclear advocates have dismissed the possibility, the deliberate use of nuclear weapons during military crises cannot be ruled out as the nations involved move towards a full-scale war. The war could start through a series of limited military actions, leading to responses that eventually intensify. Pakistan being weaker in terms of conventional military strength, could be expected to use nuclear weapons first in any India-Pakistan conflict. Indeed, high-level Pakistani officials have suggested that the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons could be India attacking or conquering a large part of Pakistan, or destroying a large part of Pakistan's land or air forces, or even economic strangling. 18 How exactly Pakistan would use nuclear weapons is open to speculation. Broadly speaking there are two kinds of scenarios. The first postulates that when one of the many thresholds is crossed, Pakistan would use tactical nuclear weapons on some military target—as a warning signal. India's response to this would

probably involve the use of nuclear weapons, potentially leading to further escalation. The other scenario predicts that under the same set of circumstances, Pakistan would directly attack some Indian city with nuclear weapons. If that were to happen, there is little or no doubt that India would respond in kind. In either case, it is quite likely that the end result would be large-scale nuclear destruction. Even the use of a single nuclear weapon in the crowded cities of South Asia would be catastrophic. A 'mere' 15 kilotonne bomb, equivalent to the weapon the US dropped on Hiroshima, would cause between 150,000 and 850,000 short-term casualties if exploded over Mumbai. 19 A limited nuclear exchange involving the use of five Hiroshima sized bombs on each side could lead to about 3 million deaths and an additional 1.5 million severe injuries. 20 On the face of it, then, the tests of May 1998 or the proclamations that India and Pakistan were nuclear weapon states did not lead to any increased security, either when defined in a narrow military sense or within a broader human security perspective. Neither would the deployment of nuclear weapons increase security. 21 The increased risk of nuclear war and jingoistic rhetoric does not comprise all the negative consequences of the process of nuclearisation. Politically the biggest fallout may well be the changed character of the Indian state itself, and the outlook of the ruling elite. In the conclusion of his exhaustive and meticulous study of the history of the Indian nuclear programme, George Perkovich observes that the process of acquiring nuclear weapons "changes the state that undertakes it. The building of nuclear weapons and related capabilities creates new interests, bureaucratic actors, beliefs, perspectives, and expectations." 22 Thus, one can see certain priorities being highlighted, certain sections of the state apparatus being privileged, certain departments being given increased funding. As the funding pattern changes, so do the functions performed by the state. Social sectors targeted at the poor for example, bear the brunt of the funding cuts that result from the enormous expenses involved in building a nuclear arsenal, and the military buildup that necessarily accompanies nuclearisation. Increased secrecy makes it even more difficult to assess, let alone ameliorate, the long-term consequences to the environment and to public health resulting from the physical processes involved in manufacturing these weapons. These impacts on the economy, people's health, and the environment are not all. There is a change at a very basic level in the character of the people of a nuclear nation. In July 1946, following the US attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mahatma Gandhi observed: "The atom bomb has deadened the finest feelings which have sustained mankind for ages....It has resulted for the time being in the soul of Japan being destroyed. What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see. 23 The battle between those espousing nuclear weapons and those who are opposing it is, therefore, a battle for the soul of India.

The Essays This collection of essays on India's nuclear weapons programme has been put together to examine the multiple fallouts identified in the previous section. By critically examining the various claims and assumptions made by pro-nuclear advocates, and by questioning other aspects of the process of nuclearisation, the essays challenge the steady ongoing attempt at creating a consensus about the quest for nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan; This collection also aims to inform the reader of what the acquisition or possible use of nuclear weapons entails. The race in South Asia, to use the famous warning from H.G. Wells even prior to the splitting of the nucleus, is "between education and catastrophe. 24 In the first essay in the volume, "Strategic Threats and Nuclear Weapons: India, China and Pakistan", Kanti Bajpai examines the stated security rationale for India's nuclear weapons programme, and argues that the claim that India needs nuclear weapons to secure itself against Pakistan is misguided. He further argues that the India-China relationship has improved greatly, and that China is unlikely to attempt intimidating India with the threat of using its nuclear weapons. Instead, the more important challenge is to be watchful along the borders and ensure that India has sufficient military force to deal with any potential Chinese provocation. Bajpai also performs a 'thought experiment' to understand why China may have helped Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and suggests five reasons for this alliance, that have nothing to do

with threatening India. Admiral Ramdas in his essay "Nuclear Weapons and National Security", examines the issue of national security comprehensively, and argues that it is not sufficient to focus merely on weapons of war and the military, but that it is necessary to invest in people-oriented 'human security'. He points out that the linkage between national and human security is often overlooked. Once the basic lineaments of comprehensive national security planning are accepted, they would function as powerful guides in the formulation of the nation's defence, foreign and economic policies. Admiral Ramdas also analyses the dIND presented in August 1999, and identifies its various problems. Underlying the doctrine is the assumption that possession of nuclear weapons is indeed capable of deterring the use of nuclear weapons by others, or preventing war in general. Through his examination of this crucial assumption, he points out that deterrence could fail under various circumstances. (A different, though similar in tone and spirit, critique of deterrence is offered in the essay by Jean Drèze.) There are major doubts about the feasibility of setting up the necessary structures to safely manage a deployed nuclear arsenal, even if we consider the deterrence-based security arguments in favour of acquiring nuclear weapons made by pro-nuclear advocates. The difficulties involved in this process are often underestimated. For example, during a private discussion a few years ago at a meeting in the United States, a former Indian Atomic Energy Commission chairman stated that command and control problems are easy and essentially constitute a clerical job. Other statements by both Indian and Pakistani officials have also suggested the same: that the task is trivial or has already been solved. 25 In his essay "A Nuclear Tiger by the Tail: Problems of Command and Control in South Asia", Zia Mian disproves this belief, indicating exactly what is needed for an adequate command and control system. Far from being easy, there are enormous dilemmas involved in the command and control of nuclear weapons that have no real solutions. Even in the case of countries with decades of experience with nuclear weapons, there are periodic crises that amply demonstrate that it is impossible to construct a command and control system capable of dealing with all probable circumstances. Even the slightest risk of failure is unacceptable, for the consequences of such failure are truly catastrophic. The essay by Amartya Sen, "India and the Bomb", carefully separates the issue of ethics from the prudential issue of practical benefit or loss to the nation involved in acquiring nuclear weapons. While recognising that the world nuclear order is extremely unbalanced, and calling for rapid and effective disarmament, Sen also points out that "the nuclear adventures of India and Pakistan cannot be justified on the ground of the unjustness of the world order, since the people whose lives are made insecure as a result of these adventures are primarily the residents of the subcontinent themselves." The ethical and moral questions associated with nuclear weapons can be categorised in three parts. To begin with, there is the question of the immorality of designing weapons that can indiscriminately kill hundreds of thousands of people, with the potential even for the destruction of the entire globe. There is then the immorality of manufacturing such weapons and threatening to use them, which is ultimately the basis for their possession even when the weapons are said to be purely for deterrence. Finally, the moral problems raised by the possibility that these weapons may actually be used. The last is perhaps the easiest to answer. Ever since 1945, there have been many who have argued that the use of nuclear weapons is immoral and unethical under any provocation. It was Admiral William Leahy, President Truman's chief of staff, who argued that by using nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States had "adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the dark ages". 26 Given the arguments mounted against the concept of deterrence, and the likely possibility of eventual failure of deterrence and the consequent use of nuclear weapons, a policy based on the possibility of use of nuclear weapons is also immoral. 27 It is the question of immorality, that Amulya Reddy explores in his essay, "Designing Nuclear Weapons: The Moral Question". Exploring the horrific planning of mass murder at the notorious Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, Reddy points out that developing nuclear weapons involves a similar harnessing of science and technology for destructive purposes. He then analyses some of the characteristics of the Indian science establishment that allow it to be hijacked for such destructive purposes, and calls for Indian

scientists and engineers to work towards reorienting the thrust of science and technology in the country. M.V. Ramana articulates a similar message in his essay on the involvement of scientists with the bomb, "La Trahison des Clercs: Scientists and India's Nuclear Bomb". The essay documents how the nuclear and missile establishments have been important factors in India's quest for nuclear weapons, and in the shaping of nuclear and security policy Their contributions are not confined merely to designing and manufacturing the bomb but also include lobbying with political leaders and mobilising elite constituencies, often indirectly, but also directly through public advocacy for nuclear weapons and missiles. The essay also briefly chronicles opposition to nuclear weapons and militarisation by a section of Indian scientists. The unique horrors associated with nuclear weapons are detailed by Thomas George in his essay "The Last Deadly Sin: Effects of Nuclear Weapons on Humans". George first concentrates on radiation and describes its physical origins and its effects on human health. He then enumerates the different effects of nuclear explosions and the possible consequences of nuclear war, concluding that humankind simply cannot afford the risk of nuclear war. The uniqueness of nuclear weapons was the fundamental ground on which the International Court of Justice based its historic 1996 Advisory Opinion on the legal status of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, the focus of Siddarth Mallavarapu's essay. As is well known (though nowhere nearly as well known as it should be), the Court ruled that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of international humanitarian law," and unanimously concluded that there was a legal obligation on all states "to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control." 28 Siddarth's essay addresses the different aspects of law that underlay the court's deliberation— human rights, genocide, environment, humanitarianism and self-defence. He examines India's deposition to the Court and the reception to the Court's Opinion in Indian legal circles. Siddarth also documents the doctrinal shift between India's deposition to the Court and the dIND formulated in 1999. In conclusion, Siddarth terms the Court's Opinion, "a hard won 'mandate' for immediate nuclear prudence," which "obligates all nuclear weapon states, including India, to 'negotiate' multilaterally a comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Convention," that would ban nuclear weapons. 29 The justification for acquiring the capability to make nuclear weapons, draws on broader notions of nationalism; Srirupa Roy and Krishna Ananth elaborate these notions. Roy, in "Nuclear Frames: Official Nationalism, the Nuclear Bomb and the Anti-nuclear Critique in India", argues that the nuclear choice made by the state, and the logic of security and interests that it uses to justify its decision draws upon cognitive belief structures or ideological formations that have a historical presence in society. She discusses the different imperatives of the postcolonial state, especially its 'monumentalist' role in building the new nation, while tracing the prominent role given to nuclear science and technology in this process of building a big and visible state. Krishna Ananth's essay, "The Politics of the Bomb: Some Observations on the Political Discourse in India in the Context of Pokhran II", situates the Indian nuclear weapons programme within the process of the construction of Indian nationalism in opposition to Pakistan—a project led by the Sangh Parivar. He points out that the 1998 Pokhran tests were carried out in a larger context where mainstream political opinion had already agreed with the idea that 'national security' as portrayed by the ruling classes was not to be questioned. It must also be mentioned that the Sangh Parivar has always been in favour of acquiring nuclear weapons, well before Pakistan or even China obtained them. During Nehru's tenure as prime minister, the issue of developing nuclear weapons was raised only once in the Indian Parliament. In 1962, Ramachandra Bade, a member of the Jana Sangh, forerunner of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said: "Only those who wish to see Russians or Chinese ruling India will oppose the development of nuclear weapons. 30 In his essay, "Nuclear Weapons versus Schools for Children: An Estimate of the Cost of the Indian Nuclear Weapons Programme", C. Rammanohar Reddy estimates the specific financial costs of nuclear weaponisation in India, on a very conservative basis, to be around Rs 80,000 crore over a decade or so. This is comparable to the estimated cost of providing elementary education for all children of school-going age, over a 10-year period. Other points of comparison can also be listed; the basic point, however, is fairly clear—

investing in a nuclear arsenal would lead to a decrease in social spending. South Asia being home to the majority of the world's poor, spending money on weapons — while millions lack food, shelter, clothing, clean drinking water, basic health care and elementary education facilities – borders on the obscene and the vulgar. Focussing on the larger issue of militarisation and development, Jean Drèze's "Militarism, Development and Democracy", argues for recognising militarism as a major obstacle to development in the contemporary world. These consequences go well beyond what is captured by standard economic indicators such as the rate of economic growth or even 'poverty indices', and include wide-ranging material and psychological deprivations associated with entitlement failures, health crises, physical violence, forced displacement and related processes. Drèze also points out that war undermines future development prospects by disrupting or destroying the productive infrastructure, public services, settlement patterns, environmental resources, social capital and the institutions of governance. Nuclear weapons do not have only financial and military consequences. In their essay, "The Price We Pay: From Uranium to Weapons", M.V. Ramana and Surendra Gadekar estimate the costs paid by the people of India in terms of their health (public and occupational) and the environment they live in, from the fallout of the nuclear weapons programme. After enumerating the reasons why estimating these costs is a difficult task, the essay describes the different stages of the nuclear fuel cycle and the various processes involved in making nuclear weapons, and details the environmental and health impact of each activity. The people who bear the brunt of the fallout are often the disempowered. For them, nuclear weapons are a constant threat to their well-being. Two essays in the book express views from India's neighbouring countries, China and Pakistan. While China initially (after the contents of Prime Minister Vajpayee's letter to the US president were made public) reacted critically, it soon went back to the earlier trend of trying to improve relations with India and further economic cooperation. As Ye Zhengjia notes in his essay, "China-India Relations": "The visits to China first by India's Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, in 1999 and then more importantly by the President of India, Mr K.R. Narayanan, in 2000 have helped ease somewhat the strains of 1998. But there is still a long way to go before the two Asian giants become true neighbours." It is worth noting that China did not interfere either during the Kargil war or during the post-December 13, 2001 confrontation. Similarly Pakistan's chief, Pervez Musharraf, after making a beginning as the architect of the Kargil conflict, has moved on to offering a no-war pact, and denuclearising South Asia. To be sure, the details of such an agreement have to be worked out. Ejaz Haider in his essay "Managing Nuclear Weapons in South Asia: In Search of a Model", suggests the linking of India's proposal of no-first-use (NFU) with Pakistan's offer of a no-war pact (NWP). In his proposal, the linkage would ensure that breakdown of one commitment could legitimately be construed to mean the corresponding breakdown of the other. Thus, if India were to commit conventional aggression against Pakistan, then the latter would not be bound by the NFU guarantees. For the NWP to be meaningful, however, 'war' should be defined in a comprehensive manner and include, for example, "military incursions across the border, support for cross-border militancy, sabotage, blockades, and disruption of river waters 31 The essays in this collection together make for a formidable critique of the nuclear path that India has chosen, and which Pakistan has followed.

Postscript All these essays were written before the attack on New York's World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. While the finer details of some of these arguments may be changed with regard to the attack, it is certain that concern about South Asia's nuclear weapons has only become that much more grave. On 13 December 2001, just three months after the World Trade Center attack, Islamist militants attacked India's Parliament. As India and Pakistan built up their troops to their biggest levels ever – estimated at a million soldiers – there was a flurry of nuclear threats. Among the more remarkable of these was the Indian Army Chief S. Padmanabhan's 11 January 2002 statement that his force was "fully ready" for war, and his warning that if any country was crazy enough to initiate a nuclear strike against India, then "the perpetrator

shall be so severely punished that his very existence will be in doubt. We are ready for a second strike. Let me reassure you that India has sufficient nuclear weapons." 32 While Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes was quick to issue a rebuttal of this "cavalier" statement, 33 only a few days earlier he himself had stated that India could "absorb" a first nuclear strike and yet retaliate.34 The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between the Indian and Pakistani soldiers that followed, persisted for several months. The situation intensified after two gruesome militant attacks in Kashmir within the space of two weeks in May 2002. As the world waited, India and Pakistan amassed troops across the border. India moved five warships from the east to the Arabian Sea. On 22 May, the Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee told frontline troops in Kashmir that the time had come for a "decisive fight" promising, "we will win again." .35 Fortunately the situation gradually cooled down, again following high-level American diplomacy. Anxious not to have tensions between India and Pakistan get in the way of continuing its war on Afghanistan, the US made a number of promises to India, while simultaneously supporting Musharraf. A number of factors contributed to making the 2002 crisis much worse. These factors may well shape the course of future conflicts. The first factor is the Indian military's impatience after Kargil. Though the Kargil war was extremely limited in a geographical sense, it took a toll of nearly 1300 lives (both Indian and Pakistani) according to the Indian government, and over 1750 according to the Pakistan government. Since that combat involved Pakistan occupying higher terrain and controlling approach roads, the Indian army literally and figuratively had to fight an uphill battle. The lesson that the Indian army has chosen to learn from the Kargil war is that it does not want to be limited in its options in such a situation. Even at Kargil, India called on its air force to launch attacks for the first time since 1971, and there were calls to open up other batdefronts or bombard the Pakistani supply-routes to the border. Such recommendations became more common after the end of the Kargil war. In January 2000, Defence Minister George Fernandes declared that die Kargil conflict had shown that the nuclearisation of India and Pakistan had not made conventional wars obsolete. Rather they "simply imposed another dimension on the way warfare could be conducted." . 36 Reflecting the kind of thinking that had been popularised by US nuclear strategists like Herman Kahn, then army chief V.P. Malik elaborated on his concept of limited war. "The escalation ladder would be carefully climbed in a carefully controlled ascent by both protagonists." 37 Given the confusion and chaos of war, such ideas are wishful thinking at best. It is more likely that experimenting with such ladders would lead the countries into a tragic and destructive nuclear exchange. The second factor is the increased levels of indulgence in (nuclear) brinkmanship by both countries, especially India. This took the form of both threat and action. For example, during his 2 January 2002 speech in Lucknow, Prime Minister Vajpayee reportedly stated that no weapon would be spared in self-defence: "Whatever weapon is available, it would be used no matter how it wounded the enemy." . 38 On the other side of the border, former chief of the Pakistan Army, General Mirza Aslam Beg, declared: "We can make a first strike, and a second strike or even a third. 39 In the midst of the crisis, both India and Pakistan tested new nuclear capable missiles. India started the race with a test in January 2002 of a short-range version of the Agni. With a range of 700 km, the missile was clearly specific to Pakistan.40 Pakistan's response was amplified: it tested three missiles – the 1500-km Ghauri, a 300-km Ghaznavi, and the 180-km Abdali – later in the year. It has been reported that Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee granted authorisation to the armed forces to use the short-range Prithvi missile at their discretion. 41 The third factor, is the fallout of US actions following 11 September, in particular the US arrogating for itself the right to bomb Afghanistan. Completely oblivious to the differences between the US – Afghanistan association and that of India and Pakistan, and more generally paying no heed to the undesirability, illegality and immorality of US actions, several Indian politicians, media commentators and military personnel competed to recommend that India follow the US lead and attack Pakistan's facilities in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. In November 2001, for example, even before the attack on the Indian Parliament, a meeting of highlevel Indian army officials recommended going 'for 'hot pursuit' of terrorists in Pak-occupied Kashmir and destroying] their training camps. 42

"The rhetoric about such attacks and the attempt at coercive diplomacy points to something larger. After half a century of extolling the virtues of nuclear deterrence, the US is now contemplating a new strategy— counter-proliferation.43 India evidently would like to follow this dream as well, and has therefore been arguing that it too has the right to make preemptive strikes 44 Indian foreign policy too has been fluctuating; the most important of the changes has been the realignment between the US and India. After the initial period when the US imposed sanctions, the two countries have become much closer, so close that India was the first country to unequivocally support the national missile defence programme that the Bush administration is building. Going against decades of nonalignment, India also supported the US military action in Afghanistan. For these actions, the US has 'rewarded' India by selling it weapons. Other nuclear weapon states have also been trying to keep pace. The UK, France and Russia, not to mention Israel, have competed with each other to sell military hardware, some of which are to form part of India's nuclear weapons infrastructure. This is not something to rejoice about—quite apart from the sheer economic costs, thousands of millions of rupees at the very least, these weapons are sure to make the next war much more bloody and destructive.

Conclusion The major casualty of the nuclear dream shared by India and Pakistan is peace. India and Pakistan have fought two near-wars (even a limited war in the case of Kargil) in the four years following the May 1998 tests. Talks between political leaders have been symbolic at best, and abject failures at worst. Once deterrence is taken to be working – a complete uncertainty – then there is no incentive to work out problems with the adversary. By freezing problems, nuclear weapons only entrench those on both sides who have an interest in permanent enmity. There are then no possibilities for normalisation and building friendships—the only way towards a lasting peace. 45 However, work has begun on creating a way forward. On Hiroshima Day, 1998, an estimated 400,000 people marched on the streets of Kolkata in opposition to the nuclear tests conducted a few months earlier. Several other large cities in South Asia also witnessed similar- rallies. Perhaps even more significant were the large number of spontaneous actions, mostly unreported, from little heard of small towns and villages. These, and other activities marked the emergence of a broadbased anti-nuclear and peace movement. There is now a national Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), which emerged out of a national convention in November 2000 in New Delhi. Similarly the Pakistan Peace Coalition has been formed by a large number of organisations interested in fostering peace and nuclear disarmament. The task facing these groups is immense. Ranged against them are governments and powerful institutions. They also have to contend with the hypocrisy of nuclear weapon states that argue that they, and they alone, should possess nuclear weapons. They have to deal with a vast populace that has no awareness of the dangers of nuclear war. Tough as it is, there is no alternative to this struggle. The dangers of complacency or acceptance are too grave. At the same time, given the many social and political challenges facing the people of the subcontinent, for the peace movement to have any chance of success, it would have to place its emphasis on a just peace—that is, systemic change and not simply the control or elimination of nuclear weapons while leaving everything else unchanged. 46 The peace movement in the subcontinent would have to link itself with peace movements elsewhere and build bridges to people and movements across the world, especially in all the nuclear weapon states, that strive to regain control over their governments and deliver the world from nuclear danger. We offer this collection of essays as our contribution to this movement.

Strategic Threats and Nuclear Weapons: India, China and Pakistan KANTI BAJPAI The nuclearisation of South Asia may be challenged in various ways and from different vantage points. In this essay, I critically analyse the rationale for an Indian nuclear weapons programme. That rationale has centred on the security benefits of nuclear weapons. I contest the claims of pro-bomb advocates in India and I do so on their preferred terrain, namely, the utility of nuclear weapons for security. Pro-bomb strategic analysts, understandably enough, are wont to reject the moral arguments against the bomb as idealistic. Those who are undecided about the utility of the bomb by and large find the moral arguments too abstruse and cannot be convinced that morality can play any role in international affairs. Bemused by the moral arguments, the undecided tend to gravitate towards at least grudging support of the bomb—by 'default', as it were. In saying this, I do not mean that the moral arguments against the bomb are irrelevant or wrong. I do suggest though, that in arguing against the bomb it is necessary also to present arguments from a rather traditional security perspective, arguments that are 'more easily accessible' to the ordinary reader and citizen whose strategic imagination is dominated by realist idioms of thought—national interest, balance of power, deterrence, and so on. This essay is divided into three main parts. The first part argues that New Delhi is misguided in claiming that it needs nuclear weapons in respect of Pakistan. This is a relatively easy argument to mount. Interestingly, some traditional security analysts now concede that the Indian bomb may be counterproductive against Pakistan. The second part of the essay engages the claim that India needs nuclear weapons to be secure against China. This is the more difficult claim to contest because to cope with China's greater military power would seem to require some extraordinary countermeasure on India's part, and nuclear weapons seem to fit the bill nicely. The third part of the essay then examines the puzzling issue of why China has supported Pakistan's nuclear programme. That it has done so is fairly well established—so much that Indian analysts have cited Beijing's nuclear relationship with Pakistan as a major reason for the May 1998 tests. Here I undertake a 'thought experiment' that suggests that China's motives are likely far more complex than is generally acknowledged and they go beyond the desire to 'balance' India by strengthening Pakistan. The primary utility of nuclear weapons, according to advocates of the bomb, is deterrence—that is, the promise of military punishment to prevent an attack on oneself. Indian and Pakistani leaders have formally stated that they have invested in nuclear weapons for 'defensive' purposes, namely, to deter their military rivals. The Indian government has made clear that this means Pakistan and China. New Delhi's pronouncements suggest that China is the more important threat. But the rhetoric from South Block and India's day-to-day diplomatic and strategic moves indicate that Pakistan is an equal if not greater threat—so much so that strategic commentators are forced, with some exasperation, to remind the Indian public that it is China and not Pakistan which is the real worry. Beyond this, some in the Indian strategic community have argued that the United States is also a military presence to disquiet India. A number of factors are more or less vaporously cited to bolster the argument about an American nuclear threat. These include: the use of the USS Enterprise in 1971 to coerce India in the Bangladesh war; the US counter proliferation policy which, at the limit, could translate into military strikes against nascent nuclear programmes, including perhaps India's; and US geostrategy which is hostile to rising powers such as India who could one day be global rivals, but who, in any case, are seen as regional spoilers.1 As things stand, the US threat is usually portrayed as subsidiary and remote, one that is politically

incorrect to bruit about too openly. Nevertheless, with time, as India weaponises and as the missile and submarine programmes go forward, we should expect to see far more open references to the American threat. With inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) capability, it will be technically possible for India to mount a retaliatory strike against the continental United States. If it becomes technically possible to do so, there will undoubtedly be those who would push to make it operationally viable.2 At this point, though, the Indian government has identified Pakistan and China as the reason for its tests and for the need to build a nuclear arsenal. Is New Delhi's case justified? Do the nuclear capabilities of Pakistan and China warrant India's nuclearisation?

The Pakistani Threat It is reasonably certain that Pakistan has had the capacity to test and deploy nuclear weapons since about the late 1980s. Perhaps the most authoritative statement of Pakistani capabilities came from Dr A.Q. Khan during the Brasstacks crisis of January 1987 when he revealed Pakistan's hand to the visiting Indian journalist, Kuldip Nayar.3 The tests in the Chagai Hills on 28 May 1998 only confirmed Pakistar's nuclear status. That Pakistan's tests were conducted a mere two weeks after India's tests, indicate that the Pakistani nuclear establishment had prepared for testing well in advance of Pokhran II. Whether Islamabad would have ordered a test independent of the Indian tests is not known, but once India tested there was little doubt that Pakistan would respond. Pakistan's nuclear tests and the revelations regarding its missile programme suggest that India now truly confronts a nuclear-armed neighbour on its western border. The Ghauri missile, which reputedly is capable of carrying nuclear payloads, has the range to hit targets throughout India except in the northeastern part of the country. The case for an Indian nuclear deterrent therefore appears reasonable if not sound. Within the framework of deterrence thinking, this is logical—if a rival or adversary has nuclear weapons, then one must invest in a retaliatory capability. But what if we take a step back and ask—could Pakistan's nuclearisation have been avoided in the first place? Further, is it not possible, even now, to turn the clock back, so that both India and Pakistan do not fall into the trap of nuclear deterrence?

South Asia's Nuclear Past Could Pakistan have been stopped from weaponising? The answer is probably, yes. Once Pakistan had developed nuclear weapons capability in the 1980s, India may well have had to think in terms of deterrence. However, there was nothing automatic about Pakistan becoming a nuclear weapon state. While it is true that Pakistan was moving towards the acquisition of weapons capability before the Indian tests of 1974, it is not clear that Islamabad would have gone forward with such speed and determination if New Delhi had unambiguously and verifiably closed off the nuclear option in the 1960s. With India categorically out of the nuclear weapons hunt, the pressure on Islamabad to proceed with nuclearisation would have been largely absent. This is a what-if of history, admittedly, but not a risible or trivial one. At any rate, one opportunity to turn back the nuclear clock was likely lost in the 1960s. A second opportunity to avoid a nuclear arms race was lost in the 1970s and 1980s when Pakistan stated publicly, on several occasions, that it would sign any denuclearising agreement India was prepared to accept. Islamabad's various offers were seen as tactical maneuvers designed to embarrass India diplomatically.4 But if India had called Pakistan's 'bluff, it is difficult to see how, given the weight of world opinion as well as influential sections of its domestic opinion, Islamabad could have reneged on its commitment. Proponents of deterrence would argue that Pakistan would have gone nuclear anyway because of its seemingly permanent inferiority in conventional weaponry and its lack of strategic depth. This is another what-if of history but a credible enough one, and it deserves a reply. Clearly, neither side can be proved altogether correct—not deterrence proponents or deterrence opponents. However, it is not beyond reasonable belief that if India had given up the nuclear option and had simultaneously offered to negotiate on a variety of bilateral issues – including Kashmir and conventional force levels – then Pakistan's fears of India's

military preponderance could have been assuaged. Negotiations on bilateral disputes were once very much part of India's agenda. The bargain at the Simla peace negotiations in 1972 included bilateral negotiations on all outstanding disputes plus the normalisation of relations between the two countries in terms of the reopening of diplomatic, economic and social contacts.5 Bringing down troop levels, such that India would have had enough for defence against Pakistan and China and for internal security duties, was not an impossibility. A defensive or non-offensive defence posture with limits on the more offensive class of weapons – strike aircraft, armour and mobile artillery – would have supplemented personnel reductions and was not an impossibility either.6 Talks on Kashmir plus a conventional forces agreement would have stood a very good chance of reassuring Pakistan and stopping the advance of its nuclear weapons programme. Instead, India, as much as Pakistan, turned its back on the Simla agreement. New Delhi did little to engage in bilateral discussions, especially on Kashmir, while Islamabad conceded only the most elemental forms of normalisation such as the resumption of full-fledged diplomatic relations. In addition, the Indian military, like its Pakistani counterpart, invested in offensive rather than defensive power. Indian purchases from the former Soviet Union in the 1980s and Pakistani acquisitions from the US during the same period were massive and not configured for defensive defence. Those who argue for the bomb in India might also argue that Pakistan's desire for nuclear weapons is rooted in its humiliation over the outcome of the 1971 war when East Pakistan broke away with Indian help. In this view, Pakistan is determined to have the bomb as insurance against Indian intervention, which is strategically and psychologically understandable. If so, what choice is there for India but to follow a nuclear course? We should recognise that this is, in effect, a variant of the general argument that India must have the bomb to counter Pakistan. And the response to it is that Pakistan's sense of strategic and psychological vulnerability and its desire for the bomb – which in turn validates India's case for nuclear weapons – can only be overcome by doing three things—renouncing the bomb, reducing and reconfiguring conventional forces, and settling Kashmir. If these are done, what is there left for Pakistan to feel vulnerable about that cannot be settled by discussion and compromise?

A Non-Nuclear Future? The past is, of course, the past. Can India stop Pakistan weaponising in the future? It can, but the nature of the nuclear debate in India after Pokhran II – which sees the question of weaponisation as having been settled, once and for all, by the tests of May 1998 – suggests that we are in danger of losing a third opportunity to stop the nuclear clock from moving forward. Even now, if India renounced nuclear weapons, Pakistan would have little choice but to end its weaponisation programme. The reopening of talks on Kashmir and other bilateral disputes such as Siachen, Sir Creek and Wullar would be a further incentive to denuclearise. Finally, Indian and Pakistani conventional forces could be constituted so that neither side could launch a surprise attack in most circumstances. There is of course no guarantee that conventional deterrence will always hold, any more than nuclear deterrence is permanent. 7 However, when nuclear weapons are absent, the costs of deterrence failure need not be catastrophic, as India showed in the wars of 1948, 1965, 1971, and most lately, 1999. With the appropriate conventional force configuration, India and Pakistan would either deter each other or, if deterrence broke down, would robustly defend themselves and repel the invader.8 In saying all this, I recognise that there is no serious move in India to renounce nuclear weapons.9 My intention in defining the lineaments of the renunciation option is to demonstrate that it is a strategic possibility and that it need not be based on 'moral' objections to nuclear weapons. 10 Such a statement is important because there is a certain degree of fatalism about the Indian nuclear option which has only deepened as a result of the Pokhran II tests. This fatalism is revealed in the frequent, usually impatient retort that any questioning of the utility of the bomb is now 'water under the bridge', that we must all 'get on with things' diplomatically and militarily, that it is the 'future that matters' as if that future has become unalterable by virtue of May 1998, and that we must 'all pull together' towards a consensus on weaponising. Contrary to this 'pragmatic' view, it needs to be affirmed that there are other security pathways ahead and that these may

be revealed by a critical, counterfactual look at the past.

The Chinese Threat The Indian government and pro-bomb Indian strategic analysts argue that the raison atomique of the Indian nuclear programme is not only Pakistan but also China. Does India need nuclear weapons because of China? The question presumes that China is a nuclear threat, but this is doubtful.

India's China Syndrome If India did not have nuclear weapons, Chinese nuclear intimidation could be imagined in three lands of circumstances. First of all, the unresolved border dispute between the two countries could flare up and lead to a confrontation. Second, internal instabilities in China could encourage Beijing to pursue a course of external adventurism. As the Chinese leadership struggled to assert or retain political control, it might be tempted to use external 'threats' to outmaneuver and discipline internal rivals. Third, China and India, by virtue of their size and self-image, could become perennial rivals for influence in Asia, if not farther afield.11 Nuclear asymmetry, it could be argued, would strengthen Beijing's hand in each circumstance. Facing a non-nuclear opponent, China could become more obdurate over the border issue. Should instabilities in Tibet, and other areas of southern China, tempt the leadership to 'teach' India a lesson (as a way of rallying support domestically), this temptation could be reinforced by nuclear superiority. And China's nuclear confidence might enable it to enlarge its spheres of influence to India's detriment.

Living with the Chinese Bomb Each of the three propositions about the Chinese threat bears critical examination. First, while the border dispute is unresolved in a formal sense, Beijing has got most of what it wanted out of the conflict. If its primary aim was to secure the route from Xinkiang to Tibet, it long ago accomplished its goal. China is the satisfied power on the border issue, and it did not need nuclear weapons then, and does not need them now or in the future, to retain control of the area. Second, there is considerable room for debate over the internal-external or 'scapegoat' thesis. Were internal factors truly responsible for China's wars against India and Vietnam? How vulnerable and unstable is China likely to be in the future? Can domestic political troubles be eased, in the new China, by external distractions? Finally, and most importantly, would war with India be credible in this regard, given that the only serious bilateral issue – the border – favours China. Would it help or hurt an insecure regime or leadership to raise an India bogey in such circumstances? This is the terrain of Sinologists, to be sure, but it doesn't take an expert on China to know that India has never figured in China's threat cosmology in any serious fashion—unlike the Russian Expansionist, the American Imperialist, and the Japanese Upstart. India's nuclearisation, the naming of China as a potential enemy by India's defence minister, and the rather unfortunate letter from the Indian prime minister to the US president (which tried to justify the May 1998 tests by citing the China threat) may change all that. However, historically, these two civilisations have not had occasion to demonise each other. Unless India is maladroit enough to team up with one of China's older enemies, and unless it is tempted foolishly to roil up trouble in Tibet, it is unlikely that this rather benign historical relationship will change for the worse.12 Third, the proposition that nuclear weapons have enhanced China's status (and the status of the other nuclear weapon states) is a constant and rather hoary theme in Indian thinking, but an ill-founded one for all that.13 China's growing international stature is more clearly linked to quite a different set of factors— the vitality and quality of its communist leaders; the speed with which, after 1949, the new government exerted political control and embarked on social reforms; the dramatic improvements in the quality of physical life if not standard of living; the military victories in Tibet and Korea in the 1950s, and the defeat of India in 1962; the break with the Soviet Union in 1958; the increasing sophistication of its conventional armed forces over

the past two decades; the dynamism of its economy since the late 1970s; and, notwithstanding a certain measure of turbulence, an impressive degree of political stability (even if one disapproves of the way in which stability has been achieved). Nuclear weapons have not hurt China's standing in world affairs; but to ascribe Chinese status and influence primarily to nuclear weapons is untenable.14 If this analysis is correct, India's nuclearisation will make little or no difference to its positioning in relation to China. Put differently—the real 'race' with China is civic and economic, not nuclear and strategic. If we add to this the progress that has been made in India-China relations since the early 1980s, then the likelihood of nuclear intimidation across the Himalayas seems even more remote. Since the early 1980s, India and China have held talks on the border dispute. The talks have been institutionalised as part of a joint working group (JWG), which has continued to meet in spite of various ups and downs in the relationship. Interestingly, India-China official contacts were unaffected by the two most serious incidents of the 1980s – the Sumdurong Chu episode in 1986 and the Operation Chequerboard 'crisis' of 1988 – which indicates that both sides saw normalisation as vital to their interests. Indeed, as a further sign of normalisation, it should be noted that India-China interactions at the political level increased rapidly in this period. Thus, from the mid1980s, the foreign ministers, prime ministers, and presidents of the two countries met at least fifteen times.15 In addition to the border talks and summitry, India and China have agreed to a number of confidencebuilding measures (CBMs). These include an understanding on maintaining peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LoAC) and on thinning forces along the border. The improved relationship allowed India to transfer up to two divisions of troops from the northern front to the Northeast and Kashmir for internal security duties—no mean benefit at a critical moment. Finally, India-China economic contacts have deepened. After Rajiv Gandhi visited China in 1988, border trade was reopened, and trade links between public sector units were encouraged. Thereafter, more normal trade links have been established, with the private sector leading the way. In 1998, bilateral trade stood at 1.8 billion US dollars, having risen from a paltry 200 million dollars in 1991.16 None of this means that India should wear rose-coloured spectacles when it looks at China. Few Indian leaders – Jawaharlal Nehru included – have had any illusions about China.17 China is a big power, albeit with many weaknesses; it continues to hold Indian territory and withhold recognition of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh (even if this is largely a tactical ploy); and it has its share of strategic ambitions. India should therefore be watchful on its borders and should ensure that it has sufficient force to deal with any Chinese provocation. The Indian defence minister's statements regarding weaknesses in India's conventional forces, gaps in army recruitment, and flagging morale are far more to the point than the reflexive, flapping hysteria over a nuclear threat from China. In sum, there is a great danger that while the political class fiddles with phantasmagorical images of nuclear coercion, the real military weaknesses in relation to China will be ignored.

The Pakistan-China Nuclear Axis Over the years, Indian and foreign analysts have revealed that Pakistan and China have cooperated on nuclear matters. Pakistan has allegedly received a substantial amount of both intellectual and material help from China in building its nuclear programme. While the precise quantum of Chinese aid remains unclear, there seems to be evidence enough of some, fairly continuous, cooperation since 1976. 18 Not surprisingly, in May 1998, an important justification of the Indian nuclear tests and of the subsequent calls for weaponisation was that a Pakistan–China nuclear 'axis' threatened India's security. There is nothing particularly problematic about such a claim. If India sees Pakistan and China individually as nuclear threats, then any degree of cooperation between those two countries on nuclear weapons is also a threat. The question is—why has China helped Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme? Nuclear history from the Manhattan project onwards suggests that nuclear powers are extremely reluctant to share what they know with others, even with close allies. The United States, during the Manhattan project, took nuclear secrets and materials from both Britain and France but was wary of reciprocating. After the

Second World War, US reluctance grew stronger. Washington dramatically abridged its nuclear relationship with Britain and virtually cut France off from collaboration in the nuclear field.19 A similar story can be told about the former Soviet Union and China. While Soviet nuclear technicians certainly helped China from 1949 to 1958, Moscow watched Beijing with increasing suspicion and alarm in this period. Mao Zedong’s dangerous statements about the usability of nuclear weapons and his derision of the Soviet Union’s nuclear caution perplexed and angered Soviet leaders. In 1958, it was conflict over nuclear issues as much as ideology or grand strategy that led to the Sino-Soviet split. Soviet technicians pulled out in the wake of the split, thus ending nuclear cooperation between the two communist giants.20 Why has China gone against the grain of nuclear history to help Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme for nearly a quarter of a century? The argument most frequently advanced is that China sees in Pakistan a strategic counterweight or balance to India, and that a nuclear Pakistan is therefore in Beijing's interest. This is a plausible enough explanation, but it raises some rather awkward questions. For instance, given China's overall superiority to India at both the conventional and nuclear level, how much does Pakistan's military prowess matter in an India–China balance? China reputedly has in the range of 450–500 nuclear weapons. India by all accounts has less than 100. Pakistan may have fewer than 50. 21 If so, it is difficult to see what Pakistan can add to China's ability to deter India, if that is Beijing's concern. Given China's considerable lead in nuclear weapons, one that it can and presumably will maintain even if India should attempt to reduce it, Pakistan's rather puny forces would seem to be of little additional value. On the other hand, were India to close the gap with China significantly, how much would Pakistan's nuclear forces help China? A nuclear Pakistan would of course 'divide' India's forces, but not very substantially given that India does not need a large force to deter Pakistan, whatever Pakistan may possess. If Pakistan's nuclear forces do not divide India's forces to any great extent, surely Islamabad is of little help to China. So, in terms of the general balance of nuclear power, Pakistan's nuclear capabilities would have little impact. The existence of Pakistani nuclear weapons could however complicate India's deterrence calculations at a critical moment, and this, it may be argued, is a gain for China. Let us suppose that India and China are locked in a confrontation and that the stakes are high enough for war to become a serious possibility. With Pakistan on the side, India will face a more complex situation. If China were to launch a first strike, destroying say 70 per cent of India's nuclear forces, then New Delhi could be faced with the problem of whether to use its remaining weapons to retaliate against China or whether to launch a first strike against an opportunistic Pakistan. Pakistan may be tempted to strike against India in this situation for two reasons—it may simply want to take advantage of India's military prostration to finish its enemy once and for all; or, Islamabad may attack India preemptively on the grounds that New Delhi, fearing an opportunistic attack by Pakistan, is preparing to launch its own preemptive attack. Does China gain very much by complicating India's nuclear calculations in this way? Perhaps, but one could equally argue the opposite. An India that is faced with two nuclear opponents may, in a critical moment, become a dangerously unpredictable opponent, for precisely the reasons outlined above. It may choose not to simply sit back but rather to attack first, to use its nuclear forces rather than lose them. By investing in Pakistan, China may create a nuclear triangle that could be highly unstable. Promoting Pakistan's nuclear weapons capability, it could be argued, is a strategic minus, not plus, for China in other ways as well. First of all, by investing in Pakistani capabilities, China runs the risk of goading India even further down the road to nuclear weapons capability. While it was conceivable that India could live with a nuclear China, it is hard to imagine that it could live with a nuclear Pakistan. Second, China's strategic situation in Asia is complex enough without a nuclear India and nuclear Pakistan on its southern periphery. China has more neighbours than any other country in the international system. These neighbours include powers of some consequence by any reckoning—Russia, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, India and Pakistan. Russia and before it the Soviet Union, was the second largest nuclear power in the world. Japan could easily go nuclear if it chose to do so. South Korea also has the technical and economic capability to go nuclear at short notice. Indonesia and Vietnam are no particular friends of China. While they are nowhere near being nuclear weapons powers, they are fairly formidable local powers, and could someday go nuclear.

In any case, Vietnam, it should be remembered, gave Chinese forces a bloody nose in their short, sharp war in 1979. India, of course, has always posed a potential nuclear threat to China. Why would Beijing add a nuclear power to those that already are or could be ringed around China? As things stand, Pakistan and China are firm friends; but that could well change in the future. After all, as security analysts never tire of reminding us, in the 'game of nations' there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests. Third and relatedly, why give a Muslim country situated near China's soft underbelly nuclear weapons capability? Xinjiang, a Muslim majority province, virtually adjoins Pakistan. A major separatist movement has been operating in the province for years. Over the past decade, Afghan and Pakistani nationals have reportedly incited rebellion in Xinjiang. Surely it is not in China's interest to embolden a country which, with nuclear weapons at its command, could increasingly interfere in this troubled region? 22 These arguments about the disadvantages to China in arming Pakistan are admittedly not conclusive. By way of rebuttal, for instance, it could be said that the risk of goading India down the nuclear path was not terribly serious, for New Delhi was likely to proceed down that road anyway. Proliferation all round China's periphery, while dangerous, was probably inevitable in some degree and over some time. If so, it was in Beijing's interest to reduce the nuclear danger to itself by ensuring that nuclear balances existed such that no country would be focussed exclusively on China. Hence a strategy of calibrated, balanced proliferation, built on regional rivalries, could have been in Beijing's interest. Also, if Pakistan was a threat in the Xinjiang area, why not try to buy Islamabad off with nuclear weapons? There is unfortunately precious little, if any, hard evidence on the nature of Chinese thinking on its nuclear relationship with Pakistan. Officially, China denies any role in Pakistan's nuclear programme. Scholarly analyses of Pakistan's nuclear progress hardly touch on Beijing's motivations beyond suggestions that China seeks a balance in South Asia. In the absence of hard evidence, let us try to reconstruct Chinese motivations via a 'thought experiment'. In my thought experiment, I suggest that at least five factors caused Beijing to invest in Pakistan's nuclear weapons plans: Maintaining a tested alliance relationship Limiting US influence in Pakistan Responding to Washington's military and political support of Taiwan Cultivating a 'moderate' and influential Muslim state Gaining access to Pakistan's US-supplied advanced conventional weapon systems and possibly also to Pakistan's nuclear technology 1. Beijing's decision" to cooperate with Islamabad has probably been conditioned by the fact that Pakistan is one of China's oldest allies/clients. From the late 1950s to the present, Pakistan has been China's most loyal friend. No one, except North Korea, has stuck by China like Pakistan. While there is no great admiration for or knowledge of Pakistani society in China, Beijing undoubtedly recognises that for many years, when it had few allies or friends, Pakistan was both, for at least two reasons. First, India was a common enemy, and Pakistan needed the comfort of Chinese support. Second, the relationship with China gave Pakistan varying degrees of maneuverability and freedom with the United States. 23 By itself the quality and length of the Pakistan–China entente cannot explain why China cooperated with Pakistan on nuclear weapons. However, I would contend that this is an important contextual or background factor. I would note that from 1958, when the Soviets broke with China, to 1972, when the opening to the United States was engineered, Pakistan along with North Korea, North Vietnam, Albania, and Tanzania were perhaps China's only friends in the international system at large and in Asia in particular. 2. Beijing's desire to ensure that Islamabad does not become a proxy for Washington may well have been another factor for China's interest in nuclear cooperation with Pakistan. Pakistan's geopolitical position next to Xinjiang makes it a very useful staging post for US activities against China. If the US wants to make trouble for China in this vulnerable underbelly, Pakistan is potentially an important base of operations for intelligence-gathering activities, infiltration into China, and promoting Islamic rebellion. It should be

remembered that stepped up Chinese aid to Pakistan in the 1980s coincided with US aid to the Afghan mujahideen during the fight against the Soviets. While Beijing has been able to count on India's fierce nonalignment, verging on anti-Americanism, to keep it out of the US orbit in the long run, it may not have been so confident about the fractiousness and fragility of the Pakistan–US relationship. Also, the Indian case may well have suggested that the US would cultivate countries in China's periphery as part of a strategy of containment and subversion. 24 US influence in Pakistan, therefore, had to be countered. To constrain Washington, China has offered much to Pakistan, including economic aid, unstinting diplomatic support against India, and massive conventional weapons transfers. It is quite possible that over time China estimated that this would not suffice and that what Pakistan wanted most in return for keeping Washington at a strategic distance was Chinese nuclear technology. 3. We must take seriously the possibility that Beijing has kept its nuclear relationship with Pakistan alive and well as a riposte to Washington's support of Taiwan. Over the years, as the US has sustained its diplomatic, political and military support to Taipei, China may have decided to hurt American interests in other arenas. Non-proliferation, especially since the end of the cold war, has been high on the US agenda. To prick Washington from time to time by transferring nuclear and missile technology to Pakistan would be a handy strategic device. Whether US decision-makers have got the strategic message or not, is debatable. China may have been too subtle and indirect. The desire for reciprocity over Taiwan may well account for China's intermittent nuclear activism with Pakistan. Thus, when US support of Taiwan surges, China presses publicly ahead with its cooperation with Pakistan. And when US support of Taiwan recedes, China promises to curtail its links with Pakistan. 25 4. A fourth factor in China's decision to collaborate in Pakistan's nuclear plans was very likely Beijing's desire to cultivate a moderate and influential Islamic state and thereby to link itself to the larger Muslim world. For China, this is an important goal, just as it is for the United States. From a long-term geostrategic and geopolitical perspective, the Chinese have understood that links with the Islamic world are vital. Geostrategically, the importance of Islam is that Islamic peoples are the second largest religious group in the world, after Christians, and therefore constitute a considerable force in world politics. It has been in China's interest to cultivate the Islamic countries, at least in part as a counterpoint or balance to the West. In addition, geopolitically, Islam comes right up to and, indeed, into China. For most countries during the cold war, the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union were of little interest, but, given its contiguity to China, Beijing has undoubtedly watched the area closely. Moreover, with a restive Muslim minority population in Xinjiang, Chinese leaders have reason to maintain good diplomatic relations with the major Islamic countries. Pakistan was and is regarded by many countries as a major portal to the rest of the Islamic world, a conduit to the other major Islamic powers. Given its 'moderate' Islamic credentials, who better to mediate China's relations with political Islam? It is also a major Islamic country in its own right, in the vicinity of both Central Asia and Xinjiang. During and after the war against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, it was quite apparent that Pakistan would continue to be a major player in the region for some time to come. China's interest in the Pakistani link is not merely political and psychological. Beijing may well hope that Islamabad is an opening to Central Asia and adjoining areas for purposes of trade, energy and transportation. Pakistan is a leading member of the Economic Cooperation Organisaton (ECO) which brings together Iran, Turkey and the Central Asian Islamic republics of the former Soviet Union. Its goodwill is therefore important for Beijing. 26 To keep it, indeed to deepen it, China may have had to pay a price beyond the normal economic, diplomatic and military costs of cultivating Pakistan. Nuclear cooperation may well have ultimately been that price. 5. Finally, China's decision to cooperate on nuclear weapons probably rested on very serious and material calculations, both economic and military. Most analysts focus on what China can do for Pakistan, but they fail to ask the reverse question—what can Pakistan do for China? At least three points are worth considering here. First, proliferation is potentially profitable. Over the years, Pakistan has bought considerable amounts of conventional weapons from China even if this has been at concessional rates. When there were few takers for Chinese weaponry, Pakistan was a dependable client.27 China may also, therefore, see economic opportunities in a long-term nuclear relationship with 28 Pakistan. Second, and more importantly, Pakistan has at various times been in a position to help China with conventional weapons technologies. Crucially, in the 1980s, when Pakistan was receiving high-technology weaponry from the US to reinforce its role as a frontline state against

the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Beijing may have seen an opportunity to peek' into advanced US weapons systems. Legally, Pakistan was committed not to make these systems available to any other state. In practice, there was probably little that Washington could do to stop Pakistan from allowing Chinese technicians to look over and open up US systems in Islamabad's possession. In return, Beijing may have had to dangle, and then deliver, nuclear-related cooperation.29 Third, it is possible that Pakistan may have been in a position to help China in the nuclear field as well. While it is generally assumed that the flow of nuclear cooperation has been from China to Pakistan, it is possible that the reverse may also have been the case. For instance, it has been suggested that Islamabad may have promised to share its centrifuge technology with China. 30 China, it should be noted, has depended on the older gaseous diffusion process to enrich uranium whereas Pakistan has obtained more modern centrifuges from European companies. China would have had to give Pakistan something in return for the more modern technology. What does this thought experiment on the Pakistan-China nuclear relationship suggest? China may well have transferred nuclear know-how and technology to Pakistan for the purpose of 'balancing' India; but it is likely that China's calculations were far more complex and went well beyond tethering India strategically. Does this conclusion make any difference to our understanding of India's decision to test? I argued in the first part of this essay that India's nuclear calculations regarding Pakistan and China were shortsighted and that India did not need nuclear weapons to be secure against either country. Our thought experiment on the Pakistan-China relationship suggests that China had many reasons to help Pakistan along the road to nuclear weapons capability, reasons that go beyond anything to do with India. If so, the only way for India to have cut the Pakistan-China nuclear link was to have taken away Islamabad's incentive to press Beijing for nuclear weapons. This would have necessitated a substantial improvement in relations with Islamabad. To improve relations with Pakistan, India had two choices—it could have moved to resolve its bilateral disputes with Pakistan, especially Kashmir; or, it could have come to an agreement with Pakistan to renounce nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, India did neither. The consequences of India's shortsightedness are plain enough to see. First, India now borders not one but two nuclear opponents. This has immeasurably complicated its national security. No nuclear power, except China very briefly, has faced a two-front nuclear threat. China very shrewdly 'disarmed' one of those threats by striking a strategic deal with the other. From 1971, it allied with the United States against the former Soviet Union. Given the unremitting hostility with Pakistan and the glacial pace of political accommodation with China, India has no such option. Second, by its pursuit of nuclear weapons, India encouraged Islamabad to achieve strategic equality. Pakistan's leaders exploited this equality in 1999 when they mounted the Kargil incursion. 31 After the Chagai tests, Pakistani strategists are convinced that their country has permanently neutralised India's conventional military superiority. With a conventional military counterstrike by India factored out of Pakistan's calculus, Islamabad is free to continue its support of the Kashmir insurgency. 32 The insurgency has already taken more than 20,000 lives, and there are no signs that it is about to end. Indeed, after the Kargil war, violence in Kashmir has surged.

Conclusion India's decision to pursue nuclear weapons capability originated in its difficulties with China and was sustained by China's nuclearisation. I think that there is little doubt that Indian decision-makers, at virtually every level, saw China as a threat that warranted an active nuclear weapons programme. I have argued that that calculation was misguided, but it must be admitted that the image of a powerful, hostile and nuclear China has pushed India towards weaponisation. India's weaponisation spurred and accelerated Pakistan's quest for nuclear weapons. Faced with a nuclear Pakistan, Indian decision-makers had a second reason to intensify India's nuclear weapons programme. This also, I have argued, was a mistake in the sense that India could have stopped the Pakistani programme by jointly renouncing nuclear weapons. None of this implies that Pakistan and China are without fault. Far from it. My task here is limited to asking some hard questions about India's strategic choices. I leave it to the Pakistanis and Chinese to critically revisit their decision making. In its race with India, Pakistan sought Chinese help for both its nuclear and missile plans. China's larger

geopolitical and geostrategic goals led Beijing to respond favourably to Pakistan, even though China sees Pakistan as a potential security threat. The Pakistan-China nuclear alliance has been detrimental to India's security by raising the possibility of a two-front nuclear confrontation and by allowing Islamabad to achieve strategic parity with India. The only way out of this strategic cul de sac for India would have been to strike a deal with Pakistan. Agreements on the final disposition of Kashmir and other bilateral disputes, as well as on conventional force levels could well have eliminated Pakistan's incentive to approach China for nuclear weapons technology. With Pakistan out of the nuclear game, China could hardly have forced nuclear weapons technology on Islamabad! Giving up nuclear weapons jointly with Pakistan, even now, may lead to dramatic breakthroughs with both Islamabad and Beijing. India's security would thereby be greatly enhanced, not harmed.

Nuclear Weapons and National Security ADMIRAL L. RAMDAS We believed that our work would prevent the use of the bomb by Hitler, we agreed that the bomb was needed so that it would not be used. Events have proved us wrong. Many of us have since come to the conclusion that the whole concept of nuclear deterrence is flawed. —Joseph Rotblat The bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 ushered in the Nuclear Age. Politics, science and history conspired, as it were, towards the development of the atomic bomb by the United States. 1 Between 1949 and 1964 the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and China followed suit. India also tested a nuclear weapon in 1974, and conducted more tests in 1998, this time emulated by Pakistan. Israel is known to have nuclear weapons but its studious silence on this issue is deafening. South Africa is the only country that built a few weapons but decided to destroy them. The unfortunate pattern set by the United States in giving nuclear weapons more than necessary credibility in terms of power, status and supposed ability to deter war has impacted all the nations which turned nuclear, India and Pakistan being the most recent. The 'Big Five' nuclear weapon states (the US, Russia, China, France and the UK), continue to offer arguments for the possession and continued relevance of their nuclear arsenals. These arguments have been faithfully duplicated by Indian and Pakistani strategists. But are the arguments put forward by the Big Five correct? And are they relevant to South Asia? We address these questions by first examining national security planning in India, and its connections with defence, foreign and economic policy. We then look at the draft Indian Nuclear Doctrine (dIND) that was presented in 1999 and identify the problems in it. Next, we assess if nuclear weapons do deter other states from using similar weapons, and also the inherent risks posed by the possession of such weapons. Finally, we address to some of the ethical issues related to nuclear weapons.

National Security Planning The Indian approach to security planning has suffered mainly because we have never really identified national strategic objectives, nor have we ever nurtured strategic thought. Policy-making in India tends to be more reactive than proactive, mainly because aims and objectives have never been spelt out. The decision to build nuclear weapons and, subsequently, the formulation of the dIND, should have been preceded by a strategic defence review (SDR). 2 The review should: identify national and strategic interests, and clarify the critical issues for border management. assess the overall strategic environment in the short, medium and long term. evaluate threats to 'national security' and 'human security' in the short, medium and long term. evolve plans and strategies to combat these threats. These should include a broad assessment of the priorities for both human security and the allocation of resources. given the present capabilities, determine additional weapons/ equipment that need to be inducted. conduct scenario studies to identify force level and weapon requirements.

assess whether nuclear weapons are needed or whether the present level of nuclear capability will suffice. conduct a cost-benefit analysis, keeping in mind both human and national security needs. evolve suitable foreign and defence policies to match the above requirements. examine the existing structure of the Ministry of Defence and suggest a more responsive architecture. Once the strategic objectives have been identified then the foreign, defence and economic policies to support it will flow naturally—that is, the objectives shaping the course of India's foreign, defence and economic policies. Let us assume that the strategic objectives of India are: to meet the essential needs of food, shelter, health, education and employment. to bring about political, social and economic freedom for all. to live in peace and harmony with all nations and especially with neighbours. to work towards international peace and security as directed by Article 54 of the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Indian Constitution. to adhere to the United Nations Charter and follow all international obligations. These objectives will provide the framework for the evolution of India's foreign, defence and economic policies. If people's needs have to be met first then a balance has to be struck between defence and development spending. Defence spending is a function of the threat analysis and perceived national interest, which in turn is a function of our relations with our neighbours. In the South Asian scenario, political equilibrium has never been achieved between India and Pakistan since both countries attained their independence. Political understanding or the lack of it among neighbours is the essence and origin of all problems between them. If we were to solve the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan, and address the concerns of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, there certainly will be no requirement for such heavy defence outlays by both these countries. India should therefore look at Jammu and Kashmir much more closely and in a larger context than hitherto. This would have direct and lasting influence on defence and development spending. There is an urgent need for India to have an integrated Kashmir policy, which must have these three elements: 1. Evolve an internal policy for winning the trust of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, by restoring the promises made at the time of accession, including autonomy for the state within the Indian Union. 2. Evolve and implement a process of dialogue with Pakistan bilaterally to end this impasse. 3. Remain aware and receptive to international interest in this matter. The rest of the world is concerned and affected by the continuing standoff between India and Pakistan especially after the two nations have acquired nuclear weapons. If the Jammu and Kashmir problem is not solved quickly there is bound to be international demand and pressure for self-determination for the Kashmiris in accordance with the United Nations Charter, similar to what has occurred in East Timor. This issue is illustrative of the close link between domestic (economic), foreign and defence policies and the need to coordinate them. In evolving sound policies for defence, foreign affairs and the economy, it must be remembered that real power comes when a nation has met the basic needs of its people—food, water, healthcare, education, shelter and employment. The links between national security and human security have been largely overlooked — human security is the foundation on which real security5 rests. The South African White Paper on Defense, which was produced after the end of minority rule and the apartheid regime says: ...security is an all-encompassing condition in which the individual citizens live in freedom, peace and safety, participate fully in the process of governance, enjoy the protection of fundamental rights, have access to resources and the basic necessities of life, and inhabit an environment which is not detrimental to their health and well-being.

At the national level, the objectives of security policy, therefore, encompass the consolidation of democracy, the achievement of social justice, economic development, and a safe environment, and a substantial reduction in the level of crime, violence, and political instability. At the international level, the objectives of security policy include: the defense of the State, territorial integrity and political independence of the South African State, and the promotion of regional security in South Africa. 3 Unlike the South African conception, typically national security tends to be viewed only through a military lens. Human development and human security seem to exist independent of national security. We need to acknowledge what is being denied to the people. India is now projecting Rs 15 billion for the command and control system, to support the nuclear weapons programme (in addition to the Rs 586 billion already being set aside for the defence budget).4 This amount could be spent on providing: fresh drinking water for an additional 100,000 villages— Rs 2 billion, primary education for an additional fifteen per cent of children—Rs 5 billion, primary health centres for 100,000 villages—Rs 4 billion, and family welfare and adult education for 100,000 villages— Rs 4 billion.

Defence Policy The prerequisite for a sound defence policy is the identification of national security objectives, while including people's real requirements. This exercise must be carried out democratically. However, there is very little public information on India's defence policy and activities. A white paper on defence has never been presented in the Parliament. This should be rectified and a white paper outlining India's defence policy must be placed before the Parliament for open debate. It must contain an appreciation of the strategic environment. The defence policy must relate to the foreign policy and the paper must highlight the threat perceptions, and state the broad strategy for meeting these probable threats. For example, it could say that Force 'X' comprising various formations, ships, aircraft and/or special units will meet a specific threat. It should reflect the status of readiness and mention the raisings/acquisitions in progress to bridge the shortcomings, if any. If there has been a perceived security threat, which warrants acquiring nuclear weapons, this must be explained in detail in the white paper. The overall impact of this decision in both the domestic and international arenas must be enunciated. Most importantly, the economic costs of this exercise must be made public, and its effects on socioeconomic development activities clarified. The force levels and the force mix should be listed. The attendant budgetary costs of raising/acquiring and maintaining such forces must also be reflected in the numbers. The legal status of such acquisition and force planning must be addressed in light of the judgement of the International Court of Justice on nuclear weapons.5 Defence policy must be formulated such that the nation gets the best value for its money. Duplication between different arms of the government must be avoided and an integrated approach towards border and neighbourhood management must be evolved in conjunction with the Ministry of External Affairs. Diplomacy and political resolution of outstanding disputes must be prioritised. The use of force should be the last resort, and that too, only in self-defence. Defence spending (or for that matter the budget of the Department of Atomic Energy [DAE] or Indian Space Research Organisation [ISRO]) is hardly debated in the Parliament. Huge amounts of money are sanctioned unquestioned. It has been my personal and painful experience to see no more than fifty to sixty members, from a house of more than 520, present during a defence debate! Most of the information is denied to the public.

Foreign Policy India's foreign policy must be so managed as to attain the objective of peace with all its neighbours. Every potential conflict situation or outstanding issue must be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue, resisting the resort to force. India, the largest country in the subcontinent, must take the lead in creating an

environment of peace and stability and be prepared to go more than half the way to resolve disputes. While this may not be easy, it should still remain the goal. The internal affairs of a country must be in order, if not foreign powers gain greater leverage to interfere. Domestic management, especially in the border states, is of vital importance and must be carefully implemented. We need to ask why the political leadership of India has not been able to solve the perennial problems with Pakistan and China politically. Rationalising our non-performance and attributing it mainly to the intransigence of our neighbours would be a travesty of the truth. Three and a half wars with Pakistan have not provided the answer. 6 Peace appears to be remote and removed. The cost of weapons, training and upkeep of a very large number of military personnel increases each year. India spent Rs 387 billion (approximately $90 billion) on defence, between 1988 and 1998. Despite this enormous expenditure, India has been unable to make much progress in solving its problems with its neighbours. The outcome has been the nuclearisation of the subcontinent, a rise in the threat scenario, and the creation of war hysteria. After the 1999 Kargil war and the December 1999 hijack incident, there has been a steep increase in defence spending and appropriations for the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the DAE. According to some sources while Siachen costs India Rs 60 million a day, Kargil will cost Rs 90 million a day. 7 This works out to Rs 54 billion per year. This sum excludes the other expenses that are inevitable in a situation of tension. We are in a predicament that elicits endless defence spending—and the arms race has only just begun.

Economic Policy The economic policy must be cast to meet strategic objectives. Therefore allocation of resources for development activities must be prioritised. Both India and Pakistan have very heavy defence expenditures, which have only increased since the tests of May 1998. This is bound to rise even higher with cost and time overruns. Every major DRDO programme has taken nearly fifteen to twenty years—invariably late, and not meeting service requirements. 8 Examples are the Arjun tank and the light combat aircraft (LCA). The Nag missile was proudly presented to the army after almost twenty years! Similarly, it took twenty years for the Akash missile to be presented to the navy. India currently has nuclear weapons without the requisite command and control systems. Experience tells us that it may take a very long time to develop the systems, compounding the danger in the situation. Given the present state of Indian economy, the government will have to necessarily sacrifice many of its development projects to meet the funding of this nuclear programme. If we formulate an SDR in an integrated fashion, the foreign, defence and economic policies thus evolved will be holistic and realistic. The defence and foreign policies will clearly identify the need or otherwise for nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, India continues to grope in the dark as far as strategic objectives are concerned.

Nuclear Doctrine Let us assume for the present that the SDR calls for the development and/or deployment of nuclear weapons. The use of these nuclear weapons would have to be guided by a doctrine. In India's case, the decision to test in May 1998 was taken without an SDR. Fifteen months later, on 17 August 1999, the National Security Advisory Board released the dIND. Some of the salient features of the dIND are: Paragraph 2.4: "The fundamental purpose of Indian nuclear weapons is to deter the use and the threat of use of nuclear weapons by any state or entity against India and its forces. India will not be the first to initiate a nuclear strike, but will respond with punitive retaliation should deterrence fail." Paragraph 2.5: "India will not resort to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against states which do not possess nuclear weapons or are not aligned with nuclear weapon powers." Paragraph 4.1: "Any adversary must know that India can and will retaliate with sufficient nuclear weapons to inflict destruction and punishment that the aggressor will find unacceptable to the aggressor."

Paragraph 4.3 (i): "India's nuclear forces and their command and control shall be organised for very high survivability against surprise attacks and rapid punitive response. They shall be designed and deployed to ensure survival against a first strike and to endure repetitive attrition attempts with adequate retaliatory capabilities for a punishing strike which would be unacceptable to the aggressor." 9 Several points should be noted about these excerpts. First, the protagonists of nuclear deterrence are themselves admitting that it might fail! Second, implicit in Paragraph 2.5 is the possibility that India would use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against all the nuclear weapon states and those aligned with them. This would constitute virtually half the world. Third, the requirement for a retaliatory-strike capability with sufficient nuclear weapons gives a carte blanche for a sizeable, potentially very large inventory of nuclear weapons, especially since it also envisages absorbing an attack and retaliating. The doctrine also claims that "space based and other assets shall be created to provide early warning" (Paragraph 2.5). Quite apart from the substantial costs and technical challenges involved in building spacebased systems, geography makes it impossible to provide early warning in the case of an attack by either Pakistan or China. Unlike the US-Soviet Union equation where the flight time of missiles would have taken 25 minutes, it would take only a few minutes between India and Pakistan, depending on the targets. By the time our warning systems get activated the strike will already be on. One can assume that the first information of a strike will probably be the bomb explosion. Between India and China there may be a little more warning, though not much more. In the case of a missile arriving from a submarine launch there would be even less notice. It will be a complex and difficult task to determine the identity and point of origin of a nuclear attack in this multithreat scenario. Who then do we target for a retaliatory strike? Another bland assurance offered in the dIND is the assertion that an "appropriate disaster control system" (Paragraph 2.5) shall be developed to deal with potential accidents (which are called 'incidents' in the language of nuclear strategists) involving nuclear weapons. This would be laughable if it were not tragic. An accidental nuclear explosion of even a small nuclear weapon in a city like Mumbai, home to the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), India's main nuclear weapons laboratory, could kill hundreds of thousands of people. 10 Radioactive fallout from the explosion could spread far, and last for centuries. No disaster control system can deal with this meaningfully. Finally, it has been argued that India's technical capabilities in the area of nuclear weapons, their delivery systems and command and control are nowhere near the levels required by the dIND. Nor is it clear how these capabilities could be enhanced to the levels demanded by the dIND in the medium or long term, given the various constraints that operate on the development of indigenous capabilities in the defence sector and the country's track record in this area.11 To summarise, the draft nuclear doctrine has left us in the nuclear wilderness!

Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Information and Intelligence In addition to the problems mentioned in the previous section, the dIND also discusses command and control. This is no easy task and there are several operational burdens that come with nuclear weapons.12 Here we look at some of these requirements. Command Structure: A clear and unambiguous chain of command identifying the persons who will be authorised to carry out a nuclear attack must be specified. Not only should this be known internally, but should also be made public. For example the US lists a total of 17 people after the president, who shall exercise this command.13 Arrangements must be made to ensure that these people can be reached in the event of an attack. At least two command posts – one primary and the other alternate – need to be established as 'hardened sites' against nuclear attack from where this command can be exercised. The need for an alternate site is obvious and it should be physically separated and at a distance from the primary site. In order to facilitate command and control we need to have early warning from satellites and airborne early-warning systems. This must be linked with reliable and real time communications, which will not collapse when under

nuclear attack. The compilation of data and its presentation to the command must be achieved through computerised data-handling systems linked to delivery vehicles. Access to coded devices and locks must be specially authorised. Control can only be effective if communications are completely reliable. Despite all these precautions things could go wrong. The dIND, for its part, asserts that "nuclear weapons shall be tightly controlled and released for use at the highest political level" (paragraph 5.1), with the authority to release these weapons vested in the prime minister or the designated successor(s). While the doctrine specify the details, installing suitable electronic controls that prevent use of the weapon unless some code is sent from the 'highest political level' would presumably ensure this. On the other hand, the doctrine also claims that "India's nuclear forces shall be organised for rapid punitive response" (Paragraph 4.3(i)). The ability to respond quickly after an attack, would require those possessing the weapons, for example, a military officer, to be able to launch these weapons at short notice. If the attack were to either destroy the political leadership (the prime minister and the designated successor(s)), or cripple the communication system (through, for example, the electromagnetic pulse set off by a nuclear explosion under some circumstances), such retaliation would either be impossible or would require that the military officer had access to the necessary code to launch the weapons in the first place. In the latter case, the officer could have launched the weapon without authorisation. Control for the use of the weapons, therefore, rests with the officer and not the prime minister. Information and Intelligence: In addition to the above requirements is the task of collating all forms of intelligence and information, and presenting these in a timely manner to the command structure. All information or intelligence has to be assessed for credibility. The weakness and lack of coordination in the Indian intelligence system has come under attack by the K. Subrahmanyam Committee set up to study the Kargil conflict with Pakistan. In the arena of nuclear weaponry, confusion or mistakes are unaffordable—an erroneous nuclear launch would be disastrous.

Nuclear Weapons and Insecurity We now turn to the reason often given for the acquisition of nuclear weapons—that nuclear weapons deter other nuclear weapons, or prevent war in general. The theory of deterrence is premised on the reactions and attitudes of one's adversary. It means that one's show of nuclear power is so overwhelming that it frightens the adversary from using their nuclear weapons in retaliation for fear of 'unacceptable damage'. This notion of nuclear deterrence, by being articulated often enough, seems to have become accepted as unassailable truth. Deterrence, however, is not a law of nature. Underlying it are various assumptions, any of which may turn out to be false at any given point in time. And, the result of any failure would be catastrophic. The most basic assumption is that states are unitary, rational decision-makers trying to maximise utility. In reality, of course, this is far from true. Both the assumptions of unitary actors and rationality become particularly problematic during periods of crisis, especially war. Then, the multiplicity of individuals, institutions and interests that shape decision making become crucial and could lead to outcomes that would be termed irrational.15 Further, the intentions of the 'adversary' are not always predictable. 14

Another myth about nuclear weapons is the notion of balance that is said to exist between two nuclear weapon states. In reality, the perceived balance is never static but has an imbalance built into it. Technological improvements and institutional pressures will cause the states to continue building up their arsenals. Nuclear weapons are part of a complex system that is a 'human-weapon mix'. This makes it even harder to anticipate and analyse possible actions and events. Further, all kinds of errors are possible—human, mechanical and electronic. Human errors could happen from the lowest to the highest levels. When it happens at the highest levels, there is no one who can cancel orders. The former US President, Richard Nixon, under the strain of his final days in the presidency, is said to have sobbed, beaten his fists on the floor of his office, and brooded over his ability to release the forces of nuclear disaster. 16 Had there been an international crisis during that period, there is no way of knowing how Nixon would have acted. Use of nuclear weapons by Nixon, or by any other leader at any other time, would have meant the death of deterrence—and millions of

people. The same, or worse, could happen in India or Pakistan. The errors could also be due to the complex machinery involved in a nuclear arsenal. The US and Russia live in perpetual fear that the other may launch a first strike and hence have put into place early warning systems. Multiple satellites monitor the whole world looking for signals of missile launches. Once detected, there are early warning radars that would take over and follow missile trajectories and pass on the data to processing centres. From thereon, are communication systems that attempt to ensure that information is conveyed to more senior decision-makers. These satellites and early-warning radar systems would provide them information within one and a half minutes of the possible launch of a missile. The analysis of this data would take about two and a half minutes. During the next few minutes, decisionmakers could discuss the likelihood of the attack being real. If no other explanations are found for the signals, die president would be notified and he could call the other side to check if there had been an accidental launch of missiles. This process is possible because missiles take about 25 minutes to travel between Russia and the US. Further, this also allows various fail-safe measures to be built into the system as preventives against miscalculation. The system, thus, provides for many layers of evaluation of accuracy of signals, and decision making. Despite the enormous financial and technical resources invested in setting up and running these early warning systems, and trying to make them foolproof, these systems have failed frequently. Information of these failures is largely kept secret. It is known, however, that between 1977 and 1984, the US early warning system showed over 20,000 false alarms of a missile attack. Over 1,000 of these were considered serious enough for bombers and missiles to be placed on alert. 17 There were similar scares on the Russian side as well. On 25 January 1995, military technicians at several radar stations across northern Russia thought they had seen a single missile from a US submarine coming towards Russia. This information was passed on through the chain of command to President Yeltsin who activated the 'nuclear briefcase', thus putting Russian forces on high alert. Subsequently, after about eight minutes, senior military officers determined that the rocket was headed far out to the sea. The rocket turned out to be an American scientific probe to study the aurora borealis. 18 In the case of South Asia, even if such systems could be set up at enormous financial costs that we can scarcely afford, it would just not suffice. India and Pakistan are adjoining nations, sharing a lengthy border. Missile and airplane flight times are very short. A Prithvi missile would take about 3 to 5 minutes to reach almost anywhere in Pakistan. A Ghauri missile would take about 5 minutes to reach New Delhi. The time is entirely insufficient for analysis of signals from satellites and radars, or to discuss the threat. Leaders on both sides would find it impossible to talk to each other and check if the launch was accidental or intentional. People in the armed forces know how easy it is for things to go wrong even in the realm of conventional warfare and its weaponry. Missiles can turn into 'rogues'; airplanes can have accidents; delivery systems can fail. We have witnessed accidents with the US Challenger programme, where everything was thoroughly checked before a programmed launch and yet the rocket exploded. Virtually all countries have witnessed failures. If this were to happen to a missile with a nuclear warhead the dangers the world would be exposed to are incalculable. Human beings can act irrationally when under stress; warning systems can go berserk; information and intelligence could be wrongly interpreted—leading to an unintended launch. This is extremely likely in a confrontation between two nuclear weapon states, which operate in 'launch on warning mode'. Nuclear weapons manufacture, waste disposal, storage, handling, transportation, loading onto missile platforms—these are operations that are hazardous and accident-prone. Accidental launches or failures can cause enormous environmental damage. There could also be on-board failures on any delivery system— aircraft, missile, submarine or mobile launcher. This is not just a hypothetical possibility. Between 1950 and 1990, the United States alone had over 175 accidents involving either nuclear weapons or vehicles that were suspected to have been carrying nuclear weapons. 19 The greatest danger, which has fortunately not happened so far, would be the accidental full-scale detonation of a nuclear weapon. However, there have been numerous accidents in which the chemical explosive surrounding the radioactive core of a nuclear weapon has exploded. For example, on 17 January 1966, a B-52 bomber and a KC-135 refuelling tanker collided in mid-air near Palomares, Spain. The B-52

crashed and four hydrogen bombs (15-25 megatonnes) were separated from the plane. The chemical explosives in two of the bombs exploded leading to release of radioactive material in the middle of a populated area. A similar accident near any of the densely populated South Asian cities would lead to thousands of casualties. 20 Nuclear early warning systems and command and control structures are both complex and 'tightly coupled'. In a wide-ranging study of nuclear crises and accidents, Scott Sagan, following the work of people like Charles Perrow, has argued that these features make accidents 'normal'. 21 Thus, nuclear weapons accidents should be expected to occur over a period of time. As the main evidence for trusting their arguments, believers in nuclear deterrence offer us the fact that the US and the former Soviet Union did not conduct a (major) war against each other during the cold war period. Political scientists and historians have long contested the suggested explanation that it was nuclear weapons that kept the peace. Many, even believers in deterrence, would point to a whole range of factors that aided stability—the legacy of the Second World War, bipolarity, economic independence rather than interdependence, and so on. 22 It has even been argued that "while nuclear weapons may have substantially influenced political rhetoric, public discourse, and defence budgets and planning, it is not at all clear that they have had a significant impact on the history of world affairs since World War II." 23 Thus, evidence for deterrence is debatable. Further, the absence of war so far does not imply that the same would hold true during other circumstances and for all time. There were also many occasions when deterrence nearly came unstuck and the world almost ended up with a nuclear war. The most prominent instance is the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. According to General Lee Butler, who headed the US Strategic Air Command, the world "survived the Cuban missile crisis no thanks to deterrence, but only by the grace of God". 24 The other problem with deterrence is that there is no way of knowing how many weapons would deter the opponent. As General Thomas Power, then commander in chief of the US Strategic Air Command, stated in February 1960: "The closest to one man who would know what the minimum deterrent is would be [Soviet leader Nikita] Mr. Khruschev, and frankly I don't think he knows from one week to another. He might be able to absorb more punishment next week than he wants to absorb today. Therefore a deterrent is not a concrete or finite amount. 25 Nuclear weapons also pose non-nuclear threats. For nearly the whole period of the 'long peace', the US and the former Soviet Union were engaged in a series of proxy wars, of which Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan are just the most prominent examples. Nuclear weapons, by seemingly protecting their homelands, allowed these wars to be fought 26 . It is no wonder then that violence and militarism in Kashmir became intensified around the period when Pakistan started claiming nuclear capability and feeling confident about it in the late 1980s. The security of the people of Kashmir, as well as of people living in other arenas of covert warfare between India and Pakistan, is certainly not enhanced by the bomb-making capabilities of the two countries. But the Kashmiris are not the only people at risk. Let us assume that there is a conventional war between two nuclear weapons capable nations like India and Pakistan. Indeed Kargil was the first ever confrontation of this kind. Assuming one or the other side was being pushed back and losing ground, or felt extremely threatened, there is no guarantee that deterrence will hold. The country concerned may be foolish enough to use nuclear weapons and this would affect a much greater part of the population. The concept of warfare does not change with weaponry, nor does the theory of deterrence. Just as adversaries have not really been deterred because of the overwhelming conventional weapons superiority of each other, so also is the case with nuclear weapons. The so-called balance precariously maintained in nuclear weapons is at best transitory. All that nuclear weapons have achieved is to make the security environment that much more fragile with the ability to cause extraordinary harm to humankind, its gene pool and the earth's environment. As General Lee Butler put it: "There is no limit to the policy sins that can be committed or the weapons that can be rationalised in the name of deterrence." 27

Conclusion Speaking in Poona in 1946, Mahatma Gandhi said: "The only moral which can be legitimately drawn from the supreme tragedy of the bomb is that it shall not be destroyed by counter bombs. Violence cannot be destroyed by counter violence." 28 Around the same time, in another part of the world, Admiral William Leahy, President Truman's chief of staff argued that "The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.. .in being the first to use it we adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the dark ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." 29 Nuclear weapons are perhaps the most evil of humankind's inventions. Unlike other weapons they destroy everything and continue their destructive process for thousands of years thereafter. They incapacitate, maim and kill for many years after their use, whether during a test or in war. There can be no justification either for their possession or for their intended use under any circumstances—not even self-defence, for there can be no winners in a nuclear war.

A Nuclear Tiger by the Tail: Problems of Command and Control in South Asia ZIA MIAN Nuclear weapons are special. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the superpower arms race, the development of thermonuclear weapons and the worldwide radioactive contamination associated with their testing, and the fact that entire nations can be destroyed by even a few tens of nuclear weapons have all contributed to this perception. The particular position nuclear weapons have in late twentieth century public imagination has required that special political controls be imposed on them. At the same time, their destructive power means some states have sought to use nuclear weapons for political and diplomatic purposes—as instruments of intimidation, threat and coercion (a practice otherwise known as nuclear deterrence). Regardless of motive, the use of nuclear weapons in these ways carries weight if the likelihood of use is seen as credible. With this in mind, nuclear weapon states have developed and deployed their weapons, and prepare for, and remain ready to fight nuclear war. These pressures lead to profoundly important and particularly complex questions of how command and control is to be exercised over nuclear weapons. In 1998, India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons and subsequently both governments emphasised that these weapons would form a key part of their national security policy. Other political, diplomatic and military aspects became clear soon afterwards. Feeling safe behind its newly demonstrated nuclear shield, and seeking to incite international intervention over the longstanding Kashmir dispute by raising the spectre of a possible nuclear war, in early 1999 Pakistan launched its incursion into the Kargil region of India-occupied Kashmir. The Kargil war brought with it nuclear threats from both sides. India has subsequently set out an ambitious plan for a nuclear arsenal that will mimic the strategic triad of the other nuclear weapon states, with nuclear weapons on aircraft, missiles and at sea. It is against this backdrop that political and military leaders in India and Pakistan have started to grapple with the issues of nuclear doctrine—that is, how nuclear weapons are to be used, and how leaders shall manage the weapons in peacetime, and if war should start. The task is fraught with danger. Catastrophe can be triggered by mistakes in the plans that are made and the procedures that are put in place: a slip or an act of malice by the people entrusted with the day-to-day responsibility of looking after and being prepared to use nuclear weapons; or malfunctions and accidents involving the networks of early warning and communications systems, and the nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. Nuclear weapons are unrelenting. Managing them has been a hard and costly task for the major nuclear weapon states. It has made building the bomb appear easy in comparison. History may show that managing the bomb is impossible in the political, military, institutional and technological environment that prevails in South Asia The proof may be a tragedy beyond measure.

The Requirements of Command and Control Much of the standard literature on nuclear weapons deals with what it calls deterrence theory and often focusses on either the political strategies made possible by nuclear weapons, or the number and kinds of nuclear weapons required, and targets that would need to be threatened to achieve such political goals. The structure of the arguments is simple: nuclear weapons are so destructive that the threat of their use should suffice to convince any adversary that war would be futile, and so actual conflict is averted. This apparent

simplicity masks a deep assumption of nuclear policy—the adversary has to be considered rational if there is to be a feasible combination of political will and military capabilities for the threat of nuclear attack or retaliation to be seen to be a convincing deterrent. This presumption of rational decision making is accompanied by a subsidiary judgement about human nature—that the threat of use of overwhelming violence will incite an appropriate fear and create more cautious, restrained decision making. Seen this way, rather than being treated as a theory or principle (with the aura of reason, control, predictability and certainty that these may convey), deterrence is better described as hope masquerading as strategy. In the pursuit of the point at which the capability for certain nuclear destruction would incite reason and restraint in each other, the United States and the former Soviet Union built vast nuclear arsenals and maintained large portions of them on hair trigger alert. The other nuclear weapon states built smaller versions of these systems, and were somewhat more relaxed in their deployment posture—perhaps reflecting that the UK and France were US allies, while China had few sources of obvious conflict with either superpower. The nature of these existing nuclear arsenals sheds some light on what passes for reason and restraint among nuclear policy-makers. While the US and Russia (which inherited the Soviet arsenal) currently have a nuclear stockpile of about 10,500 and 20,000 warheads respectively, the smaller nuclear weapon states each have a few hundred. Britain has 185 nuclear warheads, France has 450, and China is estimated to have 400. 1 These arsenals are all built around ballistic missiles with ranges of several thousand kilometres and armed with thermonuclear warheads (hydrogen bombs), each of which has yields five to two hundred times larger than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki 2 Thermonuclear weapons are so destructive than even where the targets are not cities, casualties could number in millions to tens of millions.3 Efforts to manage nuclear arsenals have typically assumed that a government and its armed forces behave as if they Were a single, coherent entity. Decision-making powers are seen as concentrated in the hands of a few individuals who exercise their authority through a command and control system that extends down to the nuclear-armed military unit, be it an aircraft or a silo-based, submarine-launched or mobile ballistic missile. This command and control system is often treated as an arrangement of human levers or cogs that will engage in an efficient, infallible, effectively mechanical activity guided by clear and precise rules, and where everything will function as intended. But it has been clear to critics for a long time that "nuclear organisations do not behave like the highly abstract models of rational decision commonly used to explain and prescribe nuclear operations."4 A more realistic picture of command and control sees it as anything but a simple arrangement of levers or cogs; one definition of a command and control system that captures some of the complexity suggests it should be seen as: "an arrangement of facilities, personnel, procedures and means of information acquisition, processing, and dissemination used by a commander in planning, directing, and controlling military operations".5 Seen this way, command and control of nuclear weapons may well involve hundreds if not thousands of people at all levels, many acting under orders and in diverse settings with different powers, interacting with each other and with a variety of technical systems, with nuclear weapons only being a small part of this. What actually happens in any given situation will depend on all the elements of this system. The problem of managing these weapons in the real world poses unprecedented challenges. As one description has vividly laid out, managing nuclear weapons ...involves the unpredictability of circumstances and human behaviour interacting with complex sensors, communications systems, command centres and weapons. The smallest details can assume central importance and range widely in substance, from the legitimacy of presidential succession to computer algorithms, from the psychology of stress to the physics of electromagnetic pulse....Even the most advanced experts and the most experienced practitioners are narrowly and incompletely informed. No one understands the whole.6 The cold war experience of managing nuclear weapons has been subject to harsh criticism. General Lee Butler, who until 1994 was the commander in chief of the United States Strategic Command and had daily charge of thousands of nuclear weapons, has laid out some of the perils of command and control of nuclear

weapons. He has emphasised that, "To run the nuclear enterprise during the Cold War, the United States created gargantuan agencies with mammoth appetites and a sense of infallibility...." 7 Butler observes: But these agencies and the men who staffed them were far from infallible. The capacity for human and mechanical failure, and for human misunderstandings, was limitless. I have seen bombers crash during exercises designed to replicate, but which were inevitably far less stressful than, the actual conditions of nuclear war. I have seen human error lead to missiles exploding in their silos. I have read the circumstances of submarines going to the bottom of the sea laden with nuclear missiles and warheads because of mechanical flaws and human errors.8 The history of nuclear weapons accidents shows that many things can and do go wrong. (See the Appendix for a list and description of some of the known accidents involving US and Soviet nuclear weapons and delivery systems.) Along with the misplaced claim to infallibility and the potential for disastrous accidents brought about by misunderstandings and human and mechanical failure, Butler illuminates another particularly important aspect of organisations that are responsible for nuclear weapons—their limited experience of the circumstances in which they are supposed to operate. There has been, thankfully, no use of nuclear weapons since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then, there have been new kinds of nuclear weapons, deployments of nuclear weapons, threats issued to use nuclear weapons, exercises with nuclear weapons, accidents involving nuclear weapons—but no nuclear war. Nuclear command and control systems, including the people, processes, rules, machines, the links between them, and of course the weapons themselves, are designed and so far have functioned in peacetime. There is little basis for knowing how such systems will perform as peacetime gives way to real crisis and as war is seen as imminent, as war begins, and as it escalates to and crosses the nuclear threshold. There are only plans for what to do in such an eventuality, and hopes that they will work. There is even less understanding of how a command system will function to bring a nuclear war to an end.

Positive and Negative Control It is a normal requirement of every deployed military weapon that it should only be used when authorised by the appropriate authority and that the weapon will function as and when required (i.e. it should be both reliable and safe). With nuclear weapons these demands become especially important since unlike ordinary weapons, nuclear weapons have acquired an important diplomatic and political utility short of their use as an explosive. Only the highest political authorities should be able to authorise the use of nuclear weapons. Thus it is important to assure that possession of a nuclear weapon by a military unit should not equal the ability to use it: the unit that holds, moves and fires the system cannot (as opposed to may not) use it without approval from higher authority. One way to formulate this problem is in terms of positive control and negative control, or use-oriented command and control, and restraint-oriented command and control. 9 Positive or use-oriented control describes a situation where weapons are used when authorised, while negative or restraint-oriented control reflects the requirement that weapons cannot be used unless authorised. Positive control can be seen as defining how the system should behave in wartime, while negative control is the more powerful constraint on command and control in peacetime. Positive control involves a set of interlocked technological and administrative systems, with associated procedures and plans to ensure nuclear weapons can be used by a national authority when it decides to do so. These systems include: 10 1. the early warning system, 2. the procedures to assess the nature and extent of an attack that may be taking place, 3. the command and decision centres, 4. communications between leaders and nuclear-armed units, and

5. military units equipped with nuclear-armed missiles or other delivery systems. The operational viability of each component and the system as a whole is supported by training exercises and drills that work through the steps of the plans that have been developed for the possible use of nuclear weapons. But it is a commonplace in the design and execution of plans and exercises involving complex systems to assume that things will go as expected and that there will be no surprises. This confidence is based more on the lack of any alternative than on actual experience. It is hard if not impossible to foresee every eventuality. There is no way to prepare for every possible combination of events, including all the equipment malfunctions, human errors and misperceptions that may come into play. Even where detailed procedures are put in place, there are problems. For instance, the US found that for its semi-automatic ground environment (SAGE) warning and control system, "it was impossible to specify in advance all of the contingencies that could be faced in the course of actual operations. Reliance on formal written procedures proved impractical, and unwritten work-arounds soon developed among the human operators."11 The larger lesson drawn in a study of this and other systems is that "any nuclear command organisation circumvents official procedures in order to carry out its assigned mission. Such rule shortcutting is likely to be oral and informal, and therefore invisible to outside observation except under the highstress conditions of actual war or crisis."12 The need for caution about the differences between the way command and control systems are supposed to work and the way they actually work is supported by growing evidence that shows how complex systems that tightly integrate administrative procedures and technologies can fail unpredictably and catastrophically in the real world.13 This has included major failures of systems involved in managing nuclear weapons.14 These failures have all been in situations far more subdued than the crisis and chaos that would be associated with imminent nuclear war. Military-planners have traditionally ignored these acute, effectively insoluble problems. For them, the main threat to positive control is decapitation—a successful attack by an adversary that renders a nuclear arsenal unuseable because the command and control system is destroyed. Their concern is that the orders to use nuclear weapons need to be communicated to the military units with custody of the weapons through the command and control system, and if this does not take place the order may become undeliverable. Among the specific issues that are raised are the need for early warning of an impending attack that may threaten the command and control system, protection of nuclear decision-makers, and reliable communications systems and nuclear weapons that can survive an attack by a determined adversary. There are a number of steps that have been taken by the nuclear weapon states to mitigate the possible loss of command. These include multiple early warning systems, including ground-based radar and in the case of the US and the former Soviet Union the use of satellites; plans to preserve national leadership, including secure command posts, alternative command centres, mobile command centres; alternative, multiple, hardened communications between leaders and the nuclear arsenal, which are able, for instance, to withstand the electromagnetic pulse from detonation of nuclear weapons; 15 large nuclear arsenals, and mobile, ballistic missiles and submarines as the survivable core of such an arsenal. These measures have all proved to be extraordinarily complex and costly. The United States spent about $400 billion on building and maintaining its nuclear arsenal between 1940 and 1990.16 The planes, submarines and land-based missiles systems for these weapons cost in excess of a staggering $3,000 billion.17 It spent almost $200 billion dollars on its strategic command, control and communications system. 18 A cheaper way to overcome the possibility of decapitation is to disperse and delegate the authority and ability to use nuclear weapons in advance. This, however, increases the likelihood of unauthorised nuclear use. The nuclear-armed unit raises command and control issues of its own; it needs to be appropriately trained, and have weapons systems that are serviceable, reliable and survivable.19 Nuclear units assigned responsibility for assembling, maintaining, transporting or storing nuclear weapons, their components and related equipment, need to have adequate knowledge of the unique characteristics of nuclear weapons, and the safety and control features associated with these weapons. They need appropriate training and inspection to determine they are able to perform their assigned mission. Along with their specific technical skills, the

individual members of the unit also need to be evaluated for their reliability, and their qualifications to have custody of, control access to, or have access to nuclear weapons. These Personnel Reliability Programs involve investigative and administrative checks of military personnel—between 1975 and 1990 the US disqualified annually 3-5% of the military personnel it had previously cleared for working with nuclear weapons, on the grounds of drug or alcohol problems, conviction for a serious crime, negligence, unreliability or aberrant behaviour, poor attitude, behaviour suggesting problems with due law and authority, etc.20 Some requirements for positive control also figure in establishing negative control, that is, in making sure that nuclear weapons are not used without authorisation. Negative control involves how nuclear weapons are deployed, military procedures associated with them, and the design of the weapons and their delivery systems. Among the most significant concerns about negative control are possible unauthorised access to the weapons, and the safety of the weapons should there be an accident. More specifically, the weapons should be secure against efforts by people to gain unauthorised access to them or to detonate them, and the weapons should not detonate accidentally because of problems with maintenance, or the malfunction of the delivery system, including severe situations such as a missile .or plane crash. There are several technical and procedural solutions that have been developed to deal with these concerns, including: combination or coded locks (permissive action links, or PALs) which can block unauthorised use of a nuclear weapon. 21 safety design features of warheads, e.g. one-point-safe designs and insensitive high explosives that will reduce the risk of a warhead detonating if it catches fire or is otherwise damaged.22 The procedural components encompass, for example: physical protection of the weapons (in manufacturing, storage and transport), as well as the codes for unlocking nuclear weapons. the requirement that at every stage in the maintenance, deployment and use of nuclear weapons .at least two people participate, each being capable of detecting incorrect or unauthorised procedures (the twoperson rule) It is obvious that the exercise of positive and negative control is inextricably linked to available technological, financial, administrative and human resources. But there are also limits set by how nuclear policy-makers envisage using their nuclear weapons. Their ambitions and fears constrain the kind of command and control system they pursue and how they seek to manage it. For instance, there are specific features associated with a command and control system where strategic importance is attached to using the weapons as political signals in a crisis, as opposed to one where part of the arsenal is for prompt use perhaps on a conventional battlefield or in an effort to decimate an adversary's nuclear forces, or where the weapons are seen as instruments of devastating retribution against the cities and citizens of another country.23

South Asia and the Bomb In the wake of their nuclear tests, India and Pakistan have begun to create command and control systems for their respective arsenals. From the earlier general discussion of such systems, it is possible to identify at least five important constraints that may be of significance in India and Pakistan's efforts to make sure they can use their nuclear weapons when their leaders want, while ensuring the weapons remain safe in the meantime. First, there are nuclear arsenals and the pressures created by the limited numbers of weapons that are available, and the characteristics of the delivery systems. Second, there are specific problems of early warning created by geography and technology in South Asia. Third, there are a number of strategic constraints that stem from a perceived need to be prepared to use nuclear weapons in a conflict and the kinds of military scenarios that are deemed plausible in South Asia. Fourth, ensuring proper safeguarding of the weapons raises important technical and institutional questions. And finally, there is the safety of the weapons and delivery systems India and Pakistan may be capable of fielding.

Nuclear Command and Control in India The creation of a formal command and control structure following the 1998 nuclear tests has apparently been a slow and troubled process.24 Lacking a single dominant institution like the Pakistan Army to shape the process, India's efforts in this direction have been shaped by political, bureaucratic and military rivalries. In November 1998, India set up a National Security Council (NSC); it is headed by the prime minister and includes the ministers for defence, home, external affairs and finance, as well as the deputy chairperson of the Planning Commission. Within the NSC, there is a Strategic Policy Group of civil service and military officers, which includes the cabinet secretary, the three service chiefs, the secretaries for the foreign, home, defence and finance ministries, the secretary for defence production, the secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy, and Department of Space, the secretary for revenue, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, the director of the Intelligence Bureau (responsible for domestic intelligence), the secretary of the Research and Analysis Wing (the external intelligence agency), the scientific advisor to the defence minister, and the chairperson of the previously moribund Joint Intelligence Committee QIC).25 The principal secretary to the prime minister was also given the new post of national security advisor, while the JIC was made the NSC secretariat. The Strategic Policy Group was charged with a strategic defence review from which a detailed nuclear command and control system was to emerge. The third part of the NSC was a National Security Advisory Board (NSAB). In May 2001, following a year-long study by a group of government ministers on India's national security system, a post of chief of defence staff was established, with responsibilities to include command of nuclear weapons.26 The report also recommended that the army, navy and air force chiefs be asked to draw up a blueprint for the operational command and control of nuclear forces. 27 There have been major disagreements among the services as to who should be chief of defence staff, and which service should have responsibility for the nuclear weapons.28 In the immediate aftermath of the nuclear tests, a few signs did emerge of the thinking about a command and control system.29 The system was envisaged to include a command post designed to withstand a direct nuclear strike, with the authority to order the use of nuclear weapons conveyed by separate coded messages sent over independent communications systems, with all the messages required for authorisation. The physical control over the nuclear weapons was to be divided with the nuclear warhead stored separately and under a separate organisation from the military unit in charge of the delivery system.

Nuclear Command and Control in Pakistan Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme was formally launched in early 1972 and gained added priority after India's first nuclear test in May 1974. The 1977 coup by General Zia ul Haq and the subsequent decade of military government, which was in turn followed by a decade of weak elected governments that abdicated national security policy to the military, have ensured that the armed forces and in particular the army have authority over the nuclear weapons programme. After its 1998 nuclear tests ordered by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan began to announce some of the structure of its high-level nuclear decision making: "The final authority to use nuclear weapons will remain with the prime minister, but the CJCSC (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee) will be the strategic commander of the nuclear force." 30 The first person to hold this responsibility was General Pervez Musharraf, who staged a military coup in October 1999, overthrowing Nawaz Sharif. Pakistan has announced the top tier of its nuclear command system. The National Command Authority (NCA) was established in February 2000, and given responsibility for formulating policy and exercising control over the development and employment of Pakistan's strategic nuclear forces and associated organisations. 31 The NCA has three components: an Employment Control Committee, a Development Control Committee and the Strategic Plans Division. The Employment Control Committee will be chaired by the

head of the government and include the ministers of foreign affairs, defence and interior, the CJCSC, the military service chiefs, the director general of Strategic Plans Division (secretary), and technical advisors. This committee will be charged presumably with making nuclear weapons policy, including the decision to use nuclear weapons. The second part of the NCA, the Development Control Committee, will manage the nuclear weapons complex and the development of nuclear weapons systems. It has the same military and technical members as the Employment Committee but lacks the cabinet ministers that represent other parts of the government. The Development Control Committee is chaired by the head of the government and includes the CJCSC (as deputy chairman of the Committee), the military service chiefs, the director general of the Strategic Plans Division, and representatives of the weapons research, development and production organisations. These organisations include the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratory (Kahuta), the National Development Complex, and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). 32 It also includes the newly created National Engineering and Scientific Commission, .headed by Samar Mubarikmand (who was formerly the head of technical development at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and led the team that conducted the nuclear weapons tests). 33 The third arm of the NCA is the Strategic Plans Division. It was established in the Joint Services Headquarters under the CJCSC and is headed by a senior army officer. The Division will act as the secretariat for the NCA and has responsibility for planning and coordination, and in particular for establishing the lower tiers of the command and control system and its physical infrastructure.

The Nuclear Arsenal The size and composition of a nuclear arsenal constrains a command and control system. Soon after the 1998 nuclear tests, Prime Minister Vajpayee said: "India does not intend to build a large arsenal or create an elaborate command and control system like the other nuclear weapon powers." 34 He did not elaborate on what India did intend. Pakistan has maintained it seeks only a 'minimum credible deterrence' capability but has refused to specify what that means. It is however clear that Pakistan sees this 'minimum' in relative terms and has tied it to India's arsenal. In what many have seen as a quasi-formal Pakistani nuclear doctrine, a former diplomat who served as both foreign secretary and foreign minister, a retired air marshal, and a diplomat who has gone on to become foreign minister jointly argued "the minimum cannot be defined in static numbers. In the absence of an agreement on mutual restraints, the size of Pakistan's arsenal and its deployment pattern have to be adjusted to ward off dangers of preemption and interception. Only then can deterrence remain efficacious." 35 Assessments for how large an Indian nuclear arsenal might become are sparse and varied. There have been suggestions that India need plan only for two to three dozen nuclear warheads at least for the next 10-15 years. 36 Others are more hawkish. A leading Indian nuclear hawk, K. Subrahmanyam, has suggested "a modest arsenal of 150 weapons...distributed over aircraft, mobile missiles and sea-based assets." 37 Incidentally, this is much larger than the 60 warhead arsenal he had advocated in the early 1990s. Others are even more hawkish, with suggestions that India eventually (by 2030) needs over 300 nuclear warheads, including more than 50 thermonuclear weapons with yields over one hundred times larger than those of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 38 At present such nuclear ambitions for India are limited by the size and nature of nuclear weapons capability that it has developed. Independent estimates suggest by the beginning of 2000 India may have accumulated enough weapons-grade plutonium for between 50 and 100 nuclear weapons.39 Indian nuclear weapons designers have claimed that they tested a thermonuclear weapon or hydrogen bomb on 11 May 1998, and this had a yield of over 40 kilotonnes which could be increased to a maximum design yield of 200 kilotonnes (i.e. about a tenth of what is desired by the thermonuclear hawks). 40 Independent experts have challenged the official yield of the hydrogen bomb test and suggest it may have been perhaps half of what was claimed/ 41 It is worth noting that this analysis also challenged the official Pakistani claims of six nuclear tests (five on 28 May and one on 30 May, 1998) and suggested the total yields may also have been significantly

smaller (10-15 kilotonnes instead of 30-35 kilotonnes for May 28; and 2-8 kilotonnes rather than 15-18 kilotonnes on 30 May). 42 There has been less public debate about the possible size and composition of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Soon after its tests, Samar Mubarikmand proposed that an arsenal of 60 to 70 nuclear weapons should be sufficient.43 An independent estimate suggests Pakistan may have produced enough highly enriched uranium for between 30 and 50 weapons by early 2000. 44 While continuing to produce highly enriched uranium, Pakistan has also begun to operate a nuclear reactor for producing plutonium for nuclear weapons—although it is not believed to have tested a plutonium-based design in 1998. Pakistan did not claim to have tested a thermonuclear weapon or device in its May 1998 tests. However, Mubarikmand has claimed that Pakistani scientists can produce thermonuclear weapons: "Technically we can definitely make it but it will require a mandate and needs more funds for carrying out test firing of thermonuclear device." 45 India and Pakistan for the moment may have their nuclear forces configured as disassembled warheads in storage and have earmarked specific nuclear-capable aircraft to deliver them. But the arsenals are unlikely to remain in this form. India and Pakistan sought to develop a long range ballistic missile capability throughout the 1990s. They have both conducted a few tests of land-based mobile ballistic missiles with ranges of between 1000 to 2000 kilometres (India has the Agni II missile, and Pakistan its Ghauri and Shaheen missiles). India has also tested Prithvi, a short range ballistic missile with a range of 150-250 kilometres that it claims can carry a nuclear warhead. One indication of the planned shape of India's arsenal came in August 1999, when the National Security Advisory Board of the NSC released a draft Indian Nuclear Doctrine (dIND). This called for a strategic triad characterised by nuclear weapons on aircraft, mobile land-based missiles, and at sea, with an emphasis on multiple redundancy, mobility, dispersion and deception; and the ability to make the transition from peacetime deployment to a war footing "in the shortest possible time".46 One of the authors of the dIND has identified possible sea-based forces as comprising nuclear-powered submarines equipped with nucleararmed, sea-launched cruise missiles. 47 ' India has sought help with its military technologies in this respect. It has pursued improved ballistic missile guidance from Russia, its traditional supplier of weapons and technology. 48 India has also discussed leasing a Russian nuclear-powered submarine while it develops its own nuclear submarine—to train its navy in nuclear operations, India had an earlier three-year lease (1988-1991) of a Russian nuclear submarine.49 India has also begun to improve its military ties with Israel; there have been Indian purchases of hundreds of millions of US dollars worth of Israeli weapons systems, and visits to Israel (and from Israel) of senior military and other government officials.50 India has been seeking, among other things, a $500 million deal for Israel's Phalcon airborne early warning system.51 While Pakistan is believed to rely on its air force and will pursue its land-based mobile missiles to deliver its nuclear weapons, its navy has followed India's lead in acquiring an interest in a nuclear role. The navy chief declared that Pakistan could keep up with India and put nuclear weapons on its submarines.52 Pakistan may seek help from China in its efforts. If, as seems likely, India and Pakistan continue to increase the size of their respective arsenals and move towards increased reliance on mobile missiles and eventually seek to follow the other nuclear weapon states in putting nuclear weapons at sea, their problems of command and control will grow more complex. There will be more military units with nuclear weapons, some of which, in a crisis, may need to be dispersed and remain out of communication to become more difficult to detect and so enhance their survivability. With a large number of weapons distributed over many diverse delivery systems, deployed across large areas and in different environments, considerable independent authority over the use of the weapons may need to be handed over to low-level commanders. When to disperse forces and lessen direct central command authority in a crisis becomes an issue in its own right, as does the question of how to ensure central control over the weapons will be regained when a crisis is managed successfully.

Early Warning How a nuclear command and control system is configured will depend in part on the perceived vulnerability of the weapons. A vulnerable military-strategic structure will be unable to protect a nuclear arsenal that may be embedded within it, for example, by not being able to protect the weapons from preemptive attack. The United States and the former Soviet Union were able to deal with this fear because of the very large distance between their countries and the large size of each country; even then, the fear of a surprise attack and being overwhelmed led them to put nuclear weapons at sea and keep some of their nuclear weapons on 'hair-trigger alert', ready to launch within minutes. They also built elaborate and expensive early warning systems to detect missile launches by the other. Geography and technology are no help to India and Pakistan in this regard, especially when it comes to early warning. Pakistan's long narrow geography, paralleling its contiguous border with India, makes all of its military facilities and cities easily within reach of Indian aircraft and missiles. There are few places for Pakistan to hide its nuclear facilities, weapons, or delivery systems. India does not face the same problem, with its southern tip well over a thousand kilometres from the border with Pakistan. Pakistan has also long feared and prepared to counter a preemptive attack on its nuclear arsenal and facilities.53 These date back at least to December 1982 – following the example of Israel's destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor a year earlier – when it was reported that India considered plans for an attack on Pakistan's Kahuta uranium enrichment facility. (That such plans were considered, and rejected, has been confirmed.)54 Similar fears were expressed by Pakistani officials again just before P aids tan's 1998 tests, and the air force was put on alert at both the nuclear test site and at Kahuta.55 The limited capacity of early warning systems in South Asia has been exposed many times in the past. On 6 April 1998, Pakistan conducted the first test flight of its Ghauri intermediate range ballistic missile, which it claims has a range of about 1,500 kilometres.56 Indian officials reacted with what was described as "scepticism bordering on derision".57 One reason they offered was that the Indian radar had not picked up any evidence of a missile test (the test was launched from a site less than a hundred kilometres from the Indian border).58 The US government noted simply: "Our information indicates that a ballistic test flight did occur today."59 Pakistan has had its failures too. One dramatic instance came in August 1998, when the US attacked targets in Afghanistan with cruise missiles fired from ships in the Arabian Sea. The US fear that Pakistan would detect the missiles and misinterpret the signals as a sign that it was being attacked, perhaps even by India, led to US deputy chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, General Joseph Ralston, being sent to Pakistan at the time of the attack to provide reassurance. There was apparently no need; the missiles were reportedly undetected by Pakistani radar as they flew for over 1,000 km across the country.60 A more recurring failure is suggested by incidents involving military aircraft. There have been numerous instances of violations of Pakistani airspace by Indian planes and vice versa— this is despite their 1991 Prevention of Air Space Violations Treaty. Some violations offer dramatic testimony to problems with early warning and interception. In May 1997, an Indian air force MiG 25 crossed the border into Pakistan, broke the sound barrier close enough to Islamabad to shake office windows before returning to India.61 The Pakistan air force claimed to have tracked the intruder but even though a scramble was ordered at air bases in the area, interception aircraft were unable to reach the Indian plane before it crossed back into India.62 Other encounters have ended tragically. In August 1999, Indian jets shot down a Pakistani Atlantique reconnaissance plane over the Rann of Kutch lulling all sixteen crew members.63 Indian sources reported that the plane had been in Indian airspace for eighteen minutes, crossing back and forth across the border several times before it was shot down.64 Pakistan claimed the plane was in fact flying over its airspace when it was fired upon without warning, and sought compensation from India through proceedings at the International Court of Justice, at the Hague.65 These examples illustrate how fraught the problems of early warning are for India and Pakistan. The nature of the border and the pattern of deployment of armed forces close to it, which include frontline strike aircraft, make any significant early warning effectively impossible, especially for Pakistan. The problem will be

worsened by the presence of ballistic missiles with ranges of over a thousand kilometres that put major cities, including the respective capital cities and business cities, within a few minutes flight time. These weapons systems and deployments ensure that policy-makers in either country have in effect no time to think. With geography and technology combining to render any solution seemingly impossible, Pakistan may feel it should remain prepared to disperse its nuclear forces early in every crisis rather than risk losing them. But there are other graver risks that would follow.

The Course of War The demands on a command and control system that it be appropriate in wartime require looking especially at how war may begin in South Asia. There are many scenarios of how a crisis may develop and escalate into war, perhaps without deliberate intent on either the part of India or Pakistan.66 Most, if not all, hinge on Kashmir and the possibility that India may respond to Pakistani action in Kashmir by escalating the conflict and moving it to another area, namely by sending its conventional military forces across the southern desert or central plains into Pakistan. India has much larger conventional military forces, and it is widely believed they would eventually overwhelm those of Pakistan. Pakistani civilian and military leaders have repeatedly argued that the conventional forces imbalance is in fact a prime reason for Pakistan's nuclearisation.67 Taking such claims seriously suggests Pakistan may choose to follow the US and North Adantic Treaty Organization (NATO) strategy in Europe of having three phases of nuclear weapons use. This consisted of a conventional nonnuclear war plan, where nuclear threats are issued once NATO forces were unable to contain a Soviet attack, to be followed by the planned use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield, and finally if the Soviets responded with nuclear forces there was the plan to use strategic nuclear weapons. Israel apparently had a similar strategy when it prepared to use its nuclear weapons during the 1973 war. According to one description: Israeli forces on the Golan Heights were retreating in the face of a massive Syrian tank assault. At 10 p.m. on Oct. 8th, the Israeli Commander on the northern front, Major General Yitzhak Hoffi, told his superior: "I am not sure we can hold out much longer." After midnight, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan solemnly warned Premier Golda Meir: "This is the end of the third temple." Mrs Meir thereupon gave Dayan permission to activate Israel's Doomsday weapons. As each bomb was assembled, it was rushed off to waiting airforce units. Before any triggers were set, however, the battle on both fronts turned in Israel's favour.68 A slightly different description of these events suggests: "the nuclear missile launches at Hirbat Zachariah, as many as were ready, would be made operational, along with eight specially marked F-4s that were on twenty-four hour alert at Tei-Nof, the air force base."69 Pakistan may follow Israel's policy in another way. It has been suggested that the Israeli strategy during the crisis, when it called a nuclear alert and began arming its nuclear arsenal, was aimed substantially "to blackmail Washington into a major policy change...to begin an immediate and massive resupply of the Israeli military."70 Pakistan may seek to use the threat of nuclear weapons use as a way to incite intervention to terminate the war before it lost more ground. This could be done simply by moving some nuclear-armed missiles into the open for US satellites to be able to detect them. Failing appropriate intervention, it is imaginable that Pakistan would consider the battlefield use of nuclear weapons, against advancing Indian tanks for instance, as a way to signal its desperation. Indian military exercises in May 2001 gave every indication that India anticipates Pakistan doing just this.71 The Poorna Vijay (Complete Victory) exercises were aimed at testing equipment, troops and maneuvers in a situation where nuclear weapons were used against them, with an Indian official confirming: "Drills and procedures to meet the challenges of a nuclear, chemical or biological strike are also being practised.72 "Among the options worked through were a Pakistani nuclear attack on a bridgehead or bridge, armoured forces and troops.73

However, the exercises went further and suggest a more aggressive strategy aimed at putting pressure on, or perhaps even overwhelming, Pakistan's nuclear capability. The Indian air force sought to "test its operational efficacy while underscoring the importance of advanced interception and detection methods in the wake of potential nuclear strikes from adversaries."74 The army aimed to rehearse "deep armoured thrusts". 75 These were to be combined with attacks by "deep penetration strike aircraft" and helicopter-borne special forces operations.76 Anticipating such attempts to intercept Pakistani aircraft carrying nuclear weapons and perhaps to destroy or degrade Pakistan's nuclear weapons storage sites and delivery systems in the early stages of a conflict would create important constraints on the kind of nuclear command and control system Pakistani military-planners will seek to establish and maintain. There is an added danger. Offensive military operations of the kind that seem to have been rehearsed in Poorna Vijay may go beyond what had been anticipated by leaders on either side. There are many instances of military forces in combat going beyond what had been ordered by senior military or political leaders; where nuclear forces are involved this can lead to what has been dubbed inadvertent escalation. 77 This can also result from the simple difficulty of knowing and controlling everything that is happening on a battlefield. The result in either case, and more likely still with both processes working, is the possibility of unforeseen contact between Indian conventional forces and Pakistan's nuclear weapons systems. In such a situation, Indian and Pakistani plans could lead to the use of nuclear weapons without either side having anticipated such an event. Should Pakistan use nuclear weapons according to plan or inadvertently against Indian armed forces, there is a likelihood that Indian forces may fight on regardless, as India practised in the Poorna Vijay exercises. This may lead Pakistan to escalate the action still further and attack a military base or even a city. Public pressure may also play a role here. Prior to the 1971 India-Pakistan war, it was widely believed that P aids tan's armed forces would attack India from West Pakistan in order to protect East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and as former Pakistani Cabinet Secretary Hasan Zaheer has noted: "This was the doctrine on which the entire defence structure of Pakistan was built and which the people had been led to believe for the last twenty-five years. 78 " This played itself out when it came to war; Zaheer notes that Pakistan's President Yahya Khan "confessed later when confronted with defeat, the army could not have lived down the ignominy of losing East Pakistan without an all-out war with India.79 " Official and public expectations of the future course of war with India are now increasingly being shaped by Pakistan's nuclear weapons capability. If the past is any guide, this may lead to tragedy. As part of its draft nuclear doctrine, India has announced a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons. This implies that once attacked India would then retaliate with nuclear weapons. However, India may do more than use nuclear weapons in retaliation. In remarks clearly addressed at Pakistan, Prime Minister Vajpayee has said: "If they [Pakistan] think we will wait for them to drop a bomb and face destruction, they are mistaken. 80 " Although as military-planners have become more directly involved in nuclear policy-making they have begun to advocate a capability for other options; the Indian air force has argued that it should be equipped to be able to strike first should the need arise.81 When it comes to picking targets for nuclear weapons there are really only two options: one is to try to destroy military command structures and war-fighting capabilities, the other is to destroy each other's cities. Attacking military targets may produce results not that different from using nuclear weapons against cities. This is because nearly all significant military centres are either in or located close to cities. A mutual attack on each other's cities by India and Pakistan would cause immense human suffering. See Table 1 for a preliminary estimate of the casualties from nuclear attacks on cities in India and Pakistan based on the historical record at Hiroshima. The table suggests there could be several million deaths and injuries. TABLE I Estimated Nuclear Casualties for Each of 10 Large Indian and Pakistani Cities*

*The figures are rounded to the nearest 1000. Source: See Matthew McKinzie, Zia Mian, A.H. Nayyar and M.V. Ramana, 'The Risks and Consequences of Nuclear War in South Asia," in Out of the Nuclear Shadow ed. Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian (New Delhi: Rainbow Press, 2001), 185–196.

It should be appreciated that this estimate of almost three million deaths and an additional 1.5 million severely injured from nuclear attacks on cities in India and Pakistan reflects the immediate casualties. The consequences of the destruction of the fragile social and physical networks that make daily life possible in large South Asian cities, the loss of electricity, water, hospitals, transportation and other services would be enormous.

Safeguarding the Bomb The capability to devastate cities and kill millions at will is the goal of the nuclear arsenals and command and control systems now being pursued by the governments of both India and Pakistan. Until it can be eliminated, preventing unauthorised access to and use of such capability poses major problems. Pakistan's concerns – of interception and preemption severely degrading if not destroying its nuclear arsenal in the course of an Indian surprise attack, or over time in a sustained conventional armed conflict – pose the more acute challenge. Pakistan's situation is somewhat reminiscent of that faced by US military-planners in Europe in the late 1950s and early 1960s, who saw themselves confronting overwhelming Soviet conventional forces. To protect their nuclear forces against being destroyed in a surprise attack they placed them on heightened alert. This required nuclear bombs and warheads to be loaded on planes and missiles and kept ready for launch within minutes. This option had been made possible by the development of 'sealed pit' weapons, in which a key component no longer needed to be manually or mechanically inserted into the centre of the bomb at the last moment— earlier weapons had been kept disassembled and were only put together when considered necessary. The pressure for keeping some US nuclear forces in Europe on hair-trigger alert raised concerns about access to these weapons by US allies, who were then being trained to operate them; including instances of non-US aircraft loaded with armed US nuclear weapons waiting on airstrips, ready to take off. These problems led to the development of coded arming switches to limit access and possible use of nuclear weapons only to those with the requisite authorisation (i.e. the codes), which have evolved into modern permissive action links (PALs).82 PALs are electronic switches that serve to protect a nuclear weapon against all kinds of unauthorised use, and are meant to be effective even when the weapon is assembled, armed and mated to its delivery system and ready for use. They have to be built into the weapon in such a way that it is not accessible for tampering and

cannot be bypassed; there are a variety of technical approaches to this, although for obvious reasons the details are secret.83 Recent PALs use a set of multiple, six digit or twelve digit codes with a limited try capability. Since these are electronic locks, the limited try capability stops any effort to keep trying codes until the correct one is determined.84 Other nuclear weapon states have also sought to introduce similar controls against unauthorised use of their nuclear weapons. The US is believed to have helped the UK, France and even the former Soviet Union with permissive action links and nuclear warhead safety.85 The former Soviet Union seemed to have been sceptical about relying on the technical effectiveness of coded locks for its nuclear weapons, especially bombs to be used by aircraft. It chose to store its bombs in depots at a distance of one or two kilometres from the air bases with its strategic bombers, and placed the depots under the custody of special troops commanded by the senior general staff.86 The nuclear weapons were kept away from the bombers during normal operations, and bombers were not regularly armed and placed on strip-alert, i.e. ready to take off within minutes. There were additional safety measures when the bombers were armed and in flight, including special on-board navigation equipment to assure the aircraft's flight pattern conformed to pre-planned operations before allowing the bomb to be release. China was alone among the nuclear weapon states in not having PALs for its nuclear weapons.87 However, a recent unpublished memoir by a US scientist with access to China's nuclear weapons scientists, claims that in 1990 China apparently sought US help with PALs and indicated a willingness to receive even old PAL technology as a way to help make its nuclear weapons more secure. When US help was not forthcoming, China turned to Russia.88 In their turn, both India and Pakistan have hinted about their need for PAL systems. It has been reported that "India...has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to acquire missile safeguards technology from Russia to allay the concerns of Indian political officials that weaponisation of missiles could erode tight central control over their use.89 " Pakistan, for its part, has sought help from the US suggesting that "precautions against accidental or unauthorised launch of nuclear weapons are obviously imperative.... Co-operation of more experienced states should be solicited.90 " Other former senior officials are more direct; they highlight the risk of accidental or unauthorised use and approvingly cite US authors on the need for the US to share command and control information with de facto nuclear weapon states.91 These requests could reflect that China, Pakistan's main supplier of military equipment and technology, in recent years is unable or unwilling to help. They may, of course, also be part of the ongoing effort by Pakistan to gain greater recognition and acceptance of its new nuclear status by the US. Whether PALs are introduced into South Asia or not, it is important to appreciate that the efficacy of a technical system depends on the circumstances in which it is to function and the procedures that govern its use. In the case of PALs, there are significant political, military and institutional constraints that need to be kept in mind. At first sight, by limiting unauthorised access to nuclear weapons PALs may seem to contribute to reducing possible dangers. However, the matter is more complex. The prospect of tight, assured control over nuclear forces that PALs appear to offer may tempt political leaders and military-planners to be more forceful in using the alert status and deployment of their nuclear forces as instruments of diplomacy. This was in fact an early argument for PALs; Fred Ikle, described as the 'father' of PALs, advocated in the late 1950s that such devices "could permit substantial gains in readiness by replacing more time consuming operational safeguards and by making higher alert postures politically acceptable." 92 Control through technology rather than relying on people is presented as making risks seem less daring and thus easier to rationalise. This temptation may be particularly great in South Asia where both India and Pakistan believe that in a crisis the US would use spy planes, satellites and electronic signals intelligence to closely monitor events, and may be incited into intervening. In the past, Pakistan, in particular, has sought to elicit such intervention through various kinds of military actions, most notably in the Kargil conflict of 1999. It is easy to imagine how in a crisis a perceived increase of control may lead to a greater willingness among Pakistani policymakers to alert their nuclear forces or begin deployment as a signal to the US that they were serious about

being prepared to use nuclear-weapons unless the US restrained India in some way. The nature of the conflict between India and Pakistan may be one where nuclear weapons are in the theatre of a conventional conflict. In such a situation, it is recognised that [PALs] do nothing to alleviate the organisational and environmental pressures to decentralise and delegate control of most theatre nuclear weapons....If weapons were sent into battle while political authorities retained control of the codes needed to unlock them, there could be no guarantee, not even a likelihood, that all of the codes could be matched with their respective weapons in the confusion of a conventional (war)....The political command, or any centralised depository of the codes, could be attacked, thereby paralysing the military's ability to strike back. Practically speaking, a strong pressure exists to release any needed codes at the same time that the weapons are dispersed from their storage sites.93 In short, in the circumstances that are likely to prevail in the case of Pakistan, its compulsions – to protect its nuclear weapons by dispersing them, and to keep them useable – could require loosening central authority to such an extent that PALs would be effectively neutralised as a crisis threatened to turn into war. In the words of Pervez Hoodbhoy, a leading Pakistani scientist and peace activist, it could be a brigadier who decides whether to start a nuclear war in South Asia.94 For PALs to serve as an effective technology of negative control – limiting normal access to nuclear weapons during peacetime – it is the day-to-day procedures of the military as an institution that become important. It is not just that the weapons themselves need to be properly protected, PALs are only effective if the codes for the locks are also kept secure. If anyone can have access to the codes then PALs offer little if any restraint as command and control devices. That this problem is real even where there are decades of experience is evident from the incident in December 1994 when the unlock codes for US strategic forces were reportedly compromised aboard a US Strategic Command airborne command centre. 95 There are many examples of institutional failure caused by poor planning and procedures on the part of the armed forces, as with other institutions, in India and Pakistan. A useful set of examples to consider is the way the respective armies have dealt with peacetime storage of their conventional ammunition and look for problems with planning and procedures associated with this. In March 1988, there was an accidental fire at India's Central Ordnance Depot (claimed to be the largest in Asia), located at the Jabalpur ordnance factory and ammunition depot, which led to the ammunition stored in underground bunkers exploding over a period of several days. The nearby villages were evacuated, and the airport 45 kilometres away was closed.96 The disaster, involving the destruction of munitions reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was attributed to 'negligence' on the part of the commandant by both the workers in the Depot and the local member of the state parliament.97 Despite warnings about the hazards at other Indian arms depots, the next decade saw further disasters. 98 In 1998, there was a fire at the magazine and ammunition store of the Proof and Experimental Establishment Centre near Balasore.99 This facility is closely tied to the missile test grounds at the Interim Test Range, Chandipur, and few details were released of the accident. In April 2000, around 12,000 tonnes of ammunition – including surface-to-air missiles, anti-tank guided missiles, tank and artillery shells – were destroyed by a fire at the Bharatpur field ammunition depot. This amounted to 30-40 per cent of the operational reserves of the India's Southern Army Command.100 A smaller subsequent fire at a storage site near Pathankot destroyed 400 tonnes of ammunition; Major General Himmat Singh Gill claimed that at the site, residential development habitation had begun to cross the mandatory one kilometre exclusion zone around arms depots, compromising the security of the facility and putting people at risk.101 Another fire in May 2001, at the Suratgarh depot in Rajasthan which serves as the Indian army's forward ammunition store, consumed 8,000 tonnes of tank and artillery ammunition.102 The explanation that was offered by the vice chief of army staff was that it was a "pure accident", an "act of God".103 Other military officials privately described it as a result of "a crisis of casualness".104 India is not alone in having a disaster involving a major weapons storage facility. On 10 April 1988, the Ojhri ammunition

depot located close to the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi exploded; the official toll was about a hundred people killed and a thousand injured.105 Other tallies suggested that between 6000 and 7000 people were killed and many thousands injured.106 The official cause presented to Parliament by the Ministry of Defence was that an accidental fire broke out in an ammunition lorry which spread to the whole site.107 Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo announced that arms depots were to be shifted from populated areas.108 Looking back a decade later, a former very senior military officer has claimed that the Ojhri accident made clear that "orders and instructions were grossly violated" and noted that despite official claims no lessons had been learned from it about the siting of ammunition stores close to major population centres or establishing a crisis management system bringing together the military services and civilian authorities.109 These disasters highlight the effects of poor planning, lax procedures and limited oversight. There have been particular concerns voiced in the Pakistan Army Journal about training: "The Army personnel and organisations (units, formations, institutions) have been overburdened by palpably unrealistic expectations and fruitless activity with the result that nearly all aspects of military life including training itself, discipline, administration, and morals and morale (both) have suffered110 ."The crisis is traced to a profound mistake: "To consider that, army personnel, however disciplined they may be, will behave like automatons is absolutely fallacious. Our planners and, with due respect, senior commanders have foundered on this 111 account.

Weapons Safety The history of US nuclear weapons over the past five decades shows how difficult the search for safety has been. A major source of the problems has been accidents involving aircraft, missiles and ships that had some kind of nuclear mission. The accidents have often compromised the safety of the nuclear weapons they were carrying. It is worth recalling here the description cited earlier by General Lee Butler of his experience in managing US nuclear weapons, during which he says bombers crashed in exercises, human error lead to missiles exploding in silos, and submarines carrying nuclear warheads sank because of mechanical flaws and human error. It is believed that there were at least 230 accidents involving the nuclear weapons of the US, the former Soviet Union, and the UK between 1950 and 1980.112 Another assessment lists 383 US naval nuclear weapons accidents alone.113 An official summary of nuclear weapons accidents released by the US Department of Defense in 1981 admits to 32 serious accidents between 1950 and 1980.114 This includes a number of instances where the high explosive in nuclear weapons had burned or detonated and led to radioactive contamination of the surroundings.115 Information about accidents in the erstwhile Soviet Union is harder to obtain, but one source lists over 25 serious nuclear weapons accidents there.116 Taking just the official record, there have been many serious accidents involving US aircraft carrying nuclear weapons—there are nineteen listed as occurring between 1957 and 1968.117 These include crashes and fires involving nuclear-armed aircraft as well as transport aircraft carrying nuclear weapons, while they were on the ground; aircraft carrying nuclear weapons crashing during takeoff and catching fire; nuclear weapons falling from aircraft in flight; nuclear-armed aircraft crashing; and a nuclear-armed aircraft falling off a US aircraft carrier at sea. In a number of these accidents the bombs were lost and never recovered. In some instances the bombs caught fire or the high explosive in them exploded and led to radioactive contamination. There have also been accidents involving missiles. Most notable is the 1960 accident involving a US BOMARC nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missile at the McGuire air force base in New Jersey which suffered an explosion and a fire involving the missile's fuel tanks.118 The nuclear warhead was destroyed in the fire, but fortunately did not explode. The safety devices built into the nuclear warhead worked. The accident came within the first year the BOMARC was deployed, after 8 years of development and testing. The accident happened while the missile was in "ready storage condition", which meant it was ready to be launched at short notice.119 The US air force has revealed that in a period of four years, between 1975 and 1979, there were 125 accidents at their missile sites, and a further ten from March 1979 to September 1980.120

India and Pakistan have had limited experience with nuclear weapons design and testing, and in mating their weapons with delivery systems, both aircraft and missiles. Their armed forces' experience with nuclear weapons in the field is even less. One military analyst familiar with Pakistan's army reports that more than a decade after the formation (in 1989) of a "composite missile regiment" and exercises with nuclear missiles, the Pakistani army's "procedures are as yet by no means effective.121 "At present, fighter aircraft may be the most likely delivery system for both India and Pakistan. They may be seen as the more reliable and familiar system for the respective armed forces, than ballistic missiles which are still largely in the development phase and have not been integrated into the armed forces in a significant way or for any length of time. The evidence suggests both air forces have a worrisome accident record despite being the most high tech of the respective armed services and thus having the most familiarity with complex military technology systems at high states of alert.

Indian Military Aircraft Accidents India's comptroller and auditor general reported in 1997 that there had been 187 accidents and 2729 incidents involving Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft between April 1991 and March 1997, in which the IAF lost 147 aircraft and 63 pilots.122 The report attributed 41% of the losses to human error and 44% to technical defects, and noted: "The IAF attributed the accidents to technical defects due to deficient operation/maintenance procedure."123 India's Defence Minister George Fernandes informed Parliament in December 1998 that 79 IAF jets (namely, 68 MiGs, 6 Jaguars, 4 Sea Harriers and one Kiran) had crashed since April 1994 and noted: "Most of these accidents are attributed to technical defects/human error.124 " Responding to another parliamentary question, in December 1999, the defence minister revealed that a Committee on Fighter Aircraft Accidents had been set up and had submitted its report in September 1997, with recommendations on how to reduce the accident rate; in the two years since the report, only 55 of the report's 84 recommendations, which involved "changes in organisational structure, procedures, training, design, technology etc." had been implemented.125 India's MiGs are considered to be possible nuclear weapons delivery systems. It is suggested that between 1991 to 1997, the IAF lost 3.99 MiGs per 10,000 flying hours (for comparison, Britain's Royal Air Force suffers an overall attrition rate of 0.21 aircraft per 10,000 flying hours).126 A parliamentary question in March 2000 on recent accidents involving MiG jets elicited the response that there had been 38 MiG crashes during the three years (up to 15 February 2000).127 These accidents have included aircraft based close to the border with Pakistan. In August 1999, two MiG 21s of the IAF crashed soon after takeoff from the Srinagar air base in India-occupied Kashmir,128 while in May 2000 a MiG 21 from an air force base at Uttarlai in Jaisalmer district in Rajasthan crashed.129 There was another MiG accident in August 2000, and one during the Poorna Vijay military exercise in May 2001.130 India has also suffered accidents involving its Mirage 2000s – another possible nuclear weapons delivery system, and described as the IAF's 'main strike force' – losing four out of its original 42 planes in accidents since they entered service in 1985.131 Senior IAF officials argue that the high accident rate is due to the lack of an advanced jet trainer (AJT). However, Air Vice Marshal (retired) Narendra Gupta has noted that even then: "It will be a few years before an adequate number of the AJT-trained aircrew will percolate to operational units, improving the safety and operational capability of the air arm.... Meanwhile, flight safety is being jeopardised and operational preparedness is suffering, as without a proper advanced trainer many combat exercises have to be restricted or deleted in the training syllabi.132 " For comparison, IAF pilots receive about half the flying time of Western-trained pilots.133 Independent analysts suggest more systematic failures in budgeting, procurement, personnel, training and maintenance have combined to create "very serious problems".134

Pakistani Military Aircraft Accidents and Dangers

Data on Pakistan Air Force (PAF) accidents are less easily available. According to the Pakistan Institute for Air Defence Studies, there were 11 major PAF accidents between January 1997 and August 1998 in which planes were lost.135 There were at least another seven accidents involving air force planes by April 2000. These included a September 1998 crash between two C-130 transport planes while on the ground at Chaklala air base, near Islamabad.136 These could be the type of planes used to carry ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons to storage or deployment sites. Pakistan has also lost some of its F-l6s in accidents. These would likely be the aircraft used for delivering nuclear weapons in combat. The accidents have included an incident in December 1986 in which an F-16 crashed during takeoff when it struck a wild boar on the runway.137 Accidents involving Pakistani military jets have included crashes into heavily populated areas. In July 1998, a jet from PAF's Masroor air base crashed into a residential area in Karachi, killing six people and injuring at least 25.138 Other accidents have involved planes jettisoning fuel tanks over populated areas —in May 1997, a Mirage III dropped its fuel tanks on Karachi's District Central, a heavily populated area, causing several deaths and property damage.139 In an analysis of these aircraft accidents, Air Marshal (retired) Ayaz Ahmad Khan has described the situation as one where "in spite of the best efforts of PAF technicians and engineers, fighter aircraft have started falling out of the sky."140 Air Chief Marshal Parvaez Mehdi has hinted that part of the problem lies in maintenance procedures, observing: "We must ensure that those who fly the aircraft and those who maintain them follow the laid down rules, thus reducing accidents."141 Air Marshal (retired) Ayaz Ahmad Khan has noted one important factor at work in determining the possible consequences of aircraft accidents: "Many PAF fighter airfields which three decades ago were at isolated places away from populated localities are now surrounded by thickly populated areas. PAF Bases Faisal and Masroor at Karachi, PAF Base Peshawar, PAF Base Rafiqui at Shorkot are now in the middle of built-up and densely populated areas.142 " He cites the example of PAF base Mauripur, near Karachi, which was at a remote place...[with] scant habitations in between Karachi and the Base till the early 70's....PAF tried to persuade the civil authorities not to construct factories, houses and huts in the approach funnel to the.. .main runway...[but] this area is now densely populated. The wind mostly blows from die sea, i.e. from the west and aircraft have to take-off and land into the wind....With hundreds daily and thousands of flying missions every month the civil population residing on the approach path...is exposed to danger during flight emergencies, and forced landings.143 The consequences of an accident involving a nuclear-armed aircraft, in which a bomb is jettisoned or the plane crashes, could be severe. The only thing averting a nuclear explosion would be the safety features built into the nuclear weapon to prevent it from detonating on impact with the ground, or in the impact and fire that would be associated with the plane crash.

Nuclear Weapons Design and Safety The United States began to tackle the risks of accidental detonation of its nuclear weapons in the mid to late 1950s, once it had deployed nuclear weapons which were stored and placed on aircraft fully assembled. In simple nuclear weapons, a set of detonators is arranged uniformly around a shell of high explosive and set off simultaneously so as to detonate this shell, creating a shock wave that compresses the plutonium or highly enriched uranium until it undergoes a nuclear explosion. Weapons designers assumed that it would be very unlikely for several of the high explosive detonators on a bomb to be triggered simultaneously in an accident and sought to develop weapons that would be one-point safe (i.e. weapons that would not produce a nuclear yield if detonated at any single point). This has become a more or less common standard. The severity of the accidents at Palomares in Spain and Thule in Greenland, in which US nuclear-armed bombers crashed and burned (see the Appendix), led in 1968 to new, very specific, criteria for nuclear weapons safety.144 These included the requirement that there should be a less than a one-in-a-million chance of a one-point detonation of the high explosive producing a nuclear yield greater than the equivalent of 1.8 kilogrammes of normal TNT. This requirement was to be met by inherent features of the weapons design.

Establishing one-point safety involved extensive nuclear testing. Recognising that an accident could trigger a warhead's electrical arming, fusing and firing systems, and lead to a nuclear explosion, other criteria were introduced that sought to reduce the chance of a weapon prematurely detonating in the normal course of its life (i.e. while in storage, transport, and at any stage in its combat use before it reached its assigned target), including during an accident or in other abnormal situations. As part of this effort, Enhanced Nuclear Detonation Safety (ENDS) systems were developed. Typically, they rely on a combination of a unique electrical signal and electronic data from sensors that assess whether the movements of the warhead correspond to what would be expected if it was going through its normal, assigned sequence on the way to its target. An unexpected pattern of acceleration, and other measures of the warhead path, should prevent the warhead from being armed and made ready to fire. While there was no nuclear explosion, the Palomares and Thule accidents involved plane crashes in which the high explosive detonated and released radioactive plutonium into the environment. To limit the danger of plutonium dispersal from accidents, the US sought to replace the high explosive in nuclear weapons, which was 94% hexamine nitromene (HMX), with a new insensitive high explosive (based on 2,4,6-tri-nitro-l,3,5benzenetriamine (TATB)) resistant to burning and detonation even under extreme conditions, as well as surrounding the uranium or plutonium with a shell of a refractory metal to produce a fire-resistant pit that can withstand a jet fuel fire.145 However, the refractory shell can be punctured or destroyed if the weapon is damaged in an aircraft crash or if the crash leads to a detonation of the high explosive. A fire-resistant pit is also unlikely to be very effective if exposed to the much higher temperatures of a missile fuel fire. The introduction of insensitive high explosive and a fire-resistant shell add substantially to the size and weight of the bomb, as well as changing the way it behaves when it is detonated. The US conducted numerous nuclear tests to validate the introduction of insensitive high explosives and fire-resistant pits. Full threedimensional simulation of nuclear weapons detonations – which has been made possible by modern computers, and use the accumulated data from previous nuclear tests and extensive laboratory experiments – have shown that earlier two-dimensional computer simulations were "inadequate, and in some cases misleading...in predicting how an actual explosion might be initiated and lead to dispersal of harmful radioactivity or even a nuclear yield.146 " The US is estimated to have carried out about 130 very low-yield safety-related tests, of which 62 are officially acknowledged as one-point safety tests.147 For comparison, the former Soviet Union conducted about 100 hydronuclear tests, and 25 safety tests involving 42 weapons, between 1949 and 1990.148 The ENDS system requires no additional nuclear tests since it does not affect the high explosive or nuclear fission parts of the weapon. India conducted its first nuclear explosion in May 1974. By all accounts this was a crude, large, heavy, experimental plutonium-based implosion device, comparable to the first US test in 1945. There are longstanding questions about its yield.149 It was in 1986 that India began to develop a bomb that could more easily and reliably be used from an aircraft, which involved "a major effort to reduce the size of the bomb by using better quality explosives and lenses, making its detonators fail-safe, producing reliable high voltage capacitors and building in a series of electronic checks to ensure the bomb would go off only when the proper codes were fed in."150 As part of these efforts, the Terminal Ballistic Research Laboratory at Chandigarh attempted to make the bomb lighter and smaller, by using HMX as the high explosive (it has a very high detonation velocity).151 This development in the early to mid 1990s may have been the basis of the only nuclear weapon that was tested on 11 May 1998. According to a description of the tests by R. Chidambaram, then head of India's Department of Atomic Energy: "The 15 kilotonne device was a weapon which had been in the stockpile for several years. The others were weaponisable configurations.152 " This would suggest that Indian nuclear weapons do not use insensitive high explosive, and given the compulsion to make the bomb as small and light as possible it may be that they also lack fire-resistant pits since these also bring a weight and size penalty. While Indian weapons scientists have made clear statements about the yields of their nuclear weapons, they have said nothing about safety. There has been no official mention that India's nuclear weapons are onepoint safe. There has not even been a claim that nuclear weapons safety tests were conducted. The two small tests on 13 May 1998, claimed as sub-kilotonne tests, were said to allow Indian nuclear weapons scientists to

improve their computer simulations. There has been no suggestion that either of these were safety tests. Despite what amounts to only one actual test, and with no evidence for one-point safety, and perhaps lacking modern safety features, India has prepared to deploy nuclear warheads on some of its planes and missiles. It is reported that as part of the 11 April 1999 Agni II flight test, "the bomb team secretly mounted on its warhead, a nuclear weapon assembly system minus the plutonium core to test whether all the systems including the safety locks would work.153 " It had been discovered earlier that "when the warhead was subject to severe vibrations, a high voltage arching [sic] problem occurred that prematurely triggered the device."154 Agni II was tested again in January 2001 in what was called "its final operational configuration"155. There is much less known about Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Following a 1972 decision to establish a nuclear weapons programme, and the added impetus it received after the May 1974 Indian nuclear test, Pakistan took a decade to produce the highly enriched uranium for its bomb, and a design. A.Q. Khan has claimed that "cold tests" of a nuclear device were carried out in 1983, and these gave the weapons scientists sufficient confidence in being able to test a weapon that "in 1984 we told General Zia that whenever you order, it will not take more than a week or two to do it." More specifically, he said that the capability to explode a nuclear device was "attained at the end of 1984.156 " US sources suggest that in the mid to late 1980s Pakistan conducted "several" tests of the high-explosive implosion system for the bomb.157 Samar Mubarikmand has said there were twenty successful cold tests.158 There is confusion over the number and yield of Pakistan's nuclear tests on 28 May and 30 May 1998. It appears the critical test was that of 30 May. Samar Mubarikmand claimed this test involved "only one device and its yield was 15 to 18 kt [kilotonnes]", and that it used "much more advanced and sophisticated technology"159 . On another occasion he revealed the test was of a design that was "advanced and sophisticated with minimum size and weight.160 " The comparisons are presumably with the device(s) tested on 28 May. Like their Indian peers, Pakistani nuclear weapons scientists have said nothing about the safety of their weapons. It is believed they have sought to develop weapons to be delivered by aircraft, and the Ghauri and Shaheen intermediate range ballistic missiles. They face the same constraints of minimising the size and weight of the weapons, and a very limited number of tests of both the weapons and the missile systems. This may make it unlikely that they have incorporated either insensitive high explosive or fire-resistant pit as safety features. If the weapons are deployed as they are, there may be a risk of accidental detonation. The experience of the other nuclear weapon states suggests accidents involving a nuclear weapon could be caused by a number of factors, including aircraft crashes, fires and missile explosions; accidents can also happen in storage and during transport of nuclear weapons. The risks of an accident increase when the weapons are deployed on delivery vehicles (missiles, aircraft etc.), and further increase where the weapons systems are kept in a high state of alert. The consequences of an accident involving a nuclear weapon in South Asia could be severe. One possibility is of the high explosive detonating and converting the fissile material (the plutonium or highly enriched uranium) into an aerosol, but with no nuclear yield. If the weapon relies on plutonium, an accidental explosion in a densely populated area (such as a large city) could lead to between 5,000 and 20,000 fatalities from cancers caused by inhalation of the radioactive plutonium as it is spread by the wind.161 An even more serious possibility is where an accident causes the high explosive to detonate and triggers a nuclear explosion. In principle, the yield could be as large as the design yield of the weapon, that is, it would have the same effects as the deliberate use of the weapon. A nuclear explosion with a yield comparable to those claimed for their weapons by India and Pakistan could kill many hundreds of thousands of people.162 A nuclear weapons accident would be a catastrophe.

Conclusion The development of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan and the efforts now being made by the respective

governments to establish systems of nuclear command and control have created grave risks for the people of both countries. The history of nuclear weapons teaches that the effort to create a robust 'nuclear deterrent' requires creating military forces that are equipped, trained and able to use nuclear weapons. This history also shows how fallible people, institutions and technology can be. The destructive power of nuclear weapons, which has made them so attractive to India, Pakistan and a handful of other states, brings a potential for catastrophe. The risk of an accident may increase through the action of numerous, often unpredictable factors. There are, however, some obvious lessons that can be learned from the experience of command and control of nuclear weapons over the past fifty years or so. The most important is that no system for nuclear command and control can be perfect, no matter how carefully it is designed, how well trained the personnel, how sophisticated the technology, or how much money is spent. There are profound problems built into the task such a system is intended to perform, and these problems leave it open to failure and the possibility of disaster. Having tested their weapons, both India and Pakistan are now struggling to operationalise their nuclear weapons capability. The nuclear arsenals are growing, delivery systems are under development, and structures of command and control are being set up. There are great pressures on any possible system for nuclear command and control. The size of the arsenal is itself an issue; as arsenals grow and the delivery systems start to include aircraft and missiles, and perhaps eventually even submarines, there will be more bombs and more people in more places under more circumstances that require control—and more opportunities for things to go wrong. While having fewer nuclear weapons obviously makes exercising control easier, it does not make it easy or simple. There are other factors at work over which there can be no control. The geography of South Asia ensures that for Pakistan in particular there can be no useful early warning of an Indian attack on its nuclear arsenal or facilities, nor are there many places to hide its weapons from such an attack. The history of the subcontinent ensures that these fears shall not pass easily. The failures of the early warning systems of both have been exposed repeatedly. The weapons will always be seen as vulnerable and this fear will make command and control insecure. The temptation will be to disperse the nuclear weapons, and decentralise control in the hope that some weapons would survive any possible attack. With this step, the risk of accidental or inadvertent use of nuclear weapons is increased, as is the possibility of an accident involving a weapon and its delivery system. Removing this fear will require changing the pattern of military forces on both sides so that no surprise attack is possible. Even when there is no surprise, war brings pressures of its own. India's conventional military strength is a pressure pushing Pakistan to deploy nuclear weapons early in a crisis. Pakistan would seek to protect the weapons against attack, show its determination to escalate a conflict rather than concede, and seek to incite intervention from the international community. Nuclear and conventional forces may clash' on the battlefield; India may seek to destroy Pakistan's nuclear weapons and Pakistan may use them for lack of a perceived alternative. With Indian military-planners seemingly prepared to include this possibility in their war plans and to keep fighting, Pakistan's generals may feel even more acutely that they must use their nuclear weapons early and hopefully decisively, or risk losing the option. Nuclear war in South Asia could result in possibly millions of deaths and injuries. Maintaining command over nuclear weapons brings its own problems. Pakistan and India have both sought technology from the other nuclear weapon states to ensure only the highest political and military authorities can unleash nuclear weapons. In particular, they have sought systems such as permissive action links, the coded switches that seek to prevent unauthorised or accidental use. Unfortunately, experience suggests it is all too common for a simple-minded faith in technology to produce a sense of control that slides into over-confidence. Feeling that the bomb is now safely in hand, politicians and generals may all too easily use the deployment and alert status of nuclear weapons as signals of resolve to adversaries, and to their own people. With time, a growing sense of confidence in control over nuclear weapons may push deployments and alert levels ever closer to the edge of being fully prepared for use at short notice. The United States and the former Soviet Union did just this. Nothing should be done, no technology sought, no procedures developed, that can help create such dangerous confidence in South Asia.

However, in the fog and friction of war, the decision to unleash nuclear destruction may not be for South Asia's generals or prime ministers to make. Both India and Pakistan will disperse their weapons to protect them in a crisis. The codes to unlock them would also need to be dispersed, otherwise the weapons may become unuseable through the countless minor circumstances which ensure that things do not turn out as planned. Far simpler procedures to manage weapons have gone dreadfully wrong even in peacetime. With control of nuclear weapons and their codes in the hands of brigadiers, in the heat of battle, the chances of unauthorised use, mis judgement and accident are great. Again, the consequences would be devastating. There must be a determined search for ways to prevent and manage crises. The critical first step is for India and Pakistan to not assemble and deploy their nuclear weapons. Even in peacetime, assembly and deployment bring increased risk of accidents. There is a long record of accidents and near misses involving aircraft and missiles carrying nuclear weapons belonging to other nuclear weapon states. The safety record of India and Pakistan's military aircraft is poor—accidents are frequent, the causes many. With many air bases often located close to major cities, there would always be the risk of an aircraft crash involving a plane carrying a nuclear weapon, or a bomb accidentally falling from a plane. This may be enough to detonate the bomb. South Asian missiles are still at an early stage of development, having had few tests, and may harbour their own dangers. The missiles may explode and trigger the nuclear warheads they carry. Keeping the weapons disassembled and far from their delivery systems is the only sure protection. It is not known how safe either India or Pakistan's nuclear weapons would be if they were in an accident. Neither state has revealed any information about conducting safety tests, or whether their weapons are safe against detonation if they are in a fire or if subject to impact. The limited number of tests they have carried out, and the incentive to produce weapons that are as small and light as possible suggest neither country may have adopted either insensitive high explosive, or fire-resistant pits, both of which add to the size and weight of a weapon. The consequences of an accident could be devastating—if an explosion converts the fissile material into an aerosol that can be spread by the wind and inhaled, it could kill between 5,000 and 20,000 people; if the bomb explodes with its full yield hundreds of thousands could be killed. There would be no warning, and no defence.

Appendix There have been many accidents involving nuclear weapons. The number and details of all such accidents are not known. The limited available information is still important as an empirical corrective to the presumptions that are built into elaborate technical and organisational schemes for managing nuclear weapons. The following list – of twenty-three accidents involving US, Soviet, and Russian nuclear weapons or nucleararmed ships and submarines – is from Greenpeace.163 As a result of these accidents, it is claimed 51 nuclear warheads were lost (44 Soviet and 7 US, but one Soviet warhead was recovered). 11 APRIL 1950: Shortly after departing Kirtland air force base in New Mexico, a US B-29 bomber carrying a nuclear bomb crashed into a mountain. The bomb was destroyed but its nuclear capsule with the fissile materials, which was also on board the aircraft, had not been inserted for safety reasons. 10 MARCH 1956: A US air force B-47 bomber carrying two capsules of nuclear materials for nuclear bombs, en route from MacDill air force base, Florida, to Europe, failed to meet its aerial refuelling plane over the Mediterranean Sea. An extensive search failed to locate any traces of the missing aircraft or crew. 27 JULY 1956: During a routine deployment to England, a US B-47 bomber skidded and slid off a runway at Lakenheath Royal Air Force base. The plane burst into flames and crashed into a nuclearbomb storage igloo in which there were three Mark 6 nuclear bombs. The bombs did not explode. 18 AUGUST 1959: A helicopter engine exploded on board the US aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CVS-18) which was operating 250 miles off Norfolk, Virginia. As fires raged, the ship's crew prepared to flood the nuclear weapons magazine, but after more than two hours the fires were brought under control.

4 JUNE 1962: A nuclear test device atop a US Thor rocket booster fell into the Pacific Ocean near Johnston Island after which the rocket had to be destroyed. This was part of the US's first high altitude atmospheric nuclear test attempt. 20 JUNE 1962: A second attempt to detonate a nuclear device in the atmosphere failed when a Thor booster was destroyed over Johnston Island. The nuclear device fell into the Pacific Ocean. 5 DECEMBER 1965: While the US aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) steamed en route from bombing operations off Vietnam to the US navy base at Yokosuka, Japan, an A-4E attack jet loaded with a B-43 thermonuclear bomb rolled off the Number 2 elevator, and sank in 4,800 metres of water. The aircraft carrier was positioned about 110 kilometres from the Ryuku Islands and about 320 kilometres east of Okinawa. The bomb, aircraft and pilot were not recovered. 17 JANUARY 1966: A collision occurred between a US B-52 nuclear bomber and a KC-135 tanker aircraft while over the village of Palomares in southern Spain. The B-52 was on an airborne alert operation and carried four B-28 thermonuclear bombs. In the collision, the KC-135 exploded and caused the B-52 to break up, scattering wreckage over a 258 square kilometre area. One of the four nuclear bombs landed relatively intact, while the high explosives in two other bombs detonated upon impact with the ground scattering radioactive materials over the village and surrounding area. The fourth bomb fell into the sea and was recovered intact three months later after an extensive underwater search. 21 JANUARY 1968: A US B-52G nuclear bomber crashed on the ice 11 kilometres west of Thule air base in northern Greenland. The aircraft was on an airborne alert flight and carried four B-28 thermonuclear bombs. Upon impact with the ice the bomber exploded and all four nuclear bombs were destroyed, scattering radioactive materials over a large area. 8-10 MARCH 1968: The K-219, a Soviet Golf II class (Project 629M) diesel-powered ballistic missile submarine armed with three nuclear SS-N-5 missiles, sank in the Pacific, about 1,200 kilometres northwest of the Island of Oahu, Hawaii. The submarine possibly also carried two nuclear torpedoes. 27 MAY 1968: The US nuclear-powered submarine USS Scorpion (SSN-589) sank about 640 kilometres southwest of the Azores, killing all 99 people on board. The submarine was powered by one nuclear reactor and carried two nuclear- armed ASTOR torpedoes. 12 APRIL 1970: The K-8, a Soviet November class (Project 627A) nuclear-powered attack submarine, sank in the Atlantic Ocean 480 kilometres northwest of Spain. The submarine was powered by two nuclear reactors and carried two nuclear torpedoes. 29 NOVEMBER 1970: A fire broke out in the stern of the US navy submarine tender USS Canopus (AS34) while it was at the Holy Loch submarine base in Scotland. The tender carried several nuclear-armed missiles and two US nuclear- powered ballistic missile submarines were moored alongside. It took four hours to bring the fire under control and three people were killed. 22 NOVEMBER 1975: The US aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) collided with the cruiser USS Belknap (CG-26) in rough seas at night during air exercises in the Mediterranean Sea off Sicily. The collision caused major fires and explosions, and the commander of Carrier Striking Force for the Sixth Fleet issued a 'Broken Arrow' message – a top secret communication about a nuclear weapons accident — warning of a "high probability that nuclear weapons on the USS Belknap were involved in fire and explosions." Eventually, the nuclear weapons barely escaped destruction as the fire was contained at a short distance from the forward weapons magazine. 16 APRIL 1976: The cruiser USS Albany (CG-10) experienced a nuclear weapons incident – known as a 'Dull Sword' – when a TALOS anti-air missile's nuclear warhead was damaged. SEPTEMBER 1977: The K-171, a Soviet Delta I (Project 667B) nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, accidentally jettisoned a nuclear warhead near Kamchatka in the Pacific Ocean after a buildup of pressure in a missile launch tube. After a search, the warhead was recovered. 18-19 SEPTEMBER 1980: A fire and explosion in a US Titan II missile silo near Little Rock, Arkansas, blew off the silo door and catapulted the missile's nine megatonne yield warhead into the air. It landed

over a 300 metres from the silo, but it was only slightly damaged. APRIL 1981: The US nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine USS George Washington (SSBN-598) collided with a Japanese freighter in the East China Sea. The freighter sank and the submarine suffered slight damage to its sail. The submarine probably carried a total of 160 nuclear warheads on its 16 Poseidon C-3 missiles. 21 MARCH 1984: The US aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) collided with a Soviet Victor class (Project 671) nuclear-powered attack submarine in the Sea of Japan. At the time of the collision, the USS Kitty Hawk is estimated to have carried several dozen nuclear weapons, and the submarine probably carried two nuclear torpedoes. OCTOBER 1986: The IC-219, a Soviet Yankee class (Project 667A) nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine armed with 16 SS-N-6 missiles (two warheads each) and probably also two nuclear torpedoes, sank 965 kilometres northeast of Bermuda. It was powered by two nuclear reactors and 34 nuclear warheads were estimated to be on-board. APRIL 1989: The K-278 Komsomolets, the Soviet Mike class (Project 685) nuclear-powered attack submarine, sank off northern Norway following on-board fires and explosions. The submarine was powered by one nuclear reactor and carried two nuclear torpedoes. 27 SEPTEMBER 1991: A missile misfired aboard a Soviet Typhoon class (Project 941) nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine in the White Sea during a training exercise. Fortunately, the submarine was able to return to base, but the accident could have sunk the submarine, along with its two nuclear reactors and nuclear-armed missiles and torpedoes. 20 MARCH 1993: A Russian Delta III class (Project 667BDR) nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine was struck by the US nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Grayling (SSN-646) while operating in the Barents Sea close to the Kola Peninsula. The submarine suffered slight damage and was able to return to base, but the collision could have sunk the Delta submarine including its 16 SS-N-18 nuclear-armed missiles.

Managing Nuclear Weapons in South Asia: In Search of a Model* EJAZ HAIDER Shortly after the May 1998 nuclear tests conducted by India, L.K. Advani, the Indian home minister and prominent Bharatiya Janata Party leader, claimed: "India's decisive step to become a nuclear weapon state has brought about a qualitative new state in India-Pakistan relations, particularly in finding a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem." 1 Within three weeks, Pakistan tested its own nuclear weapons and indeed brought about a qualitatively new state in India-Pakistan relations. Indicative of this new state was the fact that barely a year later, in May 1999, India and Pakistan were involved in bitter fighting on the mountains in the KargilDras sector in Kashmir. The conflict took a toll of nearly 1300 lives (according to the Indian government) and over 1750 (according to Pakistan). For the first time since 1971, India called on its air force for operational duty in a zone of conflict with Pakistan. In response Pakistan scrammed its own fighters, air-raid sirens were tested in Islamabad, and both countries conducted army exercises at various points along the borders while the navies were put on alert. Voices in the two countries called for a more aggressive war with the opening of other fronts or the bombardment and interdiction of Pakistani supply-routes to Kargil. According to one study, high-level leaders on the two sides exchanged at least a dozen nuclear threats. 2 Pakistan's official internet page warned that Kashmir was a "nuclear flashpoint". 3 While Pakistan's decision to take military advantage of India in the Kargil-Dras sector was not entirely consequent to the nuclearisation of the two countries, the factor of deterrence that was perceived to have come into play between the two countries had a crucial role in Pakistan's decision to initiate that conflict, especially once the military leadership in Pakistan changed in October 1998. 4 The conflict also reflects the persistence of the core issue of Kashmir between India and Pakistan around which threat perceptions in the two countries have evolved, and which has played a crucial role in developing Pakistan's India strategy.

Limited war and Nuclear Weapons The Kargil war suggested that with the acquisition of nuclear weapons Pakistan was more confident than in the past of engaging India militarily in a limited war. In other words, Pakistan saw its nuclear weapons capability as an equaliser' against India's conventional military superiority, should it decide to put pressure on India. Based on their Kargil experience, which cost India heavily in personnel and material, Indian defenceplanners seem to be preparing for the prospect of fighting a 'limited war'. The concept of 'limited war' was put forward at a seminar in New Delhi in 1999, which also included a paper by the then Indian army chief, General V.P. Malik. 5 The assumption on both sides seems to be that while the presence of nuclear weapons precludes a fullscale war, the two countries nevertheless have the option to engage each other in limited wars. What is 'limited war'? Presumably, it means a military action that, while securing for the attacker the limited military objectives set by it, would not compel the defender into escalating the conflict. Since both adversaries are nuclear armed it is presumed that because of deterrence they would not fight a larger or full-scale war. 6

However, there appears to be an obvious contradiction between the concept of deterrence and war, albeit limited. Deterrence works within the framework of rational choice and presumes that the adversaries would consider it mutually beneficial that deterrence should not fail. This means that neither adversary should think that deterrence could fail – or has failed – because that could compel the threatened side to resort to nuclear weapons. War, therefore, does not sit well with the concept of deterrence.7 Since there is no definition of what constitutes limited war from the viewpoint of the threatened side, just as there is no guarantee that the threatened side would necessarily work within the rational-choice framework after deterrence has broken down —limited war too is not in accord with the concept of deterrence. 8 For instance, given a scenario where the conventional military imbalance is in favour of India, how much territory would Pakistan be prepared to concede before it rattles the nuclear sabre? Should it be for India to decide the level at which conflict would seem to threaten Pakistan's vital interests and its territorial integrity? And if Pakistan does threaten India with a nuclear response, would India back down or try to call Pakistan's bluff? Clearly, there are no unique and definite answers to these questions despite what some strategists in the two countries might say. The personalities of different political and military leaders, changing circumstances, battlefield reverses, external and internal pressures, and a host of other factors and their interplay could threaten to unravel original expectations and plans, and raise the possibility of the actual use of nuclear weapons. Kargil, perhaps, is a bad example to support the limited war concept, not least because it remained a local conflict and Pakistan could not even hold onto the territory it had occupied let alone expand it. This was because exploitation was not feasible either tactically or strategically. The Indian army did not cross the Line of Control (LoC), fighting instead a series of local actions on its side. It did not need to cross over because 1. the international community took India's side in the conflict; 2. the defenders (the mujahideen/Pakistan Army who had occupied the Kargil heights) were static (that is, they did not move anywhere else along the border); 3. there was no possibility of Pakistan opening up anywhere else along the LoC given the international pressure and India's refusal to take the conflict into Pakistani territory; and 4. India could build its troop strength to a level where it essentially gained an advantage over the defenders. It was in this framework that the Indian army took its numerous casualties without feeling the need to broaden the conflict. The situation in Kashmir is different from the proxy wars fought between the US and the former Soviet Union during the cold war. The two adversaries fought those conflicts away from their vital territorial interests, and losses in battles never directly threatened their survival. In South Asia, geography does not allow such a possibility, and any conflict, no matter how small and confined, will always pit the two sides directly against each other. For these reasons, it is an anomaly to talk about limited wars between India and Pakistan. Attempts should therefore be made to build confidence and diminish the threat potential on both sides. This would definitely involve the two countries developing ways for managing their nuclear arsenals.

Two Models of Nuclear Weapons Management It is in the politico-strategic backdrop of rivalry that one needs to work towards reducing the risk of war between India and Pakistan, and also find a model to manage their nuclear arsenals. 9 Proposing a model to manage nuclear weapons implies an acceptance that India and Pakistan – at least in the foreseeable future – are unlikely to get rid of their nuclear arsenals and capabilities. This acceptance is not an attempt to undermine the efforts of the anti-nuclear peace movements in India and Pakistan to force the two countries to renounce the nuclear weapons option. But the anti-nuclear lobbies in the two countries have so far been unable to move vertically in their respective countries to affect policy making even as cross-border contacts between them have increased. Hence, nuclear weapons are going to be around for the time being. If this is accepted as the logic of reality, even if not as the logic of right, it becomes essential to devise a strategy to manage the nuclear capability and attempt to reduce risks associated with it. There are two models of management that could be pursued in South Asia. The first relates to the East-

West rivalry and how the two sides – the US and the former Soviet Union – managed their arsenals. This is the fully operational, deployed nuclear forces scenario. The second pertains to managing nuclear weapons in the situation that exists in South Asia. This essay contends that the second scenario is more relevant. In its classical sense the deterrence paradigm relates to reliability of the arsenal, credibility (i.e. certainty of capability and will), survivability (i.e. second-strike capability or the certainty of retaliation after the adversary has struck), and transparency. The first model follows this paradigm. In such a scenario, the weapons in the arsenal need to be tested until the bomb designers are completely sure that the weapons are reliable (i.e. the weapon will explode with the design yield and sufficiently close to the target), and the arsenal is deployed for quick response. Deployment and its concomitant requirements are meant to make deterrence credible and transparent. Also, the armed force disposition and the number of weapons deployed are supposed to project to the adversary the element of survivability—the ability and resolve to retaliate after a ride-out. According to the classical deterrence model, this process constitutes a chain of concurrent capabilities projected to the adversary, which is supposed to produce stability. In the case of Pakistan and India these conditions do not obtain. While India and Pakistan have tested their nuclear potential, they "remain in a no-man's land' between delayed weaponisation and an open, fully developed small nuclear force." 10 Given the secrecy on both sides, the extent of weaponisation and the numbers involved also remain a matter of conjecture. Following the first (US-USSR) model would require further testing (to make the arsenal reliable), deployment (to project power), and the developing of second-strike capability (to project survivability). 11 While the proponents argue that it would lead to transparency, in terms of the visibility of the arsenals and the numbers through deployment, the fact is that deployment would also lend a much sharper salience to the nuclear issue in the region. It is not clear whether this kind of nuclear standoff, given the tensions between India and Pakistan, will actually force them to stand down politically. Chances are that any further movement up the nuclear ladder will lead to greater instability in the region. A further problem with this overt deployment model relates to developing command, control, communications and intelligence systems. There are two levels at which India and Pakistan are likely to encounter these problems. The first level relates to the contradiction between a high level of assurance that nuclear weapons will always work when required and yet will never be used unless authorised. 12 The latter essentially means that the possession of weapons per se should not translate into the ability to use them; that is, military units that possess the weapons must never be able to use them unless clearly authorised to do so by the political authority. Measures to ensure this latter requirement may, however, come in the way of being confident that the weapons would always be available for use when authorised. This is termed the 'always/never' dilemma While advanced technology – even if one were to discount the prohibitive costs of it – could serve to make the controls more effective, it cannot resolve this basic dilemma, innate to a nuclear command and control system. 13 In times of crisis, there is an inevitable tension—the military straining at the leash to strike first, while the political authorities delay the decision to strike in order to work out a diplomatic solution. Inordinate delay can lead to decapitation by an adversary's successful first strike; a situation in which the arsenal becomes unuseable because weapons or their delivery systems, or the command, control and communications systems have been destroyed. The system in this case would 'fail-safe'. The decapitation threat can be addressed through two means— either by developing and deploying highly survivable nuclear delivery systems (which can ride out die first strike), hardened communications systems and the nuclear arsenal, or by dispersing the nuclear forces and delegating launch authority. The former is expensive, the latter dangerous. In the case of force dispersal and launch delegation authority – the system designed to protect against preemption and decapitation – military commanders could act too soon and the system could 'fail-deadly'. The second level at which India and Pakistan are likely to find overt deployment to be a problem relates to direct and indirect costs. In this regard, a look at the breakdown of the costs of the US nuclear programme may be instructive. In the overall cost of 5.5 trillion dollars, the US spent only $409.4 billion or 7% of the total cost on building the bomb. Deployment constituted the maximum fraction, with $3,241 billion or 55.7% of the total cost. The subsequent costs were targeting and controlling the bomb, $831.1 billion (14.3%);

defending against the bomb, $937.2 billion (16.1%); dismantling the bomb, $31.1 billion (0.5%); nuclear waste management and environmental remediation, $365.1 billion (6.3%); nuclear secrecy, $3.1 billion (0.05%); and congressional oversight of nuclear weapons programmes, $0.9 billion (0.02%). This list does not include dealing with the victims of the US nuclear programme, which cost it $2.1 billion or 0.04% of the total. 14 It has often been said that India and Pakistan can never spend that kind of money and therefore it is not relevant to talk about the costs of the US nuclear programme. But this argument only takes into account the top figure of $5.5 trillion. It avoids the percentages, irrespective of the overall costs of the Pakistani and Indian nuclear programmes, which seem to grow following the building of the bomb. Whatever the overall cost, extrapolating from the percentages for the US programme, it is clear that the costs will increase exponentially after a decision to deploy is taken. Nor is spending this money going to reduce the defence budgets of the two countries: for the same period, despite heavy expenditure on its nuclear programme, the US ended up spending $13,213 trillion on national defence. Undoubtedly India and Pakistan would also incur those costs even if the final price does not run up to the prohibitive figure of $5.5 trillion. In fact, if anything, the costs are likely to run much higher than originally anticipated in the case of these two countries, given the lack of infrastructure, expertise, general inefficiency, service rivalry, corruption and other factors. On balance, therefore, one could make the argument that it is much better and less dangerous to cope with the problems presented by the situation as it stands today than to address the issue further down the road. The problem of managing nuclear weapons essentially springs from placing the issue within the classical deterrence framework. That framework is pegged to a conflictual paradigm. The threat perception that either generates a conflict or derives from it – and therefore necessitates military capability – evolves within a political context. While transparency is important in reaching out, it can be achieved without displaying one's nuclear capability prominently. The question therefore is: can a second stable model be evolved wherein nuclear weapons, or more appropriately, nuclear capabilities can be managed under such opaque conditions?

Risk Reduction Measures If it is accepted that India and Pakistan are serious in addressing the issue, then, as we have argued, they could build on the present state of non-deployment and less destructive weapons. The first step towards that would be for the two countries to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); if they want to stay out of the treaty for other reasons, they could still formalise, bilaterally, their unilateral declarations of a moratorium on further nuclear testing. This itself could go a long way towards building confidence. The second step would be to avoid a spiralling arms race. In this regard, Pakistan may be the country that could do more to implement this. There are at least two things Pakistan could do. First, it could refuse to be drawn into a reactive dynamics —this, despite a clear understanding that India will not accept any curbs on its programme and will continue to cite the China factor to stretch the equation beyond the bilateral domain. 15 Second, even while carrying on with its programme, Pakistan would need to work out its optimum requirement within the asymmetry that would always exist between it and India. That it should not seek parity with India in terms of numbers holds as true for the missile capability as it does for the nuclear capability. This is, in fact, a course that Pakistani planners already seem to have chosen. For instance, Pakistan has not responded to substantial hikes in India's defence budget in 2000-2001, and 2001-2002, and in 2000 did not respond to India's missile tests. This response is qualitatively different from previous years. Of course, this has also been necessitated by the country's economic downturn, but it does show that Islamabad is prepared to review policy in view of other factors. The second step could lead eventually to a missile control regime. That could take various forms from quantity limits on total numbers to limits on specific missile types. 16 There could be limits on missile production, leaving the existing stockpiles, or there could be agreement on limits on total numbers. Measures could also be suggested to target missile characteristics in terms of performance levels and other physical

parameters. 17 Whatever the nature of proposals, it would be to Pakistan's advantage to take the lead by suggesting measures that aim to curb a spiralling scenario, while taking into consideration its national security requirements.

No-First-Use and No-War Pacts Finally, Pakistan and India could seek to link their respective offers of a no-war pact and no-first-use. For many years, Pakistan has asked India to sign a no-war pact (NWP). India has refused the offer. Instead, it has offered Pakistan an agreement on no-first-use (NFU) of nuclear weapons, which means the two countries should pledge not to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict between them. Pakistan has refused. India does not agree to an NWP because it does not want to lose its conventional superiority vis a vis Pakistan. This is also essential from the Indian perspective because it does not want to foreclose the option of a conventional strike against Pakistan, which it perceives as indulging in low intensity conflict against Indian strategic and territorial interests. On its part, Pakistan would not agree to an NFU because the option of introducing nuclear weapons into a conflict early-and- first is its only hedge against India's conventional superiority, especially if India tries to expand the zone of conflict and prolong it, forcing Pakistan to thin out its forces and strain its strategic reserve. Pakistani strategic thinking on this score has been developed by the one basic lesson of its 1965 and 1971 conflicts with India. In 1965, Pakistan launched Operation Gibraltar within the Kashmir valley in the hope that it could link up with resistance to Indian rule within the area. The scheme failed because there was virtually no indigenous uprising within the valley. The Indian counteroffensive was then countered by Operation Grand Slam, which included an infantry-armoured thrust across the Tawi River in the ChhambJurian sector. The idea was to cut off the main Indian line of communication to its forces in Kashmir. The initial reverses forced India to attack Lahore across the international border. Somehow Pakistani strategists had convinced themselves that India would not do so and the fighting would remain confined to Kashmir. In the event, the concentrated Pakistani blitz in Kashmir got stalled and the war produced a stalemate. Similarly, in 1971 Pakistan assumed that the war for East Pakistan could be fought in the west. However, when the Indian advance into East Pakistan got under way, that strategy proved ill thought because of the strain it put on Pakistan's strategic reserves. In all the Indo-Pak conflicts, Pakistan's initial bold, frontal attacks and gains were ultimately reversed or impeded when India responded by expanding the zone of conflict. This is why Pakistan looks at its nuclear capability as a device that allows it to pursue a forward military strategy of low intensity conflict with minimal risks of an all-out war. It does not, therefore, desire an NFU agreement. One way out of this bind is to link the NFU with the NWP proposal. The linkage would ensure that breakdown of one commitment could legitimately be construed to mean the corresponding breakdown of the other. Thus, if India were to commit conventional aggression against Pakistan, the latter would not be bound by the NFU guarantees. For the NWP to be meaningful, however, 'war' should be defined in a comprehensive manner and include, for example, "military incursions across the border, support for cross-border militancy, sabotage, blockades, and disruption of river waters." 18 Similarly, measures to verify that the NFU is an actual operational policy and not merely declaratory are essential. During the cold war, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) perceived itself to be conventionally weaker than the Warsaw Pact forces and it developed a doctrine based on first-use of nuclear weapons. For its part, the Warsaw Pact practised the doctrine of NFU. However, nobody in NATO believed that the Warsaw Pact would in fact follow this doctrine. Recent research suggests these doubts were well founded. French expert Therese Delpech writes: "[Military records of the Warsaw Pact that fell into German hands demonstrated beyond doubt that Russian operational plans called for the use of nuclear and chemical weapons in West Germany at the onset of hostilities, even if NATO forces were using only conventional weapons—this at a time when the Russian official doctrine was no first use. The result of the discovery is to suggest that no-first-use pledge constitutes a declaratory policy without military significance. 19 "The NFU could be made effective by building the commitment into the design of the two countries' nuclear forces and backing them up by verifiable guarantees. Li Bin, a Chinese expert, argues that one can identify a serious NFU commitment through a number of factors, most notably (1) the size of the nuclear

force; (2) the composition of that force; (3) the number of warheads on each missile; and (4) the accuracy of nuclear weapons. What is known about China's inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) force through available sources would seem to fit these requirements. 20 It consists of 20 missiles or so and is configured in a no-first-use mode. 21 Each missile has only one nuclear warhead; the warheads are stored separately from the missiles; the missiles are kept unfuelled, and they are not very accurate (according to some estimates they could fall as far as 3,500 metres from the actual target). It is not a force set up for a preemptive strike or firstuse or even for launch-on-warning or launch-under-attack. China has chosen a force which may take hours if not days to get ready for launch. It is interesting to note that this nuclear force is meant to deter the US, which has nearly 10,000 nuclear weapons, highly accurate missiles, and a policy of first-use. 22 In such an NFU scenario, non-deployment can in fact be an advantage, giving each more confidence that the other will follow a no-first-use policy. Pakistan could approach India with the suggestion that it is prepared to take the NFU offer seriously if India can back it up with verifiable guarantees. The verifiable guarantees could relate to agreements on non- testing and non-deployment. They could also address India's conventional superiority. A good model in this regard could be the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty signed between NATO and the former Soviet Union. The treaty defined a geographical area within Europe, and limited the number of major offensive weapons in that area. These weapons included main battle tanks (MBTs), armoured combat vehicles, combat aircraft and attack helicopters on both sides. It set up a detailed and elaborate system of accounting for these weapons and weapons systems, their locations, their removal and destruction, and an extensive and intrusive inspection mechanism to verify that the two sides were abiding by the treaty provisions. A similar solution is open to India and Pakistan. Alongside these measures, the two countries could work towards setting up more open and reliable communications channels; limited force deployment zones (which can be addressed by any conventional force reduction treaty and creating demilitarised zones); constraints on military exercises by imposing the requirement of pre-notification agreements and longer lead times before such an activity can be undertaken; 23 data exchanges; on-site inspections of nuclear and military installations and so on.

Conclusion The argument presented here is that the classical deterrence paradigm of the US-USSR nuclear strategy is not the only model that can, or need be followed in the South Asian context. Instead it is advisable to stabilise the arms race in the subcontinent at the level at which it presently stands and work out an alternate model of managing nuclear arsenals. This would involve risk reduction measures and the avoidance of a spiralling arms race. One important step forward could be to link the no-first-use and no-war pacts that have been advocated. However, since this model integrates the political factors with military preparedness, arguing that threat perception evolves in a politico-strategic environment, it should be clear that risk reduction measures per se would not end the Indo-Pakistan standoff. 24 It is necessary to adopt an integrated approach and change the politico-strategic context in which tensions have evolved and continue to evolve. This would then require addressing the contentious issues between the two countries. While CBMs and other conflict avoidance measures should not be made hostage to the central-issues-first approach, the effect cannot entirely be treated as a self-contained problem completely devoid of a reference to the causes, in particular, Kashmir. Moreover, India seems intent on bringing China into the picture. Such references to China's capability threaten to keep South Asia unstable. They also fail to acknowledge the substantial progress in Indo-Chinese relations since the 1962 border war. Since the 1980s, there have been regular talks and summits dealing with the border issue. India and China have also agreed to a number of CBMs; these include an understanding on maintaining peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LOAC) and on thinning forces along the border. 25 Public polls in India have repeatedly shown that the elite in India views Pakistan as the chief motivation for India's nuclear capability. 26 Also, the manner in which events have unfolded since India and Pakistan's nuclear tests clearly point to the fact that there is greater danger of war – nuclear or conventional – between India and Pakistan than between India and China. Therefore, it would be eminently sensible for New

Delhi to shun references to China and work out concrete confidence-building measures with Pakistan if South Asia has to avoid sliding further down the nuclear pit. * Three things need to be said at the very onset about this essay. First, its contents have been based on various articles I have written in The Friday Times since May 1998 when India and Pakistan went overtly nuclear. Second, as would be clear from the content, I have attempted to argue that India and Pakistan need not follow the model of overt deployment of nuclear weapons on delivery vehicles followed by the United States and Russia, and, consequently accumulate the direct and indirect costs involved in such a pursuit. This argument assumes that deterrence may not require an overt deployment model; that transparency and nuclear risk reduction can be worked out even in a model where two neighbouring states take the decision to not deploy their respective arsenals. I attempt to demonstrate the validity of this assumption by showing that military competition between the two has evolved within certain politico-strategic determinants and by changing the nature of those determinants one can hope to acquire transparency not through raising the salience of nuclear weapons but by lowering that salience. The third point, also the most crucial, is that political events within the region and outside since the beginning of 2000 have forced me to review some of my earlier assessments regarding the issue discussed in this essay. Why then should I have gone ahead with my earlier assessment? There are two reasons for it: One, I still believe, leaving the ground situation unaccounted, that the model suggested here is the best for India and Pakistan and the developments that cast a shadow on it and may force the two countries to change course in the coming years are dangerous. Two, despite the reassessment, I do not think that India and Pakistan can afford to change course — deciding on more tests and deployment, for instance — any time soon even if they plan to depart from the present policy, which keeps them in a twilight zone of sorts despite the 1998 tests. One can only hope that in the interim period efforts would be made on both sides to change the political configuration in which their threat perceptions continue to evolve.

China-India Relations YE ZHENGJIA Four decades after the India-China war of 1962, the two most populous nations in the world are yet to cultivate close political, economic and cultural relations with each other. Bilateral relations, in fact, deteriorated in the aftermath of the Indian nuclear tests of May 1998. The visits to China by India's foreign minister in 1999, and more importantly by President K.R. Narayanan in 2000, helped ease somewhat the strains of 1998. But there is still a long way to go before the two Asian giants become true neighbours. This paper is an attempt to present, from the Chinese perspective, an analysis of what is holding back the development of close bilateral relations and what needs to be done for their betterment. I write this as someone who, in the decades since 1954, was first intimately involved in government-to-government contacts between the two countries, and subsequently was part of the academic discourse in China on India-China relations. Any discussion of bilateral relations has to begin with the seemingly intractable border dispute. While I have discussed at length elsewhere the historical roots and the misunderstandings underlying the problems in India-China relations, a brief recapitulation of the Chinese perspective is essential for an understanding of this issue. 1

The Boundary Question A feeling still widely exists in India that the buildup of the Sino-Indian boundary dispute between 1959 and 1962, and the border war of 1962 were the consequences of Mao Zedong's radical nationalism. This is not the perception in China. Mao was an internationalist and his attitude to India was quite modest. If you examine his approach to India, you will find that he treated India as a friend, or even an ally in the struggle against imperialism. The Chinese government during his years was quite fair and patient in handling Sino-Indian relations. A number of examples can be cited in support of this argument. On 16 May 1959, Ambassador Pan Zili was instructed to present a note of talking points to the foreign secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs of India. In that note, China's fundamental approach towards India was clearly stated: The enemy of the Chinese people lies in the East. Our principle enemy is US imperialism. India has not taken part in the South East Asian Treaty Organization, and it is not an opponent but a friend of our country. China will not be so foolish as to antagonize India in the West at the same time. We cannot have two centres of attention, nor can we take friend for foe. This is our state policy. You will be agreeing to our thinking regarding the view that China can only concentrate its main attention eastward of China, but not southwestward of China, nor is it necessary for China to do so. It seems that you too cannot have two fronts. This view that China can only concentrate its main attention eastward of China nor is it necessary for China to do so has been conveyed to the former Indian Ambassador Mr R.K. Nehru by the Chinese leader Chairman Mao Zedong several times before. 2 The recently published memoirs of Major General (Retd.) Lei Yingfu, who during the boundary dispute was deputy director in the operational department at the Headquarters of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army, also sheds some light on the decision-making process of the Chinese leaders at that time. 3 Major General Lei's understanding of the events that finally led to the border war of 1962 – events in which he was an active participant – was that Chinese leaders like Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai tried very hard to avoid a conflict with India, but they were finally forced to take action. 4

In the period between 1959 and 1962, I worked in the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi and later with the foreign ministry in Beijing. We were often taught that there was no fundamental conflict of interest between the peoples of China and India. We were instructed not to confine our minds to the gain or loss of pieces of territory. China was actually ready to reach a fair and reasonable settlement of the boundary issue with India through peaceful negotiations on the basis of mutual understanding and accommodation. Unfortunately, this was impossible because India pressed China to accept the so-called 'McMahon Line', which was imposed upon China by the British imperialists but was refused repeatedly by the Chinese governments over decades. And we were faced with India's 'forward policy' of further nibbling away our territory by force. Furthermore, instead of seeking a negotiated settlement, India allied itself with Britain and the US. That left the Chinese government with no choice but to strike back in self-defence. The dispute and finally the 1962 border war made the boundary issue all the more complicated and for years, later, bilateral relations remained poisoned. In my analysis, a settlement of the boundary question requires that both governments demonstrate bold and creative political wisdom in their search for a practical agreement that is acceptable to both sides. Now that we have, so to say, mounted a tiger, both have to be given some means to dismount. A Decade of Normal Development From 1961 to 1976, Sino-Indian relations were disturbed. No ambassador was stationed in the capital of either country. Ambassadors were exchanged in 1976, and dialogue was resumed in the winter of 1981. Between 1981 and 1987, China and India held eight rounds of official talks on bilateral issues. Although some progress was made in various fields, the two sides failed to solve the boundary issue. Our Indian friends insisted that unless the boundary issue be settled, Sino-Indian relations could not be fully normalised. As the Indians intended to press the Chinese to accept their demand,, high level official exchanges between the two countries were artificially held up for as long as eight years until the end of 1988 when, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi personally broke the ice. In my understanding, Indian officials misunderstood the policy adjustment in China in the wake of the 'Cultural Revolution'. They thought that China would negate Mao's policy towards India especially in respect to the Sino-Indian boundary question. Rajiv Gandhi's visit to Beijing in December 1988 was a landmark event. Deng Xiaoping told Rajiv Gandhi that if there should be an 'Asian Age' in the next century, then it could be realised only after both India and China became developed economies. Deng Xiaoping's statement represents China's basic view of and approach to India. The people of both China and India suffered from foreign aggression and exploitation in the past and have a common mission of economic development. China and India have to cooperate with each other and cannot afford to waste their resources and energy in disputes and confrontation. The development of these two countries has international significance too, for they constitute more than one-third of the world's population. In September 1993, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao declared in Beijing that India-China relations had reached a stage of maturity. He meant that the two countries would not allow their differences to hinder the development of their relations based on mutual benefit. I have always shared this view. Many Chinese scholars also felt encouraged to see the positive developments during that decade. Indeed, in 1984, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Sino-Indian joint initiation of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, I wrote an article analysing the reasons behind the great setback in SinoIndian relations between 1959 and 1962. My intention was to clarify some historical facts to facilitate the development of bilateral relations on a solid foundation. I believe that a friendly and cooperative relationship, or even a normal relationship, cannot be built on misunderstanding. My institute – The China Institute of International Studies – however, was not willing to publish my article in its quarterly journal. Why was this so? It was because China cherished the positive development in our bilateral relations at that period, that organisations like my institute were unwilling to refer to the unhappy events of the past. That was also why the Chinese were unprepared for the events of May 1998.

Nuclear Tests and After About two weeks before India's nuclear tests, the China Association for India Studies conducted a seminar on the impacts of the twelfth general elections in India. Many scholars were of the opinion that the new government would continue to keep its nuclear option open. They believed what the Indian diplomats in Beijing and well-known analysts in New Delhi had told them. But I advised them to be prepared for the eventuality that the new government might venture to cross the nuclear threshold. I made two points in support of my argument. Firstly, various Indian governments had prepared to proceed with weaponisation for decades and the clamour for exercising the nuclear option had become louder since 1995. Secondly, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the new governing party, and the new prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, had been advocating exercising the nuclear option for long. I also suggested that should India carry out nuclear tests, China should not overreact. On 11 May 1998, India carried out its underground nuclear tests and declared itself a nuclear weapon state. The initial reaction from China took some time coming and was moderate. It came late in the evening of 12 May and only expressed its concern over the event. On 13 May, the full text of Vajpayee's letter addressed to the US President Bill Clinton was published in The New York Times. That letter was also sent to the heads of state of the other seven members of the G-8 group of countries. The letter attributed India's nuclear weaponisation to the so-called Chinese threat. Under these circumstances, Beijing reacted strongly and Sino-Indian relations fell to a new low. In other quarters of Chinese society too there were strong reactions. It is not surprising that there were some overreactions. Why were there all these reverses in bilateral relations? In my analysis, firstly, on the Chinese side, we had overestimated the progress made in our relations in the decade preceding the nuclear tests. We had also forgotten the existence of deep differences between the two countries. Secondly, our nuclear weapons acquired since 1964 were meant to break the nuclear monopoly of the US and the former Soviet Union. We never thought of India as a target. Therefore, when these differences of perceptions were exposed, we were surprised and hence reacted strongly. On the Indian side, the BJP government was intentionally playing its 'anti-China card' to lessen the impact of the economic sanctions sure to be imposed upon India in the wake of the nuclear tests. The Indians also knew that the US intention to promote the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was mainly to contain China. During the negotiations held in Geneva in 1996, the US was ready to let India pass without signing the CTBT. Thirdly, the Indian government and influential analysts had, indeed, several misgivings about China. Most of them were not self-critical and failed to see their own responsibility for the poor state of Sino-Indian relations. The May 1998 events told us that Sino-Indian relations had not yet reached a stage of maturity. We had not succeeded in knowing each other well enough. We had let our differences badly damage our bilateral relations once again. Much work has to be done before the two sides can truly understand each other.

China's Safest Frontier After the Indian nuclear tests of May 1998, some foreign diplomats and journalists asked me whether the views expressed in a paper I had written in 1996 were still valid. My answer was 'yes'. In that article I had argued that our frontier with South Asia was possibly the safest. 5 My argument was based on three factors: (1) The Great Himalayan Ranges have served as a natural barrier for centuries. It makes large-scale and longlasting military maneuvers and confrontation in the area impossible. Therefore our southern border is less vulnerable to foreign invasions than the western and northern borders. (2) Our political and economic centres are situated on die eastern Chinese mainland. (3) In China's war records, the 1962 border war with India is relatively minor in comparison with the wars against the US in Korea and Vietnam—in terms of cost, scale and duration. My conclusion was that better cooperation with India would strengthen the struggle against global power politics and help promote the establishment of a new world order. China should do its best to promote peace and stability in the South Asian region. It would be in conformity with our national interests for this part of the world to be stable and united. At the people-to- people level, perceptions are changing, even if slowly. In

fact, I have personal experience of the warm feelings that the Indian people have for the Chinese people, despite some differences in perception. 6 More recently, in the autumn of 1998, following India's nuclear tests, after I wrote an article in Frontline I received a letter from a young Indian. 7 He appreciated my explanation about the causes of the 1962 war and wrote: "The younger generation of India can understand that war had not been initiated by Chinese....We, the younger generation...all are not against the Chinese cool-minded behaviour in the settlement of the border dispute with India particularly before and during the 1962 China-India border war. I had heard the reason for the outbreak of [the] 1962 war from ex-personnel of Indian armed forces who were in active service during that period." Therefore he expressed reservations about one of my statements in that article, that "the general Indian thinking is that it was China that had committed aggression and betrayed India's earlier friendship towards China. 8 " I readily accepted his correction of my perception. And I had to admit that my impression was based on English newspapers, which represent the opinions of only a very limited section of the Indian society.

China-India-Pakistan Relations In recent years, India has been greatly worried about China's relations with Pakistan. It tends to attribute its troubled relations with Pakistan to Sino-Pakistani relations. In my opinion, India is very unhappy about China's relations with Pakistan, and at times and to some extent about China's relations with other South Asian countries. China supports the South Asian Area for Regional Co-operation (SAARC), wishing to see the South Asian region unite for common prosperity. We appreciated the 'Gujral doctrine' and welcomed the 'Lahore process'. 9 India blamed China for the worsening of its relations with Pakistan and hence its security environment. It attempted to justify its nuclear tests mainly by referring to China, Pakistan and Sino-Pakistani relations. But historical records do not validate India's arguments. Here are some observations from a recent expert study: Even before India gained independence in 1947, these men (Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Homi Bhabha) sought to win for their country all the prestige, status, and economic benefits associated with being a nuclear power, including the option of building "the bomb" if necessary. 10 India's nuclear program began decades before any nuclear threat emerged from Pakistan. 11 Had India not declared its possible nuclear ambitions in the early 1960s, Pakistan might not have pursued countervailing nuclear weapon capabilities. 12 Pakistan's quest for nuclear weapons capability derives unambiguously from security concerns. Fear of Indian military power and consequent political pressure explains why Pakistan sought nuclear weapons capability 13 From the above quotations, it is clear that the root cause of Pakistan's nuclearisation lies in the difficult relations between India and Pakistan—and not in the friendly relations between China and Pakistan. Moreover, India has yet to accept the fact that Pakistani scientists and technicians, like their Indian counterparts, have the capability to build their own nuclear bombs. Given that both India and Pakistan now have nuclear weapons, their conflict might endanger the whole region, and China too. I believe that China is worried about the differences between India and Pakistan.

For a Better Future Both China and India are important Asian countries that should respect each other. In this regard, I think that China should be more sensitive in dealing with India and pay due respect to India as an important player in international affairs. In the fifty years of formal diplomatic relations between China and India, bilateral relations have been normal only for about one-third of the time. For the remainder, our relations have either

been strained or hostile. We have to acknowledge this unhappy history and draw useful lessons from it. In an article reviewing the fifty years (1950-2000) of Sino- Indian diplomatic relations, I presented an overall view of the lessons from our past and proposed what we Chinese could do on our part for better SinoIndian relations. 14 These in my view were: a. Friendly and cooperative relations are very important for both China and India, especially in this postcold war world. The need and significance of such relations cannot be overestimated. b. The way to forge such a relationship is by no means easy, and sometimes the path may even be very rough. But psychologically, we have to be fully prepared for it. c. In dealing with India, this great neighbour of ours, China should -always guard against undue optimism or pessimism. While extravagant optimism may result in great disappointment, morbid pessimism may obscure the importance of this potentially great partnership in the struggle for a new, fair and just world order. d. China ought to respect India as a potential great power like itself. We should try to understand India's legitimate security concerns as India has repeatedly expected us to do. On the other hand, expecting to win India over by making arbitrary concessions to unreasonable demands, whether on bilateral issues or on issues concerning our relations with other countries, is wishful thinking. e. I appreciate the suggestion put forward by some Indian scholars that the two sides should tackle hardcore bilateral issues and not remain satisfied with merely improving the atmosphere. However, I would like to remind our friends that 'a melon falls off its stem only when it is ripe'. In the process, free and frank exchange of views with open minds is extremely important. K. Subrahmanyam, a well-known Indian analyst, who was then the director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, stated in an interview to The Muslim of Islamabad in late November 1982 that India's preeminent status in South Asia is a fact. He denied that India wanted to pursue a policy of predominance. If that were the case, I wish that India would respect the rights of its smaller South Asian neighbours to exercise their sovereignty and develop normal relations with countries outside the region as well. I believe if India develops good neighbourly relations with them, it will help enhance India's global influence. It will not do India any good to link Sino-Indian relations with China's relations with other South Asian countries. As a scholar, I feel that scholars in both countries should work harder in promoting mutual understanding between our peoples. I am confident that all pending problems in Sino-Indian relations can be resolved to the satisfaction of both sides. Peace must prevail in the subcontinent as well as in Asia. This would help in the development of the economy and improve the lives of the people in every country in the region.

PART II Issues of Science and Ethics

India and the Bomb* AMARTYA SEN Weapons of mass destruction have a peculiar fascination. They can generate a warm glow of strength and power carefully divorced from the brutality and genocide on which the potency of the weapons depends. The great epics – from Iliad and Ramayana to Kalevala and Nibelungenlied – provide thrilling accounts of the might of special weapons, which are not only powerful in themselves, but also greatly empower their possessors. As India, along with Pakistan, goes down the route of cultivating nuclear weapons, die imagined radiance of perceived power is hard to miss.

The Moral and the Prudential Perceptions can deceive. It has to be asked whether powerful weapons in general and nuclear armaments in particular can be expected – invariably or even typically – to strengthen and empower their possessor. An important prudential issue is involved here. There is, of course, also the question of ethics, and in particular the Tightness or wrongness of a nuclear policy. That important issue can be distinguished from the question of practical benefit or loss for a nation from a particular policy. We have good grounds to be interested in both the questions – the prudential and the ethical – but also reason enough not to see the two issues as disparate and totally delinked from each other. Our behaviour towards each other cannot be divorced from what we make of the ethics of one another's pursuits, and the reasons of morality have, as a result, prudential importance as well. 1 It is in this light that I want to examine the challenges of nuclear policy in the subcontinent in general and in India in particular. Whether, or to what extent, powerful weapons empower a nation is not a new question. Indeed, well before the age of nuclear armament began, Rabindranath Tagore had expressed a general doubt about the fortifying effects of military strength, If "in his eagerness for power", Tagore had argued in 1917, a nation "multiplies his weapons at the cost of his soul, then it is he who is in much greater danger than his enemies. 2 " Tagore was not as uncompromisingly a pacifist as Mahatma Gandhi was, and his warning against the dangers of alleged strength through more and bigger weapons related to the need for ethically scrutinising the functions of these weapons and the exact uses to which they are to be put, as well as the practical importance of the reactions and counteractions of others. The 'soul' to which Tagore referred includes, as he explained, the need for humanity and understanding in international relations. Tagore was not merely making a moral point, but also one of pragmatic importance, taking into account the responses from others that would be generated by one's pursuit of military might. His immediate concern in the quoted statement was with Japan's move towards extensive nationalism. Tagore was a great admirer of Japan and the Japanese, but felt very disturbed by its shift from economic and social development to aggressive militarisation. The heavy sacrifices that were forced on Japan later on, through military defeat and nuclear devastation, Tagore did not live to see (he died in 1941), but they would have only added to Tagore's intense sorrow. But the conundrum that he invoked, about the weakening effects of military power, has remained active in the writings of contemporary Japanese writers, perhaps mostly notably Kenzaburo Oe. 3

Science, Politics and Nationalism

The leading architect of India's ballistic missile programme and a key figure in the development of nuclear weapons is Dr Abdul Kalam. He comes from a Muslim family, is a scientist of great distinction, and has a very strong commitment to Indian nationalism. Abdul Kalam is also a very amiable person (as I had discovered when I had been closeted with him at an honorary degree ceremony at Jadavpur University in Calcutta in 1990, many years before the blasts). Kalam's philanthropic concerns are strong, and he has a record of helping in welfare-related causes, such as charitable work for mentally-impaired children in India. Kalam recorded his proud reaction as he watched the Indian nuclear explosions in Pokhran, on the edge of the Thai' desert in Rajasthan, in May 1998: "I heard the earth thundering below our feet and rising ahead of us in terror. It was a beautiful sight. 4 " It is rather remarkable that the admiration for sheer power should be so strong in the reactions of even such a kind- hearted person, but perhaps the force of nationalism played a role here, along with the general fascination that powerful weapons seem to generate. The intensity of Kalam's nationalism may be well concealed by the mildness of his manners, but it was evident enough in his statements after the blasts ("for 2,500 years India has never invaded anybody"), no less than his joy at India's achievement ("a triumph of Indian science and technology"). 5 This was, in fact, the second round of nuclear explosions at the same site, in Pokhran; the first was under Indira Gandhi's prime ministership in 1974. But at that time the whole event was kept under a shroud of secrecy, partly in line with the government's ambiguity about the correctness of the nuclear weaponisation of India. While China's nuclearisation clearly had a strong influence on the decision of the Gandhi government to develop its own nuclear potential (between 1964 arid 1974 China had conducted 15 nuclear explosions), the official position was that the 1974 explosion in Pokhran was strictly for 'peaceful purposes', and that India remained committed to doing without nuclear weapons. The first Pokhran test was, thus, followed by numerous affirmations of India's rejection of the nuclear path, rather than any explicit savouring of the destructive power of nuclear energy. It was very different in the summer of 1998 following the events that have come to be called Pokhran II. By then there was strong support from various quarters. This included, of course, the Bharatiya Janata Party (or the BJP), which had included the development of nuclear weapons in its electoral manifesto, and led the political coalition that came to office after the February elections in 1998. While previous Indian governments had considered following up the 1974 blast by new ones, they had stopped short of doing it, but with the new – more intensely nationalist – government, the lid was lifted, and the blasts of Pokhran II occurred within three months of the BJP coming to power. The BJP, which has built up its base in recent years by capturing and to a great extent fanning Hindu nationalism, received in the elections only a minority of Hindu votes, and a fortiori a minority of total votes in the multi- religious country. (India has nearly as many Muslims as Pakistan and many more Muslims than Bangladesh, and also of course Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis, and other communities.) But even with a minority of parliamentary seats (182 out of 545), the BJP could head an alliance – a fairly ad hoc alliance – of different political factions, varying from strictly regional parties (such as AIADMK, PMK and MDMK of Tamil Nadu, Haryana Lok Dal and Haryana Vikas Party of Haryana, Biju Janata Dal of Orissa, the West Bengal Trinamool Congress) to specific community-based parties (including Akali Dal, the party of Sikh nationalism), and some breakaway factions of other parties. As the largest group within the coalition, the BJP was the dominant force in the 1998 Indian government (as it is in the present coalition government since the new elections that had to be called in late 1999), which gives it much more authority than a minority party could otherwise expect to get in Indian politics. The BJP's interest in following up the 1974 blast by further tests, and by actually developing nuclear weapons, received strong support from an active pro-nuclear lobby, which includes many Indian scientists. 6 The advocacy by scientists and defence experts was quite important in making the idea of a nuclear India at least plausible to many, if not quite fully acceptable yet as a part of a reflective equilibrium of Indian thinking. As Prafui Bidwai and Achin Vanaik put it in their well-researched and well-argued book, "The most ardent advocates of nuclear weapons have constantly sought to invest these weapons with a religious-like authority and importance – to emphasize the awe and wonder rather than the revulsion and horror – to give them an accepted and respectable place in the mass popular culture of our times." 7

The Thrill of Power Kalam's excitement at the power of nuclear explosions was not, of course, unusual as a reaction to the might of weapons. The excitement generated by destructive power, dissociated from any hint of potential genocide, has been a well-observed psychological state in the history of the world. Even the normally unruffled J. Robert Oppenheimer, principal architect of the world's first nuclear explosion, was moved to quote the twomillennia old Bhagavad Gita (Oppenheimer knew Sanskrit well enough to get his Gita right) as he watched the atmospheric explosion of the first atom bomb in a US desert near the village of Oscuro on 16 July 1945: "the radiance of a thousand suns...burst into the sky." 8 Oppenheimer went on to quote further from Bhagavad Gita: "I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds." That image of death would show its naked and ruthless face next month in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (what Kenzaburo Oe has called "the most terrifying monster lurking in the darkness of Hiroshima"). 9 As the consequences of nuclearisation became clearer to Oppenheimer, he went on to campaign against nuclear arms, and with special fervour against the Hydrogen bomb. But in July 1945, in the experimental station in the US desert, 'Jornala del Muerto'. (translatable as 'Death Tract'), there was only sanitised abstractness firmly detached from any actual killing. The thousand suns have now come home to the subcontinent to roost. The five Indian nuclear explosions in Pokhran on 11 and 13 May 1998 were quickly followed by six Pakistani blasts in the Chagai hills the following month. "The whole mountain turned white," was the Pakistan government's charmed response. The subcontinent was by now caught in an overt nuclear confrontation, masquerading as further empowerment of each country. These developments have received fairly uniform condemnation abroad, but also considerable favour inside India and Pakistan, though we must be careful not to exaggerate the actual extent of domestic support. Pankaj Mishra did have reason enough to conclude, two weeks after the blasts, that "the nuclear tests have been extremely popular, particularly among the urban middle class." 10 But that was too soon to see the longrun effects on Indian public opinion. Furthermore, the enthusiasm of the celebrators is more easily pictured on the television than the deep doubts of the sceptics. Indeed, the euphoria that the television pictures captured on the Indian streets immediately following the blasts concentrated on the reaction of those who did celebrate and chose to come out and rejoice. It was accompanied by doubts and reproach of a great many people who took no part in the festivities, who did not figure in the early television pictures, and whose doubts and opposition found increasingly vocal expression over time. As Amitav Ghosh, the novelist, noted in his extensive review of Indian public reactions to the bomb for The New Yorker, "the tests have divided the country more deeply than ever." 11 It is also clear that the main political party that chose to escalate India's nuclear adventure, namely the BJP, did not get any substantial electoral benefit from the Pokhran blasts. In fact quite the contrary, as the analyses of local voting since the 1998 blasts tend to show. By the time India went to the polls again, in September 1999, the BJP had learned the lesson sufficiently to barely mention the nuclear tests in their campaign with the voters. And yet, as N. Ram (political commentator and editor of Frontline) has cogently argued in his anti-nuclear book Riding the Nuclear Tiger, we "must not make the mistake of assuming that since the Hindu Right has done badly out of Pokhran II, the issue has been decisively won." 12 Indian attitudes towards nuclear weaponisation are characterised not only by ambiguity and moral doubts, but also by some uncertainty as to what is involved in making gainful use of these weapons. It may be the case, as several opinion polls have indicated, that public opinion in India has a much smaller inclination, compared with Pakistani public opinion, to assume that nuclear weapons will ever be actually used in a subcontinental war. 13 But since the effectiveness of these weapons depends ultimately on the willingness to use them in some situations, there is an issue of coherence of thought that has to be addressed here. Implicitly or explicitly an eventuality of actual use has to be among the possible scenarios that must be contemplated, if some benefit is to be obtained from the possession and deployment of nuclear weapons. To hold the belief that nuclear weapons are useful but must never be used, lacks cogency and can indeed be seen to be a result of the odd phenomenon that Arundhati Roy (the author of the wonderful novel The God of Small Things) has called "the end of imagination".14

As Roy has also brought out with much clarity, the nature and results of an actual all-out nuclear war are almost impossible to imagine in a really informed way. Arundhati Roy describes a likely scenario thus: Our cities and forests, our fields and villages will burn for days. Rivers will turn to poison. The air will become fire. The wind will spread the flames. When everything there is to burn has burned and the fires die, smoke will rise and shut out the sun. 15 It is hard to think that the possibility of such an eventuality can be a part of a wise policy of national selfdefence.

Established Nuclear Powers and Subcontinental Grumbles One of the problems in getting things right arises from a perceived sense of inadequacy, prevalent in India, of any alternative policy that would be entirely satisfactory and would thus help to firm up a rejection of nuclear weapons through the transparent virtues of a resolutely non-nuclear path (as opposed to the horrors of the nuclear route). This is perhaps where the gap in perceptions is strongest between the discontent and disgust with which the subcontinental nuclear adventures are viewed in the West and the ambiguity that exists on this subject within India (not to mention the support of the nuclear route that comes from the government, the BJP, and India's pro-nuclear lobby). It is difficult to understand what is going on in the subcontinent without placing it solidly in a global context. Nuclear strategists in South Asia tend to resent deeply the international condemnation of Indian and Pakistani policies and decisions that does not take note of the nuclear situation in the world as a whole. They are surely justified in this resentment, and also right to question the censoriousness of Western critics of subcontinental nuclear adventures without adequately examining the ethics of their own nuclear policies, including the preservation of an established and deeply unequal nuclear hegemony, with very little attempt to achieve global denuclearisation. The defence minister of India, George Fernandes, told Amitav Ghosh: "Why should the five nations that have nuclear weapons tell us how to behave and what weapons we should have? 16 " This was matched by the remark of Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami (Pakistan's principal religious party), to Ghosh: "...we don't accept that five nations should have nuclear weapons and others shouldn't. We say, 'Let the five also disarm.'" 17 The inquiry into the global context is indeed justified, but what we have to examine is whether the placing of the subcontinental substory within a general frame of a bigger global story really changes the assessment that we can reasonably make of what is going on in India and Pakistan. In particular, to argue that their nuclear policies are deeply mistaken does not require us to dismiss the widespread resentment in the subcontinent of the smugness of the dominant global order. These complaints, even if entirely justified and extremely momentous, do not establish the sagacity of a nuclear policy that dramatically increases uncertainties within the subcontinent without achieving anything to make each country more secure. Indeed, Bangladesh is probably now the safest country to live in, in the subcontinent.

Moral Resentment and Prudential Blunder There are, I think, two distinct issues, which need to be carefully separated. First, the world nuclear order is extremely unbalanced and there are excellent reasons to complain about the military policies of the major powers, particularly the five that have a monopoly over official nuclear status as well as over permanent membership in the Security Council of the United Nations. The second issue concerns the choices that other countries – other than the big five – face, and this has to be properly scrutinised, rather than being hijacked by resentment of the oligopoly of the power to terrorise. The fact that other countries, including India and Pakistan, have ground enough for grumbling about the nature of the world order, sponsored and supported by the established nuclear powers without any serious commitment to denuclearisation, does not give them any reason to pursue a nuclear policy that worsens their own security and adds to the possibility of a dreadful holocaust. Moral resentment cannot justify a prudential blunder. I have so far not commented on the economic and social costs of nuclearisation and the general problem

of allocation of resources. That issue is, of course, important, even though it is hard to find out exactly what the costs of the nuclear programmes are. The expenses on this are carefully hidden in both the countries. Even though it is perhaps easier to estimate the necessary information in India (given a greater need for disclosure in the Indian polity), the estimates are bound to be quite rough. Recently, C. Rammanohar Reddy, a distinguished journalist at the major daily called The Hindu, has estimated that the cost of nuclearisation is something around half a percentage of the gross domestic product per year. 18 This might not sound like much, but it is large enough if we consider the alternative uses of these resources. For example, it has been estimated that the additional costs of providing elementary education for every child with neighbourhood schools at every location in the country would cost roughly the same amount of money. 19 The proportion of illiteracy in the Indian adult population is still about 40 per cent, and it is about 55 per cent in Pakistan. Furthermore, there are other costs and losses as well, such as the deflection of India's scientific talents to military-related research away from more productive lines of research and also from actual economic production. The prevalence of secretive military activities also restrains open discussions in Parliament and tends to subvert traditions of democracy and free speech. However, ultimately the argument against nuclearisation is not primarily an economic one. It is rather the increased insecurity of human lives that constitutes the biggest penalty of the subcontinental nuclear adventures. That issue needs further scrutiny.

Does Nuclear Deterrence Work? What of the argument that nuclear deterrence makes war between India and Pakistan less likely? Why would not the allegedly proven ability of nuclear balance, which is supposed to have kept peace in the world, be effective also in the subcontinent? I believe that this question can be answered from four different perspectives. First, even if it were the case that the nuclearisation of India and Pakistan reduces the probability of war between the two, there would be a trade off here between a lower chance of conventional war against some chance of a nuclear holocaust. No sensible decision making can concentrate only on the probability of war without taking note of the size of the penalties of war, should it occur. Indeed, any significant probability of the scenario captured by Arundhati Roy's description of 'the end of imagination' can hardly fail to outweigh the greater probability, if any, of the comparatively milder penalties of conventional war. Second, there is nothing to indicate that the likelihood of conventional war is, in fact, reduced by the nuclearisation of India and Pakistan. Indeed, hot on the heels of the nuclear blasts, the two countries did undergo a major military confrontation in the Kargil sector in Kashmir. The Kargil conflict, which occurred within a year of the nuclear blasts of India and Pakistan, was in fact the first military conflict between the two in nearly thirty years. Many Indian commentators have argued that the confrontation, which was provoked by separatist guerrillas coming across the line of control from Pakistan (in their view, joined by army regulars), was helped by Pakistan's understanding that India would not be able to use its massive superiority in conventional forces to launch a bigger war in retaliation, precisely because it would fear a nuclear holocaust. Whether or not this analysis is right, there is clearly substance in the general reasoning that the enemy's fear of nuclear annihilation can be an argument in favour of military adventurism without expectation of a fuller retaliation from the enemy. Be that as it may, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and no matter what the explanation, nuclearisation evidently has not prevented non-nuclear conflicts between India and Pakistan. Third, the danger of accidental nuclear war is much greater in the subcontinent than it was in the cold war itself. This is hot only because the checks and controls are much looser, but also because die distances involved are so small between India and Pakistan that there is little time for any conversation when a crisis might occur and a first strike were feared. Also, the much discussed hold of fundamentalist jehadis within the Pakistan military, and the absence of democratic control add to the fear of a sudden flash point. Fourth, there is a need also to assess whether the peace that the world enjoyed with nuclear deterrence during the global cold war was, in fact, predictable and causally robust. The argument for the balance of terror

has been clear enough for a long time, and was most eloquently put by Winston Churchill in his last speech to the House of Commons on 1 March 1955. His ringing words on this ("safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation") have a mesmerising effect, but Churchill himself did make exceptions to his rule, when he said that the logic of deterrence "does not cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hider when he found himself in his final dug-out." 20 Dictators are not unknown in the world (even in the subcontinent), and at least part-lunatics can be found with some frequency in both the countries, judging by what some eloquent commentators seem to be able to write on the nuclear issue itself. But perhaps more importantly, we have reason to note that risks have been taken also by people with impeccable credentials on sanity and lucidity. To give just one example (a rather prominent one), in choosing the path of confrontation in what has come to be called the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy evidently took some significant risks of annihilation on behalf of humanity. Indeed, Theodore C. Sorenson, Special Counsel to President Kennedy, put the facts thus (in a generally admiring passage): John Kennedy never lost sight of what either war or surrender would do to the whole human race. His UN Mission was preparing for a negotiated peace and his Joint Chiefs of Staff were preparing for war, and he intended to keep both on rein....He could not afford to be hasty or hesitant, reckless or afraid. The odds that the Soviets would go all the way to war, he later said, seemed to him then "somewhere between one out of three and even." 21 Well, a chance of annihilation between one-third and one-half is not an easy decision to be taken on behalf of the human race. I think we have to recognise that the peace of nuclear confrontation in the cold war partly resulted from luck, and may not have been preordained. To take post hoc to be propter hoc is a luxury that can be quite costly for charting out future policies in the nuclear – or indeed any other – field. We have to take account not only of the fact that circumstances are rather different in the subcontinent compared with what obtained during the nuclear confrontation in the global cold war, but also the world was actually rather fortunate to escape annihilation even in the cold war. And the dangers of extermination did not come only from lunatics or dictators. So, to conclude this section, the nuclearisation of the subcontinental confrontations need not reduce the risk of war (either in theory or in practice), and it escalates the penalty of war in a dramatic way. The unjust nature of world military balance does not change this crucial prudential recognition.

Were the Indian Government's Goals Well Served? I come now to a question of rather limited interest, but which is asked often enough, addressed particularly to India. Even if it is accepted that the subcontinent is less secure as a result of the tit-for-tat nuclear tests, it could be the case that India's own self-interest has been well served by the BJP-led government's nuclear policy. India has reason to grumble, it is argued, for not being taken as seriously as one of the largest countries in the world should be. There is unhappiness also in the attempt by some countries, certainly the United States in the past, to achieve some kind of a 'balance' between India and Pakistan, whereas India is nearly seven times as large as Pakistan and must not be taken to be on a par with it. Rather the comparison should be with China, and for this – along with other causes such as getting India a permanent seat in the Security Council – India's nuclear might could be expected to make a contribution. The subcontinent may be less secure as a result of the nuclear developments, but, it is argued, India did get some benefit. How sound is this line of argument? I have some difficulty in pursuing this exercise. Even though I am a citizen of India, I don't really think I can legitimately inquire only into the advantages that India alone may have received from a certain policy, excluding the interests of others whose interests were also affected. However, it is possible to scrutinise the effects of a certain policy in terms of the given goals of the Indian government (including strategic advantages over Pakistan as well as enhancement of India's international standing), and ask the rather coldly 'scientific' question whether those goals have been well served by India's recent nuclear policy. We do not have to

endorse these goals to examine whether they have actually been better promoted. There are good reasons to doubt that these goals have indeed been better served by the sequence of events at Pokhran and Chagai. First, India had – and has – massive superiority over Pakistan in conventional military strength. That strategic advantage has become far less significant as a result of the new nuclear balance. Indeed, since Pakistan has explicitly refused to accept a 'no-first-use' agreement, India's ability to count on conventional superiority is now, to a great extent, less effective (along with increasing the level of insecurity in both countries). In the Kargil confrontation, India could not even make use of its ability to cross into Pakistan-administered Kashmir to attack the intruders from the rear, which military tacticians seem to think would have made much more sense than trying to encounter the intruders by climbing steeply up a high mountain from the Indian side to battle the occupants at the top. This not only made the Indian response less effective and less rapid, it also led to more loss of Indian soldiers (the Kargil toll was 1,300 lives according to India's estimate and 1,750 according to Pakistan's estimate), and added greatly to the expenses of the war conducted from an unfavoured position ($2.5 billion in direct expenses). 22 With the danger of a nuclear outburst, the Indian government's decision not to countercross the line of control in retaliation was clearly right, but it had no real option in this respect, given the strategic bind which it had itself helped to create. Second, the fact that India can make nuclear weapons was well established before the present tit-for-tat nuclear tests were conducted. Pokhran I in 1974 had already established the point, even though the official Indian statements tried to play down the military uses of that blast a quarter of a century ago. After the recent set of tests, India's and Pakistan's positions seem to be much more even, at least in international public perception. As it happens, Pakistan was quite modest in its response. I remember thinking in the middle of May 1998, following the Indian tests, that surely Pakistan would now blast a larger number of bombs than India's five. I was agreeably impressed by Pakistan's moderation in blasting only six, which is the smallest whole number larger than five. The Indian government may deeply dislike any perception of parity with Pakistan, but it did its best, in effect, to alter a situation of acknowledged asymmetry into one of perceived parity. Third, aside from perceptions, in terms of the scientific requirement for testing, Pakistan clearly had a greater case for testing, never having conducted a nuclear test before 1998. This contrasted with India's experience of Pokhran I in 1974. Also, with a much smaller community of nuclear scientists and a less extensive development of the possibilities of computerised simulation, the scientific need for an actual test may be much greater in Pakistan than in India. While Pakistan was concerned about the condemnation of the world community by testing on its own, the Indian blasts in May 1998 created a situation in which Pakistan could go in that direction without being blamed for starting any nuclear adventure. Eric Arnett puts the issue thus: In contrast to its Indian counterparts, Pakistan's political elite is less abashed about the need for nuclear deterrence. Military fears that the Pakistani nuclear capability was not taken seriously in India combined with a feeling of growing military inferiority after being abandoned by the USA after the cold war create an imperative to test that was resisted before May 1998 only because of the threat of sanctions. The Indian tests created a situation in which the Pakistani leadership saw an even greater need to test and a possible opening to justify the test as a response that was both politically and strategically understandable. 23 The thesis, often articulated by India's pro-nuclear lobby, that India was in a greater danger of a first strike from Pakistan before the summer of 1998, lacks scientific as well as political credibility. Fourth, nor was there much success in getting recognition for India as being in the same league as China, or for its grumble that inadequate international attention is paid to the dangers India is supposed to face from China. Spokespersons of the Indian government were vocal on these issues. A week before the Pokhran tests in 1998, the Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said in a much quoted television interview, "China is potential threat number one....The potential threat from China is greater than that from Pakistan." 24 Between the tests on May 11 and May 13, the Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee wrote to President Clinton to point to China as being related to the motivation for the tests. This letter, which was published in The New York Times (after being leaked) on 13 May, did not name China, but referred to it in very explicit terms:

We have an overt nuclear weapon state on our borders, a state which committed armed aggression against India in 1962. Although our relations with that country have improved in the last decade or so, an atmosphere of distrust persists mainly due to the unresolved border problem. To add to the distrust that country has materially helped another neighbour of ours to become a covert nuclear weapon state. 25 However, as a result of the tit-for-tat nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, China could stand well above India's little grumbles, gently admonishing it for its criticism of China, and placing itself in the position of being a subcontinental peacemaker. When President Clinton visited China in June 1998, China and the United States released a joint statement declaring that the two countries would cooperate in non-proliferation efforts in the subcontinent. Mark Frazier's assessment of the gap between the Indian government's attempts and its achievements in this field captures the essence of this policy failure. Had it been India's intention to alert the world to its security concerns about China as a dangerous rising power, the tests managed to do just the opposite—they gave the Chinese officials the opportunity to present China as a cooperative member of the international community seeking to curb nuclear weapons proliferation. Far from looking like a revisionist state, China played the role of a status quo power, and a rather assertive one at that. 26 Fifth, nor did the blasts advance the cause of India's putative elevation to a permanent membership of the Security Council. If a country could blast its way into the Security Council, this would give an incentive to other countries to do the same. Furthermore, the new parity established between India and Pakistan after Pokhran II and Chagai hills also militates against the plausibility of that route to permanency in the Security Council, and this too could have been well predicted. I personally don't see why it is so important for India to be permanently on the Security Council (it may be in the interest of others for this to happen, given India's size and growing economic strength, but that is a different issue altogether). However, for the Indian government which clearly attaches importance to this possibility, it would surely have been wiser to emphasise its restraint in not developing nuclear weapons despite its proven ability to do so since 1974: and also use the pre-1998 asymmetry with Pakistan, in contrast with the symmetry that developed – following the Indian government's own initiative – after Pokhran II and Chagai. One of the interesting sidelights that emerges from a scrutiny of Indian official perceptions is the extent to which the government underestimates India's importance as a major country, a democratic polity, a rich multi-religious civilisation, with a well-established tradition in science and technology (including the cutting edge of information technology), and with a fast-growing economy that could grow, with a little effort, even faster. The overestimation of the persuasive power of the bomb goes with an underestimation of the political, cultural, scientific and economic strengths of the country. There may be pleasure in the official circles at the success of President Clinton's visit to India and the asymmetrically favoured treatment it got in that visit vis a vis Pakistan, but the tendency to attribute that asymmetry to Indian nuclear adventure, rather than to India's large size, democratic politics, and its growing economy and technology is difficult to understand.

On Separating the Issues To conclude, it is extremely important to distinguish the two distinct problems, both of which have a bearing on subcontinental nuclear policies. First, the world order on weapons needs a change and in particular requires an effective and rapid disarmament, particularly in nuclear arsenals. Second, the nuclear adventures of India and Pakistan cannot be justified on the ground of the unjustness of the world order, since the people whose lives are made insecure as a result of these adventures are primarily the residents of the subcontinent. Resenting the obtuseness of others is not a good ground for shooting oneself in the foot. This does not, of course, imply that India or Pakistan has reason to feel happy about the international balance of power that the world establishment seems keen on maintaining, with or without further developments, such as an attempted 'nuclear shield' for the United States. Indeed, it must also be said that there is an inadequate appreciation in the West of the extent to which the role of the Big Five arouses suspicion and resentment in the Third World, including the subcontinent. This applies not only to the

monopoly over nuclear armament, but also, on the other side, to the 'pushing' of conventional, non-nuclear armaments in the world market for weapons. For example, as the Human Development Report 1994, prepared under the leadership of that visionary Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, pointed out, not only were the top five arms- exporting countries in the world precisely the five permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations, but also they were, together, responsible for 86 per cent of all the conventional weapons exported during 1988-1992. 27 Not surprisingly the Security Council has not been able to take any serious initiative that would really restrain the merchants of death. It is not hard to understand the scepticism in India and Pakistan – and elsewhere – about the responsibility and leadership of the established nuclear powers. As far as India is concerned, the two policies – of nuclear abstinence and demanding a change of world order – can be pursued simultaneously. Nuclear restraint strengthens rather than weakens India's voice. To demand that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty be redefined to include a dated programme of denuclearisation may well be among the discussable alternatives. But making nuclear bombs, not to mention deploying them, and spending scarce resource on missiles and what is euphemistically called delivery', can hardly be seen as sensible policy. The claim that subcontinental nuclearisation would somehow help to bring about world nuclear disarmament is a wild dream that can only precede a nightmare. The moral folly in these policies is substantial, but what is also clear and decisive is the prudential mistake that has been committed. The moral and the prudential are, in fact, rather close in a world of interrelated interactions, for reasons that Rabindranath Tagore had discussed nearly a hundred years ago. Finally, on a more specific point, no country has as much stake as India in having a prosperous and civilian democracy in Pakistan. Even though the Nawaz Sharif government was clearly corrupt in many ways, India's interests are not well served by the undermining of civilian rule in Pakistan, to be replaced by activist military leaders. Also, the encouragement of across- border terrorism, which India accuses Pakistan of, is likely to be dampened rather than encouraged by Pakistan's economic prosperity and civilian politics. It is particularly important in this context to point to the dangerousness of the argument, often heard in India, that the burden of public expenditure would be more unbearable for Pakistan, given its smaller size and relatively stagnant economy, than it is for India. This may well be the case, but the penalty that can visit India from an impoverished and desperate Pakistan, in the present situation of massive insecurity, can be quite catastrophic. Strengthening of Pakistan's stability and the enhancement of its well-being, have prudential importance for India, in addition to their obvious ethical significance. That central connection – between the moral and the prudential – must be urgently grasped. Designing Nuclear * Based on the first Dorothy Hodgkin Memorial Lecture at the Annual Pugwash Conference in Cambridge, UK, on 8 August 2000. For helpful comments, I am grateful to Jean Dreze, Ayesha Jalal, V.K. Ramachandran and Emma Rothschild. Variants of this lecture were published in Frontline (16 September 2000) and The New Republic (25 September 2000).

Designing Nuclear Weapons: The Moral Question* AMULYA K.N. REDDY Nuclear weapons are unique—their impact is primarily on civilian non-combatants, particularly women and children; they are by their very nature indiscriminate; they are largely uncontrollable; they are instruments of mass murder on a scale unparalleled in human history. Nuclear weapons have security, economic and political implications. However, the issue of nuclear weapons is a moral question—of right and wrong, good and evil. It is this ethical aspect of nuclear weapons, especially as it applies to the designing and manufacture of nuclear weapons, that is the focus of this essay. 1 Nuclear weapons have been actually used against civilian populations during war only by the US, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in 1945. The bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot really be understood without the context of the large-scale violence of World War II. Apart from the sheer magnitude of the number of casualties caused during the enure period of the war, there are two other significant thresholds that were crossed while it raged. The first was the fire bombing of cities like Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo, carried out by the Allies. These resulted in an unprecedented scale of destruction and were the first really major attacks against civilian populations during the war. The second was the Holocaust.

Mass Murder Technology A visit to Poland in September 1999 brought me in direct contact with the realities of the Holocaust, and simultaneously intensified my opposition to the nuclear tests of May 1998. A World Energy Assessment meeting in Cracow enabled me to visit the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau that are now preserved as museums. During World War II, about 1.5 million victims from all over Nazi-occupied Europe, overwhelmingly Jews, either went directly to their death in the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz and Birkenau, or indirectly via the camps where they were held prisoner until they were too weak to labour.2 The tour of the camps left me with a completely unexpected feeling. The scale of human extermination was so enormous that I had to remind myself, particularly because the camps have been unpopulated since 1944, that there used to be human beings there. Human belongings – toothbrushes, shoes and suitcases – were piled from floor to ceiling in huge rooms, a separate room for each item, but the aggregate was more reminiscent of factory inputs. Even human hair stored in a room looked like raw material for an industry—in Auschwitz the hair was used for manufacturing lining material. If Auschwitz was unbelievable, its neighbour Birkenau located 3 km away, beggared the imagination. Birkenau was spread over 175 hectares with 300 buildings, each capable of housing 1000 inmates. Birkenau represented a scaling up from the pilot plant demonstration at Auschwitz, which had a peak of 20,000 prisoners, to full-scale commercialisation of mass-murder technology with 100,000 prisoners in August 1944. The most powerful impression that persisted was of detailed engineering resulting in "the immense technological complex created for the purpose of killing human beings.3 " The meticulous organisation and rigorous management were characteristic of mega-industries. The camps were "gigantic and horrific factories of death"4 . The main gate of Auschwitz displayed the inscription 'Arbeit macht frei' (Work brings freedom). Perhaps 'Technology completely decoupled from values' would have been more appropriate.

As the scale of killing increases, the technology often, though not always, becomes more and more sophisticated—from knives to guns to machine guns to bombs to gas chambers and crematoria to atom bombs. Not only does the distance from the victims become greater, but the scale becomes more complex and increasingly technical. Burial is sufficient for one body, but for hundreds or thousands of bodies, the thinking has to be in terms of 'throughput', 'air/fuel ratios' and 'burning capacity'. In Auschwitz, it is obvious that nothing happened spontaneously. Everything was deliberately designed and planned. The Nobel Prize winner, Fritz Haber, developed the poison Zyklon-B, a cyanide compound. One of Germany's top chemical industries, IG Farben, produced the poison for exterminating people in the gas chambers. Careful experiments were conducted to determine the time that it would take for a person to be poisoned. An engineering firm designed the crematoria furnaces to process 350 bodies per day in Auschwitz I. Clearly, there were engineers preoccupied with the technical problems. Perhaps, like Oppenheimer talking about nuclear weapons, some even thought that the problem and the solution were 'technically sweet'. Or, like the Department of Atomic Energy scientist at the Kaiga debate in Bangalore in 1998 who said, "Hiroshima provided us with a fortunate opportunity to study radiation effects!" 5 Once the problem was defined as eliminating hundreds and thousands of people per day, the Auschwitz 'solution' was inevitable. But, who defined the problem and promulgated the order? By and large, it was the political decision-makers who defined the problem. There was a conference at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, on 20 January 1942, at which the Nazi leadership decided in less than two hours (before lunch!) on the 'final solution' to exterminate the Jews. Ethnic superiority, racial/religious hatreds and fundamentalist views are well-known causes for decisions with far-reaching destructive impacts on human beings. Why was this definition of the problem and the horrendous 'solution' that was implemented, so widely accepted? There could be several reasons. The population had been inoculated against moral judgements so that there was pervasive moral indifference. The informed were silenced, and articulate dissidents became the first inputs to the camps. The media was not allowed to reveal the truth. As a result, many citizens genuinely claimed ignorance as an excuse.6 But the most commonly used 'explanation' for the widespread acceptance of the mass murder of Jews is the plea of duty and the obligation to carry out orders. At the post-war tribunal in Nuremberg, Nazi officials defended themselves by pleading that they were just carrying out orders.7 The judgement delivered at Nuremberg was unambiguous—a human being has to take full responsibility for the consequences of his/her actions and the excuse of obeying orders is inadmissible. Apart from the above factors that operate in the case of officials and technical personnel, there are the additional devices of arguments about national security, geopolitical compulsions, deterrence, etc. In such a lofty macroview, numbers and statistics displace human beings. New proxy words dominate the discussions —'burning capacity' replaces 'the number of corpses burnt', 'kilotonne yield' replaces 'kilodeaths' and so on. Functionaries, however, in order to keep the system going, cannot avoid contact with the prisoners and victims.8 In Auschwitz and Birkenau it appears that the guards treated the inmates inhumanly because they believed that the victims were subhuman and 'things' rather than people. That such dehumanisation is still being propagated and accepted is evident from the growing number of examples of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Walking through the scene of genocide in Auschwitz, one begins to think of historical parallels. In particular, one wonders whether there is a difference between the Nazi concentration camps and the development of the atom bombs at Los Alamos, the test at Alamogordo, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which resulted in the virtually instantaneous annihilation of hundreds of thousands of people). Of course, the Allies in World War II were not driven by the racism of the Nazis, and they were not pursuing the final solution of extermination of any particular religious group. But with regard to the scale of killing, the recruitment of capable minds, the harnessing of science and technology, 9 the extent of organisation, the resort to efficient project management methods, and the choice of targets to maximise annihilation of Japanese civilians —the Manhattan project and its follow-up were like the concentration camps, in fact, even more horrendous in their impact.

Silence in India What are the implications of nuclearisation for India? Since May 1998, the country has witnessed the exposure of the science-politics nexus underlying the nuclear tests at Pokhran— the use of national security arguments to advance party agendas, and the self-serving jingoism of the scientists. Of even greater importance has been the silence of science journals with a few notable exceptions; there has been an obfuscation of ugly reality and the virtual absence of intellectual dissent. Each of these phenomena deserves greater scrutiny. After initial silence on the subject (as if the tests never- happened), the journal Current Science dealt with them in a curious manner. The journal discriminated between obviously correlated concepts—by publishing kilotonne yields and suppressing kilodeath estimates. It publicised the official/ government version of the 'kilotonne yield' of the test bombs, but rejected estimates of the hundreds of thousands who would be killed if even a primitive atom bomb were exploded on Mumbai or Karachi. 10 This is a glaring example of the alteration of vocabulary to circumvent the naming and discussion of mass annihilation of human beings. Thus, considerations of the kilodeaths that would result from nuclear explosions are evaded by focussing on kilotonne yields—a seemingly innocuous term. Further, with regard to the official/government estimates of the yield of the Pokhran II tests, what is noteworthy is not that they were published, but that counter-views were not elicited, and revealed. In doing so, Current Science behaved like an official mouthpiece of the establishment, rather than as an independent journal like Nature, which acts as a forum facilitating discourse and discussion, encouraging scientists to express opinions contrary to what is perceived as an accepted establishment view. Interestingly, though Current Science abdicated its responsibility of encouraging a scientific discussion of yields, Frontline, which is a general magazine, initiated such a debate. In its 27 November 1999 issue, Frontline published an article by scientists from the nuclear establishment laying out their claims about the yields of the nuclear tests. 11 This was rebutted by an independent scientist in a subsequent issue. 12 Viewing the Indian nuclear programme through the lens of the Jewish Holocaust raises other questions. Are the institutions of the Indian subcontinent necessarily more robust and moral than those of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s? Are Indian politicians less prone to exploit religious animosities? Are Indian scientists and engineers less eager to lobby for political support? 13 Once the nuclear-tipped missiles are deployed, are there guarantees against 'some crazy fool doing some crazy thing'? Is it certain that Pokhran will not lead as inevitably to Lahore and/or Chagai to Mumbai, as Alamogordo led to Hiroshima? The nuclear tests exposed the internal condition of Indian science. Faced with the range and complexity of issues raised by the tests — issues of (internal and external) security, trade and economics, politics, ethics, national traditions – it would have been natural for intelligent and creadve scientists to develop a spectrum of views. Instead, the virtually unanimous euphoria was astonishing. The silence of the present and past leaders of science, their academies and journals, was deafening. Since it is statistically unlikely that almost all the scientists of the nation shared the same perception, one has to probe deeper to find an explanation. The Nehruvian idea of science as an essential accoutrement of a modern society was one of the markers of independent India. Today, the nuclear tests have shown the determination of the rulers to make Indian science a servant of the state and its internal and external political ambitions. The idea that science is the people's astra (weapon) against poverty is being jettisoned. The Jai Vigyan (Hail Science) pronouncement symbolises the attempt of the government to co-opt scientists. The scientists too have been wooing the establishment with a desperate desire to be in the corridors of power. When the government kept them at arm's length, as seems to have been the case during the office of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, the scientists seemed to have felt rejected and bitter. They even considered that period the nadir of post-independence Indian science. In contrast, the giants of Indian science, in particular C.V. Raman and Meghnad Saha, considered their independence from the government, in the years immediately after 1947, to be a matter of pride. But power has proved to be irresistible for the scientists who followed. And the only way this desire could be fulfilled was to woo the government through its scientific ministries and their secretaries. Scientific academies courted

secretaries of scientific ministries to be their presidents and office-bearers. There was no guilt or regret that, in the process, the academies lost their independence. Or, that their voices could not be distinguished from that of the government- creating a lacuna of independent perspectives. In the West, the universities provide independent policy studies, but such independence is rare in India. Thus, scientists wanted to be, and became, a pressure group. This was exposed after the 1998 tests, when the former Prime Minister Deve Gowda revealed how the nuclear scientists had lobbied his government to give them a chance to prove their capability. The scientists had not done a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the tests and their fallout. Despite this, they pursued a narrow departmental, if not personal, agenda, perhaps emulating their political masters. An understanding of the interactions between science and society in India has to take into account, on the one hand, the existence of a dual society (a society where a small rich elite live amidst a disprivileged mass), and on the other, India's strong interaction with the industrialised countries. The coupling with the industrialised countries leads to the dominance of foreign collaborations based on the import of technology; and the dual character of Indian society results in the overwhelmingly elitist thrust of indigenous technology. Further, even these indigenous technological efforts consist almost wholly of the imitation and adaptation of foreign technology, rather than of innovation. The decoupling of science and technology has had a profound impact on science in India, resulting in its first major abnormality. Because of the preponderance of technology imports and the imitative character of indigenous technology, the initial part of the innovation chain – consisting of research, design and development, and engineering-for-manufacturing – hardly exists in the country. As a result, its scientific system is not subject to the pressures of basic problems emerging from technology. And, without this pressure from technology, indigenous science in India is deprived of a powerful driving force. The vitality of science in a society depends upon the challenges thrown up by the innovation chain leading to technology, as well as upon its internal momentum arising from the backlog of unresolved problems. The pace or tempo of research activity is sustained by an atmosphere of excitement, which in turn requires a conviction of being 'hot on the trail' of important discoveries. Such an atmosphere is facilitated by rapid communication between scientists through personal contacts, seminars, symposia and conferences, and through well-referred journals which ensure quick publication. The pace of research is usually set by outstanding scientists who attract a following. Scientists tend 'to hunt in packs' behind leaders. The 'mass' of scientists does depend upon the size of the scientific body, but not merely on the number of scientists. What we require is a community of interacting scientists with the well-established traditions of a peer system. Scientific peers are crucial for discussions, brainstorming and testing out ideas, for acquiring different ways of looking at a problem, for enhancing the quality of seminars, symposia and conferences, for rigorous assessment and constructive criticism of work, for help in improving work quality, for weeding out defective work, for a process of recognition, and so on. In short, without the environment of an actively interacting scientific community, there cannot be the natural selection of scientific ideas and data, that alone will ensure that the fittest theories and experiments survive. Natural selection of ideas implies competition and diversity— which cannot occur in the context of a monoculture of views. Truth cannot emerge if there is an absence and/or exclusion of dissent, and certainly not if dissenters are branded anti-scientific and anti-national. 14 It is against this background that one notes with regret that in recent decades there have not been any major scientific controversies within the Indian scientific establishment. Bitter enmities between some leaders of Indian science are well known, but they are mere conflicts of ambitions and careers; they are not conflicts based on scientific issues. The controversies that have arisen – the Bhopal gas disaster, the Sardar Sarovar project, nuclear power – have seen participation only from scientists who are outside the establishment or those who are treated as renegades and ignored. In order to avoid genuine controversy and peer review, unorthodox views are excluded from seminars, committees, journals and other forums (including the peer-reviewing process). So, we find internationally acclaimed experts not being invited to meetings on their subjects because they hold 'unacceptable' views or they are – not in the hierarchy of policy/decision-makers. This practice persists even in so-called institutes of 'advanced' studies. The distortion of scientific tradition survives because of the lack of transparent democratic

functioning, and the manipulation of peer reviews. The underlying reason for the consistent violation of scientific tradition and its codes is the fact that government and quasi- government sources are responsible for an overwhelming share of funding for scientific research. Since scientific activity depends strongly on this funding almost all scientists are swayed by the government's influence. There are also a number of cash prizes and awards that act as further inducements to conform, rather than dissent. It is not surprising that there was a stampede of scientists to applaud the nuclear tests and prove their patriotism as perceived by the establishment. Despite the pressure to conform, there were some scientists who dissented and their numbers grew with the waning of the initial euphoria. India's overwhelming poverty ought to be the factor that determines the direction of Indian science—for poverty is the country's defining characteristic and fundamental reality. In 1950-51, 45.6 per cent and 36.1 per cent of the rural and urban populations respectively were under the poverty line. In 1997-98, these poverty ratios had declined to 36.6 and 29 per cent respectively. This was a less than 10 percentage point decline in either sector over nearly half a century.15 One in three Indians goes hungry. Life expectancy is about 60 years. Half the Indian population cannot read or write. According to the 2002 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme, India's Human Poverty Index (HPI) was 33%. The HPI is a composite of longevity (16.4% of the population have life expectancy of less than 40 years), knowledge (42.8% are illiterate), and standard of living (12% are without access to safe drinking water, and 47% of the children are malnourished or underweight).16 India belongs well and truly to the club of poorest nations. It can move out of this club only through sustainable development—not through nuclear explosions. However, the thrust of Indian science does not correspond with the problems of the Indian people. The bulk of the expenditure (about two-thirds) on research and development is allocated to the Defence Research and Development Organisation, the Department of Space, and the Department of Atomic Energy, all of which have overt and/or covert military implications.17 Of the balance, a large percentage goes to industrial research, but this caters largely to the needs of the elite. In fact, going by the militarist-elitist expenditure pattern of Indian research and development, one would think that the primary problems of Indian society concern external security and upper class consumption wants, rather than poor health, illiteracy and basic needs. This mis-orientation of Indian science is not a surprise. It derives from the existence of a 'dual society', where a small politically powerful elite (constituting a mere 10-15% of the population—industrialists, landlords, bureaucrats, professionals and white-collar workers) live in conspicuous affluence amidst the abject poverty of the politically weak masses.

The 'Neutrality' of Science Scientists escape responsibility from the misdirection of science with the clever excuse of the supposed 'amorality' and 'neutrality of science. For example, Abdul Kalam has said that he is "only an engineer" and that his missiles "can also be used for delivering flowers." 18 The notions of amoral and neutral science originate from two conventional prescriptions for the relationship between the scientist (the subject) and the object of scientific study. First, the scientist is urged to separate and distance himself/herself from the object of study even when the object is a living being. The second 'commandment' for the scientist is to eschew feelings from the analysis so that the study is a cerebral non-subjective activity devoid of emotion and value. Thus, modern science is based on two dichotomies: (1) separation of the subject from the object, and (2) separation of feelings and emotions (the non- cognitive self) from thought and analysis (the cognitive self). However, the first dichotomy leads inevitably to the degradation of the objects of study (including humans) into 'things'; and the second leads to the removal of empathy and respect for the objects of study (plants, animals, and human beings of different castes, tribes, nationalities and religions). The amorality of science stems from this isolation of the subject from the object, and the removal or absence of emotions and feelings and values. And when the object of the study includes human beings, then the perception of people as 'things' leads inevitably to science becoming the instrument of

violence, oppression and evil. The disjunction between science and morality has a long and complex history. This essay argues that there is a way out of the moral dilemma. The relationship between the scientist and the object of scientific study must be such that initial separation (and distance) ends in subsequent unification (and embrace). Further, the suppression of emotion during analysis must give way to emotion after analysis. The functioning of scientists as individuals, groups and institutions must be constrained and limited by moral caveats. Otherwise, the isolation of the subject from the object and the removal or absence of emotions and feelings leads inevitably to a science that promotes violence and oppression. Science, therefore, must not be neutral and amoral. It can be – and must be – encoded with life-affirming values. 19

The Values of Nuclearisation There are no life-affirming values associated with the nuclear tests and the attitude of the government to weaponisation. Rather, the values that exist are life destroying. The prime minster's pronouncement of Jai Vigyan after the old slogan Jai Jaivan, Jai Kisan (Hail Soldier, Hail Farmer), is tantamount to eulogising the activities of a science that can result in the death of hundreds of thousands of people in a nuclear attack. Such statements are ploys to win over scientists to the militarisation of Indian science. By expressing euphoria about science as an instrument of mega-death, the government is sending a message commending the nexus between science and violence. The link between science and morality needs to be firmly reestablished. A crucial safeguard is to insist that, quite apart from the macroview of security, yields, kill-ratios, etc, there must be a microview based on human beings. We must see beyond the numbers and the statistics, we must see children and parents and grandparents, partners, siblings, friends and comrades. The nuclear tests and the threat of weaponisation have exposed the serious weaknesses of Indian science. They have shown that Indian science is responding more to the militaristic and consumption ambitions of the elite than to the problems of the poverty-stricken Indian masses. Rather than be a force that balances the demands of the state and civil society, the tests have revealed that Indian science has become a servant of the state whilst pressuring the state to advance the vested interests of some Indian scientists. The tests have revealed that the scionce-state nexus is strong. Immediately after the nuclear tests, the majority of Indian scientists echoed the official line in a regimented fashion. They did not show the independence of perspective and diversity of views characteristic of a community of interacting scientists working within the context of well-established traditions of science. Indian science has betrayed the humanistic heritage of Gandhi and Buddha.

Conclusion Is there hope for Indian science? Yes, and it is to be found in the voices of dissent, that emerged from many scientific institutions after the nuclear tests.This has led to the formation of groups like the Indian Scientists Against Nuclear Weapons.20 If these 'nuclei' grow and coalesce, then there is hope for a 'phase transformation' through which the character of Indian science will change. Then, the poor and the meek of India shall inherit the benefits of science. The state will be enriched by having a significant fraction of scientists expressing independent views. The moral commitment of Indian science will become a tribute to the legacy of Buddha and Gandhi. With the tests over and weaponisation on the agenda, Indian scientists must move forward. They must stop (1) the jingoistic exploitation of the nuclear weapons programme by forces with short-term political interests; (2) the erosion of democracy of thought and opinion; (3) the further diversion of scientific talent away from the problems of poverty towards military applications and an arms race. The scientists must focus their attention on international disarmament and work towards a better life for the people of India— particularly for the disadvantaged. Scientists have several roles to play as people privileged with technical training: They must spread awareness of the enormous consequences of the path the Indian government has

chosen for the country—moving from possessing the nuclear option to actually testing weapons; and then perhaps move towards deploying weapons, and keeping them on hair-trigger alert. For example, the effects of one primitive Hiroshima-type bomb on any Indian city must be estimated and publicised. Independent calculations – of the financial costs of the ruinous path the country is being urged to choose – must be made and circulated. They must build an independent peer group outside the establishment to verify the claims being made. Secrecy stifles independence, erodes excellence and breeds mistakes (and even lies!). For example, independent estimates of the costs of nuclear power have already revealed serious flaws in the costing carried out by the Department of Atomic Energy.21 No wonder secrecy is an important weapon used by insecure establishments to prevent rigorous peer review. They must reorient the thrust of Indian science and technology. Unfortunately, this demand leads to the spotlight being turned on fundamental research, which is asked to justify its usefulness. But fundamental research accounts "for less than 10-15% of the total expenditure. This share should be unquestioningly allotted for scientists working on fundamental research who pursue new knowledge rather than applications, with the insistence that they set up and implement rigorous quality control measures. The real problem is applied research and technology, which consumes the bulk of the research and development funds. The subjects of research must be carefully chosen to ensure that their thrust corresponds to the country's problems. This is possible even under present conditions, as proved by several governmental and autonomous institutions as well as non-governmental organisations in the late 1970s and the 1980s which evolved innovative efforts and methodologies to reunite science and the people. And in the process it must not be forgotten that India is a dual society with a powerful elite and disempowered masses. Scientists must become actively involved in coalitions with people opposed to the militaristic turn in the affairs of the nation. They must join forces with peace activists, development workers, environmentalists, women, dalits—in fact, all those who work towards creating a truly democratic future for the nation. The words of Gandhi must never be forgotten: Recall the face of the poorest and most helpless person...and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he be able to gain anything from it? Will it restore to him control over his life and destiny? La Trahison des Clercs: * Based on a presentation at the panel discussion organised by the Bangalore Chapter of Indian Scientists against Nuclear Weapons, Raman Research Institute, 22 January 2000.

La Trahison des Clercs: Scientists and India's Nuclear Bomb* M.V. RAMANA The bomb cult...[is] the rebellion of the rebelled against, an insurgency of an elite. Countdown, Amitav Ghosh Speaking at the 1971 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Alvin Weinberg, then director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA, called for setting up an elite 'priesthood' that would manage the nuclear energy enterprise.1 In India, a similar priesthood was set up in the late 1940s by Homi Bhabha, a theoretical physicist and architect of India's nuclear programme. Starting as a small scientific laboratory, the Indian nuclear establishment progressively moved on to becoming the creators of India's 'nuclear option' and, more recently, a nuclear arsenal featuring weapons with varying destructive capabilities. Together with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the designers of the missiles that would carry these explosives to their targets, the nuclear establishment constitutes what Itty Abraham has aptly termed a 'strategic enclave'. 2 The pressure exerted by this strategic enclave has been an extremely important factor in India's quest for nuclear weapons, and in the shaping of its nuclear and security policy.3 In this essay we will trace the history of the strategic enclave's involvement with the bomb in India and some prognosis of the future. Then we briefly chronicle the opposition to nuclear weapons and militarisation on the part of Indian scientists. We start with a quick overview of the involvement of scientists around the world in making nuclear weapons and defence policy, a short discussion of the political economy of science, and a brief survey of the sociological factors specific to the scientific community in India.

Scientists and Nuclear Weapons: Some General Aspects Starting with the Manhattan project, scientists, in particular physicists, have been seen as the makers of the bomb.4 Given the prominence accorded to scientists, it should not be surprising that they have had an enormous influence, in different capacities, on nuclear policy around the world. This influence has been best studied in the case of the United States.5 For the most part, what is available in the case of other countries that have developed nuclear weapons are general histories from which the role of scientists can be inferred.6 Among scientists the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to two opposite reactions.7 There was greater concern among scientists about the results of their activities and what uses they were put to by the state.8 But, scientists were also seduced by the enormous increase in the access to power that came about if they played along with, or better still, drove the state's obsession with using the latest technological devices for militaristic purposes.9 As Solly Zuckerman argued: In the changed relationship between science and military affairs that has prevailed since the Second World War, the military man has never ceased to urge the scientist to intensify the technological exploitation of his knowledge in order to improve the armoury of available weapons; and within the economic restraints set them, the scientist and engineer have been only too ready to oblige, to the full extent of their abilities.10 An example of how scientists not only obliged, but in fact actively promoted the application of science to military uses comes from the United States during the First World War. In 1916, upon instigation by George Ellery Hale, a distinguished astronomer and foreign secretary of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences

(NAS), a delegation of scientists met with President Wilson. The meeting resulted in the setting up of the National Research Council (NRC), in secret, with the objective of encouraging pure and applied research for 'national security and welfare'. Hale's own reasons for this initiative resulted from his earlier experience as a student in Europe where he had learnt the lesson: "to accomplish great results," scientists had to "enjoy the active cooperation of the leaders of the state."11 Regardless of the actual percentages of scientists supporting or opposing such developments, there is little doubt that by and large it is such scientists, who supported the application of science and technology to militaristic purposes that have wielded greater influence on government policy. To understand why scientists espouse such goals requires an examination of the political economy of science as well as the role that the state would like scientists to play. Science is often seen as 'neutral' and detached from the forces that rule our everyday lives. But science, like all productive activities, is a social activity strongly influenced by social and political structures around it.12 Because it is a human productive activity that takes time and money, science is guided and directed by those forces in the country, or the world, that have control over money and resources. People earn their living by science—so the dominant social and political forces that fund this activity determine to a large extent what science studies and what the results of such studies are used for. The most obvious reason why science is funded is because of its connection with technology and the production of new artefacts that benefit society in general, and the funding agencies in particular. Among such artefacts that the state – a major source of science funding everywhere, and, in many countries including India, practically the only source of funding – desires, are weapons. One characteristic of modern states is that they "possess the material and organizational means of waging industrialized war."13 To obtain these means, they have invested heavily in science and technology. In addition to this task, the state and its dominant forces would also like scientists, and more generally intellectuals, to say and do things that legitimise and strengthen the existing social order. Though authors like Julien Benda have railed against this "treason of the intellectuals"14, intellectuals have by and large performed this task willingly. In the case of India, where the bulk of financial support for science comes directly or indirectly from the state, it has been argued that science, through its association with "freedom and enlightenment, power and progress," has contributed in a major way to the Indian state's efforts at legitimising itself.15 These factors represent the 'structure' under which scientists operate. However, in its day-to-day functioning, as well as in how the truth value and validity of scientific theories, models and experiments are determined, the scientific community has considerable autonomy.16 Further, political elites depend on scientists to inform them of the implications of the advances in science. Therefore, scientists – and here the conflicts between different fields and different approaches within each individual field come to the fore – can choose to term one area of research promising and call for greater support. In short, scientists also have 'agency' in shaping the course science takes. But as the earlier discussion pointed out, there are strong constraints placed on this autonomy. It is important to distinguish this formulation from more extreme criticisms of science that question the ontological and epistemological basis of the discipline. While social, economic and political factors do determine what kinds of science get privileged, they do not affect the subject matter of science—the 'objective world'. For example, American research in the 1940s and 1950s on quantum electronics was motivated in large part by potential military applications.17 However, as Alan Sokal points out, these motivations or other extraneous factors have no effect on the underlying scientific question of whether atoms really do behave according to the laws of quantum mechanics.18 There is a substantial body of convincing evidence that supports the belief that the behaviour of atoms can indeed be described by quantum mechanics.

Factors Specific to India In the context of Indian nuclear policy, historically there have been elements of both continuity and rupture.

At the level of setting up the necessary infrastructure and the activities of the scientific and technological establishment, one can discern continuity and a steady progression over the decades. This continuity is possible because nuclear scientists have been able to pursue programmes that diverge in subtle ways from proclaimed policy; this ability, in turn, is related to the structure of nuclear policy making and implementation in India. Unlike most policy matters where the cabinet has the ultimate authority, the agency in charge of nuclear affairs is the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which was constituted by a special act of Parliament, and is composed primarily of scientists and dominated by the top leaders of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The DAE was set up in 1954 under the direct charge of the prime minister. In addition to the head of the DAE, it has "been a tradition for several years to have the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Secretary, Chairman & [managing director of the] Nuclear Power Corporation and Director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) as members of the AEC19 ." Further, the structure of the DAE is hierarchical and not conducive to open dissent. Thus, even if junior scientists had qualms about working on some project, they would have few alternatives. Besides, there are no institutions outside of the DAE that work on nuclear technology. With one exception, no university does research or offers a degree in nuclear engineering. Nuclear scientists, therefore, have no alternative to working in the DAE. This resulted in a situation where the "majority of workers and administrators in the scientific establishments play only a marginal role."20 Added to this is the fact that the DAE, like the larger scientific community in India, has had relatively few notable accomplishments. There have been, for example, no Nobel prizes awarded to any scientist for work conducted in post- independence India. An important study of the scientific community in India found that most scientists were troubled by the marginal position of scientific activity in India in general, and of their own scientific research in particular.21 The lack of relevance, perceived or real, of scientific research to the actual problems of India further accentuates the peripherality of scientists and results in widespread demoralisation. The shrill rhetoric, especially on the part of the nuclear and missile establishments, about selfsufficiency and indigenous development is indicative of the desire for wider recognition. Building nuclear weapons and thereby being seen as serving a national priority by the elite has, therefore, been an answer to the larger failure on the part of the DAE to either produce world class science or provide cheap and reliable electricity. While, as mentioned earlier, there has been continuity in some aspects of Indian nuclear policy, at the level of doctrine there have been sharp differences between different governments across the years.22 These differences influenced and were influenced by middle class and elite perceptions, both of nuclear weapons and, more generally, of India's position and role in the world. One of the clear discontinuities, or ruptures, is the difference between the 'official nationalism' of the Nehruvian period and that of the contemporary hindutva movement. During the Nehruvian phase, the attempts to consolidate society and to fashion a national identity produced an 'official nationalism' (generally upheld by the state and its directing personnel).23 Given the elite notion that independence was to lead to India finding its rightful place in the world, it was not surprising that it adopted a particular 'big vision'. Accordingly, postcolonial state-formation privileged 'Big Science, Big Development, Big Projects and Big Goals'. This vision continues to be prevalent. Absent during the Nehruvian era, however, was a role for 'Big Weapons'; in other words, the acquisition of massive destructive capability was not a route to greatness. The rise of Hindu nationalism or hindutva in recent years is due to a new 'elite insecurity' arising from the increasing social and political assertion of marginalised groups, and the uncertainties associated with economic liberalisation. 24 Hindutva's answer to this is a quest for 'international status', through the deployment of symbolic gestures of 'great power status' such as the ability to acquire and test nuclear weapons. The May 1998 tests, or for that matter the destruction of the Babri Masjid, a sixteenth century mosque, in 1992, are acts that demonstrate how it envisions making India 'strong'. The leaders of the various institutions comprising the strategic enclave are certainly part of the elite, and their views are shaped by these- shifts in official ideology. In fact, these leaders were more than sensitive to such shifts so as to advance their respective institutional interests. While individual leaders have their own

personality traits and priorities, their actions are strongly constrained by the structural details explained above, and by their positions as heads of institutions. It is in this light that one must read the history of the involvement of scientists with the bomb in India.

The History of the Indian Nuclear Programme The Physical and Ideological Infrastructure Perhaps the first important event in the setting up of the Indian nuclear programme was a letter written by Homi Bhabha in March 1944 to the Sir Dorab Tata Trust, requesting funds to set up a research institute. In his letter, Bhabha promised: "When Nuclear Energy has been successfully applied for power production in say a couple of decades from now, India will not have to look abroad for its experts but will find them ready at hand.25 " These experts were to form the priesthood that managed nuclear affairs. The institution of the AEC in early 1948, barely a few months after independence, indicates Bhabha's influence and the prominence accorded by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to the atomic energy enterprise. The bill enabling this was introduced at the constituent assembly by Nehru, and it made atomic energy the exclusive responsibility of the state. 26 Modelled on Britain's Atomic Energy Act, the Indian act imposed even greater secrecy over research and development than did either the British or North American atomic energy legislation. 27 Nehru gave two reasons for the imposition of secrecy. "The advantage of our research would go to others before we even reaped it, and secondly it would become impossible for us to cooperate with any country which is prepared to cooperate with us in this matter, because it will not be prepared for the results of researches to become public."28 To say that the US, Canada, Britain and so on, from whom India got much of its early nuclear know-how, would steal ideas from Indian research is disingenuous at the very least. Further, it is not clear why 'others' should not benefit from 'our research'. India, after all, was planning to benefit from the results of research carried out by Western countries. But, in the post-independence milieu, such questions never arose in the constituent assembly. Neither were questions raised about the appropriateness of choosing nuclear energy as the path to India's development. As Zia Mian's nuanced analysis makes clear, the tone set by Nehru's arguments for investing in the programme precluded any such doubts. Nehru argued that by not having developed steam power and having thus missed out on the industrial revolution, India became a backward country. And what was the expression of that backwardness? In a clear reference to colonialism, he said, "it became a slave country because of that." The connection to atomic power became obvious. Nehru argued: "the point I should like the House to consider is this, that if we are to remain abreast in the world as a nation which keeps ahead of things, we must develop this atomic energy. 29 But Nehru could not prevent censure on another count. At least one member of the assembly, Krishnamurthy Rao from Mysore, strongly criticised the secrecy provisions in the bill.30 Though he claimed to support the act, Rao asserted that the bill did not allow for the oversight and the checking and balancing mechanisms contained in the US Atomic Energy Act. He also pointed out that in the bill passed by the British, secrecy is restricted only to defence purposes and demanded to know if in the Indian bill secrecy was insisted upon even for research for peaceful purposes. Nehru's response to this is surprising for someone who has spoken so eloquently about the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. He said: "I do not know how to distinguish the two [peaceful and defence purposes].31 " Nehru's dilemma is clear from his statements while introducing the bill. He said "I think we must develop it for peaceful purposes." But he went on, "Of course, if we are compelled as a nation to use it for other purposes, possibly no pious sentiments will stop the nation from using it that way." 32 Barely two years after the wholesale destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the 'other purposes' were obvious. Within the AEC itself, it was clear that the commission was created not merely to generate nuclear electricity; its aims were explicitly to develop "atomic energy for all purposes 33 " (emphasis added). M.R.

Srinivasan, who headed the DAE in the 1980s, explicitly states the view within the commission: "[Nuclear technology was developed by a country to be solely available for its own benefit, whether for peaceful purposes or for military applications. 34 " Since the AEC fell directly under the oversight of the prime minister, which in practical terms meant that the head of the DAE was completely in charge, the DAE operated with no controls whatsoever. The DAE's plans for the nuclear programme were ambitious and envisaged covering the entire nuclear fuel cycle. Despite the rhetoric of indigenous development that pervaded, Bhabha and other leaders approached and accepted technical and financial aid from several countries such as the US, Britain and Canada.35 Apsara, the first Indian reactor, for example, was based on a British design and used fuel rods manufactured in Britain. Likewise, it was an American firm, Vitro International, which was awarded the contract to prepare blueprints for the first reprocessing plant at Trombay. Between 1955 and 1974, 1,104 Indian scientists were sent to various US facilities; 263 were trained at Canadian facilities prior to 1971.36 Central to the effort to create the wherewithal to produce nuclear weapons was the second research reactor, CIRUS, a 40 megawatt (MW) heavy-water moderated, light-water cooled, natural uranium-fuelled reactor using the same design as the NRX reactor at Chalk River in Canada. 37 Canada supplied the reactor as part of its Colombo plan—a plan that was, in the words of Robert Bothwell, "premised on the relation between misery and poverty and communism".38 Initiated by Nik Cavell, administrator of the Colombo plan, the idea of donating a reactor to India was supported by W.B. Lewis, head of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), and a fellow student of Bhabha's at Cambridge. The occasion for the announcement of the gift was the 1955 Geneva conference on the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Following shortly after the 1953 'Atoms for Peace' initiative by Eisenhower, the conference was the scene of much cold war era maneuvering as well as an opportunity for countries to exhibit their nuclear wares and woo potential customers. 39 A few Canadian diplomats realised that this could lead to potential acquisition of weapons-useable plutonium by India. After all, the NRX was an efficient producer of plutonium because of its high neutron economy. Nevertheless the initiative went through because it was assumed that India would be able to acquire a reactor from some other source. Despite consistent efforts on the part of the Canadians, India, led by Bhabha, adamantly refused to accept any kind of voluntary controls or safeguards on the spent fuel produced. 40

The ostensible reason for this refusal was the three-phase nuclear power programme for India that Bhabha had put forward. This programme involved separating plutonium from the spent fuel produced in natural uranium reactors and setting up breeder reactors, which in turn could be employed to utilise India's vast resources of thorium for energy production. 41 Separated plutonium, therefore, was an essential requirement. The leap of logic that was put forward was that the imposition of safeguards would disallow plutonium acquisition. Hence, safeguards were considered unacceptable. It is worth clarifying that there is no a priori reason why the imposition of safeguards would prevent the development of a breeder programme. For example, the Japanese breeder programme runs fully under international safeguards. The more obvious and honest reason for Bhabha and subsequent leaders to oppose safeguards is the insistence on keeping the bomb option open, right from the inception of the nuclear programme. But with practically no one in the country outside of the atomic energy establishment familiar with nuclear technology, questions about the proffered excuse were never raised. When it suited his purposes, however, Bhabha also accepted safeguards. Examples of this are the reactors at Tarapur (TAPS I and II) and Rawatbhata (RAPS I and II). Bhabha's speech in 1956 at a conference on the statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) makes clear the strategy he adopted. "[T]here are," Bhabha said, "many states, technically advanced, which may undertake with Agency aid, fulfilling all the present safeguards, but in addition run their own parallel programmes independently of the Agency in which they could use the experience and know-how obtained in Agency-aided projects, without being subject in any way to the system of safeguards."42 Thus, India would use international assistance to further its weapon and civilian applications of nuclear power. At the same time as these developments were occuring, the 1950s also marked Nehru's determined pursuit

of global nuclear disarmament. Prominent among his initiatives was the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) 43 Nehru also supported the activities of the international peace movement, in particular British philosopher-mathematician Bertrand Russell's initiative to foster contact between American and Soviet scientists. For a time, it seemed that the Indian government would sponsor what eventually became the Pugwash conferences. 944 New Delhi was in fact chosen as the first conference site and in June 1956 Russell dispatched invitations for a conference there in January 1957. 45 That was not to be. As Russell lamented: " [Nehru] had been exceedingly friendly. But when I met Dr. Bhabha, India's leading official scientist. I received a cold douche. He had profound doubts about any such manifesto, let alone any such conference as I had in mind for the future (Pugwash). It became evident that I should receive no encouragement from Indian official scientific quarters." 46 Not a single Indian nuclear scientist signed the famous Russell-Einstein manifesto.47 Nehru, however, set up an official group to study the effects of nuclear explosions at Russell's suggestion.48 Balancing this concern of Nehru's in nuclear disarmament was Bhabha's interest in and awareness of weapons technology. As early as 1959, he told the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Atomic Energy that India's atomic energy programme had progressed to the point where it could make atomic weapons without external aid if called upon to do so. More revealing is George Perkovich's account of a private meeting in I960 between Nehru, Bhabha and an American military engineer, K.D. Nichols. After his 4 5-minute presentation about the advantages of American reactors, Nehru, according to Nichols, turned to Bhabha and asked him if he could develop an atomic bomb, and how long it would take him to build it. Bhabha replied that he could do it in about a year. Upon which Nehru turned to Nichols and asked him if he agreed with Bhabha. An astonished Nichols replied in the affirmative. Whereupon Nehru turned to Bhabha and said: "Well, don't do it till I tell you to."49 With the benefit of hindsight, and perhaps the scepticism that comes easily to anyone who examines the DAE's record, Perkovich also notes that Bhabha's claim had "no basis in fact".50 Even under the most optimistic assumptions a bomb could not have been made before 1963.51 The 1962 India-China border war marked an early successful public attempt at integrating the nuclear enterprise with national security when Bhabha offered the services of the Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay (now the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) to help with defence systems. He also canvassed with the government and set up an electronics committee with himself as the chairperson.52 Political authorities were certainly favourable to this kind of nexus between science and military affairs. As early as 1946, Nehru had said: Modern defence as well as modern industry require scientific research both on a broad scale and in highly specialised ways. If India has not got highly qualified scientists and up-to-date scientific institutions in large numbers, it must remain a weak country incapable of playing a primary part in a war.53 Scientists and their institutions were thus portrayed as crucial components of the state in peace, and especially in war. The year 1962 also marked the Indian Parliament's adoption of a revised Atomic Energy Act. The revised act significantly tightened secrecy and the AEC's control over all activities related to atomic energy. What was also significant, as Itty Abraham notes, was that neither the act nor the debate that took place in Parliament when introducing the act, mention, for the most part, the by then traditional focus on "peaceful uses".54 Tacitly, the connection between nuclear power and national security was being elevated. Three events mark the shift in India's nuclear programme during the next few years. The first was the death of Nehru. While encouraging the development of a militarily capable nuclear infrastructure, Nehru had always opposed explicit weaponisation. As late as 1957, when speaking in the Lok Sabha, Nehru declared that in no event would India use nuclear energy for destructive purposes.55 During his tenure as prime minister, there was only one instance when a parliamentarian ever called for the development of nuclear weapons. This was Ramachandra Bade, a member of the Jana Sangh, precursor to the current BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party). He wanted the development of nuclear weapons to counter Russia and China.56 The second event was the first Chinese nuclear test in 1964, barely two years after India lost the war with China. The third was the

completion of a reprocessing plant at Trombay in 1964, which, along with the CIRUS reactor that became critical in July I960, gave India the ability to extract plutonium and thus to make nuclear weapons. By the time of the Chinese test, Bhabha had, for all practical purposes, begun a public, though sometimes indirect, campaign for developing nuclear weapons capability. The campaign consisted of three elements. First, in response to one of the main objections against building nuclear weapons, Bhabha made exaggerated claims about how cheap nuclear weapons were. On 24 October 1964, in a broadcast on the state-run All India Radio (AIR), Bhabha quoted a paper published by the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Livermore, USA, to assert that a 10 kilotonne bomb would cost only US $350,000 or Rs 17.5 lakh. And on the basis of these figures he claimed that "a stockpile of fifty atomic bombs would cost under Rs 10 crores and a stockpile of fifty twomegaton hydrogen bombs something of the order of Rs 15 crore," and argued that this was "small compared with the military budgets of many countries."57 The 'bomb lobby' repeatedly used this speech to claim that nuclear weapons could be produced quite easily and at a relatively low cost even by a poor country like India.58 Second was the technical claim about the DAE's ability to build nuclear weapons. Speaking in London on 4 October 1964, nearly two weeks before the first Chinese test, Bhabha declared that India could explode an atom bomb within eighteen months of a decision to do so.59 And, in an attempt to provoke Prime Minister Lai Bahadur Shastri, he went on to add, "But I do not think such a decision will be taken."60 Seemingly in response to this, Shastri, who was attending a conference of non-aligned nations in Cairo at that time, declared that India's nuclear establishment was "under firm orders not to make a single experiment, not to perfect a single device which is not needed for peaceful uses of nuclear energy."61 The last caveat was the basis of the third element of Bhabha's campaign—advocating work towards building peaceful nuclear explosives (PNE). Indeed, in his crucial Lok Sabha speech on 27 November 1964 that sanctioned work towards a PNE programme, Shastri revealed: "Dr. Bhabha has made it quite clear to me that as far as we can progress and improve upon nuclear devices, we should do so, as far as development is possible, we should resort to it so that we can reap its peaceful benefits and we can use it for the development of our nation."62 What is also significant is that Shastri had met with Bhabha just before the Lok Sabha session. Clearly, Bhabha played a crucial role in obtaining political support for the PNE programme. Earlier the same year, speaking at a Pugwash conference in Udaipur, Bhabha gave a description of a deterrent relationship between two countries, even if one is much more powerful than the other. As though offering an example, Bhabha focussed on China: "[A] country with a huge population, such as China, must always present a threat to its smaller neighbours, a threat they can only meet either by collective security or by recourse to nuclear weapons to redress the imbalance in size."63 Though he did not mention India by name, it is clear what he thought were the options available to India. Following this, Bhabha suggested that the Only possible collective security measure would be a guarantee from both the United States and the Soviet Union.64 The astute Bhabha could not but have recognised that neither country was likely to offer such assurances. Relations between the US and India were often tense and the Soviet Union had not extended a nuclear umbrella to any country outside of the Warsaw Pact. Given the only two options that he had laid out, it was easy to figure out what he was recommending for India's nuclear policy. In the audience were Vikram Sarabhai, who was soon to succeed Bhabha as the head of the atomic energy programme, Indira Gandhi (soon to become prime minister), and V.C. Trivedi, who would go on to be the principal negotiator at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) talks. The momentum set by Bhabha's pronouncements continued after his sudden demise in a plane crash in 1966. Sarabhai, differed somewhat on the question of nuclear weapons. As George Perkovich puts it: "Sarabhai questioned the morality and utility of nuclear weapons for India and would soon take steps to reverse the peaceful nuclear explosives project."65 While the attempted reversals are a matter of record, Sarabhai's intentions may not have derived entirely from morality. Nor did he completely reject the idea of nuclear weapons for India. What he did not endorse was the particular PNE programme envisioned by Bhabha and other senior DAE scientists. As Sarabhai was to declare, "Let our emphasis be on reality and not on show. I am opposed to gimmicks."66 This view was at variance with the importance given to 'performative gestures' by Bhabha, Nehru, and, later, especially by the BJP. For Sarabhai, then, developing the bomb carried

no symbolic meaning; instead he evaluated it in concrete military and economic terms. In Itty Abraham's reading, Sarabhai was arguing, first, that India could not afford an atomic deterrent in order to be secure from external threats, as nothing short of a full-fledged atomic weapons arsenal with all its concomitant systems (delivery systems, second strike capability, command and control infrastructure) would provide that security. Second, and more subversively, he suggests that perhaps the more serious threat to national security came from within the country—and atomic weapons were certainly not going to be of help there.67 Despite Sarabhai's attempts to shift the focus of India's nuclear policy, the PNE effort continued. As Raja Ramanna, one of the leaders of the 1974 test, acknowledged in a private interview, "Sarabhai could not keep scientists from doing their work. He couldn't look over our shoulders."68 In other words, the normal autonomy accorded to scientists in their research helped the bomb-makers.69 Design work on the nuclear explosive tested at Pokhran began in 1968.70 Under the leadership of R. Chidambaram and Ramanna, and in cooperation with B.D. Nag Chaudhuri, scientific advisor to the minister of defence and director of the DRDO, about fifty to seventy-five scientists from the DAE and DRDO were directly involved in the project.

The 'Peaceful Nuclear Explosion' and After On 18 May 1974, at the height of a nationwide railway strike (led by George Fernandes, who was then a trade union leader and went on to become the defence minister during the time of the 1998 nuclear tests), India conducted its first nuclear test at Pokhran in the desert in Rajasthan.71 In domestic circles, enthusiastic reception followed the tests. The scientists were feted repeatedly. Popular magazines like the The Illustrated Weekly of India and Science Today carried glowing reports on the scientists — Homi Sethna, Raja Ramanna and P.K. Iyengar in particular – who made it happen.72 The role of the atomic energy establishment in pushing for the 1974 test was considerable. Apart from Bhabha, senior scientists like Sethna, Ramanna, Iyengar and Chidambaram – all of whom went on to head India's Atomic Energy Commission – played important roles in building up the momentum to the test. As summarised by Perkovich, "Whatever Mrs. [Indira] Gandhi's calculus [in conducting the test], the fact remained that conducting the PNE was not her idea. She disposed what others proposed: it was Ramanna, Sethna, Iyengar, Chidambaram, and, before them, Bhabha who made the PNE possible."73 To these leaders, observes Itty Abraham, the 1974 test was "a symbol of the changing fortunes of the atomic energy establishment."74 Soon after the 1974 test, scientists began lobbying for further nuclear tests involving more sophisticated designs. From statements after the 1998 tests, it seems likely that Iyengar and Chidambaram had developed a boosted fission design that they wanted to test in early 1983.75 Scientists were also interested in making a hydrogen bomb. Conceptual work on this probably began in the late 1970s but may not have been pursued vigorously. In a private interview with Sidhu, Ramanna admitted that when he got back from Jodhpur after the 1974 test, he met Indira Gandhi and told her, "now we'll have to work on the hydrogen bomb [H-bomb].' She said, 'I knew that pressure was coming but not that fast.' So, that settled it."76 What is more certain is that ever since the 1974 test, the DAE and DRDO scientists were working quietly to improve the design of the nuclear explosive, in particular miniaturising it and making the weapon lighter for the same explosive yield. This kind of work demonstrates, even to those who believed that a meaningful distinction can be made between a 'peaceful nuclear explosion' and a nuclear weapons test, that the purpose of the Department of Atomic Energy was not only the exploitation of "atomic energy for...peaceful purposes".77 Sometime in late 1982 or early 1983 Ramanna and V.S. Arunachalam, director of the DRDO, made their case for a nuclear test to Indira Gandhi. Without portraying the test as the beginning of a nuclear weapons programme, Ramanna and Arunachalam focused on the technical arguments for testing new designs. At the end of the meeting, Gandhi tentatively agreed for a nuclear test, only to change her mind within 24 hours.78

One of the causes for the change is said to have been a conversation with M.K. Rasgotra, India's foreign secretary, who was reportedly confronted by an American official with satellite evidence displaying preparations going on at the test site. The conversation seems to have convinced Gandhi that the US reaction would be strong and would impact on the economic troubles India was experiencing then.79 Instead it is reported that Indira Gandhi wanted to test at "the appropriate moment" and in the meanwhile she wanted to "develop other things and keep them ready," as well as to "make further improvements in... [weapons] designs."80 The 'other things' that Gandhi had in mind were long range ballistic missiles to be developed under the aegis of the DRDO. Set up in 1958 as a department of the Ministry of Defence, the DRDO is the primary source of Indian military research and development.81 As early as 1962, under Project Indigo, an Indo-Swiss agreement was signed to design and manufacture a surface to air missile (SAM). But with the purchase of SA-2 SAMs from the former Soviet Union, the project was cancelled.82 It was in February 1972 that the DRDO embarked on its first missile development undertaking, Project Devil, which aimed at reverse-engineering the SA-2 missile. The project was managed by Air Commodore V.S. Narayanan who went on to become the director of the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL).83 The project reportedly had a budget of about $700 million and employed between 700 and 800 technical personnel.84 By 1974, two liquid propulsion rocket motors had reportedly been developed. However, after the failure of several prototypes, the project was cancelled in 1978, Though it failed to create a complete system, Project Devil led to the development of several critical technologies and components that formed the basis of the Prithvi and Agni missiles. In 1983, shortly after the aborted nuclear test, the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) was set up. From the beginning, the programme had high bureaucratic priority and many standard procurement and funding procedures were overridden.85 The programme started with the development of five missile systems—the short range Prithvi, the intermediate range Agni, the surface to air missiles Akash and Trishul, and the guided anti-tank Nag. By 1988, the results of the new programme were visible with the first test of Prithvi on 25 February.86 This was followed the next year with a test of Agni. Other missile systems are also reportedly under development, such as Pinaka, Sagarika and Astra. Unlike earlier efforts to develop missiles, the missile programme borrowed expertise and personnel from the Department of Space, most prominently in the form of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who was chosen to head the IGMDP. Kalam had earlier led the Space Launch Vehicle Programme (SLVP) and thus was intimate with the details of solid propellant technology that was used for the first stage of the Agni missile. Kalam's greater contribution, however, may have been the way he chose to run the project. In a break with earlier 'autistic' practices, the IGMDP involved not only the defence laboratories, but also technical institutions, universities, ordnance factories belonging to the Ministry of Defence, and public and private sector firms.87 Following the nuclear tests of May 1998, this network has been feted. In January 1999, on the eve of Republic Day, a government press release proudly proclaimed that, "DRDO laboratories with a partner network of R&D organizations, academic institutions and industries, have been and are progressing [towards] high technology systems, against all possible difficulties. Today the nation is proud of DRDO...."88 The missile efforts and the development of more advanced designs were continued by Rajiv Gandhi when he became prime minister. Rajiv Gandhi brought in two contrasting tendencies into policy making. The first was an unprecedented expansion of military spending and defence modernisation.89 The second was an idealistic ardour in pursuing nuclear disarmament. The latter resulted in proposals like the plan for a world free of nuclear weapons that Rajiv Gandhi presented to the Special Session on Disarmament of the United Nations General Assembly in June 1988.90 But, at the same time, Rajiv Gandhi also formed a small group, including scientists like Ramanna, Chidambaram and Kalam, to "sketch India's nuclear weapon requirements and the anticipated costs required to meet them."91 The task force concluded that India could have a nuclear force that would "include the Agni and Prithvi missiles, aircraft and an appropriate number of warheads in low three digit figures".92 According to K. Subrahmanyam, defence analyst and retired civil servant, shortly after putting forward his plan for nuclear disarmament at the United Nations in 1988 and being disappointed with the lack of positive response, Rajiv Gandhi gave the go-ahead to the DRDO under Arunachalam, and the

BARC under Iyengar, to proceed with the nuclear weapons programme. Soon after that V.P. Singh, the new Indian Prime Minister, named Raja Ramanna minister of state for defence, signalling, perhaps, that the government was interested in pursuing the nuclear weapons programme. This was strengthened with the appointment of Iyengar, who had been an important member of the team involved in the 1974 Pokhran test, as chairman of the AEC in 1990. The first 'Indian nuclear deterrent' – the ability to quickly assemble nuclear weapons that could be delivered by air – is said to have come into existence around this time.93 Nevertheless, even well into the 1990s, prominent scientists such as Chidambaram claimed that India had not "stockpiled" or "deployed" nuclear weapons.94 Retired scientists, however, were more forthright, perhaps in an attempt to further the nuclear weapons effort. Thus, for example, in his 1991 autobiography, Ramanna, in contrast to official claims that the 1974 test was a peaceful nuclear explosion, described how he had "been involved in the development of aprototype weapon"95 (emphasis added). Iyengar, in his 1993 retirement speech, raised the profile of the programme by claiming that "to have been able to put together an atomic device in 1974 was the most exhilarating experience of my career."96 M.R. Srinivasan advised the government to become more "hawkish" on the nuclear issue.97 In 1994, official scientists like AEC chairman Chidambaram and DRDO chief Kalam started a media campaign to counter American non-proliferation initiatives. Breaking a longstanding rule of the establishment, Chidambaram, in an interview to India Today.boasted about "how good our bomb was" when asked about the 1974 test.98 Former AEC chairman M.R. Srinivasan declared in an interview in The Indian Express that "[t]here are responsible persons who know we have the nuclear weapons capability," and suggested that "[w]e should have followed the Chinese example of open defiance and cultivation of force."99 Other media hawks, fed with material by scientists, added to the pressure for full-scale tests. By August 1995, the test site at Pokhran was being prepared for nuclear tests. According to former top-level scientists and policy advisors, "the strategic enclave did not need explicit political authorization to maintain the site or make other test preparation."100 According to interviews conducted by Perkovich, the scientists justified their pressure for further tests on three grounds: [T]hey needed to perfect and demonstrate their technological innovations; they believed that only fullscale explosive tests could validate their work, and therefore the nuclear deterrent; they needed explosive tests to both recruit and retain talented scientists and engineers in the nuclear and defence programs when higher paying jobs awaited them in the commercial sector101 However, the planned test was called off. Shortly thereafter the BJP came to power in May 1996 on a hawkish platform. Scientists sought to seize the opportunity afforded by the BJP's nuclear hawkishness as soon as possible, and increased preparations even before the BJP formed the government. Once again the tests were cancelled, this time because the BJP lost the vote of confidence in Parliament. The debate over the CTBT in 1996 was a turning point in the Indian nuclear policy. Even as late as March 1996, the Indian foreign secretary, Salman Haider said, "We do not believe that the acquisition of nuclear weapons is essential for our national security and we have followed a conscious decision in this regard."102 This was completely in line with the traditional Indian view on not relying on nuclear weapons for its security. But on 20 June 1996, when Arundhati Ghose, Indian ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, rejected the CTBT in the present form, she said that the CTBT was not "in India's national security interest" and "our national security considerations (have) become a key factor in our decisionmaking."103 Scientists, who realised that signing the CTBT would enormously hamper their nuclear weapons efforts, lobbied behind the scenes and publicly adopted the position that the CTBT should be linked with "a timebound programme for total elimination of all nuclear weapons".104 Opposing the CTBT represented a public relations opportunity for the nuclear establishment to counter publicly-aired doubts about the functioning of the nuclear establishment and to provide its personnel with continued incentives for furthering nuclear-

weapons work105. Having succeeded in getting India to vote against the CTBT, the nuclear establishment approached Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda for permission to conduct tests. In Deve Gowda's words, he declined "not because of the adverse reaction from the international community but because of my concern for improving the economic situation of the country.106" With the BJP coming back to power in 1998, scientists busied themselves with preparing for the expected tests. Even before the election results came out, while talking to a journalist about nuclear tests, Chidambaram came as close to publicly advocating nuclear weapon tests as any serving AEC chairman had.107 First, Chidambaram claimed: "[W]e are prepared..., but it is [for] the policy makers to decide whether to go nuclear or keep the options open."108 Then when asked about the possibility of using computer simulations to develop nuclear weapons, Chidambaram responded, "[T]hen what was the use of some countries going for 2,000 explosions?" And further added, "[the] higher the database, [the] better the simulations."109 With the tests of 11 and 13 May 1998, India's nuclear weapons scientists finally achieved 'their dreams'. Speaking at a joint DAE-DRDO press conference, Kalam proclaimed that "weaponization is now complete".110 There have also been statements that the tests have "significantly enhanced our capability in computer simulations of new designs and taken us to the stage of sub-critical experiments in the future, if considered necessary."111 Regardless of the accuracy' of these claims, the implicit reference to the example of the Stockpile Stewardship programme in the United States suggests that the leaders of the Indian nuclear programme now think of it as being similar to those of Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore. Soon after the May 1998 tests, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee publicly celebrated the role of the scientists who designed the weapons and conducted the explosions, raising science to the level hitherto reserved for those who protect the nation and feed its citizens. Though left unsaid, as must be obvious from the context, it is the kind of science practised by the strategic enclave that he sought to place on a pedestal. Shortly thereafter, this felicitation also translated to massive budgetary increases for these establishments as well as several national awards to these scientists. The nuclear and missile establishments have used their current influence and increased funding to further weapons programmes. Research on nuclear weapons with the aim of qualitative improvements and development of new designs continues. One weapons system that seems to be receiving a lot of attention is the neutron bomb; according to Chidambaram, India can make one.112 Following this claim, Iyengar called for testing one113. Kalam, drawing on the infamous Star Wars programme of the United States, proposed building a missile shield around New Delhi.114 Another 'futuristic' weapon being pursued is a 'beam weapon' that uses bursts of microwaves.115 Along with these qualitative developments, the nuclear establishment has also pushed for an increase in the quantity of nuclear weapons material. Accordingly, in December 1999, India's minister of state for atomic energy announced plans to construct a new plutonium production reactor comparable to its 100 MW Dhruva plant.116 All these suggest that the pressure from the nuclear and missile establishments will contribute greatly to an arms race in South Asia, with disastrous consequences for the inhabitants of this region.

Opposition Alongside this history – of canvassing for, propelling and building the bomb, and the associated means of delivery – the role of the scientists (unfortunately few) in resisting these efforts must also be mentioned. Despite the Nehruvian commitment to big science, the contours and institutional focus of the nuclear establishment was by no means predetermined. Much before Bhabha became a force to reckon with in Indian science policy, the scientist who dominated discussions and formulations of science policy was the prominent physicist and astrophysicist Meghnad Saha. As early as 1938, Subash Chandra Bose who was then president of the Indian National Congress, had invited Saha to join the national planning committee. Saha became the chairperson of the power and fuel subcommittee as well as a member of the river transport and irrigation

subcommittees.117 Prior to that Saha had started the influential science and science policy journal, Science and Culture, and used it to espouse his views on science planning. Saha's notions about the role of science in society were quite different from those of Bhabha's. Saha "emphasized 'judicious and equitable distribution' and advocated participatory democracy even in engineering projects that involve highly technical information"; and his nationalism was ' based on the rights and aspirations of the majority with little affiliation or identification with the Indian 'aristocratic classes'."118 Though Saha and his group had deep political roots in the Indian nationalist movement, the more elitist group led by Bhabha prevailed over the more open and democratically disposed group led by Saha.119 Though ousted from power, Saha continued to argue for open and university-based research in nuclear physics. He opposed the AEC because it was being run in a secretive fashion. He also felt that "India first needed to grow an independent industrial strength, and also to train in universities personnel in nuclear physics."120 Saha argued that "atomic energy cannot be developed unless you enlist the services of thousands of scientists in your own country. Scientists of India have been prevented from taking part in the development of atomic energy."121 All that was of no avail; Indian nuclear policy continued to be fashioned by a small coterie of decision-makers and scientists. Saha was not alone among the ranks of well-known scientists who opposed Bhabha and the AEC. Throughout the same period, well-known physicist C.V. Raman, was very critical of nuclear weapons and of the militarisation of science.122 D.D. Kosambi, a prominent mathematician, also made an unsuccessful attempt at trying to maintain an open and participatory system, and questioned the high expenditures on atomic energy research and development. Unlike Saha and Raman, Kosambi did not head the institution he worked for; in 1962 he was removed from his position as senior fellow at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.123 Though without much success, opposition to the activities of the DAE has continued. In the 1980s, Amulya Reddy, a physical chemist who turned his attention to energy and rural development issues, assessed the costs of nuclear power in India and discovered several problems with the way the AEC was calculating the costs. In contrast to the claims of the AEC, Reddy concluded that other options like coal and hydroelectric power were cheaper than nuclear power, under realistic, rather than optimistic assumptions.124 More recently, he has been one of the important figures in opposing the 1998 nuclear tests125. A completely different kind of engagement is demonstrated by members of the people s science movement and scientist activists like Surendra and Sanghamitra Gadekar.126 Surendra, a physicist by training, and Sanghamitra, a physician by training, have been bringing out Anumukti, South Asia's only anti-nuclear magazine. Apart from attacking different aspects of Indian nuclear policy, they have carried out detailed health surveys of people living near nuclear facilities127. With the nuclear tests of May 1998, opposition to nuclear weapons, and to a lesser extent nuclear energy, has become much more prevalent, both in the society at large and among many scientists. At least two groups of scientists launched petitions signed by hundreds of individuals condemning the action by the government; as a result, there is now an organisation called Indian Scientists Against Nuclear Weapons.128 Prominent among these scientists is T. Jayaraman, faculty member at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc). He has become one of the vocal critics of the BJP government's nuclear weapons efforts. Through his articles in Indian magazines and journals like Frontline and Seminar, he has raised difficult questions about the capabilities of the Indian nuclear establishment, the draft Indian Nuclear Doctrine, the efficacy of deterrence and so on. The 1998 nuclear tests drew flak from within the nuclear establishment as well. N. Srinivasan, a former member of the AEC and the first director of the Reactor Research Centre (now the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research) rued the impact of the tests on the nuclear power programme: "I have a sad feeling that the first nail was driven in the coffin of the nuclear power programme in May '74 and the last nails have now been hammered in, in May '98. I fervently hope I am wrong.129" Despite this relatively long history of opposition, anti-nuclear scientists in India have not made much use of their technical expertise. This has both good and bad consequences. In the West the peace and anti-nuclear movement was, in the words of Eqbal Ahmad, "nuko-centric, phobo-centric (creating fear rather than

understanding), techno-centric (concerned with the technology rather than causes) "130 This happened in part because of the privileging of the expertise of scientists. Whereas in India, scientists involved in antinuclear activities have, mostly, come with significantly different political biographies. They are, therefore, more likely to pay heed to a vaster range of social problems, of which nuclear weapons are only one symptom, and not focus completely on technical issues131. At the same time, there are, after all, technical issues related to nuclear weapons that have to be addressed through technical means.132 Thus, there is a relative lack of independent technical expertise that could challenge statements and claims made by official scientists about various aspects of the nuclear weapons and energy programmes—technical feasibility, economic viability, safety of reactors, and the environmental impacts of the nuclear programme. Technical expertise would be very valuable. As Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel argued in their 1974 book Advice and Dissent, " [The] way in which technical experts make their services available to society can significantly affect the distribution of political power."133 Historically there have been many differences between how scientists have responded to and affected nuclear policy in the US and India. Apart from their contributions to building the nuclear complex, scientists in India have largely played only two kinds of roles: advisors supportive of government policy, often being even more hawkish, and dissidents. There are practically no examples of scientists who, as advisors, have exerted a moderating and disarming influence on the government.134 To a small extent Sarabhai and Srinivasan have played this role, but their dual role as purveyors of the nuclear energy programme has imposed limits on their effectiveness in moderating policy. Further, as mentioned earlier, Sarabhai was not opposed to nuclear weapons per se. He was only opposed to symbolic acts without enough substance. Similarly, Srinivasan's concerns were only that India would "get on to a vast weaponisation programme which is harmful to the interests of the common man in this country and to the people in the region generally.135" Nevertheless, he felt that weaponisation was inevitable. In the wake of calls by the leaders of the strategic enclave to "build up a military industrial complex"136, it is imperative that scientists and society in general resist the pressures to turn all of science into 'the handmaid of the war machine'. In the United States, the combined effects of a large-scale military-industrial complex and what David Dickson terms "the new politics of science" has led to a situation wherein planning for science is now exclusively based—whether in the short, the medium, or the long term—on the needs of the military and the marketplace; social objectives (such as the protection of health or the natural environment)...are accepted only to the extent that they are compatible with increased military strength or commercial profits137. However, opposition to nuclear weapons or energy must not be seen as just that. It must be viewed as part of developing alternative sources of technical expertise, grounded in local realities and reflecting the aspirations of the vast majority of people.

Conclusion India's nuclear programme started with the promise of producing cheap electricity that was assumed to be necessary and, to a large extent, sufficient for 'progress'. Failing in this task, the programme, or more precisely the institutions that ran the programme, invented a different rationale to ensure continued funding. This was by entering the 'national security' business, clearly a goal certain to gain support from political elites. The nuclear establishment along with the DRDO (i.e. the strategic enclave), performed this task with enthusiasm. Their contributions are not confined merely to designing and manufacturing the bomb but also included lobbying with political leaders and mobilising elite constituencies, often indirectly, but also directly through public advocacy for nuclear weapons and missiles. By seeking power through their claims of knowledge and expertise, the strategic enclave, and to some extent the larger scientific community, cannot escape responsibility for the enormous impacts on the 'one-sixth of humanity' that Prime Minister Vajpayee invoked to justify his decision to conduct the May 1998 nuclear tests. It is up to this one-sixth of humanity, that is, the people of India, to hold them responsible.

Because the responsibility flows from the connection between knowledge and power, the road out of the bomb's shadow passes through the fields of power and knowledge. The challenge to the power of the elites comes from the 'new' social movements and the much older labour movements, which have been attempting to make democracy and justice the basis of decision making.138 Scientists, as well as other professionals, with their knowledge and expertise must join this caravan. * The title is drawn from Julien Benda, The Treason of the Intellectuals trans. Richard Aldington (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1969); originally published La Trahison des Clercs (Paris: B. Grasset, 1927).

A Mandate for Nuclear Prudence: International Court of Justice on Nuclear Weapons* SIDDARTHA MALLAVARAPU For the first time in legal history, on 8 July 1996, the International Court of Justice (referred to hereafter as the World Court) pronounced its Advisory Opinion (referred to hereafter as Opinion) on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The World Court ruled that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of international humanitarian law."1 It endorsed unanimously a legal obligation on all states "to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control."2 The Opinion is salient not merely for its uniqueness, but more crucially because it is premised on an implicit acknowledgement that even on matters of high policy', restraints need to be incorporated into state consideration.3 This essay seeks to draw attention to the main findings of the Opinion, and by doing so highlight an important international legal development in nuclear jurisprudence. It is vital that concerned citizens worldwide understand the ramifications of the Opinion for the future of nuclear weapons. It attests to the need for bringing to an early conclusion 'multilateral' negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention prohibiting "the development testing, production, stockpiling, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons," and providing for their "elimination".4 It is essential to appreciate that "the World Court Advisory Opinion has particular relevance to the complex Indian stand over the years on nuclear weaponry."5 As part of the proceedings at the World Court, India submitted a Memorial to it,6 which is in marked contrast to the more recent draft nuclear doctrine,7 placed for public debate in August 1999. The departure from an ambiguous nuclear posture to one of declared nuclear capability is apparent—the juxtaposition of these two texts reveals a paradigmatic shift in the strategic assumptions involved in making the transition from an undeclared to a declared nuclear weapon state.8 While India has not renounced its traditional espousal of elimination of nuclear weapons, it is faced with a simultaneous impulse to integrate itself into the nuclear mainstream'.9 A 'disarmament-deterrence dialectic' appears to be the defining characteristic of the current Indian nuclear-policy posture.10 While the decision to have gone overtly nuclear was indeed a substantial one, there remain important and unresolved issues about the eventual trajectory of the Indian nuclear programme. Nuclear weapon states expose civilian populations of their 'own' and 'adversarial' states to the risks of a holocaust—a fact registered in India's written Memorial to the Court. Indian considerations about the demerits of deterrence as late as 1996 could serve as a useful referent, suggestive of the distance India appears to have doctrinally traversed, and the uncertainties and challenges intrinsic to all states embarking or relying on such an approach since. The manner in which the advisory capacity of the World Court came to be invoked should be viewed in the historical context of a concerted campaign mounted by both non-state and certain state actors against nuclear weapons. A coalition of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), comprising the International Peace Bureau (IPB), the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), played a key role in mobilising public support for a consideration of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, by the

World Court.11 The history of this movement goes back a few decades. According to one account it may be traced back to as early as "5 September 1945, [when] barely a month after Hiroshima, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) alerted National Red Cross Societies to grave problems, which the use of this new weapon of mass destruction posed for it."12 India, "as early as 1981...had looked closely at the illegality question with support from Nagendra Singh (the World Court judge and later its President) and other Indian lawyers."13 A 'former' Indian ambassador to the UN and 'Chair of the Conference on Disarmament', Rikhi Jaipal had affirmed "it was vital to get an advisory opinion, and then to build it into a legally binding treaty."14 He also gave the NGOs astute guidance on the text of the resolution, and how to lobby with the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).15 Consistent with this line of thinking, India endorsed the validity of a request by the UNGA to the World Court for a legal determination of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.

The Outcome of the Advisory Proceedings On 15 December 1994, the UNGA approached the World Court with a request (49/75k), seeking an advisory opinion on the question, is "the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstances permitted under international law?"16 Article 96, paragraph 1 of the UN Charter provided the legal basis for this intervention: " [t]he General Assembly or the Security Council may request the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on any legal question." The World Court derived its competence from Article 65, paragraph 1 of its Statute, according to which "the Court may give an advisory opinion on any legal question at the request of whatever body may be authorized by or in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to make such a request." There was a great deal of resistance from the established nuclear weapon states to secure any legal assessment on this issue.17 Nevertheless, the World Court overruled these objections and argued that it would confine itself "to discharge an essentially judicial task".18 Further it reaffirmed that "its task is to engage in its normal judicial function of ascertaining the existence or otherwise of legal principles and rules applicable to the threat or use of nuclear weapons."19 The World Court also upheld the view that the Opinion "would have relevance for the continuing debate on the matter in the General Assembly and would present an additional element in the negotiations on the matter."20The subject matter of the Opinion necessitated in the World Court's view an examination of several areas of overlapping legal concern vis a vis human rights, the environment, humanitarian law, genocide, self-defence and deterrence. A whole new legal and normative 'doctrinal terrain' was opened up by the Opinion, and the World Court found itself entrusted with having to assess a series of claims by the proponents of both legality and illegality.21

The 'Uniqueness' of Nuclear Weapons The World Court argued that nuclear weapons are a matter of international legal concern because they belong to a distinct class of weapons of armed conflict. While all nuclear weapon states premise their nuclear doctrine on deterrence and presume that deterrence shall endure, there is no reason to believe that this is inevitably the case. The World Court factored this aspect and profiled the actual effects of nuclear weapons use in its Opinion. In this context radiation effects peculiar to the use of nuclear weapons are of immense concern. These effects are not restricted to a single generation, but have "the potential to destroy all civilization and the entire ecosystem of the planet".22 Thus, the World Court established the 'uniqueness' of the weapon as a fundamental ground on which the Opinion was to be premised.23 Human Rights Law: In the context of human rights, the World Court noted "that the protection of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights does not cease in times of war, except by operation of Article 4 of the Covenant whereby certain provisions may be derogated from in a time of national emergency. Respect for the right to life is not, however, such a provision. In principle, the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of one's life applies also during hostilities. The test of what is an arbitrary deprivation of life, however, then to be determined by the applicable lex specialis, namely the laws applicable in armed conflict, which is designed to regulate the conduct of hostilities. Thus, whether a particular loss of life, through the use

of a certain weapon in warfare, is to be considered an arbitrary deprivation of life contrary to Article 6 of the Covenant, can only be decided by reference to the law applicable in armed conflict and not deduced from the terms of the Covenant itself."24 Article 6(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, reads, "Every human being has the inherent right to life. The right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life."25 Thus "while the Court affirms the perennial relevance of non-derogable human rights during both peacetime as well as war, it recognizes that their applicability during war is conditioned by the humanitarian law and not deduced from the terms of the Covenant itself."26 Genocide: According to Article II of the Convention of 9 December 1948 on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the acts that constitute genocide would be "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a. Killing members of the group; b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of that group; c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bringing about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.27 The Article also argued that "the number of deaths occasioned by the use of nuclear weapons would be enormous; that the victims could, in certain cases, include persons of a certain national, ethnic, racial or religious group; and that the intention to destroy such groups could be inferred from the fact that the user of the nuclear weapon would have omitted to take account of the well known effects of the use of such weapons."28 While the World Court did not "expressly evaluate" plausible scenarios of nuclear use to decide what would qualify as acts of genocide, it did point out that "it would only be possible to arrive at such a conclusion after having taken due account of the circumstances specific to each case."29 Environmental Law: On the issue of environment, the World Court did endorse the fact that the environment is under daily threat and that the use of nuclear weapons could constitute a catastrophe for the environment. The Court also recognizes that the environment is not an abstraction but represents the living space, the quality of life and the very health of the human beings, including generations unborn. The existence of the general obligation of States to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction and control respect the environment of other States or of areas beyond national control is now part of the corpus of international law relating to the environment.30 While the World Court noted that "it does not consider that the treaties in question could have intended to deprive a State of the exercise of its right of self-defence under international law because of its obligations to protect the environment," it nevertheless upheld the position that "[s]tates must take environmental considerations into account when assessing what is necessary and proportionate in the pursuit of legitimate military objectives."31 Further, "respect for the environment is one of the elements that go to assessing whether an action is in conformity with the principles of necessity and proportionality."32 Thus "important environmental factors...are properly to be taken into account in the context of the implementation of the principles and rules of law in armed conflict."33 Humanitarian Law: The most valuable section of the World Court's Opinion deals with the affirmation of the principles of international humanitarian law: The cardinal principles contained in the texts constituting the fabric of humanitarian law are the following: The first is aimed at the protection of the civilian population and civilian objects and establishes the distinction between combatants and non-combatants; States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets. According to the second principle, it is accordingly prohibited to use weapons causing them such harm or uselessly aggravating their suffering. In application of that second principle, States do

not have unlimited freedom of choice of means in the weapons that they use.34 Two articles of immense significance in 'the conduct of military operations' relate to the 1907 Hague Regulations and the St. Petersburg Declaration. According to the latter, "the use of weapons which uselessly aggravate the suffering of disabled men or make their death inevitable" are condemned.35 Similarly Article 23 of the Hague Convention IV of 1907 prohibits the use of "arms, projectiles, or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering."36 The World Court rejected arguments suggesting that nuclear weapons remained outside the gamut of international humanitarian law given that the applicable laws predated the weapon. It upheld the position that "the newness of nuclear weapons has been expressly rejected as an argument against the application to them of international humanitarian law."37 The World Court endorsed that "the intrinsically humanitarian character of the legal principles in question permeates the entire law of armed conflict and applies to all forms of warfare and to all kinds of weapons, those of the past, those of the present and those of the future."38 However, it also recorded clearly that "there is a qualitative as well as quantitative difference between nuclear arms and all conventional arms."39 The World Court also rejected the case for the legality of the 'limited war' argument. It recorded in this context that none of the States advocating the legality of use of nuclear weapons under certain circumstances, including the 'clean' use of smaller, low yield tactical nuclear weapons, has indicated what, supposing such limited use were feasible, would be the precise circumstances justifying such use nor whether such limited use would not tend to escalate into the all-out use of high yield nuclear weapons. This being so, the Court does not consider that it has a sufficient basis for the determination on the validity of this view.40 While the World Court did not categorically reject the use of nuclear weapons as illegal, it did affirm that "in view of the unique characteristics of nuclear weapons.. .the use of such weapons in fact seems scarcely reconcilable with respect for such requirements."41 Prior to this the World Court also endorsed the view that "methods and means of warfare, which would preclude any distinction between civilian and military targets, or which would result in unnecessary suffering to combatants are prohibited."42 Since nuclear weapons do not meet these requirements it would be prudent to recognise that this is in effect a categorical prescriptive ban on all situations of nuclear weapons use.43 Self-Defence and Deterrence: Regarding the use of force, the World Court drew attention to Article 2, paragraph 4 of the UN Charter which maintains that "all members shall refrain in international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." Also of relevance in this context is the reference to Article 51 of the same Charter: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of the right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. The World Court in this context noted that "a use of force that is proportionate under the law of selfdefence, must in order to be lawful also meet the requirements of the law applicable in armed conflict which comprise in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law."44 While the World Court did note that "it cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence in which the very survival of a State would be at stake," it nevertheless endorsed the view that "the very nature of all nuclear weapons and the profound risks associated therewith are further considerations to be borne in mind by States believing that they can exercise a nuclear response in self-defence in accordance with the requirements of proportionality."45

It is necessary here to underline the 'indivisibility' of notions of threat and actual use of force.46 The notions of "threat" and "use of force" under Article 2, paragraph 4 of the Charter stand together in the sense that if the use of force itself in a given case is illegal—for whatever reason—the threat to use such force would be likewise illegal. In short if it is to be lawful, the declared readiness of a State to use force must be a use of force that is in conformity with the Charter. For the rest, no State—whether or not it defended the policy of deterrence—suggested to the Court that it would be lawful to threaten to use force if the use of force contemplated would be illegal.47 The World Court's stance on deterrence appeared to reveal caution.48 While the Court upheld the principles of humanitarian law it did not pronounce directly on deterrence.49 Judge Shi Jiuyong of China argued that nuclear deterrence was an instrument of policy which certain nuclear weapon States use in their relation with other States and which is said to prevent the outbreak of a massive armed conflict or war, and to maintain peace and security among nations. Undoubtedly this practice of certain nuclear weapon States is within the realm of international politics, not that of law. It has no legal significance from the standpoint of the formation of a customary rule prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons as such. Rather, the policy of nuclear deterrence should be an object of regulation by law, not vice versa.50 It has, however, been pointed out in this context that the holding that a threat of a use of force that violates humanitarian and other law or the requirement of proportionality is itself illegal fatally undermines the doctrine of deterrence with respect to such central and openly elements as threatened first use against conventional aggression by a nuclear weapon state, threatened first use in defense of 'vital interests', confrontations with nuclear weapon states, and threatened massive retaliation against a nuclear attack.51 NATO security doctrines and practices are of central concern in this regard.52 While NATO nuclear weapon states are not oblivious to the reality of the Opinion, they have sought to circumvent the Opinion by claiming 'compliance' with the findings of the Court.53 These claims are being increasingly contested—in December 1998, seven countries, in what is called the New Agenda Coalition, pushed an anti-nuclear resolution at the UN which received overwhelming support including abstentions from 12 of the 16 NATO countries; these countries defied great pressure from the US, the UK and France to vote against the resolution.54 Moreover, in 1998, for the first time, Germany called for NATO to reconsider its first-use nuclear weapons pledge. Despite overwhelming resistance to such measures, "[t]he fact remains that for the first time some NATO members have called for such strategic re-evaluation of NATO nuclear doctrines in the post-Cold war era."55

The Indian Memorial Submitted to the International Court of Justice India played a laudable role in the effort to get a legal opinion on the subject of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. As with other countries that are part of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM), India also supported the campaign for a pronouncement on this issue.56 The support for the campaign could be seen as part of the long tradition in India's foreign policy, as exemplified by its support of scores of UNGA resolutions calling for nuclear abolition.57 The support for the Nuclear Weapons Convention also stems from this history of abolitionist effort in the nuclear realm, endorsed by India over the years. India's concerns about the global future of nuclear weapons serves as a point of reference in the context of the World Court's Opinion. The Memorial is of value even today for its clear articulation of concerns about the implications of reliance on deterrence, the limits of measures adopted in 'self-defence', and reprisals. For a better appreciation of the case India made in that context, parts of the original text have been reproduced. Self-Defence: In the context of self-defence, India advanced the case that any use of force in self-defence has to be proportional to the means and ends involved or to the original wrongful use of force. However, the right of self-defence is to be regarded as a provisional measure or a

remedy and hence as soon as other means or measures become available, the resort to self-defence through use of force has to cease. Even though an opinion is expressed that the reference to inherent right of self-defence in Article 51 provides the basis for states to undertake a preventive action in self-defence in the form of self-preservation, this, according to a more prevalent view, is not supportable. According to the prevailing view, the qualification of the right to self-defence by the word 'inherent' in Article 51 serves not only to emphasize that the right is available to every state regardless of whether it is a UN member or not. Further, according to this view, the fundamental purpose of the UN Charter is to restrict the use of force by states to the utmost extent necessary, keeping in view Article 1(1) and Para 7 of the Preamble of the UN Charter. (See Encyclopaedia of Public International Law, Max Planck Institute, vol. 4 (N-2), North Holland Pub. Co., p. 272). It is even suggested that where one state pre-announces an armed attack against another state, a hardly conceivable practice, preventive self-defence would be lawful! In view of the above and given the strict limitations on the non-use of force and the right of self-defence, it is our view that use of nuclear weapons in any armed conflict as a first attack would be unlawful under international law.58 Reprisals: The Indian deposition supported the case for outlawing reprisals as well. The question then for consideration is whether the use of nuclear weapons would be lawful as a measure of reprisal or retaliation if the same is used by any adversary in the first instance. Reprisal or retaliation under international law are also governed by certain specific principles. First, reprisals to be valid and admissible could only be taken in response to a prior delict or wrongful act by a state. Second, such reprisals must remain within reasonable bounds of proportionality to the effect created by the original wrongful act. However, reprisals could not involve acts which are malum in such as certain violations of human rights, certain breaches of the laws of war and rules in the nature of jus cogens, that is to say obligations of an absolute character, compliance with which is not dependent on corresponding compliance by others but is requisite in all circumstances unless under stress of literal vis major (see G. Fitzmaurice, "General Principles of International Law", vol. 92, Recueil des Cours (1957-11), pp. 119-120). In other words a nuclear weapon could not be used by way of reprisal against another state if that state did not commit any wrongful act or delict involving use of force. Second, when a state commits such a wrongful act or delict, the use of force by way of reprisal would have to be proportionate and as such if the wrongful act did not involve the use of a nuclear weapon, the reprisal could also not involve the use of a nuclear weapon. Third, even where a wrongful act involved the use of a nuclear weapon, the reprisal action cannot involve use of a nuclear weapon without violating certain fundamental principles of humanitarian law. In this sense, prohibition of the use of a nuclear weapon in an armed conflict is an absolute one, compliance with which is not dependent on corresponding compliance by others but is requisite in all circumstances. In view of the above, the use of nuclear weapons even by way of reprisal or retaliation appears to be unlawful.59 Deterrence: India continued its longstanding opposition to deterrence by arguing that [n]uclear deterrence has been considered to be abhorrent to human sentiment since it implies that a state, if required to defend its own existence, will act with pitiless disregard for the consequences of its own and adversary's people. Another question which arises in relation to the theory of deterrence is whether the keeping of peace or the prevention of war is to be made dependent on the threat of horrific indiscriminate destruction which justifies the stockpiling of such weapons at an enormous expense, in the hope that they will merely act as deterrent but will in fact not be used. However, those who do not have such weapons would all the time be racing to build them and those who already have nuclear weapons would continue to develop even more destructive weapons to maintain the superiority necessary for deterrence, and this would keep humanity in the perpetual fear of total destruction. A better and saner way to secure everlasting peace would be to ensure that not only are such weapons never used but also

not made. The security of all nations would best be safeguarded by a nuclear weapon free world. If peace is the ultimate objective there can be no doubt that disarmament must be given priority and has to take precedence over deterrence.60

Domestic Legal Reception Indian legal concerns in the sphere of nuclear delegitimisation far predate the July 1996 Opinion. Judge Nagendra Singh has been credited with having made a valuable Indian contribution to the study of international law and nuclear weapons.61 As early as 1959 he noted that "a fresh specific ban as such is politically desirable, and may even be described as politically necessary, but legally it can only be regarded as welcome, though not essential, since nuclear weapons are already banned under the existing law."62 Premised on a firm understanding that "[i]n the ultimate analysis the binding nature of international law is dependent on the will of each individual member of the international community," Singh did affirm that "[t]he tie of mutual interest is the main power compelling acceptance of the law and its due observance in practice."63 In a similarly prophetic account of the relation between nuclear weapons and international law in 1980, Richard Falk, Lee Meyrowitz and Jack Sanderson endorsed the political value' of securing a legal opinion on nuclear weapon threat or use.64 This was despite a conscious recognition that "an express prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons seem[ed] unnecessary for purposes of analysis given the clarity and bearing of conventional and customary law."65 According to another scholar, B.S. Chimni, "nuclear weapons are unlawful by definition" and they "can never be reconciled with the concept of law for it negates its very essence."66 In the light of this history and a longstanding moral and strategic abhorrence of nuclear weapons and the doctrine of deterrence, the majority of international law scholars in India keenly awaited the rendition of the World Court's Opinion. Their informed reactions are carried in the Indian Journal of International Lawafter the rendition of the July 1996 Opinion, prior to the May 1998 nuclear tests conducted at Pokhran.67 Most accounts, while critical of certain aspects of the Opinion, ultimately affirm the World Court's willingness to directly address the question of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, and argue that the Opinion be positively construed. While the finding of 'general illegality' was hailed, greater apprehension however accompanied the World Court's more controversial finding on self-defence. Critical responses were particularly articulated in the context of the perceived inadequacies in the World Court's application of the existing corpus of Human Rights Law, the Genocide Convention, and International Environmental Law.68 However, scholars reflecting directly on the Advisory Opinion reiterated the need to eschew a narrow interpretation of the Opinion and reaffirmed the indispensability of the principles of international humanitarian law particularly in the context of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The World Court, by its own admission, also drew attention to the "totality of legal grounds" to be taken into consideration in any evaluation of the Opinion.69 Even in the context of the World Court's treatment of self- defence, V.S. Mani observed that while greater clarity was desirable in the eventual formulation on this issue, nevertheless the Court [did] indicate that at the present state of technology the adverse effects of use of nuclear weapons [are] such that these weapons cannot be used without violating the humanitarian law, the law of self-defence, the law of environment and the human rights law. This indeed, renders the permissibility of resort to nuclear weapons even "when the very survival of the state is at stake" rather theoretical, because given the present level of technology, any use of these weapons, will most certainly violate the above legal boundaries70 It was also pointed out by P. Sreenivasa Rao, joint secretary and legal advisor, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, that "the Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the following points is particularly welcome: that nuclear weapons are covered under international humanitarian law, that there is a legal obligation to pursue negotiations in all aspects of nuclear disarmament under strict and effective international control, and that 'generally threat or use of nuclear weapons is contrary to international law of armed conflicts and rules of humanitarian law."71 Rao has also observed in this context that "[t]he Court thus

seemed to endorse the strongly held Indian view which insists upon a time bound programme for nuclear disarmament."72 It has thus come to be acknowledged that there is no law authorizing the threat or use of nuclear weapons; that the principle of prohibition of use of force as well as the constraints on the right of self-defence continue to govern the matter even in case of a threat to the survival of a state; that the principles and rules of the law in armed conflict in general and those of humanitarian law in particular also continue to govern the threat or use of any weapon in any circumstance; and that there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control. In brief, the Court has given its policy statement on new international nuclear law; now it expects states to codify that law without delay73 (emphasis added).

The Draft Indian Nuclear Doctrine The draft Indian Nuclear Doctrine (dIND) which was released on 17 August 1999, indicates the tenor of current nuclear prescription, though not "formally approved".74 The document "outlines the broad principles for the development and employment of India's nuclear forces."75 The rationale for acquiring nuclear weapons has been attributed to an "insurance against potential risks to peace and stability".76 This rationale is in sharp contrast to the Indian deposition to the World Court. Self-Defence and Deterrence Though India has hitherto been firmly opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, the dIND does render nuclear weapons use in self-defence a theoretical possibility. While the World Court did note contentiously in the context of self-defence that "in view of the current state of international law and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence in which the very survival of a State would be at stake," it did affirm that such use must be compatible with "the principles and rules of international humanitarian law."77 As President Mohammed Bedjaoui further clarified in his appended Declaration, "the Court's inability to go beyond this statement of the situation can in no manner be interpreted to mean that it is leaving the door ajar to recognition of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons."78 It is important to appreciate that self-defence [is] available only against an armed attack; the force used in self-defence must be proportionate to the dangers to be warded off; and it must conform to the principles of laws and customs of war. The cardinal principles of the laws and customs of war were (a) the principle of avoidance of superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering; (b) the principle of discrimination between combatants and non combatants; (c) the principle of avoidance of widespread, long term and severe damage to the natural environment; and (d) the principle of respect for neutrality. It is clear that each of these principles would stand violated by use of nuclear weapons at the present level of technology. Nor could a violation of these fundamental principles by the attacker justify a counter-revolution by the defending state79 (emphasis added). India's reconceptualisation of deterrence is evident in the formulation of the dIND. It reads: "[i]n the absence of global nuclear disarmament India's strategic interests require effective, credible nuclear deterrence and adequate retaliatory capability should deterrence fail. This is consistent with the UN Charter, which sanctions the right of self-defence. "80 The distinction between the right to self-defence and the right to use nuclear weapons in self-defence needs to be maintained by all nuclear weapon states in this context. Judge Weeramantry observed in an appended Dissenting Opinion, "the use of force in self-defence (which is an undoubted right) is one thing and the use of nuclear weapons in self-defence is another. The permission granted by international law for the first does not embrace the second, which is subject to other governing principles as well."81 He affirms in this regard that "[principles relating to unnecessary suffering, proportionality, discrimination, non-belligerent states, genocide, environmental damage and human rights would all be violated, no less in self-defence than in an open act of aggression. The jus in bello the principles

governing an actual armed conflict] covers all use of force, whatever the reasons for resort to force. There can be no exceptions without violating the essence of its principles."82 The dIND holds that India shall pursue a doctrine of credible minimum nuclear deterrence. In this policy of 'retaliation only, the survivability of our arsenal is critical. This is a dynamic concept related-to the strategic environment, technological imperatives and the needs of national security. The actual size, components, deployment, and employment of nuclear forces will be decided in the light of these factors. India's peacetime posture aims at convincing any potential aggressor that: (a) any threat of use of nuclear weapons against India shall invoke measures to counter the threat; and (b) any nuclear attack on India and its forces shall result in punitive retaliation with nuclear weapons to inflict damage unacceptable to the aggressor.83 The concept of 'punitive retaliation' is completely at odds with the previous understanding expressed in India's Memorial to the World Court that the "prohibition of the use of a nuclear weapon in an armed conflict is an absolute one, compliance with which is not dependent on corresponding compliance by others but is requisite in all circumstances."84 The World Court mentioned in the context of the Opinion that "[t]he submission of the exercise of the right of self-defence to the conditions of necessity and proportionality is a rule of customary international law."85 While not explicitly stating that the use of nuclear weapons in selfdefence in all circumstances is prohibited, the World Court acknowledged that "a use of force that is proportionate under the law of self-defence, must, in order to be lawful, also meet the requirements of the law applicable in armed conflict which comprise in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law."86 Nuclear weapon threat and use in any conceivable situation "seems scarcely reconcilable with respect for such requirements."87 A final aspect of the dIND is its reaffirmation of India's commitment to global nuclear disarmament. In the present context such an invocation appears merely 'tactical'.88 This is in contrast to India's prior activism in this sphere given the understanding that nuclear disarmament was "a long cherished Indian goal and not just for 'moral' 89 reasons .

Conclusion Even those who do subscribe to the essentials of the current Indian nuclear policy have been perplexed by the further doctrinal shift recommended from a 'minimal deterrent position' (the capability to fabricate 60-140 bombs of the Pokhran I type) to a 'triad force structure' (nuclear air, land and sea-launching capability). As one commentator noted "[a] strategic audit of the 'doctrine' would readily indicate that there is a serious dysfunction between "minimum deterrence" and a tri-service arsenal. The two cannot go together and is akin to yoking a horse to a camel."90 Paradoxically "no other nuclear weapon state has expounded its nuclear doctrine before all actual nuclear weapon pieces were already in place."91 The prescriptive writing on the strategic wall at this juncture is clear: "This is unmistakably a deterrence posture based on the principle of certainty. Minimum deterrence, in these circumstances does seem to sound more like a political statement than a doctrinal tenet, especially when the objective is clearly to achieve maximum credibility."92 In this altered context, that is, India's changed position with regard to nuclearisation, there is no room for domestic nuclear complacency and we do need to factor into our contemporary and future strategic thinking the World Court's "introduction" of "a new, powerful legal dimension, which cannot be ignored."93 This Opinion of July 1996 survived the "determined opposition of the nuclear weapon states"94 and today "defines the legal framework for nuclear weapon policy".95 Although "not directly binding on the UN or its member states,"96 it nevertheless represents "the most authoritative legal findings the world has available on the nuclear weapons issue".97 The Opinion is a hard won mandate' for immediate nuclear prudence and obligates all nuclear weapon states, including India, to 'negotiate' a comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Convention.98 In categorical terms, "[i]f peace is to be the ultimate objective there can be no doubt that disarmament must be given priority and has to take precedence over deterrence both internationally and nationally."99

* An earlier version of this paper appeared as "The Legality of Nuclear Weapons," in India s Nuclear Deterrent: Pokhran II and Beyond ed. Amitabh Mattoo (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 1999), 239-269.

PART III Issues of Militarisation, Politics and Economics of Nuclear Weapons

Militarism, Development and Democracy* JEAN DRÈZE One hundred years ago, a world peace conference was convened at The Hague at the initiative of Czar Nicholas II. The object of the conference, as described in the czar's invitation, was to seek "the most effective means of ensuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and lasting peace, and above all of limiting the progressive development of existing armaments".1 The sincerity of the czar's intentions was not entirely clear, considering that he had a vested interest in the limitation of armaments, especially Germany and France's awesome "field artillery capable of firing six rounds a minute".2 Nevertheless, his appeal was well received by the European public, including millions of women from eighteen countries who signed a petition for peace. The reaction of the statesmen was another matter. The German kaiser publicly described the czar's proposal as "the most interesting and surprising of this century,"3 but privately disparaged it. The Prince of Wales, for his part, called it "the greatest rubbish and nonsense I have heard of."4 The conference, held in October 1899, was described by one participant as "a thieves' supper". A few years later, the thieves in question hurled their gigantic armies at each other for no other reason than mutual fear. The rest is history. The human toll of wars in the twentieth century surpasses the most pessimistic predictions, including those of Jan de Bloch's prophetic book The Future of War, which (it is said) prompted Nicholas II to convene the peace conference.5 Since then, at least 250 wars have been fought, causing more than 100 million deaths.6 The tragedy continues today, mainly in the 'developing world'. At the risk of simplifying, it can be said that development trends in the second half of the twentieth century reflect two contrasting tendencies. The first is a sustained improvement in living conditions in many countries, discernible for instance in declining mortality rates, rising per capita incomes, better nutrition, improved education levels and an expansion of civil liberties. The second tendency consists of periodic wrecking of these achievements in specific countries as a consequence of armed conflict. Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Congo, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and former Yugoslavia are some examples — among many – of countries where armed conflicts have played havoc with social progress, leaving behind them a long trail of violence, destruction and misery. Development economics, however, has focussed almost exclusively on the first tendency. The standard textbooks have virtually nothing to say on the relation between armed conflicts and development. Even in the broader field of 'development studies', armed conflicts are out of focus, with a few notable exceptions.7 The bias also applies in other disciplines. In the field of psychology, for instance, little attention has been paid to war victims (though there are many psychological studies of war veterans, as those are in high demand from the military establishment).8 As Garfield and Neugut note in a rare review of the health effects of war, "most research on past wars has been carried out for purposes of military planning."9 The preceding statement also applies to various branches of economics. A prime example is game theory. If any profession has a natural place at the forefront of the peace movement, it is that of the game theorist. Indeed, game-theoretic analysis clearly shows that nuclear deterrence is an extremely fragile and risky basis for collective security—I will come back to this. And yet most game theorists (with a few exceptions, notably Anatol Rapoport) have preferred not to comment on this issue.10 It would be surprising if this had nothing to do with the cosy relationship that has developed, right from the days of von Neumann and Morgenstern, between game theorists and the military establishment.11 The latter supplied lavish funds and facilities (such as the RAND corporation, a kind of research wing of the US Air Force), and game theorists reciprocated with loyal services, as well as polite silence on the reckless abuse of game theory in strategic studies.

In short, economists have much to answer for in this context, both in terms of silence about the destructive effects of armed conflicts in the modern world, and in terms of active collaboration with the military establishment. Peace-minded economists have made valuable attempts to address this bias, but their efforts have made little impact – as yet – on development economics. Another concern motivates this essay. In India, there appears to me to be insufficient awareness of the destructive effects of militarism around the world, and of the risk of India itself being caught in the spiral of violence that is sweeping today over large parts of Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. By and large, India has been relatively successful – so far — in avoiding the ravages of militarism. Yet the danger is always present. Indeed, the events that have followed the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan in May 1998 provide a stark illustration of the adverse effects of militarism on development and democracy. During this period, we have witnessed: 1. A large increase in military expenditure, to the detriment of basic services (for example, contrast the Indian government's reluctance to spend an additional 0.5% of GDP to ensure universal elementary education, with recent proposals for a much larger hike in defence spending). 2. The intensification of a costly and dangerous arms race in the region, as well as unprecedented insecurity. 3. Armed confrontation between India and Pakistan – over Kargil – within twelve months of the tests (contrast with the claim made, at that time, that nuclear deterrence had made war 'impossible'). 4. Rising authoritarianism and propaganda in both countries, and the collapse of democracy in Pakistan. 5. A massive displacement of development concerns by 'security' concerns (which illustrates the fact that militarism entails a diversion not only of economic resources but also of 'political resources'). During the September 1999 parliamentary elections in India, for instance, the Kargil conflict captured an enormous amount of attention, while development issues were virtually invisible. The displacement of development concerns by security concerns can also be seen in the respective coverage of different issues in the media. Figure 1 illustrates this through a simple comparison of the coverage of defence issues vis a vis development issues in 14 English language dailies between April 1998 and March 1999. Defence issues turn out to capture an enormous amount of attention in comparison with, say, poverty, health, education (especially primary education) and other matters. Note also that the reference period here ends before the Kargil 'incident' in mid-1999. Since then, the prominence of security issues in the media has risen even further. A glance at change over time may help to convey the gravity of the situation. For this purpose, Table 1 presents an illustrative count of defence-related and development-related articles published on the front page of The Hindufrom 1996 onwards.12 Note that 'development' is interpreted here in an extremely broad sense, encompassing topics such as public finance, inflation and banking. Based on this elastic definition, development issues received more or less as much front-page coverage as defence issues before the nuclear tests (i.e. in 1996 and 1997). In 1998, the share of defence-related articles increased by 6 percentage points (from 15 to 21 per cent of total front-page coverage), and the share of development-related articles declined by the same amount: a one-to-one displacement effect. In 1999, the share of defence-related articles rose by another 6 percentage points —four times as high as the share of development-related articles. The latter was only half as large in 1999 as it was in 1996. Health, education and development programmes have become virtually invisible. Even 'infrastructural projects', which used to receive a fair amount of attention, have been almost entirely displaced by defence-related news.13

Figure I: Media Coverage of Defence issues versus Development Issues (English language newspapers, April 1998 to March 1999) Source: Calculated by the author from newspaper archives at the Institute for Studies on Industrial Development, New Delhi

TABLE I Defence vs Development: Front-page Coverage in The Hindu

*Military hardware, defence policy etc. 'Kashmir-related' includes articles on Kargil (in 1999). #Economic growth, inflation, banking, disasters etc. Note: These figures refer to the combined numbers of articles published in February, June and October of the relevant year.

So much for the motivation of this paper. Coming to more substantive issues, perhaps I should first clarify

what I mean by 'militarism'. Like the proverbial elephant, the subject is much harder to define than to recognise. For present purposes, militarism can be broadly defined as the propensity to use military power, or the threat of it, for political settlements. It is important to include the threatened use of military power under the definition of militarism, so that the latter encompasses arms races, nuclear brinkmanship and related issues. Accordingly, the remainder of this paper is divided into two parts. The first part is concerned with the impact of armed conflicts on development and democracy. The second part discusses the logic of deterrence in the age of weapons of mass destruction, and some implications of a world order where 'security' continues to be based on the balance of terror.

War and Development A Few Facts It is worth beginning with a few reminders about the relationship between war and development. First, war is endemic in the contemporary world. In an average year, more than one-third of the world population lives in a country at war.14 The fact that poor countries get more than a fair share of wars makes the picture even worse. Of course, living in a country at war does not necessarily mean living in the war zone. However, even outside the war zone, the quality of life in a country at war is often seriously impaired. For instance, the restriction of democratic rights and civil liberties that typically happens in wartime affects all citizens, not just those who live in the war zone. In India itself, it is arguable that the perceived need for energetic counterinsurgency operations in border areas has fostered a remarkable tolerance for repressive police and military action throughout the country. The financial costs of these operations are also borne by the society at large. Second, armed conflicts have not abated in the 1990s, much in contrast with earlier hopes of a peace dividend' after the end of the cold war. There has been a peace dividend of sorts in the form of a steady decline in worldwide military expenditure during the last ten years, but this has failed to translate into either a reduction of conflict incidence or an expansion of social expenditures.15 Further, this trend has gone hand in hand with a massive expansion of traffic in light weapons, a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and a resurgence of arms races in some parts of the world, including South Asia. Together with recent plans for increased military spending in the United States, these arms races threaten to reverse the current decline in worldwide military expenditure. Third, armed conflicts in the contemporary world are remarkable not only for their widespread incidence but also for their exceptional brutality. Civilians have become the main targets, with the proportion of civilian casualties rising above 80 per cent in the 1990s (see Figure 2).16 Fourth, there have been important changes in the nature of war. Most armed conflicts today are 'internal' wars, rather than inter-state disputes. Internal wars are socially divisive and undermine the integrity of the nation-state. This creates a vicious circle of violence and social disintegration. In the absence of legitimate state resources to finance their activities, warring factions (including private militias) often resort to looting, drug trafficking, environmental plundering, arms smuggling and international crime—further exacerbating the vicious circle of destruction and lawlessness.17 Finally, all this destruction has caused remarkably little international concern. Much of it escapes attention altogether. While outbursts of large-scale violence such as the 1994 massacres in Rwanda do receive some short lived coverage in the Western media, the bulk of the suffering goes unreported. Entire countries have been destroyed over the years without causing an outcry. The victims have a faint voice and count for little in international power games.

Figure 2: Ratio of Civilian to Military Casualties in Armed Conflicts, 1900-94 Source: Calculated by the author from Ruth Sivard World Military and Social Expenditures 1991 (Washington D.C.: World Priorities, 1991), 2225; and Ruth Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1996 (Washington D.C.: World Priorities, 1996), 18-19.

Armed Conflicts and the Quality of Life Turning to the adverse effects of war on development, the first point to note is that armed conflicts interfere with productive activity and economic growth. This process is fairly transparent in many cases. Most wars involve a heavy destruction of physical infrastructure and a loss of labour force as people leave fields and factories for the battlefield. Other potential causes of economic regression in wartime include disrupted communications, reduced trade, capital flight, population displacement, heightened uncertainty, institutional breakdown, fiscal bankruptcy and crippled administration. To illustrate the problem, Table 2 lists countries that had a negative growth of total GDP in the 1990s. The table excludes Eastern Europe and the former USSR, where almost every country had a negative growth rate of GDP during that period. Among the six countries listed in Table 2, five had at least one armed conflict in the period 1990-95. For Eastern Europe and the former USSR, we have to shift the benchmark, since economic regression was almost universal in that region in the 1990s. In this case, we can ask how many countries had double-digit negative annual growth of total GDP—a feat of sorts. The answer can be found in Table 3. Here again, we find that every country in the list (with the single exception of Ukraine) had at least one armed conflict between 1990 and 1995. These are illustrative exercises, but more sophisticated analyses confirm that armed conflicts interfere with economic growth. A recent World Bank study, for instance, concludes that the annual growth rate of per capita GDP is about two percentage points below trend, on average, during periods of civil war.18 The statistical approach has its own problems, and too much importance should not be attached to these tentative estimates. It is interesting, nevertheless, that statistical analysis points in the same direction as a priori reasoning and casual empiricism. TABLE 2 Economic Regression in the 1990s: Outside Eastern Europe and Former USSR

* Experienced at least one armed conflict in 1990-95. Source: Calculated from World Development Indicators 1999 (Washington D.C.: World Bank, 1999), Table 4.1; and Dan Smith, "Table of Wars 1990-95," in The State of War and Peace Atlas (London: Penguin Reference, 1997).

TABLE 3 Economic Regression in the 1990s: Eastern Europe and Former USSR

* Experienced at least one armed conflict in 1990-95. Source: Calculated from World Development Indicators 1999 (Washington D.C.: World Bank, 1999), Table 4.1; and Dan Smith, "Table of Wars 1990-95," in The State of War and Peace Atlas (London: Penguin Reference, 1997). The countries listed in this table are those with double-digit negative growth of GDP in 1990-97.

A decline of two percentage points in economic growth may not sound like a heavy penalty for fighting a war. Aside from the methodological qualifications, there is an issue here about the ability of standard economic indicators to capture adverse changes in the quality of life. Indeed, there are many ways in which armed conflicts disrupt the quality of life without necessarily reducing economic growth.19 1. Entitlement crises-. Armed conflicts affect not only the level of output but also its composition, as warrelated production displaces the civilian economy, a change not reflected in gross economic indices. They also tend to enhance economic inequality: war situations create profitable opportunities for a privileged minority (e.g. traders, speculators and warlords), while underprivileged families have to cope with both the loss of earnings from adult males and the burden of inflation. The combination of lower civilian output and higher inequality often causes entitlement crises for vulnerable sections of the population. This is one reason why armed conflicts commonly lead to famine, as happened in Sudan, Cambodia, Iraq, Mozambique, Angola and elsewhere (including parts of Europe during the world wars). In many cases, crises of food entitlements in wartime are exacerbated by the disruption of food production, the breakdown of informal insurance mechanisms, state inertia, and the use of food as a weapon.20 2. Collapse of public services. Armed conflicts disrupt public services such as power distribution, communication systems, sanitation facilities, transport networks etc. Among the worst casualties are health and education services. Civilian health centres and schooling facilities in war zones often cease to function as financial and human resources are diverted for military purposes. In addition, systematic attacks on health

and schooling facilities or personnel have been reported in many wartorn countries (Angola, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, among others). 3. Environmental degradation: Well-documented examples of environmental damage from war include the use of defoliants in Vietnam, scorched-earth tactics in Central America, the burning of oil wells in Kuwait, and the showering of depleted uranium on Iraq and Kosovo. As with the destruction of health and education facilities, environmental plunder is often part and parcel of military strategy. Military preparations and training, from firing exercises to nuclear tests, also result in widespread environmental damage. 4. Forced displacement. The number of refugees and people displaced internally within their own countries has been increasing by leaps and bounds in recent decades. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the current figure is around 50 million.21 War accounts for the bulk of this problem. In countries such as Angola, Mozambique, Rwanda and Liberia, about half of the rural population has been displaced. A recent review of mortality among displaced populations in the early 1990s reports that crude death rates were 5 to 12 times as high among refugees as in their countries of origin, and up to 25 times as high among persons internally displaced by war as among the non-displaced.22 Children are the main victims. 5. Breakdown of social fabric. Armed conflicts often disrupt family life, community support and social norms. The disruption of family life leads, inter alia, to reduced parental supervision of children, low school attendance, and a surge in juvenile crime. Other effects of this type include the breakdown of community institutions, rising sectarian tensions, and a general surge in crime. As one psychologist aptly puts it, "the exigencies of a society at war, and the conditions for healthy psychic development and human relationships, will always conflict."23 6. Political repression: War typically entails a curtailment of civil liberties, ranging from relatively mild violations of democratic rights such as censorship, to large-scale massacres of political opponents. Even in countries with a strong democratic tradition, propaganda and censorship flourish in wartime. We will return to this point. 7. Personal trauma: Last but not least, armed conflicts directly undermine the quality of life as people have to endure physical violence, psychological trauma, personal bereavement, and all the hardships that go with life in wartime in addition to those connected with the economic and social disruptions mentioned earlier. Although this aspect of war has been out of focus in academic literature, ample evidence of the personal traumas of war is available from humanitarian and non-government agencies.24 The human consequences of armed conflict are illustrated in Tables 4 and 5 with reference to Mozambique—one case that happens to be relatively well documented.25 Between 1975 and 1992, the country was ravaged by a vicious war of internal destabilisation, led by RENAMO guerrillas with covert support from South Africa and Rhodesia in the initial phase. The war led to a massive destruction of capital, including over 80 per cent of the cattle stock (Table 4). By 1992, over half of the primary schools and health centres had been destroyed or closed, and 36 per cent of the population had been displaced. Capital depletion, heightened uncertainty, war casualties, fiscal bankruptcy and rising transaction costs caused a general slowdown of economic activity. Private consumption per capita fell by about 40 per cent in the 1980s. The under-five mortality rate in Central Mozambique, which had been declining steadily before the war, increased from 270 per 1,000 in the mid-70s to 380 per 1,000 in 1991.26 Only ballooning foreign debt, and the resilience of the informal economy, prevented further deterioration and widespread famine. TABLE 4 Civil War in Mozambique, 1975-92

* Based on a sample survey in one district. Source: Compiled from Tilman Briick, Tables 2-7 and A2, "Macroeconomic Effects of the War in Mozambique," working paper II, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, 1997; and M. Garenne, R. Coninx and C. Dupuy, "Effects of the Civil War in Central Mozambique and Evaluation of the Intervention of the International Committee of the Red Cross," Journal of Tropical Pediatrics 43 (1997). The civil war goes back to 1975, but intensified in the early 1980s.

TABLE 5 Civil War in Mozambique, 1975-92

Source: Tilman Briick, Table 8, "Macroeconomic Effects of the War in Mozambique," working paper I I, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, 1997. The figures are based on a 1989-90 survey of 504 children in 7 different provinces, initially reported in N. Boothby, P. Upton and A. Sultan, Children of Mozambique: The Cost of Survival (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991).

Insurgency and counterinsurgency operations in Mozambique have been exceptionally brutal.27 The physical and psychological damage to children, illustrated in Table 5, will haunt the country for many years. A large majority of children in war- affected areas have witnessed killings or rape, and about half were themselves physically brutalised. Note also the large proportion of children who have been trained for combat; in Mozambique as in many other countries, military recruitment of children is widespread. Nine per cent of the children interviewed admitted to killing.28 Two further remarks are due. First, many of the adverse effects of war last well beyond the conflict period itself. As with the land mines that sometimes blow off years after they have been planted, the legacy of infrastructural destruction, social polarisation, environmental degradation, political authoritarianism and other destructive processes associated with war is not likely to fade away in a hurry. Personal traumas, too, often leave enduring marks, and indeed one of the char acteristics of 'post- traumatic stress disorders' is that their symptoms often get worse rather than better over time. The fact that entire generations are growing up in a war environment today is bound to affect the social climate and development prospects many years ahead.

Second, it is worth noting that many of these destructive processes, in turn, contribute to the persistence of armed conflict. In the worst cases, this feedback creates an underdevelopment trap, whereby armed conflicts cause economic and social disruptions that lead to further violence. In recent years, several countries of sub-Saharan Africa appear to have fallen into this dreadful trap.29

War and Social Change Not all wars, of course, have all the negative consequences listed earlier. In some cases, it has even been claimed that war had a number of positive effects on the economy and the society.30 The well-researched case of Britain during the two world wars has attracted a good deal of attention in this context. There is, indeed, some evidence of rapid social progress in Britain during and immediately after the world wars. The First World War, for instance, led to the introduction of universal suffrage as well as a series of legislative reforms concerned with housing, child welfare, unemployment insurance and related matters. It is also claimed that the 'Great War' was a time of enhanced freedom for women, reduced class differences, and improved living standards among underprivileged classes. Similarly, the Second World War led to a radical consolidation of the welfare state, including the creation of the National Health Service. Both wars were periods when the state's role in the economy, and the responsibilities it accepts for the well-being of the citizens, greatly expanded. Some authors, notably Arthur Marwick, have used this case study as the main basis of a general thesis that 'total war' is a time of accelerated social change, often positive.31 Explanations for these positive changes have focussed primarily on the 'participation effect'. Jay Winter for instance, has argued that the living standards of underprivileged classes in Britain improved during the First World War due to "the positive effects of the mobilization of the industrial population". This led to higher real wages, reduced economic disparities and improved welfare provisions: "In Britain during the First World War, underpaid and underemployed labourers were transformed within a few months of the outbreak of hostilities into full working partners in the war effort....What changed in wartime was both an enhancement of the market position of most grades of manual labour as well as a strengthening of the legal and moral entitlement of workers to exchange their labour for a living wage."32 The participation effect is also central to Arthur Marwick's own thinking: "All qualifications made, the fundamental fact remains that in participating in the non- military aspects of the war effort, hitherto under-privileged groups find themselves in a very strong market position: government, and private employers, needthem."33 The participation effect has been invoked in a similar manner to explain how the position of women in British society apparently improved during the First World War. As men left for the front (universal conscription was introduced in 1916), women had to take up many of their earlier jobs and responsibilities. There was a major expansion in women's labour force participation, with women entering a whole range of new occupations, from tramway driving to the police. The dependence of the war economy on women led to greater appreciation of their abilities, and enhanced their bargaining power. The work experience itself also had liberating aspects, for some women at least. For instance, women employed in munitions factories later "recalled the work of wartime as a happy time because of the friendships they had formed, the wages, the amusements in the factory such as hair competitions, football matches, concerts and running jokes,"34 and they also "felt a greater capacity to resist exploitation than before".35 While the participation effect was, in many respects, short lived (women's labour force participation declined sharply after the war), it did create conditions for an acceleration of ongoing changes in gender relations. There has been much controversy on these issues, and space is too short for an adequate exposition of the debate.36 For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that this particular historical experience is of limited relevance to contemporary conflicts, for at least three reasons. To start with, the First World War was an inter-state dispute rather than a civil war. Inter-state disputes typically have a cohesive effect on the society, whereas most civil wars are deeply divisive. As we saw earlier, an overwhelming majority of contemporary wars belong to the latter variety. Second, even as an inter-state dispute, the First World War in Britain was somewhat unusual in so far as the civilian population was relatively sheltered from the destructive effects of armed conflict. With the

battlefield at a safe distance, and news from the front heavily censored, civilian life could still flourish. Elsewhere in Europe (especially in Germany), the destructive effects took a heavy toll, and much less happened by way of positive social change.37 Finally, Britain in 1914 already had a strong tradition of pluralist politics and non-authoritarian governance, even though it was not yet a democracy (for instance, it did not have universal adult franchise, even among men). This made it necessary to foster 'participation' without compulsion, for example, through higher wages and consensus-building (even military recruitment was voluntary until 1916). Participatory politics also made it possible for women and underprivileged classes to translate their enhanced bargaining power into social rights such as universal franchise and new welfare provisions. In authoritarian regimes, the social gains of 'participation' – if any – are likely to be more limited. For all these reasons, it would be naive to expect armed conflicts in the contemporary world to be associated with positive social change. There may be specific examples of conflict situations that have a cohesive effect on the society, and thereby foster development and social change in spite of the adverse effects of war. The possible cases of Israel and Vietnam come to mind.38 But most armed conflicts in the world today, far from promoting cohesion and participation, exacerbate social divisions and the marginalisation of the underprivileged. Also, war conditions often undermine earlier achievements in fields such as democratic rights, gender equality and ethnic harmony. The retreat of secular politics in Lebanon after 1975, the subordination of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, and the recent suppression of democracy in Pakistan are some examples, among many.

Long-term Effects It is often argued that, in spite of its adverse short-term effects, war is conducive to development in the long run. Various arguments have been invoked in this connection, notably the historical role of war in state formation, nation building and technological change. Interesting as they are, these arguments have to be taken with a pinch of salt, for several reasons. First, they are highly speculative. In particular, it is difficult to surmise how various societies would have evolved in the absence of war. It is anyone's guess, for instance, where (say) Russia would stand today had it been spared two world wars in the twentieth century. Second, even when a reasonably transparent link exists between war and specific historical changes, assessing the contribution of these changes to social progress is often problematic. To illustrate, while it is easy to see that war and conquest have played a major historical role in shaping today's nation-states, the desirability of this particular form of political organisation is another matter. Who knows what Europe would have looked like today had it consisted of a collection of 500 sovereign entities, as it did a few centuries ago? Third, the historical validity of these arguments has to be distinguished from their contemporary relevance, especially in the light of recent changes in the nature of armed conflicts. For instance, even if it is true that "until the nineteenth century nearly all innovations were made for military purposes,"39 most contemporary conflicts have little to contribute to technological innovation. Finally, impartial enquiry has to focus not only on the positive long-term effects of war, but also on the negative ones. The latter side of the balance sheet has tended to receive comparatively little attention. As noted earlier, the destructive processes associated with armed conflict often have long-term implications.40 The cumulative costs of peacetime military expenditure are also staggering.41 Similarly, the positive effect of military activity on technological progress (such as it may be) has to be seen together with its stifling effect on culture, ethics and the arts.42 More importantly perhaps, the persistence of armed conflicts has almost certainly retarded the historical progress of democracy, on which more later. While these matters are of much interest to historians and sociologists, their practical implications are limited. There is certainly no case for complacency about contemporary wars on the ground that they may be conducive to long-term development. As far as action is concerned, the overwhelming issue is their devastating short-term consequences.

Militarism and Democracy Military imperatives are frequently at odds with democratic values. Given the wide-ranging roles of democracy in the process of development,43 its suppression is one of the most serious consequences of militarism. In situations of armed conflict (or preparation for it), there is a tendency to suppress human rights, political opposition and democratic freedoms. This can be seen even in countries with a relatively strong democratic tradition. During the First World War, for instance, the governments of Britain and the United States pioneered the art of modern propaganda, later applied to marketing. As Edward Bernays, one of the founding fathers of the 'public relations' industry, put it in his classic Propaganda: "It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda during the war that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all deparments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind."44 Both countries have continued to make ample use of these 'possibilities' during recent conflicts. During the Falklands war, for instance, Margaret Thatcher's Ministry of Defence kept journalists on a short leash through strict accreditation and a new system of 'media pools', enthusiastically emulated by the US State Department after the invasion of Grenada in 1983, and that of Panama in 1989. Similar arrangements were also made during the Gulf war, prompting the International Press Institute to complain that restrictions "prevented a balanced picture of events .145 India is no exception in this respect. As one expert on military intelligence aptly notes, "media management has been the buzzword in the Army in recent years."46 The military establishment's interest in 'news management' paid rich dividends during the recent Kargil conflict, when winning the 'information war' was explicitly seen as a paramount strategic objective.47 Dissent was quite successfully suppressed. As N. Bhaskara Rao, Chief of the Centre for Media Studies, puts it: "The media has done a good job in galvanising the nation in no time Hardly was there any dissent in any of the media during the 7-8 weeks, as if they were all echoing the same view point and endorsing the government's stand, as never before, in support of a war, as if they were all using the same 'hand out'."48 The military establishment has made no secret of its satisfaction on that front; the Indian defence minister himself did not hesitate to praise the media for its 'morale-boosting' role during the war.49 The temptation to suppress dissent on grounds of 'national interest in a conflict situation is understandable, but it has two harmful effects. First, it precludes informed public discussion of the situation and fosters a jingoistic climate where alternative means of conflict resolution receive little consideration. Second, propaganda and disinformation can lead to dangerous misperceptions among the protagonists about each other's intentions. In the nuclear age, these misperceptions can have devastating consequences. The interest of the Indian military establishment in 'media management' is not confined to periods of active conflict. Even at other times, a steady stream of propaganda seeps through the media. Much of it springs from 'experts' based in organisations such as the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Even when propagating establishment views is not an explicit part of their brief, these experts are unlikely to display much independence of thought, given that they are on the payroll of the military establishment. According to P.R. Chari, former member of the Joint Intelligence Committee and former director of IDSA, "DRDO is definitely a sinister organisation, which bribes...both journalists and academics to press hardline causes in the media," while RAW would have to reduce its staff and budget by one third "if the threat from Pakistan and China was allowed to fade".50 The 'defence correspondents' employed by various newspapers are also on a tight leash, given all the obvious perks of a good rapport with the military establishment in that profession. Eligible correspondents even benefit from 'regular courses' organised by the army.51 To illustrate these influences, Table 6 lists the affiliations of the 35 authors who wrote opinion articles on defence-related matters in The Times of India between April 1998 and March 1999 (before the Kargil crisis). Leaving out professional journalists and editors (including defence correspondents), a majority of authors are members of strategic think tanks, retired army personnel or retired civil servants. There is, in short, a deep asymmetry of resources and influence between the 'doves' and the 'hawks', with the latter enjoying ample infrastructural resources and media access. The result is a pronounced militaristic bias in the Indian media.

TABLE 6 Who Writes on Defence Issues? (Opinion Articles, The Times of India, April 1998 to March 1999)

a including several retired civil servants and army personnel. bThe 34 articles in this category include 31 articles by K. Subrahmanyam. cBenazir Bhutto and Zbigniew Brzezinski. On a more positive note, the connection between militarism and democracy runs both ways: just as militarism interferes with democracy, the expansion of democracy helps to contain militarism. In particular, democracy appears to reduce the incidence of armed conflicts. There are several reasons why we might expect this to be the case. First and foremost, democracy makes political leaders accountable to those who tend to bear the costs of conflict, namely the population at large. Authoritarian leaders are usually sheltered from the hardships of war, while they often have a major stake in its potential benefits (e.g. enhanced power or expanded territory). The civilian population, on the other hand, has a strong stake in war avoidance. This is particularly the case where living standards are high, making war look all the more unattractive. In affluent countries, the public has become very reluctant to go to the battlefield. In addition, democracy promotes a culture of compromise and negotiations.52 On the whole, it also fosters moderation among political leaders, who need to appeal to a broad section of the public.53 Finally, democracy provides an institutional space where internal conflicts can (in principle) be resolved without violence. It would be naive, however, to expect a simple (inverse) relation between democracy and the incidence of war. If the risks and sacrifices are small, the public may not be averse to war, as happened in Britain with the Falklands war in 1982, and the Kosovo bombings in 1999. Even where the risks are substantial, the public may support war if the cause is perceived to be noble, or because its judgement is blurred by propaganda and herd behaviour. If elected leaders feel insecure, they may be tempted to use military ventures as a way of diverting the public's attention from domestic problems. Also, democratic regimes may be good targets for aggression, precisely because they are more constrained than authoritarian regimes in their, ability to retaliate. This point applies not only to external aggression, but also to internal insurgencies: separatist movements, for instance, may be easier to suppress in an authoritarian system than in a democracy. Empirical investigations confirm that democracy is not a reliable antidote against war.54 However, some aspects of a positive relation between democracy and peace have been established. First, it has been observed that armed conflicts between democracies are extremely rare. Some authors have even argued that war between two established democracies has never happened.55 There are a few grey cases, where the democratic credentials of the protagonists (or the nature of the conflict in question) are not end rely clear.56 There are also cases of covert destabilisation of democratic countries by governments of other democratic countries (mainly the United States). However, there has never been a case — so goes the argument – of democratic countries fighting each other in broad daylight.

The absence of war between democratic countries is unlikely to be an immutable law' of international relations. Nevertheless, this historical observation is interesting and plausible. Indeed, the restraining influence of democracy on political leaders on one side of an inter-state dispute is likely to be compounded by similar influences on the other side. The finding that democracies typically resolve their differences by nonviolent means is an important pointer to the prospect for peaceful international relations as democracy expands. In the specific context of South Asia, it also reinforces other arguments to the effect that India has a strong stake in the survival of democracy in Pakistan. Second, a general association can be observed between democratic rights on the one hand, and conflict incidence on the other: war tends to be less common in countries where democratic rights are more extensive, and vice versa. In part, this association is likely to reflect the contraction of democratic rights in wartime, discussed earlier. However, there is also some evidence of a causal link in the other direction (i.e. from democracy to a lower incidence of war). This point is illustrated in Table 7: countries that had relatively democratic political regimes in the mid-1960s had fewer years of war in the 1970s and 1980s. Even after controlling for other factor such as the level of per capita income, democracy has an independent effect on the incidence of war.57 TABLE 7 Democratic Rights and Conflict Incidence

a Unweighted (simple) average over all countries in the relevant group. Source: Calculated by the author from Kalevi J. Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 21022; and Kenneth A. Bollen, "Political Democracy: Conceptual Measurement Traps," in On Measuring Democracy ed. Alex Inkeles (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers), 16-19.

Third, even though insurgencies and civil wars are quite frequent even in democratic countries, democracy does seem to make an important difference to the manner in which internal conflicts are dealt with. While state repression of insurgencies and rebellions is often brutal enough even in democratic countries (including India), it rarely involves civilian massacres of the kind that have taken place under authoritarian regimes in Cambodia, East Timor, Guatemala, Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and the former Soviet Union, to cite a few cases. In fact, in almost all cases where governments have massacred their own citizens in the twentieth century, an authoritarian regime was in place.58 Here again, democracy seems to play an important role in containing the forces of violence. The general anti-militarist influence of democracy goes well beyond these short-term, country-specific effects. While the twentieth century has been exceptionally murderous, it has also witnessed a historically unprecedented wave of pacifism in democratic countries.59 Further progress in this direction holds the best promise of establishing solid foundations for the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

Militarism and Security If 'conventional' war is disastrous enough for economic development and the quality of life, nuclear war would be an all-round catastrophe. The standard argument for developing nuclear weapons despite this terrible prospect is that these weapons are not meant to be used, but only to deter aggression. An old principle, in fact, asserts that military threats are essential in preventing wars from occurring (si vis pacem

para bellum). Nuclear deterrence is one modern version of this principle. The basic argument is simple: a country that possesses nuclear weapons is safe, because it can threaten to respond to any attack with devastating force. By the same reasoning, it has been argued that war between two nuclear powers is 'impossible'. The ethical acceptability of nuclear threats is hard to defend.60 But let me leave that aside for now, and concentrate on the logic of nuclear deterrence: is it really true that nuclear weapons are a guarantee of safety, and that war between nuclear powers is impossible? This is a subject on which I believe that the public has been seriously misled by the 'strategic community'. The obfuscation begins with the meaning of nuclear deterrence itself. While the public is told that nuclear weapons are here to protect us from enemy attacks, strategists see a much broader role for them— enhancing the bargaining power of the state for political purposes.61 During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, for instance, the Soviet Union was not about to attack the US, yet the implicit threat of nuclear war was used to persuade Soviet leaders to remove the Cuba missiles. Implicit and explicit threats of using nuclear weapons (or, more precisely, of unleashing a sequence of events which might lead to nuclear war) have been made on other occasions in a similar manner. Such threats, for instance, were instrumental in settling the status of West Berlin in the 1960s, in preventing Soviet intervention in the Yom Kippur war in 1973, and (according to some analysts) in dissuading Saddam Hussein from using chemical weapons during the Gulf war. The common statement that 'nuclear weapons have never been used since Nagasaki' is misleading-— they have been used several times, for bargaining purposes if not (at least not yet) as explosive devices. These facts have not been lost on Indian strategists, who are keenly aware of the bargaining value of nuclear weapons. India's leading strategic analyst, K. Subrahmanyam, has written eloquently on the role of nuclear weapons as the "currency of power" in the contemporary world, and has argued that their possession "gives you the power to intimidate".62 Thinly-veiled nuclear threats have indeed been exchanged at regular intervals between India and Pakistan during the last two years. As Paul Bracken puts it in a chilling analysis of nuclear proliferation in Asia: "The Asian states...have learned how to use nuclear weapons without actually detonating them in an attack, for political manoeuvres, implicit threats, deterrence, signalling, drawing lines in the sand, and forms of psychological advantage."63 There is, however, a fundamental problem with the idea of using nuclear threats for political purposes: the threat of unleashing nuclear weapons against a nuclear state is not 'credible', in so far as it leads down the path of mutual destruction. And if the threat is not credible, the opponent may simply ignore it. This 'credibility' problem, lucidly discussed forty years ago by Thomas Schelling, has haunted nuclear strategists ever since.64 Rivers of ink down the line, no convincing answer has been found.65 One alleged solution, made famous by the movie Dr Strangelove, is to install a device of automatic retaliation in the event where the enemy takes a certain hostile step. But politicians seem to lack the nerve to install this 'doomsday machine', though there are rumours that the former Soviet Union used to have a device of such inspiration.66 In any case, real-world contingencies are too diverse and complex to be preprogrammed in this way. Mutually assured destruction (MAD) is not as simple as it sounds. The correct theoretical answer to the credibility problem is well illustrated by the Cuban missile crisis. In a nutshell, the answer is that while the threat of a deliberate, full-scale nuclear attack is not credible, one may credibly threaten to create a situation where hostilities might escalate into a nuclear exchange. This is what President Kennedy did in 1962. He felt that the stakes were high enough to justify the risks of a game of brinkmanship which could very well end – intentionally or accidentally – in nuclear war. As it turns out, last minute concessions on both sides resolved the crisis. But an intrinsic feature of the scenario is that it need not have had this happy ending. Kennedy, for one, considered that the odds of nuclear war had been "somewhere between one third and one half'.67 Several variants of this general tactic of 'risking escalation' have been developed by nuclear strategists. Schelling himself is credited, in The Kennedy Tapes, with the "ingenious" (sic) idea of "replying to a Soviet move against Berlin with a demonstration drop on a Hiroshima-sized Soviet city."68 In strategic newspeak, this is called 'limited retaliation' (a shot in the air, as it were). The idea is to show that you are serious, and

thereby enhance the credibility of further threats. Another variant is to create a deliberate risk that the situation will get out of hand. To quote Schelling again, "what can make it [the threat of war] exceedingly credible to the Russians.. .is that the triggering of a general war can occur whether we intend it or not."69 The basic principle, in each case, is to take a 'calculated risk' that hostilities will escalate. In practice, however, calculated risk is an elusive concept. Even in the sanitised world of game theory, a rational way of handling the risks involved in escalation games' often does not exist.70 In the real world, mishandling of risks is all the more likely due to faulty information, mutual misperceptions, emotional responses and a host of decision-making pathologies. Putting the nuclear trigger in the hands of leaders who have problems of selfdelusion or alcohol addiction (there are precedents) does not help either.71 In short, nuclear brinkmanship is intrinsically dangerous: escalation risk is an integral part of the 'game'. Even if the risk of escalation in a single crisis is small, the long-run odds of nuclear war through repeated gambles are bound to be unacceptably high. It may be argued that one way forward is to eschew the use of nuclear threats for political purposes, and to focus on the more limited objective of deterring an attack. However, the logical problems involved in making credible threats are no less serious in that specific context. In the unlikely event of an all-out attack 'from the blue', there may be no credibility problem in so far as there would be nothing to lose from nuclear retaliation in that particular case. But in the case of hostile acts short of all-out attack, massive nuclear retaliation is not a credible response. Hence, we are back to the usual devices (limited retaliation, the doomsday machine etc.), with the attendant escalation risks. Some strategists have argued that even if nuclear threats are not 'credible', the prospect that they might be carried out is enough to deter aggression. To quote Mr Subrahmanyam again, "their role [of nuclear weapons] is to create uncertainty in the minds of aggressors and demonstrate that aggression of any kind is not a rational option."72 This view of deterrence, however, is based on a dangerous illusion. Even if it is true that a 'rational' opponent would never take a step that invites certain retaliation (and that the opponent is rational in the first place!), it simply does not follow that a rational actor would never take steps that involve a risk of retaliation. If the stakes are high enough, the risk may be deemed worth takings To illustrate, the risk of nuclear retaliation did not prevent Saddam Hussein from firing Scud missiles at Israel in 1990. An illustration closer to home may help to sum up the perils of nuclear brinkmanship. Suppose that the Indian army were to engage in 'hot pursuits' across the Line of Control, as has been repeatedly suggested in various quarters in recent years, would it be 'irrational' for Pakistani leaders to take a leaf from Schelling's book and reply with "a demonstration drop on a Hiroshima- sized Indian city"?73 The prospect may sound too horrible to be true, but this is the stuff that nuclear strategy is made of. All we can say is that they may or may not do it, knowing that a retaliatory nuclear strike on India's part is itself uncertain. Further, knowing that Pakistani leaders may or may not retaliate, Indian leaders may be tempted to 'take a chance' with hot pursuits, if they feel that the risk is small, relative to the potential gains of a successful operation. The chain of gambles can be extended further—knowing that the Indian army may or may not respond to incursions in Kashmir with hot pursuits across the Line of Control, Pakistani leaders may be tempted to support such incursions (as happened recently in Kargil). What we end up with is the possibility of minor incidents triggering a chain of events that end with nuclear war, even if both sides consider this outcome as vastly disproportionate to the initial stakes and desperately wish to avoid it. The scenario is familiar in ordinary life: every day, the newspapers report some story about brothers who fought to death over a minor disagreement, or other trivial disputes that ended in murder. Between nations, there are more safeguards, but the fundamental danger of escalation remains. The First World War, for one, began with a single assassination.74 To conclude, nuclear deterrence is not a sustainable basis of collective security. Far from being a guarantee of tranquillity, as it is claimed to be, nuclear deterrence is intrinsically based on the threat of escalation in a crisis. We have absolutely no reason to think that the relevant escalation risks, in the real world, are small enough to make nuclear deterrence remotely acceptable. If nuclear weapons proliferate, as is likely to happen in the absence of multilateral disarmament, the scope for crises will grow accordingly. In the long run, a tragedy is bound to take place. In the age of weapons of mass destruction, the old adage si vis pacem para bellum is not persuasive. There is greater wisdom in C. Wright Mills' warning that "the immediate cause of

World War III is the military preparation of it."75

Concluding Remarks In this paper, I have argued for recognising militarism as a major obstacle (perhaps the foremost obstacle) to development in the contemporary world. This observation may seem trivial, especially to the victims of war, but somehow it has made little impact in development studies. In fact, the opposite view – that militarism has a positive influence on development – has often dominated. Economists have argued that military expenditure boosts economic growth. Political scientists have seen the military establishment as a modernising institution. Historians and sociologists have stressed the role of war in nation building. There have, of course, been dissenting voices on each of these points, but the critique of militarism has been faint in relation to the devastating consequences of war (and the preparations for it) in the contemporary world. These consequences go well beyond what is captured by standard economic indicators such as the rate of economic growth or even 'poverty indices'. The adverse impact of war on human well-being also includes wide-ranging material and psychological deprivations associated with entitlement failures, health crises, physical violence, forced displacement and related processes. War also undermines future development prospects by disrupting or destroying the productive infrastructure, public services, settlement patterns, environmental resources, social capital and the institutions of governance. Even though there are interesting historical experiences of successful containment of the adverse effects of war on social progress (as in Britain during the First World War), these success stories – such as they are – have limited relevance to contemporary conflicts. Democracy is another casualty of militarism. In wartime, human rights and civil liberties tend to be restricted or suppressed, even in otherwise tolerant and pluralist political systems. There is also a strong general association between militarism and authoritarianism, not confined to periods of armed conflict. Another aspect of the problem is the strong influence of military interests in public debate and policy making. The activities of the military establishment include a major investment in public relations, which distorts policy priorities and stifles informed discussion of 'security' matters. The persistence of militarism in the contemporary world is linked with the view that a suitable balance of terror is the best guarantee of security. On closer examination, this view has shaky foundations. In the age of weapons of mass destruction and global interdependence, the balance of terror is an outdated, undependable and wasteful means of ensuring common security. Nuclear deterrence, with its inescapable reliance on escalation risk in a crisis, is a recipe for disaster in the long run. Peace is a 'public goo & par excellence (more precisely, violence is a 'public bad'), which cannot be effectively provided through unilateral investments in terrifying weapons. Ethical considerations further enhance the case for an alternative approach, based on detente and cooperation. Such an approach would also hold greater promise of ending civil wars and internal conflicts. There are, indeed, close connections between the widespread incidence of internal conflicts and the persistence of a world order based on the (uneven) balance of terror rather than on detente and cooperation. In today's highly interdependent world, these conflicts cannot plausibly be seen as domestic matters unrelated to what is happening elsewhere. Most of them have strong international roots, such " as cross-border destabilisation, superpower interventionism, the proliferation of light weapons, and struggles for the control of primary commodities. The consequences of civil wars also have an international dimension, since the danger of regional escalation is always present. Accordingly, international cooperation has an important role to play in resolving these conflicts. So far, the resources devoted to conflict resolution and peacekeeping have been microscopic in relation to those wasted on unilateral defence organisations.76 The positive side of the antagonistic relation between militarism and democracy is that democratic practice has much to contribute to the defeat of militarism. One aspect of this process is the role of social scientists in researching the facts with an enquiring mind and bringing them to public attention. As things stand, there is a serious dearth of probing research on the political economy of war and militarism, particularly from the point of view of the victims. Even basic information on the human consequences of recent conflicts, or on economic change in wartime, is lacking in most cases. A better public perception of the

facts, in itself, would be a serious challenge for the forces of militarism. * Based on a lecture given at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda on 7 October 1999- A longer version of this paper was published in the Economic and Political Weekly 1-7 (April 2000): 1171-1183. I am grateful to Professor Maya Shah and her colleagues and students at the Department of Economics, MS University, for their overwhelming hospitality. I am also indebted to Reetika Khera for invaluable assistance with the compilation of media-related data, and to Haris Gazdar, C. Rammanohar Reddy and Amartya Sen for helpful comments.

The Politics of the Bomb: Some Observations on the Political Discourse in India in the Context of Pokhran II V. KRISHNA ANANTH The day of the Pokhran tests, 11 May 1998, witnessed a consensus across the mainstream political spectrum. Almost all political parties celebrated the event as an 'achievement'. While the principal opposition party, the Congress, placed on record that the Bharadya Janata Party (BJP)-led government could not claim all the credit for the 'achievement', the mainstream Left raised the question of why the BJP had chosen to carry out the tests at that particular point of time. Most political leaders emphasised that the government should have taken them into confidence before conducting the tests. The disagreement with the nuclear tests was hardly substantive—it was merely on issues of timing, secrecy etc. This essay argues that the Pokhran tests of May 1998 and the decision to embark on weaponisation need to be located in the ideological framework adopted by the postcolonial ruling elite of India since 1947. The Pokhran tests should be viewed in the context of the conscious efforts of the Indian elite to define nationalism – especially since the 1970s – in denominational categories, rather than building on the legacy of the democratic traditions that marked the struggle against colonialism.

Nationalism and Communalism Indian nationalism first emerged during the freedom movement. Its initial basis was the conflict of interests between the metropolitan bourgeoisie and the colonised people. The dominant representative of the latter was the Indian National Congress (hereafter the Congress) and it represented a platform for all Indians – the Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs in the social sense; the industrial workers, different strata of the peasantry, and the intelligentsia in class terms – engaged in a struggle against British imperialism. The logical consequence of pursuing such a struggle would have led to a radical questioning of the prevailing social and economic order. But this was too exacting for the leaders of the Congress, who at that stage were drawn predominantly from the upper castes and landed classes, as well as incipient capitalists, to whom the idea of freedom was different from that of the workers, the peasants and the landless labourers. For the latter freedom was associated with aspirations for an egalitarian society. Indicative of these aspirations were the protests across the country that marked the last few years of imperialist domination: the armed struggle in Telengana, Tebhaga, Punnapra-Vayalar; the revolt by the ratings of the Royal Indian Navy; the large number of workers and the poor demonstrating on the streets across the country against the trial of the soldiers of the Indian National Army; the events on the streets of Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and other industrial centres where workers fought pitched battles with the police; or the militant struggles by railway workers in Golden Rock, Lilluah, Kharagpur and elsewhere. These protests were clear signals that the ideals that inspired the freedom struggle – democracy, secularism and the dream of an egalitarian social order – were still relevant for the people.1 However, the postcolonial elite had other plans. Instead of striking at the feudal social and economic order in rural India and putting in place an administrative structure whose members would empathise with the poorer sections of urban India, the national bourgeoisie preferred an alliance with the landed gentry in rural India. The strategy that the ruling classes initiated was two-fold: if the immediate agenda was to put

down dissent in whatever form it took, they subsequently found in religion and the passions associated with it, a most useful tool to distort democratic discourse.2 The resort to the use of religious identity in contemporary Indian politics is therefore only the culmination of a project initiated by the ruling classes at the time of independence. And as the Congress made the transition from being a platform of struggle against the colonial order to just another political party, its leaders also joined in this effort to formulate a different basis for nationalism, where Pakistan, and by extension the Muslims, represented the 'other'. The construction of Indian nationalism by locating Pakistan as the 'other' began even before 15 August 1947. The communal fire that gripped civil society months before independence has its ideological roots in, on the one hand, the writings of M.S. Golwalkar and the campaigns of K.B. Hedgewar (Hindu nationalists, both), and, on the other, in the adoption of the two-nation theory by the Muslim League in 1940. However, the Muslim League's Pakistan resolution in 1940 came in response to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-inspired communalisation of the Congress, particularly at the provincial level. Indicative of this was the ascent in the Congress of leaders like Govind Ballabh Pant and Madan Mohan Malaviya in the United Provinces, and Gopi Chand Bhargava in Punjab, despite their record of having participated in and even led movements that had an anti-Muslim bias. Even then, the core of the nationalist movement and by extension the Congress leadership, were committed to the view that the Indian nation must and will have to be built on secular and democratic principles and that there was no place for religious or cultural chauvinism in this project. It was only because of this secular core that the flames of communal violence could be doused soon after 1947. This secular ideal underlying Indian nationalism is now being challenged and a new definition of nationalism has become the dominant prospect: here, Indian nationalism must look for its roots in the ancient empires. This school of thought does not accept that Indian nationalism is essentially a modern concept and that it evolved in the course of the struggle against colonialism. It is necessary to look at the May 1998 'adventure' in Pokhran from this perspective.

Economic Policy A brief look at the economic policy adopted by India in the decades after independence would help us locate the politics of nuclearisation. The Nehru era witnessed the implementation of the Bombay Plan. The thrust of the plan was state investment in the infrastructure aimed at supporting the growth of the private sector. The objective behind the planning process was that the state must involve itself in economic activity to aid enlargement of the home market, partly by erecting protective barriers against imports.3 An interventionist state and, politically, a constitution providing for a multi-party parliamentary democracy were put in place. The Congress under Jawaharlal Nehru entrenched itself in positions of power by virtue of its claim to the legacy of the freedom struggle. It enjoyed the goodwill of the landlords, rich farmers and other sections of the rural elite. The Congress was also seen by the Muslims and the Dalits as their saviour. In the 1950s, the Congress did not consider it necessary to plan and proceed with any concerted poverty removal programmes. In particular, serious land reform was not implemented. It was assumed that growth in the capital goods sector (in the public sector) and in the wage goods sector (in the private sector) would result in poverty reduction. But bad harvests in 1965 and 1966 led to a near famine situation in large parts of northern India (Bihar in particular). As much as 20 million tonnes of grain had to be imported to tide over the crisis.4 The green revolution was a response to the famine—a new regime of grain procurement; subsidised supply of fertilisers; the establishment of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to stockpile foodgrains; and also the idea of an expanded public distribution system (PDS). All these, however, did not prevent in any significant manner the continuing rise in food prices (which rose faster than the prices of other commodities) in the mid to late 1960s.5 This caused substantial erosion in rural and urban real wages and

resulted in electoral reverses across the country for the Congress in the 1967 elections to state assemblies in many parts of the country. For the first time, the party's claim to power was under serious threat. Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar are significant among the states where the Congress lost power. The challenge came from the rich peasant lobby whose increasing political clout from the 1960s onwards necessitated a further distortion of the economic philosophy of the time. The Congress' response was to nationalise banks, abolish privy purses, and initiate other such 'socialist' programmes, apart from strengthening the nascent PDS. But the Congress did not take the next logical step—of initiating meaningful land reforms. Instead of addressing the issues that came up in the early 1970s — the sharp rise in food prices, the consequent unrest all over urban India, and the Railway strike in May 1974 – the Congress maneuvered it§ way by resorting to unprecedented repression which led to the curtailment of basic constitutional rights during the Emergency. But the humiliating defeat of the Congress in the 1977 elections led to a conscious change in the economic philosophy adopted by the ruling classes, whose most important representative continued to be the Congress. After its return to power in 1980, the Congress appeared a little more sensitive to the 'common man', leading to an expansion of the PDS and an increased thrust on poverty- alleviation programmes. The 1980s saw an expansion of public expenditure in both industry and agriculture. The result was a fairly substantial reduction in the proportion of people living below the poverty line, a trend witnessed for the first time in independent India.6 There was, however, an inherent weakness to this strategy. A continuous rise in the funding of the poverty-alleviation programmes would have been possible only if the government's revenue had kept pace with the rise in expenditure. Since the political will to enhance revenue collection by expanding the tax base was lacking, the process was not sustainable. The economic policy adopted since 1947 – Nehruvian socialism — proved to be weak and incapable of preventing popular protests arising from imbalances in development. The post- independence years witnessed the emergence of the rightwing, especially the RSS, in the political mainstream. Having kept out of the political arena for decades, the RSS under Balasaheb Deoras took the Jayprakash Narayan (JP) movement as an opportunity to appropriate anti-Congress sentiments in a substantive manner.7 This gave the RSS and its progeny, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (which later became the BJP), a sense of legitimacy. For the first time since independence, the Jana Sangh found an occasion to effectively introduce its anti-Muslim campaign and its own brand of Indian nationalism into the protest movements.8 The Congress continued the communalisation project (that began in the late sixties and manifest so distinctly in the content of the 1971 war against Pakistan), with added vigour, and in a systematic fashion, after its return to power in 1980. The destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992, and its repercussions were the outcome of the strategy adopted by the Congress under Indira Gandhi, with the definite aim of distorting democratic discourse and ensuring that issues like poverty removal, employment generation, and challenges to the oppressive social order in rural India were marginalised. There were incidents of anti-Muslim violence at regular intervals in many parts of northern India after 1980—Meerut and Malliana in Uttar Pradesh; Bhiwandi and Aurangabad in Maharashtra; Bhagalpur and Biharshareef in Bihar; Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh; almost all places with a substantial Muslim population were engulfed in communal violence. In most cases, the state machinery was either a bystander, or a silent participant, inciting violence against the minorities. The problem became more acute when all pretensions of 'socialism' were given up in favour of a new emphasis on the market accompanied by a gradual withdrawal of state involvement, even of the limited kind that had existed in India.9 Since such a shift, in an open and direct fashion, was bound to cause widespread social unrest, the Congress increasingly resorted to the usage of religious idioms—a tactic borrowed from the BJP. Through the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, the Congress and the BJP competed to represent the Hindu' cause. This contest coincided with the 'liberalisation' programme of the 1990s in the economic sphere. In the 1990s, after liberalisation had been initiated, inflation in food prices was the highest ever; employment growth in agriculture and non-agriculture sectors slowed down; the quality of governance reflected in areas such as education and health services declined; and the incidence of poverty remained

stagnant. The economy grew only marginally faster in the 1990s compared to the 1980s.10 Yet, the nation hardly witnessed any organised protests on livelihood issues.

Congress and Nuclearisation The 1974 nuclear tests in Pokhran should be seen against the background of the Nehruvian socialist project. Indira Gandhi's moves to further the Nehruvian project – bank nationalisation and the abolition of privy purses in particular – helped her reverse the Congress misfortunes in the 1967 elections. The groundswell of support that she had managed to evoke, however, could not be sustained. But the Bangladesh war in 1971 provided the Congress with an opportunity to stoke passions, in the name of patriotism, among the people. With Indira Gandhi's leadership, the nation's army had been able to 'inflict' an 'humiliating' defeat on Pakistan. Gandhi did make the most of this 'victory'. She called for a mini-general election for state assemblies in early 1972, soon after the war. The Congress swept the polls. But the sharply rising prices following monsoon failures and the global oil price hike of 1973 led to a growing perception among the people that the Congress government was unresponsive to their needs.11 The first nuclear test in 1974 was ordered in part to tide over this crisis of credibility. This was aided by changes within the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)—the death of Vikram Sarabhai, who was opposed to nuclear explosions and the ascent to power by the more hawkish Homi Sethna and Raja Ramana. This shift in orientation was not independent of the changing focus of concerns in the domestic political scene. The most important and qualitative change that took place during this period was the meshing of nuclear' research agenda with 'concern' for 'national security'. It would appear that the clearance for India's first nuclear test was finally given in the early 1970s. The Congress made the most out of the 1974 tests to tide over a critical period. The timing of the 1974 tests may or may not have been deliberate—being India's first nuclear test, it required years of preparation. However, it must also be noted that May 1974 was a time of extreme crisis with nationwide protests against Indira Gandhi's government. Pokhran I happened at a time when the nationwide general strike by railway workers – the biggest ever industrial action in independent India – had reached its peak. Similarly, when a second test was contemplated a decade later, the Congress was enmeshed in a number of problems—a dwindling support base, especially in the South; unity among the opposition parties; the dismissal of an elected government in Andhra Pradesh that had to be restored in the face of public pressure; and secessionist movements in Punjab and Assam. Even as strategic reasons were being suggested for a second round of tests, Indira Gandhi must have speculated about the possible gains to be had from them. It is a different matter that, for reasons still not clear, the government of the day decided otherwise. It has also been argued that Rajiv Gandhi took the decision in the late 1980s to go in for explicit, though modest, weaponisation. The Congress government headed by Narasimha Rao (1991-96) is also believed to have called off planned tests.12

The BJP and the 'Hindu' Bomb After the 1998 tests, much was made of the fact that it was a government led by the BJP that had taken the final leap to explicit nuclearisation. The BJP and its earlier incarnation, the Jana Sangh, were perhaps the only major players in the political spectrum to have consistently advocated that India exercise the nuclear option. The Jana Sangh had committed to go nuclear as early as January 1965. The party's twelfth plenary session at VijayaWada where the 'principles and policies' were formulated, had in its resolution this crucial insertion: "Nuclear Weapons should be manufactured."13 The Jana Sangh (as also the BJP) had never concealed its penchant for militarism. In the Jana Sangh's manifesto for 1958, the section relating to 'national security' said, "the armed forces will be expanded to match the extent and population of the country and will be equipped with the most modern arms."14 In addition, the manifesto listed as Jana Sangh's priorities (if elected to power): a. Compulsory military training for all young men,

b. Nationalisation of all wings of the armed forces in their inspiration as well as form, c. Immediate establishment of defence industries, and d. Organisation of a vast territorial army.15 All these steps, the manifesto said, were necessary and hence will be taken by the Jana Sangh "to prepare the country physically and psychologically for self defence".16 The party's 'principles and policies' document made no effort to conceal who the 'enemy' was or against whom such weapons were to be used: "The existence of Pakistan not only means a separate political entity on Indian soil, it also amounts to a refutation of the fact of one nationhood and one culture, and a bid to keep alive the theory of two nations and two cultures." The document stressed, "this theory [that is, the legitimacy of Pakistan's existence as a nation] is the product of perverse thinking and so has given rise to numerous problems," and spelt out the prescription that "it shall be an objective of [the] Jana Sangh policies to end the separation of India and Pakistan and to bring the two together."17 Ever since the party prepared its 'principles and policies', it committed itself to exercising the nuclear option—this was made explicit in the 1967 campaign for the elections.18 The same policy was maintained after the formation of the BJP in 1980. When the BJP did finally come to power in 1998 as the head of a multiparty coalition, the new alliance's National Agenda for Governance had declared, without mincing words, that the new government "will re-evaluate the nuclear policy and exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons."19 Perhaps the only occasion when the Jana Sangh had refrained, at least for the record, from wanting to exercise the nuclear op don was during its association with the Janata Party from 1977 to 1979, since Prime Minister Morarji Desai did not allow the atomic energy establishment to move towards conducting more tests for building nuclear weapons. In 1998 the BJP-led coalition government did nothing but give effect to its decades-old agenda on the first ever opportunity it had.20 However, while it was a BJP-led government that conducted the tests in May 1998, 'credit' should also be given to the Congress government for conducung the first nuclear test in 1974, and the many subsequent governments (barring, however, the Janata Party-led government under Morarji Desai) until 1998 that had kept the 'nuclear option' open.

Nuclear Consensus: After Pokhran II In 1998 the BJP and the RSS were not the sole votaries of nuclearisation. There seemed to be a consensus across the mainstream parties for this brand of nuclear nationalism—a 'consensus' that came to be articulated as the official position in India after Pokhran II.21 A few hours after the tests, on 11 May 1998, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said: "I warmly congratulate the scientists and engineers who have carried out these successful tests."22 He was not alone in lauding the nuclear explosions as an achievement of science; the men and women behind the tests were feted by the enure political establishment. In President K.R. Narayanan's words: "This event is a major breakthrough in the realm of national security. I extend my felicitations to all the scientists and technologists who have made this possible and say to them—India is proud of you."23 The former prime minister, I.K. Gujral, the man who had cultivated the image of a crusader for peace and friendship with the rest of the world, and with Pakistan in particular, joined the chorus: "I heartily felicitate the scientists in charge of our nuclear facility on this historic occasion. It is a matter of national pride that our scientists have once again proved that they are second to none in the area of high technology...."24 The principal opposition party, Congress, was at its ambiguous best: "India has always maintained that we will keep our nuclear option open. We have always taken a principled stand on the nuclear issue. We have

been urging the elimination of nuclear weapons within a time-bound frame-work....That continues to be the sheet anchor of our nuclear weapons policy."25 However, if there was any ambiguity in this, it was clarified when the party's senior leaders (Manmohan Singh, Natwar Singh and Salman Khursheed) told the press that the tests "were an assertion of India's independence and its nuclear capability". All that they wanted, apart from what Vajpayee had declared in his statement, was an "explanation" from the government "for the timing of the tests".26 The willingness of Congress to celebrate the May adventure was not just a spontaneous reaction. This was made clear in the 'considered' response given by the party spokesperson, Ajit Jogi, on 13 May 1998, nearly 48 hours after the blasts: "This is a national achievement of which the nation is proud. It is the outcome of 40 years of endeavour of our scientists and engineers under the Prime Ministership of Jawaharlal Nehru, Lai Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao."27 This was further confirmed by the party president, Sonia Gandhi, in her statement urging people to "recall with equal pride that successive Congress Governments have ensured that India's nuclear capability remains up-to-date so that our security is not compromised."28 The Congress' only objection seemed to be that it should not be deprived of its own share of the credit. If this was the attitude of the 'national' parties, the 'regional' political parties lacked just as much restraint in celebrating the 'achievement' and expressing their 'patriotism'.29 Even the Left parties were not innocent of participating in the initial euphoria. A joint statement by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) and the Communist Party of India (CPI), said: Our two parties have been appreciating the contribution of Indian scientists in the development of nuclear research and programmes which has led to India developing its independent capability in this field....Aware of the security concerns, we have been stressing the need for developing our independent nuclear capability without any relaxation in our defence preparedness. At the same time, India has been consistently advocating universal nuclear disarmament, non-use of nuclear weapons and avoiding a nuclear arms race in the sub-continent.30 A section in the CPI(M) persisted with the idea that the tests constituted a 'scientific achievement' even a few weeks after 11 May, and despite considerable clarity in the 'official' view of the party that the bomb and the ensuing rhetoric were manifestations of a fascist agenda. For instance, Sitaram Yechury, a member of the politburo argued: "Heartening it was, no doubt, to see the country rise as one man to hail our scientific community on the successful nuclear tests. In a rare show of solidarity, the nation has, cutting across all shades of political spectrum, resolved to fight the sanctions imposed by some countries..."31 (emphasis added). From the tone and the tenor of Yechury's argument, we can conclude that the CPI(M), the most important among the Left groups in the country, was convinced that: (1) there is nothing immoral about conducting nuclear tests and that they reflected an achievement of Indian science; and (2) possession of nuclear warheads is justified as long as the government is able to make a strong case for it on grounds of national security.32 In the immediate aftermath of the tests it was important for, or rather expected of the political parties to be seen endorsing everything that was associated with 'national security'. The consent of the parties to the May 1998 Pokhran tests and their inability to resist the weaponisation programme was the result of concurrence in the period between 1974 and 1998 that the nuclear option be kept open. And when they found a government actually exercising the option, they were in complete disarray.

Conclusion India's nuclear policy has exhibited continuity for close to 25 years and across governments of many hues. While it is incorrect to describe the 1998 tests and the subsequent programme for explicit weaponisation as sudden and new, the decision made by the BJP-led government to conduct the explosions did mark a significant break from the past. In the past two decades, the RSS and its political wing, the BJP, have moulded and led the forces that seek to build an Indian identity exclusively in opposition to Pakistan. The May 1998 tests were a fallout of this ideological package to construct a nationalism whose roots lay in permanent animosity towards Pakistan, treating Pakistan's very existence as antithetical to Indian nationalism.

Not all non-BJP parties concur with the BJP's hindutva nationalism, defined in opposition to Pakistan and Islam. But they appear to share BJP's attitude to 'national security' and 'patriotism', to such an extent that they uncritically participated in the celebration of the 1998 Pokhran tests. It was no surprise that the explosions in Pokhran came to be celebrated as an expression of the nation's strength among the middle classes, whose support has been crucial for the many measures initiated by the postcolonial ruling establishment. The ruling elite in India has depended heavily upon the middle classes—in the economic front, in the realm of nation building, and in redefining the concept of Indian nationalism in a manner that is contrary to the democratic, anticolonial and secular basis on which the Indian nation was conceived during the course of the struggle against British rule. This clearly reveals the extent to which denominational nationalism, jingoism and majoritarianism have permeated the political landscape of India —thus constituting the politics of India's nuclear bomb.

Nuclear Frames: Official Nationalism, the Nuclear Bomb, and the Anti-Nuclear Movement in India* SRIRUPA ROY Why are you so concerned? We are suffering and dying every day. A nuclear bomb will make us all die together, at the same time. What's the difference? —Pedestrian to a peace activist at an anti-nuclear demonstration in South Delhi, 6 June 1998 About fifty years ago, the stroke of Sir Cyril Radcliffe's pen over the map of the South Asian subcontinent marked the birth of two independent nation-states: India and Pakistan. In the intervening years, the etchings of an English barrister have become the frontlines of a protracted conflict between the two postcolonial heirs of the British Indian empire. With the recent nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan, the tenor as well as the implications of the conflict have escalated to new heights. What compelled the decision of the Indian, and then the Pakistani state, to conduct nuclear tests in May and June 1998, after decades of following a policy of 'nuclear ambiguity'?1 Existing explanations for the nuclear-testing decision fall into two categories.2 The first adopts a structural realist level of analysis,3 arguing that the nuclear-testing decision was determined by the security compulsions generated by the anarchic international state system. According to this viewpoint, it was the development of nuclear capability by China and Pakistan that demanded the Indian response. Seen in this light, the nucleartesting decision is not really a choice made by the Indian state, but is in fact a natural expression of the principle of 'self-help' or the tendency for all states to work toward securing their externally determined interests. As several critics have noted, this approach overlooks the complexities of domestic politics in its treatment of states as undifferentiated 'black boxes' that can only react to system-level dynamics.4 Moreover, in the specific case of the South Asian nuclear-testing decision, this account proves to be incorrect. The security balance in the international arena did not change in a manner disjunctive enough to warrant the reaction of nuclear-testing decisions of the Indian and Pakistani states in the summer of 1998—despite the claims of the Indian defence minister George Fernandes that the Indian tests were a response to a Chinese threat, the foreign policy of the Chinese state did not change suddenly in the preceding months.5 In contrast, the second set of explanations for the nuclear tests adopts a different level of analysis—that of the domestic arena, or the institutions, actors and practices that are internal to state units which constitute the international system. Here, the security and interests of the state are not seen as pre-given and fixed, but rather as constituted and influenced by domestic-level factors and imperatives that work within the inner spaces of the apparently undifferentiated state units of system-level theory. However, this perspective also generates its own problematic reification of the domestic arena or the inner world of the black boxes, reducing it in a vast majority of cases to either a specific political maneuver of an individual actor or a political party, or to a discrete constellation of social and economic forces that comes together at a certain temporal moment. For instance, if the nuclear-testing decision is explained solely in terms of a policy decision taken by the Hindu-nationalist dominated government in power at the time in India, then the isolated factor of Hindu nationalism becomes the dominant explanatory variable. The resulting narrow and static freeze frame cannot take into consideration the social-historical processes and practices that enabled the emergence of Hindu nationalism in the first place; an omission that perpetuates the problematic notion of a nuclear

switch that can be turned on and off at specific points in time, without any repercussions and resonances. This essay takes an alternative route in search of a more comprehensive explanation. I attempt to bring a wider understanding of social and historical practices and processes into a discussion of the nuclearisation of South Asia. I argue that the nuclear choice made by the state institution is a socially situated one, and that the logic of security and interests that it uses to justify its decision draws upon cognitive belief-structures or ideological formations that have a historical presence in society. It is my contention that the tendency to exclusively comment on the disjunctive changes ushered in by contemporary Hindu nationalism – the making of arguments about the 'Hindu bomb' – occludes an examination of the wider social and historical framework within which contemporary Hindu nationalist ideology makes its distinctive intervention.6 I also suggest that the state's nuclear-testing decision seeks ideological justification on grounds that are not directly linked to the nuclear issue. These include the social acceptance of the ideology of a strong developmentalist state; the valorisation of science and technology as signs of progress and modernity; and an ambiguous relationship of emulation/rejection with the Western world. Even the popular conceptualisation of international relations as a zero-sum game in which citizens celebrate national victories – at cricket matches, hockey tournaments, the Miss Universe pageant, or the development of nuclear technology – with equivalent fervour, plays an important framing and legitimating role. The reproduction and dissemination of these belief structures or cognitive frameworks takes place through the workings of official nationalism—the particular discourse about state and nation that is produced in and through the institutions of the modern state.7 As Brubaker has observed, the nation is not just an "imagined community"; it is also a "practical category, a classificatory scheme, a cognitive frame".8 In other words, the way in which a nation is imagined by and through a particular discourse of nationalism has an impact on the ordering of politics and power, and on definitions of state, society, selfhood, citizenship and international relations in a given space. The debate about India's nuclear option is one that plays itself out within this particular discursive field and is subject to its particular boundary rules and strictures. To explore the terrain staked out by official nationalist discourse is thus to understand why and how specific choices, world views and policy decisions on particular issues – here, the nuclear issue – are applauded as right, better or even inevitable, while others are dismissed as wrong, worse, or impossible. This essay undertakes such an exploration of official nationalist discourse in postcolonial India, focussing in particular on the Nehruvian-era conceptualisation of a 'representative state'. I suggest that the understanding of representation in terms of a vertical or hierarchical relation between the representative (state) and the represented (society) is central to the social and political imaginary in postcolonial India. I pay particular attention to the genealogy of this concept, focussing on the mode and circumstances of its original articulation at the founding moment of the Indian republic. I argue that the imperatives of building a particular kind of postcolonial identity for the newly independent nation-state produced a certain understanding of the representative principle, whereby the state could 'truly represent' society by making decisions on its behalf, as a centralised institution that directed and developed society from a transcendent location 'above' society. I specifically discuss the activities of "monumentalist state-making"9 that correspond to this particular vision of the state and of state-society relations, and trace the valorisation of science and technology – nuclear science and technology in particular — to this imperative of building a big, transcendent and visible state. However, at least during the Nehruvian era the privileging of nuclear science and technology did not translate into an overt commitment to nuclear armament. While the fetishisation of nuclear science enabled the domestic production of the state as a distinct authority structure, the simultaneous abstention from the prevailing game of nuclear politics in the international arena gave the state its distinctive external identity. The dominant emphasis in this period was on the 'peaceful uses' of nuclear technology—specifically the promise of cheap and abundant nuclear energy that could be provided by the state alone. I conclude the second section of this essay (Official Nationalism and Representative State-making) by commenting on the extent to which the emergence of Hindu nationalism as a major social and political presence in the late 1990s ushers in different sets of normative understandings about institutions, identities and international relations in modern India, and how these affect the formation of nuclear policy. As scholars of modern India have noted, Hindu nationalist ideology has introduced several qualitatively new dimensions

into Indian public discourse—it has called for an interrogation of Nehruvian secularism, and it has popularised a militarist-masculinist ideology of majoritarian cultural nationalism, to name just a couple of its 'innovations'.10 However, disjunctures alone are not enough to tell the entire story of Hindutva. It is equally important to look at the continuities between the official nationalisms of the old and the new India—to note that Hindu nationalism also draws upon and reproduces long-established and unquestioned conceptions of the big representative state and its counterpart, a passive society that needs guidance and protection. In fact, I suggest that the nuclear-testing decision can be seen as a site of translation that allows Hindu nationalist ideology to legitimise itself in terms of business-as-usual official nationalism in India—as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to prove that it too can move beyond the saffron shades of Hindu nationalism to speak the language of national interests, national security, and 'resurgent' Indian identity in a post-cold-war world. In the final section of this essay, I turn to the anti-nuclear movement in India, and the extent to which it is generating new frames of meaning that destabilise existing understandings about state, social and international identity and interests.11 Formed in response to the nuclear tests of May 1998, the anti-nuclear movement is a diffuse front of social groups, and encompasses a wide range of perspecuves on the meaning and modalities of anti-nuclear activism. Most of these groups, however, agree on the importance of information provision as a means of shattering dominant myths about the benign effect of nuclear weapons. What kinds of information are being provided, to whom, and by whom? To use the sociological language of framing as a means of understanding the present organisational strategies of the anti-nuclear movement, is there an effort to produce frames of transformation?

Official Nationalism and Representative State-making: Colonial Origins, Postcolonial Transformations The origins of nationalist discourse in India can be traced to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and the consolidation of the imperial state form as a new institutional presence that elicited new social and political discourses about the meaning, location and legitimacy of authority. Between 1885 (the establishment of the earliest nationalist organisation, the Indian National Congress) and 1947 (the official transfer of power from the British empire to the sovereign states of India and Pakistan), the meaning attributed to being a nationalist and the accompanying definition of the Indian nation varied widely. In fact, nationalist discourse in the colonial period can be more fruitfully characterised as a field of competing stances rather than as a consensual and monolithic ideological structure.12 One of the few points of ideological convergence was the acceptance of a sovereign and representative state as the ultimate sign and proof of the existence of a nation. As we shall see, this conceptual conflation of nation and state that began in the colonial period went on to shape political culture in the postcolonial period as well. A detailed exploration of the emergence and consolidation of this particular cognitive pairing is outside the scope of this essay.13 However, it is worth noting that the conflation of state and nation, and the privileging of representation as the ultimate function of a legitimate state, stems in large part from the interaction between the British imperial state and various Indian nationalist groups, rather than from a blind imitation of Western ideas and practices by the non-Western world, as scholars like Chatterjee have argued.14 As Hasan, Seal, and others have shown in their work on the Indian nationalist movement, representation emerged as the crucial site on which both the British state and the Indian nationalists staked their respective claims of providing better and 'truly legitimate' governance, and dismissed the claims of their opponents.15 For the British, only an imperial state that could impartially stand above the messy diversity of Indian society would be able to undertake the task of representative governance. For the Indian National Congress, only a sovereign national state that included representatives from all the diverse groups of Indian society (language, region, religion, and to a lesser extent caste, gender and class) could effectively shoulder the burden of 'true' representation. And for the Muslim League and its 'two nation theory', two sovereign national states were required—a Muslim state to represent the Muslim nation, and a Hindu state to represent the Hindu nation. Imperial rule formally ended in 1947 with the partition of the British Indian empire and the proclamation of independence for India and Pakistan. But the shadow of the past loomed over the twins of

midnight. On both sides of the Radcliffe line, each state forged its sovereign national identity in and through foregrounding its newly found ability to be 'truly representative'. And in each case, this entailed combining the particular nationalist line on the representative state as a mirror of society – whether the diversityembracing vision of the Indian National Congress or the monocultural vision of the Muslim League — with the imperial understanding of the representative state as a transcendent and paternalist institution. The Indian state formulated its new identity over four long and eventful years, beginning in 1946 with the convening of the constituent assembly under the terms of die imperial Government of India Act of 1935, and ending on 26 January 1950, with the adoption of the Indian Constitution. The leaders of the Indian National Congress played a dominant role in determining the goals and orientation of the newly independent nation; in fact, for at least thirty years after independence, the 'Congress system'16 framed Indian political culture. Consequently, the Congress' notion that a representative state needed to mirror the diversity of Indian society by including representatives of different social and cultural groups was one of the primary assumptions that informed state-formation practices in postcolonial India. The immediate sociopolitical and economic contingencies that surrounded the founding moment of the Indian republic also left their formative traces on postcolonial political culture. The unprecedented frenzy of communal violence that accompanied the partition of the subcontinent; the displacement of millions of people on both sides of the border that resulted in a sudden, almost overnight increase in urban populations in cities like Delhi; the massive food shortages; the outbreak of armed conflict between India and Pakistan over the territory of Kashmir in 1948; the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a sympathiser of extreme Hindu nationalism; and the territorial imperative of welding together the scores of princely states with the Indian republic—all exerted a tremendous pressure on the deliberations of the constituent assembly. These factors tilted the balance almost overwhelmingly in favour of a strong centralised state—a federation with unitary tendencies was the euphemism of the moment. Further, despite the commitment to the 'representative state as mirror of diverse society' principle discussed above, the size and composition of the society to be represented by the state remained uncertain until 1949, when almost three years of constitutional deliberations had already taken place. In a striking departure from the historical record of other constitutional conventions, such as those that took place in the US and Australia, the commitment to representing 'we the people' of India was made long before the people were known; the size, shape and number of the constituent territorial units were fixed; and the boundaries of the national community were mapped. In such a situation of flux, the only certainty was the imperative of building a strong state institution—of course, it would mirror the people of India once their actual identity was determined, but in the meantime, all energies were focussed on developing and institutionalising the transcendence and paternalism aspects of the representative principle. The primary trope of official nationalist discourse during the Nehruvian era was the emphasis on the state institution as the arbiter of social and political destiny, as the proof or sign that the Indian nation existed. The nation was conceptualised in terms of an inalienable and chaotic diversity, with the intervention of the state as necessary for the realisation of national unity. Apart from forging unity – or rather, giving voice to the 'natural urge' or 'emotion' of oneness that existed deep within the Indian psyche17 – the state was seen to have other national duties and responsibilities as well. As we have already noted, the chief role of the state was understood to be the representation of the nation/society/people, with the act of representation conceptualised in terms of 'standing above' society in order to determine, guide and protect its diverse interests. The state was also given several additional attributes by official nationalist discourse in the postcolonial period. It was presented as an enlightened institutional legatee of the Indian nationalist movement and its leaders, which continued their work of guiding the 'humble and ignorant' masses.18 It was seen to be located in the 'outer world' of politics, where it grappled with non-Indian conceptions of modernity and change. However, the specific kind of politics practised by the state was in fact declared to be an 'antipolitics'—that which bore no resemblance to the 'profane' and corruptible maneuvers of ordinary politicians and political parties, that which kept the people's true interests in mind.19 In sum, the invention of the Indian state entailed assigning to it the attributes of transcendence, bigness, visibility, and a distinctively 'antipolitical' style of functioning, all of which were then deployed in efforts to legitimise its existence as the true representative of the Indian nation.

Science, Technology, and the State As Abraham has noted in his discussion of postcolonial state-formation in India, one of the key imperatives of the Nehruvian project of producing a representative postcolonial state was that the state's work of representing the people – planning, preserving and developing their present and future – needed to be rendered visible.20 This imperative of visibility was served through the adoption of a 'monumentalist' style of state-making—the undertaking of big projects. India after 1950 was a nation that was defined through the big dreams of its state. On the domestic front, this translated into a commitment to planned development – the Nehruvian promise to wipe every tear from every eye' – through the construction of institutional edifices and expertises that could quite literally command the economy from a transcendent, directorial vantage point. Science and technology lent themselves well to these dreams of impartial monumentality. The practice of science in postcolonial India reproduced the understanding of representation as standing above society. Scientific knowledge enabled the carving out of a zone of transcendent expertise, whose languages, rituals and actions were in principle transparent and accessible to all, but in practice remained incomprehensible to all but a chosen few.21 Only those who had access to higher education (in a country of overwhelming illiteracy) and could then clear a fiercely competitive national examination for admission to the state-sponsored institutes of technology, were groomed to be the future scientific experts of India. Scientists, like other representatives of the masses, were thus a limited, chosen handful of individuals. The practice of science incarnated the dual promise of representation—to look after the interests of society only by virtue of being located in an insulated zone above it. Scientists were also attributed with antipolitical and non-partisan commitments to the nation as a whole. In the Nehruvian vision, the reason of science was presented as universal, impartial, and as the antidote for all the social, political and economic unrest and inequalities that apparently made India backward. But science did not just incarnate universal principles and commitments in India—it was also a means of expressing a sense of Indian particularism, through the quest for an 'indigenous science' that showcased the contributions of 'native scientists' and the marvels of homegrown swadeshi technologies.22 Science thus served as both the site and the instrument for engaging simultaneously with the discourses of international or universal similarity ('we are just like all the rest'), and of national uniqueness ('we are distinctive'). Science was where and how the Indian state tried to balance the dual domestic and external imperatives that all modern 'Janusfaced' nation-states are confronted with, particularly those that have come of age at a time when the international template of national sovereignty has already been well-established.23 Finally, science as knowledge and as practice was crucial to the realisation of the 'monumentalist' selfconception of the Indian state, because it alone could bring big and visible technological artefacts into being. Technology literalised the dreams of greatness in the era of 'modern temple-building': the new India could, and did, build big dams, big bridges, big railway coach factories, big power plants, and big atomic reactors.24 They were real, they could be seen, photographed, filmed, inaugurated, named, worshipped. And they all existed in the name of the state, which existed in the name of the people. Representation, through the promise and practice of big development, big science and big technology, had come to stay. In Nehru's version of modern India so many gleaming boulders of steel would constitute the new places of worship for its citizens, and the dome of the atomic reactor would loom over the Indian landscape as a sign of state-guided national progress, of India's arrival in the world-historical moment of modernity.25 As Abraham has rightly observed, both the postcolonial state and postcolonial science in India should be seen as 'fetishobjects' in the Marxist sense of the term—they objectify and (therefore) mystify the complex web of social relations in and through which they are constituted.26 To this insight, we can add one more. We are bowled over and distracted by size. The visible monumentality of the fetish that is the postcolonial state and postcolonial science – its sheer bigness – is what enables the underlying 'microcapillaries' of power relations to be obscured.27 Nehru died in 1964, after India's first major international conflict—the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962. The Indian state, and its particular legiumising doctrine of official nationalism, had by then assumed a definite shape. And long after the death of Nehru, and even after the crumbling of key pillars of the Nehruvian project

of state-formation – such as secularism, planned economic development, and a one-party dominant political system in which political dissent was contained within the singular and all-encompassing umbrella of the Congress party – certain significant features of this Nehruvian nationalism continued to structure public discourse in India. On the domestic front, the identity of the Indian state was defined through its representativeness. As we have already seen, this entailed a commitment to big, visible projects; a valorisation of science and technology; the insulation of certain acts and policies of state from the democratic process with the argument that reasons of state were by definition antipolitical or transcended petty politicking and hence did not need public scrutiny; and a belief in state-led economic development, which worked towards achieving the goal of rapid modernisation. On the international front, the newly independent nation-state continued to struggle with the twin dilemmas of Janus-faced nationalism—to carve out a particular or unique national identity even while conforming to an international modular template of nation-stateness. For a considerable period of time, one way to resolve this dilemma was to insist on a foreign policy of nonalignment: a rhetorical third way in a strictly zero-sum cold war world. However, as scholars such as Perkovich and Nizamani have noted, even at the zenith of non-alignment in Nehruvian India, there were significant crisis moments in which political leaders proved to be quite willing and eager to align themselves with one superpower at the expense of the other.28 But despite these fairly significant practical aberrations, the rhetoric of 'being different' never faltered. As Nizamani observes, this commitment to uniqueness-yetmodularity explains the long-term stance of Indian 'nuclear ambiguity', whereby on the one hand India joined the world race for claiming nuclear capability, but on the other, stopped short of overt weaponisation and spoke of keeping a 'nuclear option' open—a stance that continued even after the 'Peaceful Nuclear Explosion' under the Indira Gandhi regime in 1974.29 What does all of this mean for the immediate topic of this essay—the 'nuclear choice' made by the Indian state in May 1998? Given that there is a fairly widespread consensus on the disjunctive changes in Indian political culture, should we not move away from a discussion of Nehruvian official nationalism and look for other kinds of societal-ideological frameworks as the legitimising conditions of possibility for the nucleartesting decision? It is true that contemporary India, with its regionalisation of politics, liberalised economy, and its apparent acceptance of the BJP brand of majoritarian Hindu nationalism, looks very different from the Nehruvian moment in Indian history. However, if we take a second look, along with scholars such as Hansen, Abraham and Perkovich, we see that the discursive legitimation of the Indian polity continues to draw upon and reproduce familiar presumptions about Indian national identity. Thus, it is in the name of the 'big and representative state that knows best' that the increasing centralisation of power through the declaration of President's rule in states throughout the Indian union has taken place, from the time of the Indira Gandhi government until the present moment of BJP rule.30 The state continues to take actions 'on behalf of national interest' by adopting a posture of increasing hostility with Pakistan. And most importantly for our purposes, the nuclear-testing decision is legitimised not just through appeals to a masculinist brand of Hindu nationalism – the "we have to prove that we are not eunuchs"31 triumphant declaration of the Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray – but also through appeals to familiar tropes of scientific progress, the imperative of secrecy for raison d'etat, and the need to be recognised in the international arena. It is not just the new wine, but the old bottles that require our critical attention in determining the causes of nuclearisation. Just as it is impossible to ignore the fact that Hindu nationalism has emerged in India through the workings of the existing democratic process, it is also impossible to ignore the ways in which a nuclear India draws upon and reproduces familiar and unquestioned assumptions about national identity and state-society relations.

After the Shock: The Limits of 'Unmasking' Nuclear Policy In this essay, I have argued that the concept of the representative state, with representation understood as a vertical or hierarchical relation of authority between the representative institution and the represented people, nation or society, is a foundational principle that organises social and political life in postcolonial India. I have traced the origins of this concept to the nationalist movement in the colonial period and its particular vision of an independent Indian nation-state, one that was then consolidated and institutionalised in the postcolonial period under the leadership of the first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The form of statemaking that corresponded to this understanding of representation led to the building of a transcendent, big,

visible state that was seen to engage exclusively in antipolitical activities. The distinction between state and society – an essential component of modern practices of state-formation and state-legitimation – rested on the separation effected between the domain of antipolitical state politics and profane or ordinary politics, which in turn, invoked the difference between the leaders and the masses, the representatives and the represented. The state's commitment to activities such as economic planning, the development of particular kinds of 'big science' and 'big technology', and the commitment to 'uplifting' certain minority groups and other 'backward' sections of society were crucial components of the state's pedagogical self-image, as was the specific institutional form of unitary federalism and the emphasis given to the necessity of creating and maintaining a strong centre. I concluded the previous section by suggesting that this particular configuration of state-society relations serves as one of the conditions of possibility, or the social and ideological framework of the tendency to fetishise the nuclear bomb. As several commentators have rightly observed, the Nehruvianera privileging of nuclear science and technology stopped short of a commitment to nuclear weaponisation, with Nehru himself taking a definite public stance in favour of global nuclear disarmament. In this line of reasoning, the final and disjunctive step that moved India away from the status-quo doctrine of 'nuclear ambiguity' has undoubtedly been taken by the BJP government after it came to power in the late 1990s. The social and political ascendance of hindutva or Hindu nationalist ideology is seen to usher in a radically new conceptualisation of state-society relations, national identity, and international relations, and it is against this particular Hindu nationalist backdrop that we need to understand the politics of the nuclear bomb. However, it is my contention that the isolation of the new' Hindutva ideology as the social-cognitive underpinning of Indian nuclear policy tells only one half of the story. We need to look beyond the freeze frame of the immediate moment to the wider social and political field within which hindutva operates: the conditions of possibility for the rise of hindutva ideology itself.32 The previous section has engaged with these issues by examining the original formation and consolidation of assumptions about identities and institutions in postcolonial India, commenting on some of the 'nonnuclear' underpinnings of the nuclear issue, and on the continuities rather than the ruptures between the present and the past. These insights about non-nuclear and historical frames of reference serve as the point of departure for this section, in which the activities of the anti-nuclear movement in India are evaluated— activities, which coalesced around the opposition to the nuclear tests of May 1998. I argue that the transformative potential of an anti-nuclear politics hinges on the extent to which it is able to interrogate these non-nuclear, non-contemporaneous assumptions. This amounts to what M.V. Ramana has felicitiously referred to as the commitment to a 'just peace'33 or the formation of a broad front in which opposition to the state's nuclear policy is linked with other ongoing struggles for participatory democracy. In sum, the longterm and definitive success of the anti-nuclear movement will be determined by the extent to which it critically interrogates some of the formative and foundational assumptions of modern Indian public culture— an impossible task perhaps, if we think of the short-term, but definitely an ultimate goal or horizon that we should never lose sight of. While a nascent anti-nuclear movement has existed in India before the tests of May 1998, focussing its critique on the environmental and social costs of the nuclear energy project and on the importance of committing the nation to abandoning the quest for nuclear weapons capability, the major galvanisation took place in the immediate aftermath of the Pokhran II tests. Within a few days of the official announcement about the nuclear tests, several citizens' groups organised marches, demonstrations and rallies in various metropolitan locations throughout India. In the capital city of New Delhi, impromptu fronts of concerned citizens coalesced under different organisational labels: Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament (MIND) and Parmanu Bomb Virodhi Andolan (PBVA—Movement Against Nuclear Weapons). The members of these groups were predominandy from urban locations, and for the most part had considerable experience in environmental, feminist and labour movements. A significant proportion of PBVA and MIND members were also well-recognised members of the Indian urban-intellectual class – journalists, academics, and writers – who had direct or indirect knowledge of peace movements in other countries. The strategies of these movements were initially adopted from the experiences of social-movement organising in India as well as from peace-movement organising in the West. Thus, a very vocal and visible opposition to the nucleartesting decision was mounted through the convening of public rallies and demonstrations, the writing of newspaper and journal articles, the publication of parchhis or simple two-sided pamphlets that could be

handed out to commuters in public buses, marketplaces, and other densely populated venues. While the aam janta or the mass urban population was addressed through public meetings convened at (strategically selected) lower middle class residential areas and the distribution of pamphlets on public buses., the upper middle class and the intellectual class were addressed through different media, such as the English language press and the distribution of 'Say No to Nuclear Weapons' bumper stickers and posters, and white ribbons to express solidarity with the hibakusha (survivors of the nuclear holocaust in Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Apart from the formation of these new single-issue groups dedicated exclusively to the immediate cause of opposing the nuclear-testing decision, several activist organisations and social movements that were already in existence for other purposes also addressed the anti-nuclear issue. These included national social movements for social and economic justice such as the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM); local educational organisations such as the Mumbai-based Communalism Combat and the Delhi-based Delhi Science Forum; regional peace coalitions such as the Bangalore Platform Against Nuclear Weaponisation; and international 'people-to-people' organisations advocating the broad cause of peace such as the Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD). Several national organisations also emerged to mark opposition to the nuclear tests and their implications, for example, organisations of people in the same profession, such as Journalists Against Nuclear Weapons, and Physicians Against Nuclear Weapons. An active presence in cyberspace through websites and cyber-discussion groups such as South Asian Citizens Web and South Asians for Peace also involved the diasporic community of South Asians as well as other critics of South Asian nuclearisation located outside the territorial coordinates of the subcontinent.34 Finally, trenchant critiques of the Indian nuclear tests were also mounted by prominent artists, writers and other public figures—such as the Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy, the novelist and anthropologist Amitav Ghosh, and the reured Chief of Naval Stalf Admiral L. Ramdas. These organisations and individuals adopted several different strategies, which can be broadly grouped in two categories: the provision of information, and lobbying for policy changes at the national and international level. The first included the dissemination of information about the social, economic, and environmental costs of India's nuclear programme—for example, a discussion of the range of essential public policy measures that the government's expenditure on weapons and testing could support (education, health care, availability of safe drinking water). Efforts were also made to create awareness about the disastrous consequences of a nuclear war and of accidental nuclear disasters, by citing the examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Closer home, information was provided on the infrastructural inadequacy of the Indian defence establishment (the absence of an adequate Command, Control, Delivery and Intelligence system), and the geographical inappropriateness of a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan (unlike the superpowers during the cold war, the geographical proximity of India and Pakistan makes a nuclear alert irreversible). Apart from the provision of information, several groups also undertook significant efforts at lobbying for social and political change in both domestic and international arenas. This entailed the convening of a series of national and international workshops and conferences where the anti-nuclear opposition in India could be clearly formulated and made visible, the writing of articles and op-ed pieces for publication in newspapers and magazines, and establishing a presence at international summits such as The Hague Peace Conference of 1999 and the UN-NGO Summit of 2000. The demand for change was articulated at several levels, from the transformation of the educational curricula in Indian schools to incorporate a pacifist 'neighbour-friendly' approach, to an immediate cessation of the Indian nuclear programme and the resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan, and at the international level, a move towards global disarmament. Several important issues continued to divide this broad anti-nuclear front—such as the question of opposing nuclear weapons alone or combining this with a critique of nuclear energy; and also the question of whether India should sign the CTBT, which some anti-nuclear activists continued to see as an inegalitarian expression of 'nuclear imperialism and apartheid'. Further, depending on their general political orientation, some groups linked their critique of the nuclear tests to a larger critique of bourgeois democracy in India, while others chose to focus on Hindu nationalism as the main enemy, and still others voiced their opposition in the name of environmental protection, social justice and decentralisation, and/or a reworking of IndiaPakistan relations.

At the time of writing this essay, more than two years have passed since the events of May 1998. The question of South Asian nuclearisation is today characterised by a peculiar situation of stalemate or being in limbo, in the sense that India and Pakistan have yet to embark on the overt weaponisation route that other states have taken after demonstrating their ability to 'go nuclear'.35 Apart from the development of 'more sophisticated' missile delivery systems, the formulation of a deeply-flawed nuclear doctrine, and the intermittent (but nonetheless uncomfortably frequent) nuclear muscle-flexing by the Indian and Pakistani governments, there does not seem to be any specific reason for the hands of the atomic clock to advance based on developments in South Asia since May 1998.36 Equally, and more alarmingly, the anti-nuclear movement in South Asia seems to be in danger of losing its confrontational edge; of succumbing to the disease of 'demosclerosis',37 whereby public protest, like other forms of democratic participation is institutionalised, routinised, and ultimately rendered ineffectual. When annual peace conferences, Hiroshima Day rallies, and an anti-nuclear editorial on May 11 appear with unfailing — and therefore habitual and predictable – regularity every year, it is time to worry. Without quite answering the famous Leninist question (What is to be done?) I would like to end this essay with a call for the anti-nuclear movement in India to work in sudden, spontaneous and most importantly, decentralised ways towards ushering in a truly transformational politics, one which will critically interrogate not just the immediate issue of nuclearisation but the foundational social contract of the Indian republic itself. An opportunity for translating this somewhat abstract notion of 'critical interrogation' into concrete practice presents itself right now, when the BJP government's own linkage of its two main feats – the nuclear tests of 1998 and the building of the Sardar Sarovar Dam in the Narmada Valley – has laid the groundwork for an immediate and joint critique of these two policies.38 In allying itself with social movements that protest the anti-democratic project of constructing large dams with complete disregard for the lives of those displaced by such activities, the anti-nuclear movement can broaden its focus beyond the immediate issue of nuclearisation to the more longstanding and deep-rooted problems of flawed democracy in contemporary India. Such a broadening of focus would also entail a reckoning with one of the more pernicious silences in the anti-nuclear movement, over whether the movement against nuclear disarmament should also be a movement against nuclear power projects which are marked by an equal disregard for human security and democratic transparency. Further, this process of broadening the focus of the anti-nuclear movement will necessarily involve a reworking of Delhi-centric organisational impulses by necessitating more decentralised and flexible practices. A transformational politics will be ushered in when activist roads no longer have to lead to and from Delhi,39 and the capital city loses its centralising 'arboreal' signification to become just another location in the 'rhizomatic' circuit of movements that work for social and economic justice in India.40 To return to the epigraph of this essay, there is something seriously wrong when the prospect of nuclear war can be normalised within a quotidian experience of death. The question of what's the difference' cannot be answered by pointing to the incommensurable and extraordinary dangers of nuclearisation, but by working to end the ordinary, habitual and apparently 'inevitable' experiences of suffering that allow this question to be asked in the first place. * Research for this project has been supported by a grant from the SSRC-MacArthur Program on International Peace and Security, and by the International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University. The encouragement and patience of Robert Latham and the SSRC-IPS committee over the longue duree is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks to the following individuals whose work and words have made this essay and the far more important project of an anti-nuclear politics in South Asia possible: Kanti Bajpai, Jenny Bennett, Praful Bidwai, Sanghamitra Gadekar, Surendra Gadekar, Zoya Hasan, Harsh Kapoor, Saba Gul Khattak, Rita Manchanda, Zia Mian, M.V. Ramana, Nafisa Shah, Achin Vanaik and Hasan Zaidi.

Nuclear Weapons versus Schools for Children: An Estimate of the Cost of the Indian Nuclear Weapons Programme* C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY During the periodic debates that took place in the 1960s and 1970s on whether or not India should become a nuclear weapon state, the financial cost of weaponisation was an integral element of the discussions. Yet, when India finally decided in 1998 to opt for open nuclear weaponisation, the cost factor was ignored altogether. The first widespread examination of India's choices took place after China's first nuclear test in 1964—in Parliament, the government and the media Costs always figured in the arguments mustered by the pro and anti-bomb groups. The numbers discussed then may have been largely guesstimates, and not all the costs of a nuclear weapons arsenal may have been taken into account. Nevertheless, everybody including the prime minister, Lai Bahadur Shastri, and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Homi Bhabha, acknowledged the economic and financial implications of weaponisation.1 Economics continued to occupy a prominent position subsequently as well. For one chairman of the AEC, Vikram Sarabhai, the costs involved were so enormous that he argued against building nuclear weapons.2 The 1974 nuclear test raised the cost issue again. Military personnel, defence strategists and media commentators —all kept coming back to the costs to demonstrate either that weaponisation would cripple the Indian economy, or be quite affordable. The running thread in such discussions about the cost aspect has made an observer comment that the Indian debate shows that "India has violated or revised the maxim that no price is too high to pay for protecting national security."3 Yet, there is no evidence of the costs of nuclear weaponisation being reckoned with by the Indian government when the final decision was taken in 1998 to conduct the second round of nuclear tests, and embark on weaponisation. Costs do not seem to have figured even later when the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) was preparing the draft Indian Nuclear Doctrine (dIND) of 1999.4 This essay puts together an estimate of the future costs to India of a nuclear arsenal. A brief discussion of the costs incurred by the older nuclear weapon states (elaborated in the Appendix) is followed by an overview of the more important cost estimates prepared for India in the past. We then look at the different components of a likely Indian nuclear arsenal and prepare the best possible estimates of individual and total costs.

Costs in Nuclear Weapon States The expenditure incurred by the five 'established' nuclear weapon states – the US, the former Soviet Union, the UK, France and China – which went nuclear between 1945 and 1964, should provide a guide to the cost of nuclear weaponisation in India. Of course, the technologies have evolved over half a century, costs have changed, and the nuclear doctrine (which determines the shape and therefore the cost of the arsenal) of each of these countries was different. A simple listing of the outlays made by these countries may not help much in preparing an estimate for India. Nevertheless, a discussion of past costs could provide clues about the relative distribution of expenditure between different components of a weapons programme and also about the relative burden on the economy. A detailed discussion of these historical costs – where information is

available – is presented in the Appendix. From what we know of the expenditure incurred by the first five nuclear weapon states, three features are relevant for estimating the cost of India's nuclear weaponisation programme. First, nuclear bombs themselves constitute a very small proportion of total costs. The largest expenditure is on the acquisition of delivery systems, and the development of a command and control system. Second, in countries with a small nuclear force (the only information available being for France) the annual outlay on weaponisation during the initial decade of weaponisation varied roughly between 0.4 to 0.9 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). This is a figure to bear in mind, because many (not all) of India's strategists too visualise a 'small' rather than a 'large' arsenal. Third, nuclear weaponisation accounted for about 20 to 30 per cent of the annual military expenditure in the case of the nuclear powers. These are useful benchmarks for estimating the cost of weaponisation in India. The UN and independent reseachers have also projected the costs that 'a new nuclear weapon state' will have to incur. These estimates (also discussed in the Appendix) suggest that even after considerable investments have been made in the nuclear fuel cycle – from the mining of uranium to the production of fissile material for nuclear bombs – the additional financial resources required for delivery systems, and command and control, will be substantial. This too is of relevance for preparation of an estimate of future costs, since it is often argued that as India has already established much of the infrastructure required for nuclear weapons, the incremental expenditure it needs to incur will be relatively small.

Past Cost Estimates of an Indian Nuclear Weapons Programme From the 1960s onwards, a number of estimates of the financial costs of nuclear weaponisation have been made in India by academics, serving and retired defence personnel, political agents and government committees. They have been usually rough estimates and few have taken into account the three main categories of expenditure—nuclear bombs, delivery systems, and command, control, communications and information (C3I). Quite often the numbers were chosen to prove a point of view on either side of the debate. A few exhaustive exercises, however, did attempt to give as complete a picture as was possible with publicly available information. Perhaps the earliest recognition of the fact that an Indian nuclear weapons programme would mean more than just building nuclear bombs came from Vikram Sarabhai who said in the late 1960s: [Nuclear deterrence] is not achieved by exploding a bomb. It means a total defence system, a means of delivery in this case. You have to think in terms of long range missiles; it means radars, a high state of electronics, a high state of metallurgical and industrial base. How do you develop such a system?...It requires total commitment of national resources of a most stupendous magnitude....I think India should view this question in relation to the sacrifices it is prepared to make, viewing in its totality.... [That is why] an atomic bomb is not going to help our security.5 Of the many cost estimates prepared in or for India six deserve special discussion, each for a unique reason:6 1. Shastri-Bhabha Estimates: The first high-level discussion on costs took place subsequent to China's 1964 test, which came just two years after the India-China war of 1962. The pro-bomb lobby used China's decision to go nuclear to justify its demand that India exercise the nuclear option. But during that period India was in the midst of a food crisis and on the verge of arranging for large-scale food aid from abroad. That was also a time when India saw itself as a country that had to garner and retain its resources. It was quite natural that costs would figure prominently in the debate. The figures mentioned in 1964 were in the range of Rs 17.5 lakh for one bomb, and Rs 10 crore for a 50-weapon arsenal, to as much as Rs 50 crore for a single nuclear weapon.7 The main spokespersons on either side were Homi Bhabha, head of the AEC, who provided the smaller estimate, and Prime Minister Lai Bahadur Shastri who presented the larger estimate. As Perkovich says, there was no way to independently validate or reject any of these estimates.8 At this early stage of the debate the figures were only about the cost of building one or more nuclear bombs with nothing mentioned about delivery or C3I systems.

2. Major General Som Dutt-IISS Estimate: The second landmark in the cost debate happened in 1966 when Major General D. Som Dutt, a serving army officer, prepared an independent estimate at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Major General Dutt placed the cost of an Indian weapons programme at $300 million a year (1966 prices) over one decade, with operational costs of an additional 10 per cent. These costs were inclusive of the establishment of a uranium separation plant, fissile material production, warhead and rocket design, and the development and production of a ballistic missile. Such a programme was projected to cause a 25 per cent increase in Indian's annual defence budget.9 The significance of this estimate was not in the value of its numbers but that for the first time a cost exercise attempted to cover the nuclear cycle from the mining of uranium to the acquisition of delivery systems. The exercise, however, excluded command and control. 3. The 1985 Government Committee Estimate: The third landmark came almost two decades later, in 1985, when a high-level government committee was asked to prepare the cost of India going nuclear. If one were to ignore the figures thrown up in the Shastri-Bhabha debate, this appears to have been the first 'official' attempt to look at costs in an integrated fashion. One unofficial account of that committee's work claims the group presented the prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, with an estimated cost of Rs 7,000 crore (19.85 prices) for warheads in the 'low three digit figures', comprising short range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) only.10 According to a member of that committee, Admiral KK. Nayyar, this included the cost of a rudimentary command and control structure.11 However, the numbers mentioned by the committee were not apparently accurate. Admiral Nayyar has been reported to have said: "It was a pretty crude way to do costing. There was no way of cross-checking because we couldn't consult international experts."12 The arbitrariness of the estimate is also illustrated by the fact that around the same time, the chief economic advisor to the Indian government is said to have come up with an estimate of Rs 100,000 crore, or almost 15 times the estimate of the defence committee.13 4. Brigadier Vijai Nair Estimate: Brigadier Vijai K. Nair is a retired military officer active in the nuclear debate. His research led to the fourth landmark estimate (1991-92). Brigadier Nair's figures are important, because in doctrine and size, the model on which the numbers are based anticipates, in many ways, the official dIND. His construct included delivery systems comprising aircraft, missiles and nuclear-powered submarines (also known as ships submersible nuclear or SSNs), as also a C3I system. Significantly, it was based on a no-first-use policy – India would not be the first to use nuclear weapons but would do so if it were attacked with nuclear weapons – which requires acquistion of second-strike capability. This is now India's declared policy. In Brigadier Nair's analysis and other (unofficial and official) discussions of India's nuclear posture, a second-strike capability based on a no-first-use policy was cited as a reason for building redundancy into India's nuclear weapons arsenal. This would have its effect on costs, though even countries which maintained a first-strike posture (the US and the former Soviet Union) had huge arsenals to cope, in their logic of a nuclear war, with the impact of a possible first strike from the other side. Brigadier Nair put together a cost of bombs/warheads, and air, land and sea-based delivery systems as well as associated C3I systems that added up to Rs 6,835 crore (1991-92 prices).14 5. General Sundarji Estimate: A fifth important exercise was the series of estimates made by a chief of army staff, General K. Sundarji, after his retirement. This was the first time a former army chief was publicly arguing in favour of India going nuclear. All his interventions were closely argued. In 1991 General Sundarji suggested that the cost of weaponisation could be 0.5 per cent to one per cent of GDP annually.15 Since India's GDP in 1990-91 was Rs 4,56,621 crore (at current market prices), this would mean an annual cost of between Rs 2,250 and Rs 4,500 crore in 1990-91 prices. General Sundarji, however, did not refer to the duration over which the nuclear arsenal would be built. In 1996, he estimated a cost of Rs 2,760 crore for 150 bombs and air and land-based delivery systems. No additional expenditure on C3I was assumed necessary.16 However, General Sundarji had earlier outlined the components of a delivery system, which included land-based missile systems, the air force equipped to carry nuclear bombs, and nuclear-powered submarines armed with nuclear missiles.17 6. Bharat Karnad Estimate: Finally, for illustrative purposes, we come to Bharat Karnad's cosdng, which is important for two reasons. First, it assumes a huge arsenal, including thermonuclear weapons, much larger

than either Brigadier Nair or General Sundarji's projections. Second, based on some very casual cost estimates, Karnad concluded that such an arsenal would cost very little. In 1998, Bharat Karnad, subsequently a member of the NSAB, estimated the cost of a 300-bomb thermonuclear deterrent at Rs 60,680 crore (199697 prices), to be spent over 30 years. The cost included missiles, SSNs, and C3I systems.18 He also placed the opportunity costs of lost trade and investment at Rs 2,10,000 crore over 30 years, giving a combined cost of Rs 2,70,000 crore in 1996-97 prices. It is a measure of the lack of rigour in this exercise that this cost was presented as equivalent to just 2.3 per cent of India's gross national product (GNP) of "Rs 113,54,000 crores" in 1996-97.19 Actually, India's GNP in 1996-97 was Rs 11,35,400 crore, which would make the cost burden equivalent to 23 per cent, and not 2.3 per cent of GNP. This undermines the author's argument that nuclear weaponisation would be a bearable burden for India. Such errors should also cast doubt on the validity of this cost estimate. Table 1 presents these six estimates in comparison, with all costs updated to 1998-99 prices. While the underlying features in each case are different, they do suggest a wide range of costs. TABLE I Components and Costs of Some Estimates for India's Nuclear Programme (1964-98)

Notes : All costs updated with GDP deflator for relevant year. US dollar costs (Som Dutt-IISS estimate) first converted to rupees at 1966 exchange rates and then updated to 1998-99 prices.

The many past estimates of the potential costs of a nuclear weapons programme were largely indicative in nature. First, this was so, because there was little information available then about either costs in India or of the expenditure in other countries. Second, most of the studies undertaken in the 1960s and 1970s looked more at the cost of manufacturing nuclear weapons and ignored the larger costs involved in the acquisition of delivery systems and C3I systems; those conducted in the 1980s included the cost of delivery systems, but C3I was usually ignored. Third, with time the changes in technology and the expansion of the Indian nuclear infrastructure have meant that both the absolute costs and the distribution among the different components

of future costs have changed. Fourth, it was only after General Sundarji's cost exercise, which visualised a nuclear arsenal according to a specific 'doctrine', was it recognised that if a cost exercise was to have relevance, it would have to be made on a step by step basis—first identification of the countries to be 'targeted'; then the 'doctrine'; and finally the cost of specific items of the arsenal, the delivery systems and C3I. A few studies – essentially those by Brigadier Nair and General Sundarji – were prepared on this basis and therefore are still of some value.

India's Nuclear Doctrine While the pre-1998 estimates of the cost of nuclear weaponisation had to assume a certain nuclear doctrine, the preparation of the dIND20 in 1999 gives an official basis for an estimation of costs. The basic premise of the dIND is that India would acquire second-strike nuclear capability. That is, India would not be the first to use nuclear weapons, but would retaliate with nuclear weapons if subjected to a nuclear attack. The no-first-use policy means India's arsenal should be able to absorb a first strike and retaliate. This policy was enunciated not just in the dIND,21 but earlier by the prime minister himself. 22 The broad features of the doctrine with respect to the size and structure of the nuclear arsenal are: Sufficient, survivable and operationally prepared nuclear forces 'Robust' command and control system; effective intelligence, and early warning capabilities that ensure survivability of the arsenal Triad delivery system (aircraft, mobile land-based missiles, and sea-based assets) that will be characterised by multiple redundant systems, mobility, dispersion and deception in order to ensure survival from a first strike Space-based and other assets for early warning and communications 23 The dIND states: "Survivability of the forces will be enhanced by a combination of multiple redundant systems, mobility, dispersion and deception....They [India's nuclear forces] shall be designed and deployed to ensure survival against a first strike and to endure repetitive attrition attempts with adequate retaliatory capabilities..."24 We have seen that a nuclear strike force with second-strike capability that is based on a triad and with a 'robust' C3I (referred to in the doctrine as 'command, control, communications, computing, intelligence and information' or C4I2) was visualised by Brigadier Nair, who also ventured to outline the structure and size of such a second-strike arsenal. The dIND does not list the numbers in India's nuclear arsenal—the number of bombs, the number of missiles, and the distribution among the land, air and sea missiles. It describes India's doctrine of a 'credible nuclear deterrent' as a dynamic concept which would decide the size, components and deployment of the arsenal. This can be seen as a charter for the development of an open-ended nuclear arsenal. However, as the attempt here is to arrive at a conservative estimate of weapons costs, this exercise costs a hypothetical Indian arsenal on the basis of Brigadier Nair's model, and to a lesser extent that of General Sundarji. The former assumed a second-strike capability, a triad ' delivery system, and a relatively small number of bombs. This is an arsenal consistent with that visualised by the dIND, and in size is also closer to the lower end of the range of past estimates. Since the estimates by both Brigadier Nair and General Sundarji were fairly conservative in their numbers, they can be used to outline what an Indian nuclear arsenal could cost at the minimum. The costing in this essay will therefore reflect a smaller rather than larger arsenal, even as its structure will be consistent with what the dIND suggests. The dIND does not mention the countries that India's nuclear weapons are meant to deter. There is little doubt however that the two perceived threats are Pakistan and China. Practically all attempts which visualise a nuclear doctrine for India – including that of Brigadier Nair – begin with the assumption that 'deterrence' would be aimed at Pakistan and China.25

Costing an Indian Nuclear Weapons Programme Before making an estimate of the costs that India will incur on a nuclear weapons programme, one important aspect of this exercise should be emphasised. This is not a full and total costing of India's nuclear weapons programme but only an estimation of future costs. This distinction between full and future costs is important because a certain proportion of the costs of nuclearisation have already been incurred by India.26 Among the sunk costs that have already been incurred are: investment in nuclear research reactors that have provided the plutonium for Indian nuclear weapons costs incurred in the production of weapons-grade plutonium development costs of the SRBM Prithvi, which could be equipped with a nuclear warhead development costs of the IRBMs, the shorter Agni I and then the longer range Agni II, culminating in the decision to manufacture the 2,000-km range Agni development costs so far of the submarine-launched cruise/ ballistic missile, Sagarika development costs so far of the SSN or what is also called the advanced technology vehicle (ATV) project acquisition of aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons —the Mirage, Jaguar and Sukhoi-30MK (Su-30MK) expenditure incurred on hardening of military shelters and upgrading communications systems that could be part of a C4I2 system of a nuclear arsenal At least some of these expensive sunk costs must be attributed to the Indian nuclear weapons programme. For example, on the development of the SSN alone, it has been estimated that by mid-1996 an expenditure of close to $300 million (Rs 1,100 crore at 1996 exchange rates) had been incurred,27 and by late 1998 an internal audit reported a figure of Rs 2,000 crore (about $490 million at 1998 exchange rates).28 However, as the purpose of this exercise is to estimate the future costs of weaponisation, the past costs are not considered. The full cost of the nuclear weapons programme, covering past and future expenditure, may well be twice what we estimate as the future cost. A few other points need to be borne in mind: 1. No information on past or future costs in India is available from official statements. All the information used here has been drawn from the published work of researchers, news reports that cite government sources, personal communication/interviews with experts in the field/retired defence personnel, and by making comparisons with costs incurred by other nuclear weapon states.29 2. This exercise assumes that nuclear weaponisation will take a decade to complete, which is a notional estimate. 3. The costs that have been estimated are only investment costs. They exclude operational and overhead costs, which could add 10 to 25 per cent to the yearly investment expenditure on weaponisation.30 4. For the most part, costs have been estimated in 1998-99 rupees, the financial year during which the Pokhran II tests were conducted. In a few cases where there is data after that period, they have not been translated to 1998-99 levels. 5. Finally, this exercise makes no claim that these are precise projections of costs. They must be seen as orders of magnitude, the best that can be generated with available information. The appropriate methodology is to estimate the cost of a weapons programme as implied by the official Indian nuclear doctrine laid out in the dIND. Since sunk costs have already been incurred, the future costs would be the outlays required to cover the gap between the available nuclear weapons infrastructure and an arsenal consistent with the dIND. This would broadly cover three categories—fissile material for the bombs, delivery systems, and the command and control infrastructure.

1. Cost of Bombs The dIND does not list how many nuclear bombs the Indian second-strike nuclear force should include. However, we do have the illustrative force structures of General Sundarji and Brigadier Nair. Like the dIND, these were also premised on second-strike capability, and like the 1985 government committee estimate, saw an arsenal with the number of bombs in the 'low three digit figures'—though their projections were only in hundreds. General Sundarji and Brigadier Nair's exercises saw a nuclear force aimed at 'counter-value' rather than 'counter-force' targets —that is cities rather than military installations in the adversarial countries.31 Using a somewhat different criteria for destruction, General Sundarji argued in favour of 125 bombs, while Brigadier Nair arrived at 132. These include losses during 'a first strike', the need to factor in unreliability/inaccuracy, and a post-war reserve. The assumption here is that India would aim to build an arsenal of 150 bombs. India already possesses weapons-grade plutonium. Estimates of the quantity of such plutonium available vary from adequate to assemble as few as 35 to as many as 110 bombs,32 with a possible median estimate of 70 bombs.33 Cost of Research Reactor: If India's nuclear arsenal is going to contain 150 warheads, and if it already has fissile material for 70 bombs, then weapons-grade plutonium for an additional 80 bomb's has to be produced. It should be possible to generate the required fissile material from India's current nuclear power infrastructure, over a decade or two. There is also the reactor-grade material from the existing nuclear research reactors (CIRUS and Dhruva) that is available for processing. In theory, then, there is no need for the Indian government to construct another plutonium production reactor. However, in December 1999, the government announced that it had decided to build a new research reactor.34 This decision was in all likelihood linked to the need to find a replacement for the present CIRUS research reactor, now more than four decades old. When CIRUS was built it cost Rs 10 crore (I960) and the original estimate for the other research reactor, Dhruva, was Rs 50 crore (1976). 35 These costs, when updated to arrive at a rough approximation of the investment outlay required on the new research reactor, yield an estimate of between Rs 200 and Rs 350 crore at 1998-99 prices. Cost of new reactor. Rs 275 crore Cost of Production of Weapons-grade Plutonium and Assembly of Nuclear Bombs: At the lower end of the cost estimates that have been made, P.K. Iyengar, former chief of the AEC, has said a nuclear bomb will cost only Rs 1 crore,36 reflecting perhaps the sunk costs in producing fissile material. But General Sundarji (1996) quoted a figure of Rs 4 crore which excluded sunk costs; Brigadier Nair (1992) estimated Rs 9 crore a bomb; while in the view of Admiral Ramdas (1998), it will be closer to Rs 5-7 crore a bomb.37 The difference between these estimates could be attributed to some taking into account only future costs (after taking fissile material as given), and the others estimating full costs. In the Brookings study of the US nuclear weapons programme, historical full costs of a nuclear bomb varied between $600,000 and $1.9 million (1996 prices), depending on the type of the bomb and when it was built. 38 According to Stephen Schwartz, one of the authors of the Brookings study, current costs in the US are likely to be about $1 million (1996 prices), which in his view may be on the high side for India.39 On the other hand, the US costs are likely to be low in comparison since the US had the advantage of 'economies of scale' in producing 70,000 bombs over 50 years. Therefore taking the US estimate as a benchmark may lead to an under-estimation for India. This is borne out by an estimate of the cost of reprocessing at the Kalpakkam reprocessing plant which places just the cost of producing the approximately 5 kg of plutonium needed for each bomb at Rs 3.5 crore.40 To this must be added the cost of fabricating the bomb, which, given that plutonium is toxic and much more radioactive than uranium, will be significant. Future costs for India will have to be an average of costs— taking a proportion of required fissile material as already available, and the rest to be produced and fully costed. A rough average of future costs will therefore lie between Rs 1 and 4 crore, or an average of Rs 2.5 crore. If thermonuclear bombs are likely, the costs will be even higher. Cost of assembly of 150 bombs'. Rs 375 crore Total cost of bombs: Rs 650 crore

2. Cost of Delivery Systems Let us see where India stands now, in terms of putting in place a triad of delivery systems, as visualised in the dIND. Aircraft: India has the Jaguar and Mirage 2000 and has been acquiring the Su-30MK, all of which can be used for bomb delivery, though they have to be specially fitted for the purpose. At the same time, as Kanti Bajpai points out, these aircraft may be useful as a nuclear 'deterrent5 towards Pakistan, but would be of only limited value when it comes to China, since even if they are refuelled enroute, the major cities in southern China are at the periphery of the flying distances of these aircraft.41 In 2000, India decided to acquire the more advanced Sukhoi-30MKI (Su-30MKI) aircraft from Russia; at least in part this must have been informed by the capability of these aircraft to be equipped with the facility to deliver nuclear weapons to cities in southern China. Ballistic Missiles: (a) India has completed the development of the 150-km SRBM Prithvi missile whose induction into the army has already begun. While the usual claim is that it will be used with conventional warheads, these can be fitted with nuclear warheads since they are capable of carrying a payload of one tonne. The Prithvi can be targeted only at cities in Pakistan and southern Tibet, (b) In 2001, the Indian government approved the production of the 2,000-km range Agni II.42 Given its range, an Agni II, launched from the eastern most point of India, can hit the cities of southern China (Chengdu, Hong Kong and Guangzhou), (c) Development of a missile (called the Sagarika in the media but never officially acknowledged) for use in a nuclear-powered submarine has been going on for years, though it is not clear if it will be a submarinelaunched cruise missile (SLCM) with a range of 300-km, or a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) with a longer range 43 There is also informed speculation that this is a two-track programme simultaneously working on a cruise and ballistic missile variant; and that the one developed first will be the 'real' Sagarika44 Nuclear-powered Submarines (SSNs): In theory, a nuclear-powered submarine is the most difficult component of the triad to destroy, but it is also the most difficult to develop and build. India has been trying for more than two decades to build an SSN but problems continue to plague the project, especially in building nuclear propulsion facilities.45 Considering the time and effort that has already gone into the project, defence and atomic energy scientists are unlikely to give up since many see the SSN as a critical component of an Indian nuclear deterrent, especially in a no-first-use doctrine.46 The next step is to estimate the numbers likely to be involved in each delivery system. Based on the force structure contained in the analyses of Brigadier Nair and General Sundarji, a hypothetical quantitative mix of a future Indian nuclear arsenal can be constructed. Aircraft: One squadron (24 craft) for delivery of bombs Ballistic missiles SRBM (Prithvi)—55 missiles IRBM (Agni)—55 missiles SLBM/SLCM (Sagarika)—16 missiles Nuclear submarines: 3 Underlying this hypothetical distribution of the 150 nuclear bombs among different delivery systems is the logic that: A squadron of 24 bombers will be equipped with one warhead for each aircraft, there will be 8 SLBMs each for two submarines with the third submarine in port for maintenance. The allocation of warheads between the Prithvis and the Agnis is essentially arbitrary, though here again the underlying logic is that the missiles will be part of a 'deterrent' towards both Pakistan and China—the Prithvi for Pakistan and the Agni for China. The number of SSNs that India would need for its nuclear deterrent has been variously placed at three to five.47 While ultimately the Indian arsenal may well have a fleet of five submarines, given the time and costs involved in assembling such a fleet, the assumption made here is that there will be only three nuclear

submarines in the foreseeable future. a. Aircraft: 1. Cost of equipping one air force squadron: Informal estimates place the cost of fitting the Jaguar and Mirage aircraft for delivery of nuclear bombs between Rs 1 and 2 crore an aircraft.48 Cost of fitting one squadron: Rs 24 crore to Rs 48 crore 2. Part cost of Su-30MKI and refuelling aircraft. While the decision to acquire the Su-30MK was taken before the May 1998 tests, subsequently the government decided to produce 140 of a variant Su-30MKI aircraft under licence from Russia at a huge cost of Rs 20,000 crore 49 Since these aircraft can also be used to deliver nuclear bombs, part of their cost should be attributed to the nuclear weapons programme. If one squadron of the Su-30MKI aircraft is used for carrying nuclear weapons and another dozen maintained as backup, then roughly a quarter of the planned addition of 140 aircraft should be included in the costs of the nuclear weapons programme.50 Cost of acquiring and fitting 35 Su-30MKI aircraft. Rs 5,000 crore b. Missiles: In the costing of missiles the first question to be asked is whether additional investment has to be made in a missile production facility. 1. Missile production facility Bharat Dynamics is already producing missiles for the defence forces. But production of more than a hundred missiles over a decade may require the establishment of a hew facility, though by early 2001 a new production programme appears to have been initiated at the existing Bharat Dynamics facility.51 Since even prior to the May 1998 tests, the present missile-producing facility was expected to produce over 30 missiles a year,52 we can assume that an expansion will not be required. 2. Missile A wide range of estimates have been made of the cost of each kind of missile. At the lower end, defence analyst G. Balachandran suggests Rs 1 to 1.5 crore for a Prithvi, and Rs 5-7 crore for each AgniIn 1996 General Sundarji indicated Rs 8 crore for a Prithvi, and Rs 20 crore for what was then the Angi I;53 Brigadier Vijai Nair in 1992 assumed Rs 8 crore for a Prithvi and I, and Rs 10 crore for an SLBM; and Admiral Ramdas (1998) suggests Rs 10 crore for a Prithvi and Rs 50 crore for an Agni I. 54 A late-1999 report in the media mentions $150 million for 20Agni missiles (Rs 32.30 crore at the 1999 exchange rate).55 There have been press reports citing official discussions which have quoted other costs—in 2000 the cost of each Prithvi was placed at $1.4 million each (Rs 6.4 crore) and Agni I and II, $3.5 to 4.7 million each (Rs 16 crore to Rs 22 crore).56 No information is available on what the Sagarika will cost, though SLBMs – if Sagarika is to be one – are usually more expensive than land-based ballistic missiles. The unit costs used in this exercise are based on General Sundarji's 1996 estimates. Here the extended version of the Agni is estimated to cost Rs 30 crore, and the Sagarika Rs 40 crore. It is also assumed here that only the extended (2,000 km) version of the Agni (earlier called Agni II) will be produced. The total costs of the missiles would therefore be: 55 SRBMs, Prithvi, (at Rs 8 crore each): Rs 440 crore 55 IRBMs, Agni, (at Rs 30 crore each): Rs 1650 crore 16 SLBMS, Sagarika, (at Rs 40 crore each): Rs 640 crore Cost of missiles: Rs 2,730 crore or approximately Rs 2,700 crore c. Nuclear Submarines: As mentioned earlier, the only estimates available for what is a longstanding and incomplete project is of cost incurred between Rs 2,000 and Rs 3,500 crore (1996 prices).57 Rear Admiral Raja Menon has written of each nuclear submarine costing Rs 2,000 crore; Admiral Ramdas mentions Rs 5,000 crore. 58 We assume here that the investment cost of each SSN will be Rs 3,000 crore. Cost of 3 SSNs: Rs 9,000 crore Cost of delivery systems: Rs 16,700 crore, or approximately Rs 17,000 crore

3. Cost of Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Intelligence and Information (C4I2) Broadly, a C4I2 system would cover nuclear-war resistant communication facilities, lines of command for use of nuclear weapons, nuclear-bomb resistant shelters that the political and military leadership could use in the eventuality of a war, high-security authorisation mechanisms for use of weapons, early warning systems for detection of a possible nuclear attack, anti-missile defences, and intelligence-gathering facilities.59 There are two distinct views about the outlines of a C4I2 system for India. One view, commonly articulated in the West, is that an elaborate C4I2 system must be an integral part of a weaponisation programme. 60 The proponents of an affordable Indian nuclear arsenal hold a different opinion. While they do not deny that India needs an effective C4I2 system they argue that since India does not intend to use its nuclear weapons for an offensive programme, its C4I2 does not have to be elaborate, and will therefore be relatively inexpensive.61 Though a 'no-first-use' strategy will require fewer warheads than the strategies designed in the US and the former Soviet Union to 'win' a nuclear war, it is difficult to see how this allows for a modest Indian C4I2 system. A doctrine of no-first-use or second-strike capability would make much larger demands on the C4I2, which would explain why the dIND speaks of C4I2 in terms of a 'robust, 'survivable' and 'effective' system which includes 'space-based and other assets'. 62 Official policy then points to a more elaborate rather than simple C4I2 system. In the exercise below, cost estimates of both kinds of C4I2 are attempted. Among the various elements of a nuclear arsenal, the cost of a command and control system is the most difficult to estimate for two reasons. Since it is an agglomeration of a number of very different components, a rigorous estimate would require the costing of each item separately. But no detailed estimates are available of the cost of each and every component of a C4I2 system—command centres, communications, early warning systems, satellites, etc. Further, as it is only recently that the importance of additional investment in such a system has been recognised in research studies, few independent reference estimates are available. The earliest estimate of a C3I system, of Rs 2,225 crore, was that made in 1992 by Brigadier Nair, who argued that a modest system would be sufficient for India's requirements. Updated to 1998-99 prices, it would be Rs 4,100 crore.63 In 2000, the military trade journal Defense News, citing Indian defence sources, suggested that a C4I2. built over five years would cost $3.75 billion (Rs 16,125 crore at 1999 exchange rates).64 A 2001 media report speaks of a $5 billion proposal (Rs 23,500 crore at 2001 exchange rates) for a nuclear command and control system,65 which would include hardware procured from France and Israel. Here then are estimates of command and control which range from as little as Rs 3,400 crore for a very rudimentary system to as much as Rs 16,000 to Rs 23,000 crore for a C4!2 system that would be more in line with what has been formulated in the dIND. There are good reasons for expecting the final cost to be closer to the upper estimate, because of the cost of three components which involve huge amounts – satellites, airborne warning and control systems (AWACS) and missile defences – all of which appear to be part of the command and control infrastructure visualised by Indian security planners. a. Satellites: The dIND calls for the creation of space-based and other assets to provide early warning, communications and damage/detonation assessment. This is an obvious reference to satellite-based information gathering systems. While, the US and the former Soviet Union had a multitude of satellites tracking every possible installation, there is no need for India to follow the same path. However, even in a limited system, the type and number of satellites India would want in order to monitor developments in Pakistan and China will depend on what is to be monitored. If the aim is to detect only missile launches in either country, it is possible to make do with infrared imaging facilities mounted on a single geosynchronous satellite.66 However, if the intention is to monitor preparations for a possible nuclear attack, movement of missiles for a launch, troop movements and more, then India may have to put into orbit a number of satellites with very powerful optics that can generate images of objects of sizes of one metre or less (i.e. resolution of

one metre or less).67 From the discussion in the dIND and the observations of members of the defence establishment, it would appear that the second option – a number of satellites in low orbit with powerful optics supplemented by a single geosynchronous satellite – would be India's preferred setup. A senior official in the defence and scientific establishment has spoken of the need for up to six satellites for provision of daily information to detect incursions of the kind that took place in Kargil in 1999. 68 In which case, the number of satellites needed for providing comprehensive information from China and Pakistan is likely to be many more. Since this implies a huge investment on a single component of the C4I2, the conservative assumption here is that, to begin with, the plan will be to put up only four satellites over the next decade. The payload costs rise exponentially, the more powerful the optical resolution required. A degree of one metre resolution was, until 2001, not provided by the remote sensing satellites India had put into in the skies. The 'technology experimental satellite' (TES) launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 2001 was the first satellite to have optics of one metre, and while that was presented as part of a civilian programme, its use for military purposes has been noted, and there are plans for a number of such satellites.69 While the total (development, payload and launch) cost estimates of India's TES satellite are not available, there are some international benchmarks. A Japanese proposal in 1998 for launching a satellite with optics of one metre had an estimated cost of $1.7 billion (Rs 7,000 crore at 1998 exchange rates).70 The conservative assumption here would be that an Indian satellite with a one metre optical resolution would cost (development, payload and launch) Rs 1,000 crore, 71 —four satellites costing four times as much. Cost of satellites; Rs 4,000 crore plus b. Cost of Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS): Satellites are only one form of early warning/detection; there are other forms of airborne radar which nuclear powers have made part of their command and control systems. India appears to be travelling on the same path. Since 1998, there have been proposals, near-deals and actual agreements meant to bolster Indian intelligence gathering and advanced warning capabilities. These are also expensive acquisitions which have to be imported. An attempt at developing an indigenous AWACS was abandoned after the aircraft equipped with the system crashed in 2000. The acquistions being considered are five Russian A-50 aircraft for use in surveillance and early warning, which will be equipped with the Phalcon radar from Israel. There has been some opposition from the US to the Israeli transfer of the Phalcon technology, but India is keen on acquiring such systems.72 The total cost will be at least $1 billion (Rs 4,700 crore at 2000 exchange rates). Cost of airborne intelligence/early warning. Rs 4,700 crore c. Cost of Missile Defences: The first five nuclear weapon states had and-missile defences as an integral part of their nuclear weaponisation programmes. These defences (based on missiles) were expected to destroy incoming nuclear warhead missiles, aimed at either civilian targets or nuclear weapons sites. While the effectiveness of these defences has never been established, India too is proceeding along the same path of exploring development/acquistion of anti-missile defences. Three of the proposals are: In 1998 the government reportedly cleared a project for Rs 2,000 crore to build an anti-ballistic missile shield solely for New Delhi.73 India was negotiating earlier with Russia for purchase of the S-300 theatre missile defence system, a plan that was revived in 2001.74 In 2001 there were discussions about a joint India-Israel programme for a missile shield based on the Israeli Arrow system. 75 No estimates are available of the cost of the S-300 and Arrow systems. It is also not clear if India will pursue all three or only one or two of the listed systems. Since these are expensive systems, and these missile defence shields will be meant to defend more than one city, one can assume that the anti-missile defence system will cost at least Rs 5,000 crore. Cost of defences: Rs 5,000 crore

Total Cost of satellites, airborne radar and missile defences:. Rs 13,000 crore plus The cost of just three components of a C4I2 system then is likely to add up to more than Rs 13,000 crore. But these are not the only components of a C4I2 system; other components include the nuclear command shelters to be constructed, the nuclear attack-proof communications systems to be established, and authorisation codes which have to be acquired. Once all these costs of a C4I2 system are added up, the final expenditure is likely to be a minimum of Rs 16,000 crore. While the argument of a small and effective C4I2 system sounds feasible on paper, this does not appear to be the direction that Indian nuclear planners have taken. Cost of C4I2: Rs 16,000 crore plus

Total Future Costs of India's Nuclear Weapons Arsenal When all the costs estimated and listed previously are put together, we have an estimate, at roughly current (1998-99) prices, of around Rs 34,000 crore over a decade. The most expensive components of the programme will be the expenditure on C4I2 and delivery systems. But there are strong reasons to place the final cost at a much larger amount. Certain large costs have not been included here because of a lack of information, and some important items of expenditure have been excluded in order to remain on the conservative side. Some of the important costs not taken into account are: 1. The investment cost of only three nuclear submarines has been included in the costing exercise. As mentioned earlier, a commonly held view among strategists is that an Indian second-strike capability will need a fleet of a minimum of four to five submarines. This in itself will increase total costs by 20 to 25 per cent. 2. The cost of only four satellites has been considered, while officials in the defence establishment have spoken of as many as six satellites for the provision of comprehensive information. 3. The future development costs of the nuclear submarine, the cruise missile/SLBM, and perhaps the ICBM, Surya, have not been included.76 4. All costs set down here are investment costs. The annual operational costs should add yet another 10 to 25 per cent. 5. Nuclear-powered submarines always need to be escorted by a 'protective' fleet in the air and water. France does this and some Indian defence experts say it is necessary for a future fleet of Indian SSNs as well.77 The investment cost of such a fleet has to be added to the cost of weaponisation —probably an additional cost of 20 to 25 per cent. 6. It has been assumed that there will be no time and cost overruns. However, no defence programme has ever enjoyed such a luxury. If the Indian nuclear weaponisation programme takes not 10 years, but 15 or 20 years to complete, the total expenditure could well be another 25 to 50 per cent larger. Once all the additional investment costs of submarines and protective fleets, future development costs of the IRBMs, SLBMs and ICBMs are included, the total costs of India's nuclear weaponisation programme should be closer to Rs 70,000-80,000 crore (1998-99 prices) over the next decade. 78 The dollar costs over a decade on an Indian nuclear weaponisation programme will be around $16-19 billion (at the average 1998-99 market exchange rate), or $81-93 billion (at the 1999 purchasing power parity (PPP), exchange rate).79 A total future cost of Rs 70,000-80,000 crore over a decade means that India will be spending Rs 7,000-8,000 crore (1998-99 prices) annually on nuclear weaponisation. This amount would be equivalent to approximately 0.5 per cent of India's GDP of Rs 17,58,276 crore (at current market prices) in 1998—99.80 A nuclear weapons programme whose annual cost is equivalent to 0.5 per cent of GDP is in line with the expenditure borne by France and-the UK in the early years of their weapons programmes, in the range of 0.4-

0.9 per cent of GDP (see Appendix). But this does not mean that India's costs are well within historical limits. India's nuclear infrastructure – for a weapons programme – has already been developed in substantial measure, the cost of 0.5 per cent of GDP estimated here is only a future cost, while the historical estimates made of France and the UK are full costs. A full costing of India's weapons programme – past and future – will perhaps be much more than the Rs 70,000-80,000 crore estimated here.

Cost Implications of India's Nuclear Weapons Programme Here is a list of the financial implications of a Rs 70,000-80,000 crore Indian nuclear weaponisation programme spread over a decade: India's defence expenditure (revenue and capital) in 1998—99 was Rs 39,897 crore81 —equivalent to 2.23 per cent of GDP. If India had begun a 10-year programme in 1998-99 to complete the development of its nuclear arsenal, it would have raised this outlay by about 20 per cent. India's capital expenditure in defence in 1998-99 was Rs 10,036 crore. Nuclear weaponisation would have therefore meant a 70 to 80 per cent increase in the capital budget for defence. The Government of India's own tax revenues in 1998-99 were Rs 1,04,652 crore. This means that every year 7 to 8 paise of every rupee collected as tax would have to be used for the creation of the nuclear arsenal. In 1998-99, the Government of India's total investment expenditure – on creation of economic and social assets, on loans to state governments for capital expenditure and for defence – was Rs 61,947 crore. A nuclear weaponisation programme that would have added Rs 7,000-8,000 crore to the capital budget that year would have implied an 11 to 13 per cent increment to total government investment expenditure —or a corresponding reduction in other areas of expenditure. A comparison of the financial demands of nuclear weaponisation with the government allocations for specific social and economic sectors makes for an even starker picture. The annual outlay of Rs 7,000 to 8,000 crore on nuclear weaponisaton at 1998-99 prices was almost exactly the same as the Government of India's total budget for education (Rs 7,046 crore) that year.82 What the government would have to spend annually on weaponisation is equivalent to its yearly expenditure on all forms of education—school and university education, technical and medical education, teaching and research. The Rs 16,000 crore expenditure on C4I2, which is a conservative estimate, is more than what the Government of India spent on all Plan programmes of the social sector in 1998-99. That year, Plan expenditure on health, education, rural development, drinking water, sanitation and more such social programmes was only Rs 14,359 crore. The amount of Rs 9,000 crore that is conservatively estimated to be the cost of three nuclear submarines is more than the Rs 7,283 crore that the Government of India was budgeted to spend on all rural employment and poverty programmes in 1998-99. The Rs 2,700 crore at 1998-99 prices that has been projected here as the cost of acquiring short and medium range missiles for delivery of nuclear weapons is considerably more than the budget in the same year of the Department of Health of the Government of India (Rs 1,776 crore).83 While an annual outlay that is equivalent to 0.5 per cent of GDP may seem like a small price to pay for nuclear weaponisation, it is not so—since the costs involved will impose a considerable burden on the Indian government and could result in diversion of funds from priority social and economic programmes. More importantly a weaponisation cost of 0.5 per cent of GDP is equivalent to the annual cost of introducing universal elementary education in India.84 This 'burden' of 0.5 per cent of GDP was for years cited as one of the reasons for not universalising elementary education in India. In 2001, the Indian

Parliament finally enacted the 93rd Constitutional Amendment which makes it obligatory for the state to provide free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of 6 and 14. The Bill amending the Constitution puts the cost of universal elementary education at Rs 98,000 crore over a decade, or Rs 9,800 crore each year (2001 prices)—again roughly 0.5 per cent of India's GDP in 2000-01.85 The first Government of India budget after this legislation was passed did show a higher allocation for elementary education, but nowhere near the magnitude required for universal elementary education. The budgetary allocation for 2002-03 was Rs 4,304 crore, as against Rs 3,577 crore spent in 2001-02. The comparison between the allocations for defence and elementary education is more revealing: total allocation for defence in 2002-03 was Rs 65,753 crore, as against the spending in 2001-02 of Rs 57,771 crore—an increase of as much as Rs 7,982 crore. The question then is of choosing between sending every Indian child to school and acquiring nuclear weapons—both of which are going to make similar financial demands on the government. The indications are that the government is giving greater importance to nuclear weapons than to universal elementary education. Why India's Nuclear Weapons Programme Will Cost More than 0.5 Per Cent of GDP a Year The estimate of weaponisation costing the equivalent of 0.5 per cent of GDP is based on the assumption that the Indian programme will lead to a 'modest' arsenal of nuclear bombs and associated delivery systems. But the dIND observes that the programme will have to be 'dynamic' in nature—that is, its size and composidon could vary. This makes very likely the possibility of an ever expanding weapons programme. The Indian nuclear arsenal could then be on the lines suggested by Bharat Karnad, former member of the NSAB, who as we mentioned earlier, has argued for a 300-plus nuclear arsenal which will include thermonuclear weapons and a triad with ICBMs. The development of a mammoth arsenal would be in keeping with history, for while on paper it is possible to draw up plans for a modest and' focussed nuclear arsenal, the experience of other countries says otherwise. To give an example of the logic of competing weaponisation from the US-Soviet nuclear arms race: Although the actions of the Soviet Union...were of great importance in rationalising the program, giving it a focus and propelling it forward in several great leaps, in many ways the United States was racing against itself, as became evident when the bomber and missile 'gaps,' among others, turned out to be illusory, the product of limited intelligence data and a propensity to characterise the Soviet Union as the literal opposite of the United States. 86 The logic of nuclear weapons spending is not just a race with the 'enemy'; it also leads to a race between the services. This too was well-illustrated by the US and Soviet experiences.87 The expensive inter-service rivalry led to rationalisation after the delivery systems had been acquired. It is revealing that the doctrine of a 'triad' of delivery systems in a nuclear weapons programme – which India has adopted – was perhaps one such rationlisation of US service rivalry: .. .the triad itself developed not by design but in large measure because the airforce and navy each wanted "a peace of the action" in the budgetary and mission-oriented sense. In fact, the triad was an "intellectual artifice developed in the 1960s to provide a framework for nuclear forces allocated among the three major services. "...Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger admitted in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1974 that "I think the rationale of the triad was a rationalisation."88 During the three years after the Pokhran II nuclear tests, 1998-2001, India did exhibit signs of taking nuclear weaponisation to a higher and more expensive level. Most of the proposals were statements of intention, but the ability of the strategic, scientific and defence establishments to translate them into concrete programmes should not be discounted. To give a few examples of the grandoise plans and inter-service rivalry:

In early 2000, former chairman of the AEC, P.K. Iyengar, besides demanding more nuclear tests, called for the development of a neutron bomb capability.89 In early 2001, the Indian Air Force (IAF) in its 'Vision 2020' paper advocated that India acquire firststrike capability within the overall doctrine of no-first-strike.90 The army and the air force have been engaged in a tussle about who should be in charge of the nuclear weapons, and command and control. The IAF, for instance, has advocated a 'nuclear air command' with all missile assets under its control. 91 And as the Indian government said it had started serial production of the Agni, the battle between the air force and the army over control of these missiles began.92

Conclusion Only two points need to be made in conclusion. One, there is no question of a saving in conventional defence expenditure once the 'absolute weapons' of nuclear arms are acquired. This myth, propagated in the early days of nuclear weapons in the US and the former Soviet Union, has been proved wrong.93 If anything, the cost of conventional defence expenditure increased—in part, because the costs of 'protecting' nuclear weapons installations and infrastructure were additions. In all likelihood India too will not see any decline in conventional defence expenditure. The evidence since 1998 already shows an upsurge in such outlays. Two, there are many opportunity costs that have to be borne by spending on nuclear weapons— something that India can ill afford. To illustrate, it has even been argued that the British drive to acquire a nuclear arsenal was 'a significant factor' in the UK's relative economic decline in the past 50 years.94 If this was so in the case of the UK, it does not need much imagination to visualise the impact acquiring nuclear weapons would have on the economy of India The choice then for India is stark. It has to choose between spending scarce resources on nuclear weapons – which as some of the other essays in this volume show is a misguided attempt to provide national security – and something as fundamental as education for children. Postscript: Defence Expenditure between 1998-99 and 2002-03 The years between 1998-99 and 2002-03 saw India taking defence expenditure to a higher plane, though some would argue this only redressed a decade of neglect. India's defence expenditure (excluding pensions) which in the financial year 1998-99 (April to March) was Rs 39,897 crore, rose to Rs 57,000 crore in 2001-02 (revised estimates), and was budgeted to increase to Rs 65,000 crore in 2002-03. This is a 63 per cent growth over five years. The growth in defence capital expenditure (which would cover nuclear weaponisation) was even sharper—an 86 per cent increase between 1998-99 and 2001-02, and a budgeted 26 per cent rise in 2002-03. This in effect meant a 135 per cent growth in defence capital expenditure between 1998-99 and 2002-03, though in recent years poor planning and procurement has meant that budgetary allocations have not always been fully utilised. In addition, between 1999 and 2001, India either signed or was engaged in negotiations for development/joint production/ import of an array of military equipment for the army, navy and air force. All this equipment would fit into India's nuclear weapons programme. Here are some examples: Russia and India signed an agreement in 2000 for a $3 billion contract on supply/manufacture of T-90 tanks and a possible sale of an aircraft carrier. Israel and India have been exploring cooperation in a number of areas including air defences, surveillance and upgrading the MiG 21 aircraft. Russia and India have been collaborating in developing a cruise missile, the Brahmos. Russia and India have been discussing development of a countrywide missile defence system. India had explored the purchase of airstrike/defence Mirage 2000 aircraft from France.

India had decided to lease four nuclear-powered submarines from Russia.95 A 2001 news report suggested that India could end up spending as much as $95 billion on military imports over the next 15 years. 96 While the spurt in military spending since 1998-99 appears to provide confirmation of outlays on India's nuclear weapons programme, this cannot be established. While not all the agreements and planned purchases would have been exclusively for a nuclear weapons programme, a good proportion would be either dual use or would be exclusively for the nuclear arsenal. For example, the upgraded Sukhoi aircraft can be used for delivery of nuclear bombs, while the India-Israel cooperation on air defences and surveillances will be an integral part of the creation of a C4I2 establishment. The drive towards assembly of armaments, the initiation of a number of research programmes directly or indirectly linked to nuclear weapons, the announcement of many systems for C4l2, the pressures to initiate grandiose programmes, and the turf battles that have emerged within the defence forces—all suggest that India's nuclear weapons programme will not be tightly organised and parsimoniously budgeted. If carried out in full, the "financial costs of an Indian nuclear weapons programme will far exceed the 0.5 per cent of GDP a year estimated here.

Appendix Costs in Nuclear Weapon States Given the secrecy that has surrounded nuclear activities in the US, the former Soviet Union, the UK, France and China, it is not surprising that information about the full costs of nuclear programmes – research and development costs, investment costs, operational costs and direct and indirect costs – is not available in public. But independent researchers have tried to piece together the total costs of a few national programmes. Studies of the US and French costs were published in the late 1990s. But nothing is known of the Soviet programme and only a little more is known of the British and Chinese programmes. In 1970, the UN made a rare attempt to assess the burden of nuclearisation on national economies.97 The study estimated the outlays on just one segment of the weapons programme—the costs of weapons-grade plutonium, warheads and strike forces (bombers, missiles and submarines) for France, the UK and the US in the 1960s. The associated costs – of command, control, communications and intelligence, anti-nuclear defences, cleaning up the environment etc – were not included. We have since learnt that all of these can exceed the outlays on just the bombs and the delivery systems. Still, the relative size of these costs during the 1960s in France, the UK and the US is interesting. (See Table Al.) Even if the US case is considered separately because of the enormous size of its programme, it is clear that the cost of the nuclear forces placed a considerable burden on military budgets and on the economies of the UK and France. Since it is now accepted that nuclearisation does not reduce expenditure on conventional forces, these are really incremental costs. TABLE A1 Burden of Cost of Nuclear Forces on Three Economies

Source: Basic Problems of Disarmament, Annex IV, Table 10.

US Costs The only country for which reasonably accurate and detailed information is available is the US. The landmark Brookings Institution study estimated the full cost of the US nuclear weapons programme over half a century —from 1940 to 1996. By carefully analysing public information and making reasonable assumptions where no data was available, the study concluded that the US had spent a total of $5,481 billion (1996 prices) on its nuclear weapons programme.98 This included both investment and operating costs and was estimated to be equivalent to 29 per cent of total military spending in the US, and 11 per cent of all government expenditure between 1940 and 1996. Nuclear weaponisation was the third largest item of government outlay in this period, after non-nuclear defence and social security expenditure."99 The Brookings estimate included all components of the nuclear arsenal—developing and building the bomb; developing the air, missile and submarine systems for delivering the bomb; building the C3I systems; erecting defences against an adversarial nuclear attack; and also included environment cleanup costs. Since the US was in many ways the 'pioneer' in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, and it built an enormous nuclear infrastructure, the total expenditure it incurred is useful less for preparing a cost estimate for a country now wanting to go nuclear than it would be for assessing the possible distribution of the total outlay among the different elements of a nuclear weapons programme. (See Table A2.) TABLE A2 Distribution of Costs of US Nuclear Weapons Programme (1940-96)

Others* include nuclear waste management, environmental remediation, compensation to victims etc. Source: Atomic Audit, 4.

What seems surprising at first sight is that the cost of the 70,000 atomic bombs that the US produced over half a century consututed less than 10 per cent of the total expenditure. By far the biggest component of the US weapons programme was the cost of the research and development of the delivery systems, and the production of the bomber aircraft, missiles and submarines that made up the US nuclear strike force. The second largest item of expense was on building air, missile and satellite defences. And the third biggest expenditure was on command, control and intelligence—$500 billion on gathering intelligence (spy satellites and aerial reconnaissance), and $200 billion on command systems, communications, hardening of bunkers etc. French Costs A 1999 study patterned on the Brookings study placed the cost of the French nuclear weapons programme between 1945 and 1998 at French Francs (FF) 1,499 billion at 1997 prices.100 Including the future costs of dismantling and cleaning up the environment, the total by 2010 would add up to FF1,891 billion (see Table A3), which is $324 billion at 1997 market exchange rates. Interestingly, the distribution in France seems to be quite different from that in the US. Here the cost of the bombs itself was 46 per cent of the total, about six times the fraction in the US costs. This could be because the French arsenal had fewer warheads than the US, so France could not reap the US economies of scale' in the production of nuclear weapons. A study by Camille Grand which quantified the burden of the French nuclear weapons programme on the national economy concluded that weaponisation was extremely expensive even for an industrialised country like France. 101 This analysis estimated that between 1963 and 1992 the French spent between 0.4 and 1.2 per cent of GDP on weaponisation. At its peak in 1967 the weapons programme consumed more than 26 per cent of the country's defence budget. (This estimate is not fully consistent with the UN figures presented in Table Al, but the UN figures are averages for a period.) TABLE A3 Distribution of Costs of French Nuclear Weapons Programme, 1945-2010 (in FF 1997 prices, in billion)

Figures in brackets are percentages of the total Source: Audit Atomique, 'Table: Cout global de I'arsenal nucleaire francais (1945-2010)," 8. (Translation provided by author in personal communication.)

Chinese Costs In one of the few detailed explorations of the Chinese nuclear programme, researchers John Lewis and Xue Litai estimated that in the decade 1955-64, China spent as much as 10.7 billion yuan or $4.1 billion (1957 prices) on developing the bomb.102 The burden on the Chinese economy was so heavy that the programme consumed more than a third of the state budget in 1957 and exceeded the budget for conventional defence in 1957 and 1958.103 Lewis and Xue point out that while the Chinese went to great lengths to save on costs, the burden of funding the bomb programme "undoubtedly fell disproportionately on budgets in the 1960s, the years of economic distress."104 There is no public information about the subsequent full-scale weaponisation programme. Costs of Other Nuclear States There is very little information available about expenditures in other nuclear weapon states. In the case of the former Soviet Union, it appears that much of the information on costs was never maintained.105 There is not much about British costs either. In 1997, the House of Commons was informed that just the operating costs of four Polaris submarines from 1981 to 1996 was$7 billion.106 Finally in the case of South Africa, which built six nuclear devices before destroying them in 1991, cost estimates vary from$250 million, to that made by the Brookings study which concluded that in South Africa the "total estimated costs were about $850 million, 107 not including the considerable costs of a ballistic programme."108

Cost of a Programme in a 'New' Nuclear Weapon State From the 1960s onwards, concern about the spread of nuclear weapons led to analysis of how many countries had the technical capacity to develop nuclear weapons, and to estimates of the cost of a hypothetical weapons programme. The results of some of those exercises dating back to the 1960s and 1970s could offer another perspective on the costs of nuclear weaponisation in India. The 1970 UN study estimated the cost of two kinds of nuclear weapons programmes. Both covered the entire cycle from establishment of a nuclear reactor for production of plutonium to the acquisition of delivery systems, but excluded C3I and counter-measure systems. For the first kind of nuclear programme it was estimated that assembling a 'modest' nuclear force of 100 warheads of 20 kilotonnes, 30-50 bombers, and 50

IRBMs would cost a country $1,680 million (1970 prices) over 10 years. 109 This covered both investment and operating costs. For the second programme, it was estimated that the cost of an arsenal comprising 20-30 thermonuclear weapons, 15 long range bombers, 100 IRBMs and two nuclear submarines would be $5,600 million (1970 prices) over 10 years. In 1999 US prices, the expenditure on these two programmes would be $7.4 billion and $24.7 billion, respectively, over 10 years. A 1983 study based on late 1970s data assessed the costs of 'nuclear proliferation', and presented three different estimates, depending on the level of nuclear weaponisation and the extent of nuclear infrastructure already in place.110 First, starting from scratch the development and production of nuclear bombs alone was placed at around $200 million ($335 million in 1999 prices). Second, development of thermonuclear weapons and acquisition of aircraft delivery systems was placed at $2 billion ($3.3 billion in 1999 prices) over a 10-year period. And, third, the development of 'a secure strike capability' was estimated to cost up to $6 billion ($10.1 billion at 1999 prices). These estimates implied that nuclear weaponisation as a percentage of the average annual defence expenditure between 1969 and 1978 would, over a decade, have to be between 17-21 per cent (for India) and 66-76 per cent (for Argentina and Pakistan), if these countries decided to go nuclear. 111 Both these estimates are dated, 112 and also incomplete, in that they do not cover all aspects of a weaponisation programme. But they suggest that nuclear weapons programmes are expensive. Further, even after considerable investment in the nuclear fuel cycle, the additional expenditure on weapons delivery systems will be substantial. Expenditure on command and control systems – which were not accounted for in any of these exercises – would only raise the costs. * The essay has gone through many mutations. The basic analysis done here was first published as "The Wages of Armageddon," The Hindu, 31 August, 1 and 2 September 1998. An earlier version of this essay was prepared at Wolfson College, Cambridge University, in July 1999 as part of the Wolfson Press Fellowship Programme. It was also presented at a seminar on national security in the Delhi School of Economics, 3 March 2000. I must thank a number of people who have helped in the preparation of this essay. Special mention to the following, not all of whom will agree with the conclusions of this paper: Brigadier Vijai Nair, S. Chandrashekar, G. Balachandran, Gopal Raj, Jean Dreze, Stephen Schwartz and M.V. Ramana.

PART IV Issues of Environment and Health

The Price We Pay: From Uranium to Weapons* M.V. RAMANA AND SURENDRA GADEKAR If one were to look at the official announcements of the May 1998 tests and the bulk of the discussion in the media, one would be left with the impression that the only consequences of acquiring nuclear weapons are strategic. A few commentators also analysed the economic repercussions. One of the missing elements in the discussion was any appreciation of the enormous impact on the environment, and on occupational and public health from the manufacture of nuclear weapons. These effects occur well before the deployment or use of nuclear weapons. Like some of the other deleterious consequences of making nuclear weapons, it is the weaker and disempowered sections of society that bear a colossal part of the burden. As a result of such activities around the world, millions of people have been affected. Thousands of square kilometres have been highly contaminated, including entire river systems, lakes and farmland. Millions of tonnes of nuclear waste have been produced, but no satisfactory solutions to the problem of their disposal have been found. Radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests has likely led to thousands of deaths due to cancer already; even if no more nuclear tests are conducted, the incidence of cancer and other diseases resulting from exposure to long-lived radionuclides will continue to kill for several centuries, taking a total toll of millions in all. The immense quantities of radioactive material left within the earth from underground testing around the globe are likely to lead to the contamination of water and the food chain in the long-term. In this essay we shall try to estimate the costs borne by the people of India in terms of their health and the environment from the activities of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) that, in the words of Abdul Kalam, is said to have conferred "the country with a capability to vacate nuclear threats".1 First, we enumerate the reasons why estimating these costs is a difficult task. Then we describe the different stages of the nuclear fuel cycle and the various processes involved in making nuclear weapons and detail the environmental and health impacts of each activity. Due to the vastness of the subject, we will not deal with the effects of making all the other non-nuclear components that go into making nuclear weapons.

Difficulties in Estimating Impacts The task of estimating the impacts on public health and the environment from nuclear weapons production and testing is difficult for four reasons. First, the subject is intrinsically difficult and controversial. Despite decades of research, experts are still divided on the effects of radiation on health, especially in low doses. In part, this is because the onset of cancer, one of the chief health outcomes of exposure to radiation, occurs only many years after the exposure and cannot be easily correlated with it. An added complication is that cancers can have a great variety of causal agents. Further, the question of adverse health and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons production goes beyond just radiation effects. Nuclear weapons production involves the use of large quantities of organic and inorganic toxic materials, which have their own health and environmental effects.2 For example, chronic exposure to beryllium could lead to berylliosis, a potentially fatal lung disease. The US Department of Energy recently admitted, after decades of knowing but not disclosing, the hazards to workers exposed to beryllium. 3 Second, because academic research on the subject the world over is largely supported by government funds, often through the nuclear or defence agencies, researchers do not easily receive funding to work on the health and environmental impact of nuclear and defence projects. In India, the nuclear establishment has for

years been granted a large share of research funds to the exclusion of other subjects. 4 As a consequence they have tremendous financial influence over the universities, which are starved of research funds. The universities therefore are loath to come into conflict with the nuclear establishment and shy away from researching subjects that may be in discord with the nuclear establishment. Knowledge about the impact of nuclear weapons production on human health and the environment is also not desirable for governments. All nuclear weapon states have been so enamoured of the idea of possessing bombs that they are willing to pay any price required in terms of the health of their own voiceless poor and harm to the environment of 'remote' regions. As a consequence they are careless when it comes to quantifying these costs. What little accounting is done is entrusted to the bomb-makers themselves—the proverbial foxes are called upon to guard the environmental hen house. Besides the fact that these people often lack the expertise, what impedes this task significantly is their lack of motivation. Faced with contradictory expectations, nuclear establishments know very well that their primary purpose is to produce bombs. There are no perks or privileges for keeping meticulous records of the ill effects of the production process. Third, whatever little knowledge is available is treated with such secrecy that getting even the basic facts from the nuclear establishment is a Herculean task. In the Indian case this can be illustrated with an example. The exact site of the first Pokhran test was not published in the various accounts of the explosion. Although the spot was well-known to hundreds of villagers living in the vicinity, as well as to all foreign information agencies with access to satellite photography, getting its location from the Indian DAE or other government agencies was impossible: It was only when two researchers from the United States, Vipin Gupta and Frank Pabian, pinpointed the spot using commercially available satellite imagery and old photographs of the time that the location became known to a larger audience.5 Such independent checks are difficult in India given the paucity of people with technical expertise outside the establishment.6 Unlike many other countries, knowledge regarding reactor engineering or other related nuclear subjects is available essentially at only one centre, namely the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). Subsequent employment to trainees is also available with only one employer, the DAE. Making the task more difficult are the draconian Atomic Energy Act and the Official Secrets Act, with provisions for rigorous imprisonment for a period of five years, which are held aloft as a suitably impressive stick.7 Passed on 15 September 1962, the Atomic Energy Act empowers the government to "restrict the disclosure of information, whether contained in a document, drawing, photograph, plan, model, or in any other form whatsoever, which relates to, represents or illustrates: a. an existing or proposed plant used or proposed to be used for the purpose of producing, developing or using atomic energy, or b. the purpose or method of operation of any such existing or proposed plant, or c. any process operated or proposed to be operated in any such existing or proposed plant."8 The DAE has used the Act in Indian courts to, for example, refuse to divulge information about issues related to the safety of nuclear reactors.9 However, the application of this Act has been limited to a small extent by the tradition of free discourse that exists in India. Finally, it is impossible to separate the so-called peaceful nuclear activities from the making of bombs. Again this is especially true in India, where the very raison d'etre of keeping a large non-performing nuclear establishment seems to be the making of bombs. After 50 years of relatively large investments in atomic energy, the share of nuclear power is less than three per cent of the country's electricity output. There are two reasons for the overlap between nuclear energy and weapons activities. The first is that all nuclear reactors produce plutonium, the fissile material commonly used in nuclear bombs. J. Carson Mark, the former director of the theoretical division of Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA, has shown that even 'reactor-grade plutonium' can be used to make a nuclear explosive.10 In 1994, the US Department of Energy announced that a US nuclear test in 1962 used reactor-grade plutonium. 11 Provided a country has a

reprocessing facility to separate the plutonium from the other elements in spent fuel, it could make nuclear weapons if it has nuclear reactors that are not safeguarded or monitored. Making nuclear weapons, then, becomes a matter of choice and not one of capability. As though illustrating this point, it has been reported that one of the tests conducted by India in May 1998 used reactor-grade plutonium from its 'peaceful' programme.12 Second, many of the physical steps involved in the two pursuits are the same and the infrastructure for and personnel involved in one can contribute substantially to the other. For example, the uranium mines in Jaduguda serve both the weapons and energy programmes. Methodologically, therefore, it is impossible to clearly separate the impacts from nuclear weapons production and nuclear energy production. This is especially true in India, where until recently there was no officially admitted nuclear weapons programme. Official Limits As a way of dealing with the risks to human health from radiation exposure, international and national bodies have tried to come up with recommendations for limiting the exposure to workers. In 1991, following revised estimates of the risks of cancer from radiation exposure, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommended that radiation doses to occupational workers be limited to 20 milliSievert (mSv) per year on average (1 mSv = 0.1 rem). To members of the general public, the radiation dose limit from all anthropogenic activities has been set at 1 mSv per year. According to the ICRP a dose of 20 mSv leads to, on average, a one in a thousand chance of dying from radiation-induced cancer. 13 A dose that is twice as large would lead to twice the probability of getting cancer. For comparison, the average dose from background natural sources is about 2-3 mSv per year. The Indian DAE claims to follow these guidelines.14 Leaving aside the ethics of trying to compensate, or not compensate those exposed to such risks, it is worth examining the record of how well these recommendations have been followed. To do this, we rely largely on official sources, which are incomplete and often contradictory.15 But for the most part they are all that are available. The Indian experience, as we shall detail, has been patchy at best. Given the secrecy mentioned earlier, there is also no practical way of independently verifying stated exposure data. According to independent analysts and investigative journalists, the record is even worse. For example, an early report on the Indian nuclear energy programme observes that at the Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS), the radiation dose "limit for radiation workers' exposure means very little in practice: it has been breached so frequently as to make one wonder why it exists at all."16

The Materials Involved There are different processes involved in the production of different kinds of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are basically of three types: Pure fission weapons: The energy produced is due to fission, i.e. a heavy nucleus splitting into two lighter nuclei, also releasing some extra neutrons in the process. Under suitable circumstances, these neutrons could be absorbed by other heavy nuclei, in turn causing these nuclei to split and so on, thus leading to a chain reaction. Very few materials can undergo a chain reaction; among these are the isotopes uranium 233, uranium 235 and plutonium 239. Fission weapons use either plutonium, usually with a large fraction of plutonium 239, or uranium that has been highly enriched in the uranium 235 isotope; some weapons use both.17 Uranium 233 is not often used since its production process is more involved. Boosted fission weapons'. These are similar to fission weapons, but in addition to the fissile material there is also some tritium gas that provides a large supply of neutrons. These are produced through a reaction with deuterium that can occur only at the high temperatures produced by the fission explosion. This neutron flux increases the efficiency of fission, i.e. increases the fraction of fissile material that undergoes fission before the weapon is blown apart. Though the fusion of tritium does produce a small amount of

energy, the energy released is overwhelmingly due to fission. Thermonuclear weapons: The energy released by thermonuclear weapons is due to fusion, wherein two light nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus. Fusion can occur only at very high temperatures; for this reason, all fusion weapons designed so far start with a 'primary fission trigger'. The elements used in fusion weapons are isotopes of hydrogen—deuterium and tritium. Besides energy, the fusion reaction between deuterium and tritium also releases high-energy neutrons; these neutrons then go on to fission uranium 235 and uranium 238 found in the 'secondary' in such weapons, releasing more energy. The yield is typically much larger than from pure fission weapons. India has developed implosion-type plutonium fission bombs and claims to have detonated a thermonuclear device on 11 May 1998. Doubts have been expressed about the success of the thermonuclear explosion.18 However, it is fairly certain that India has manufactured all the raw materials needed to make such a weapon; hence the environmental damage caused by their production has already occurred. We shall not enumerate the various processes involved in the highly enriched uranium route although Pakistan has chosen that route.19 Plutonium is not ordinarily found in nature. It is a human-made element. To produce plutonium, one first needs to mine uranium, convert it into a form suitable for use as reactor fuel and then 'burn' it in a reactor. The resulting 'spent fuel' is then reprocessed to recover the plutonium. In India, tritium is produced as a by-product in heavy water reactors when the deuterium in the heavy water absorbs a neutron. This is separated using a catalytic exchange process.20

The Nuclear Fuel Cycle and its Impacts Starting Point: Uranium Mining and Milling The common starting point for the production of nuclear weapons, through either the uranium or plutonium routes, as well as the production of nuclear energy, is the mining of uranium. Uranium mining and milling or refining has often severely impacted the health of workers around the world. The radioactive hazards of uranium mines and concentrating plants arise less from uranium than from the radionuclides in the radioactive decay chain of uranium, especially radium 226, radon 222 (a gas) and its decay products ('daughters'), and polonium 210, all alpha-emitters.21 Under the poorly ventilated conditions that are characteristic of many uranium mines, miners inhale radon and ore dust (including uranium), resulting in radiation doses. Averaging exposure data from around the world, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) estimates that about 70 per cent of the total radiation exposure to the miners comes from radon and radon daughters, three per cent from ore dust, and the remaining 27 per cent from external radiation.22 Inhalation of alpha-emitting radionuclides increases the risk of lung cancer. The US National Research Council's Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (BEIR) Committee estimates that the extra relative risk of death from lung cancer from exposure to one working level month (WLM, a unit used to measure radon exposure) when compared to an unexposed individual is 0.5 per cent/WLM.23 Average exposures to uranium miners in Czechoslovakia, US, Canada and France ranged from 21.2 WLM in one Canadian mine to 578.6 WLM in US mines in Colorado.24 Thus, the Colorado miners had a (fatal) lung cancer risk of nearly four times that of an unexposed individual. Miners are also apt to suffer from silicosis as a result of exposure to high levels of dust. India has uranium mines at Jaduguda in Bihar; significant exploration for uranium has been conducted near Domiasiat in Meghalaya and near the Andhra Pradesh-Karnataka border. The uranium obtained is then milled at the mill-complex at Jaduguda. The ore is first crushed, ground and leached into solution using sulphuric acid.25 The solution is then filtered, purified by an ion-exchange process and uranium is precipitated in the form of magnesium diuranate. The remaining solution contains contaminants including

sulphuric acid, heavy metals, nitrates, sulphates, amines and chlorides. This 'barren liquor' is treated with lime and barium salts to reduce the radioactivity and acidity; however, the effluent, which is discharged into a tailing pond, does contain some radioactivity. The tailing pond in Jaduguda is close to villages and till recently was not fenced to prevent access by people or cattle.26 Mill tailings, i.e. the solid material left behind after uranium has been extracted from the ore, are produced in large quantities in uranium milling because the typical amount of uranium in the ore is about 0.1 per cent or less. Indian uranium ores on average contain about 0.067 per cent of uranium oxide (U308).27 Thus, for each kilogram of uranium metal produced, over 1750 kg of mill tailings are left behind. These are contaminated with toxic heavy metals, such as molybdenum, arsenic and vanadium, and with radioactive materials, principally thorium 230 and radium 226. Radium 226 decays into radon gas; in the case of exposed mill tailings, radon emissions can be detected up to about one mile.28 Due to its fine sandy texture, mill tailings have been used to construct homes and public buildings. Residents of these buildings are then exposed to gamma radiation and radon. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates the lifetime excess lung cancer risk of residents of such homes at 4 cases per 100. In Jaduguda, tailings have been used for road and home construction, but the health impacts of these practices have not been computed. And neither have the authorities informed the residents of the risks involved. Mill tailings have contaminated water supplies in many locations. This becomes particularly important in the Indian case because of the heavy rainfall in the Jaduguda area. The contamination of ground and surface water by seepage introduces radium 226 and other hazardous substances like arsenic into drinking water supplies and in fish from the area. The seepage problem has a significant effect on acidic tailings, as the radionuclides involved are more mobile under acidic conditions.29 Tailing dams are often not of stable construction. In most cases, they are made from sedimentation of the coarse fraction of the tailing sludge. They are subject to the risk of dam failures due to earthquakes or strong rains. It is no surprise that dam failures have repeatedly occurred all over the world. For example, there was a spill involving 1000 tonnes of contaminated sediment and 370 million litres of contaminated water in Church Rock, New Mexico, USA, in July 1979.30 What makes the concern about health effects due to radiation even more worrisome in the Indian case is that ores in subsurface mines like Jaduguda and Mosabani have high rates of radon exhalation.31 The relatively scant official data available in the public domain on the state of the health of workers exposed to this material only heightens this concern. In 1986, for example, 42 per cent of all workers at the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) received a radiation dose greater than the ICRP recommended value of 20 mSv/year; 6 per cent received doses in excess of 35 mSv/year.32 Table 1 shows exposures for India as well as world averages from a United Nations survey. TABLE I Radiation Exposures from Uranium Mining and. Milling

aThe sum total of individual doses in a year is called the annual collective effective dose. b When the individual doses are measured in Sv, the total has the units of person-Sv since it is effectively a multiple of the number of people and their dose in Sv. Source: Data from United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), Sources and Effects of Ionising Radiation (New York: United Nations, 1993), 447-451.

UCIL, which is responsible for uranium mining, seems to have taken the route of stoutly denying all health effects. A.N. Mullick, who served as UCIL's chief medical officer for 25 years is reported to have said: "I have not come across any radiation-related ailments during my entire career." 33 This statement, however, is not based on any concrete data. The DAE did not conduct any baseline studies at Jaduguda to evaluate the health status of the people of the area before commencing mining and milling operations. Neither have there been careful health studies later to establish if there have been any deleterious consequences. However, a number of newspaper and magazine reports and recently a documentary film Buddha Weeps In Jaduguda, do report a very high incidence of congenital anomalies and cancer.34 A recent health survey conducted by Anumukti in selected villages both near and far from Jaduguda observed a statistically significant increase in congenital deformities in the villages close to Jaduguda. It also appears that a number of people suffer from various lung diseases; however, these are routinely classified as tuberculosis by the medical authorities. Members of the survey team also noted several practices that unnecessarily increased the radiation exposure to the workers and the inhabitants of the area. Some of the problems are: improper ventilation in the mines, use of material leftover from mining to build roads and houses, and drying up of tailing ponds during the summer. Nuclear Fuel Fabrication Since the bulk of India's nuclear reactors use natural uranium, the uranium goes directly to fuel fabrication facilities after mining and milling. This is done at the Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) at Hyderabad. Some studies of workers in uranium processing facilities have observed high rates of cancer, especially lung cancer and radiosensitive solid cancers.35 These result from inhalation of fine particles of uranium and other materials by workers. If the uranium is in a state that is relatively insoluble in bodily fluids and the particles are small enough to be absorbed into the lung, inhalation leads to increased risk of lung cancer. If not, the uranium accumulates in the kidney and there is risk of renal damage and possibly kidney failure due to heavy metal toxicity effects. In addition, it has been shown that genomic instabilities can also result from exposure to uranium. For example, a study of nuclear-fuel workers by researchers from Osmania University demonstrated a significant

increase in sister-chromatid exchanges.36 Among a group of 24 workers monitored for the amount of uranium inhaled (technically, the uranium thorax burden), at least two had exceeded the annual limit.37 Apart from exposure to toxic chemicals and (mostly) internal and external doses of radiation, workers are also at risk from a variety of accidents. In the 1990s alone, the NFC had at least four accidents that have been publicly acknowledged. Though these were all relatively small, there is the risk of more serious criticality accidents, i.e. an accidental chain reaction, especially in facilities like the NFC that make different kinds of fuel for different reactors. One such accident occurred in 1999 at the Tokaimura fuel fabrication facility in Japan.38 The accident occurred because workers put fuel enriched to 16 per cent uranium 235 in a container meant to hold fuel for light water reactors, which is usually only enriched 3-5 per cent. Unlike Tokaimura, which is in a somewhat remote location, the NFC is near the densely populated city of Hyderabad and such an accident would have more serious consequences. Nuclear Reactors Two steps are involved in producing plutonium from nuclear fuel. First, a nuclear reactor, either one whose main purpose is to produce electricity or one whose sole aim is the production of plutonium, transmutes uranium 238 in the nuclear fuel into plutonium 239 and heavier plutonium isotopes. The plutonium as it comes out from the reactor is mixed with fission products and the remaining uranium. The process of separating the plutonium from the other materials is called reprocessing and is the second step in producing plutonium. The First Step: As with many other nuclear-related issues, information about the primary reactors used for production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, namely CIRUS and Dhruva, is hard to come by. Therefore, to get a sense of the radiation exposures to workers in the primary reactors, we will look at the practices at power reactors, about which more information is publicly available. Even routine operations in nuclear plants lead to some amount of radiation exposure to workers; in some Indian reactors such exposure has sometimes led to significant radiation doses. In 1992, an Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) study of workers in various units of the DAE showed that between 1986 and 1990 nearly 3-5 per cent of all workers employed by the DAE received over 20 mSv/year.39 Considering that the DAE employed over 17,000 workers during that period, the sheer number of people with significant radiation exposures is clearly quite large. However, expressing the number of workers receiving high doses of radiation as a percentage of the total workforce is somewhat misleading because it is averaged over different plants and workers in various situations with different levels of routine exposure. Specific plants had much higher doses. For example, in 1987 over 18 per cent of all workers at the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) received a dose greater than 20 mSv/year; 5.5 per cent received doses in excess of 35 mSv/year. 1540 The average dose to MAPS workers was 11 mSv/year. 41 Another indicator of the high radiation dose to workers in Indian nuclear reactors is to compare the total radiation exposure to the amount of power they produce. For example, in the year 1980, the collective dose (i.e. the sum of all individual worker doses) at the two boiling water reactors at Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS) was 43.06 person-Sv, sufficient to cause two cancer deaths.42 During that year, the reactors produced 0.2 gigawatt-years (GWy) of electricity.43 This works out to a per-unit exposure of 215.3 person-Sv per GWy. The corresponding figure at the pressurised heavy water reactors at the Raj as than Atomic Power Station (RAPS) was 91.2 person-Sv per GWy in 1980, corresponding to nearly five cancer deaths. Such high exposures in the case of Indian reactors are not exceptional; average exposures have been high as well, as illustrated in Table 2, which also gives world averages for exposures. TABLE 2 Radiation Exposures at Nuclear Power Reactors

Source: Data from United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), Sources and Effects of Ionising Radiation (New York: United Nations, 1993), 457-461.

If radiation exposures even during regular operations are so high, one can imagine how much higher they would be due to accidents, even small ones. The heavy water spill of 26 March 1999 at MAPS provides an example. During this accident, somewhere between four and fourteen tonnes of heavy water leaked out. 'Mopping up' the spill required 42 workers. Using standard methods of radiation exposure calculation, it can be shown that each worker who was involved in cleaning up the spill would have received a radiation dose of at least 6-8 mSv for every hour of the job.44 Therefore, even working for four hours in such an environment would have led to a dose in excess of ICRP recommendations. One must remember that this dose is in addition to those that they would have received over the course of routine reactor operations during the rest of the year. Such heavy water leaks are relatively frequent. Over the years the MAPS reactors have experienced at least three such leaks. In 1997, the Kakrapar I, MAPS II and Narora II reactors had heavy water leaks.45 Apart from heavy water leaks, there have also been numerous other kinds of accidents in Indian nuclear facilities.46 An AERB report released in May 1993 revealed that there had been 147 accidents of varying magnitudes in the previous year. Some of them could have potentially led to major catastrophes. The best known, but by no means the only, example of a catastrophic nuclear reactor accident, is the Chernobyl explosion in 1986.47 The only power station in India around which there has been a scientific study of health consequences on the local population, i.e. not just workers in the plants, is RAPS located at Rawatbhata near Kota in central India.48 This study, conducted in 1991, surveyed five villages (total population: 2860) within ten kilometres of the plant and compared them with four other villages (total population: 2544) more than fifty kilometres away; the results were published in 1993. The study observed: an increase in the rate of congenital deformities, a significantly higher rate of spontaneous abortions, stillbirths and one-day deaths of newborn babies, a significant increase in chronic diseases especially amongst the young, but no differences in acute infections, a significantly higher rate of solid tumours, and more cancer patients and cancer deaths in villages near the plant. It is worth noting that the survey also observed that there were significantly fewer numbers of electrified households and pump set connections near the plant. Thus it is clear that with the exception of generating employment for the workers, the benefits from running the plant do not flow to the inhabitants of the region.

In addition to these health consequences from routine operations and accidents, there is also a long-term threat to the environment and human health from a variety of wastes that are produced during the operation of nuclear reactors. Additional wastes will be produced when reactors are decommissioned. Though it has been claimed that these are safely stored and handled in waste management facilities, such facilities at BARC and at Tarapur have had leaks leading to radiation exposure to workers involved in cleaning up the resulting mess.49 Gaseous wastes produced during routine operations are released through stacks (75-100 metres tall) into the environment. The stacks mainly consist of tritium, argon 41 and iodine 131, fission-product noble gases, and a small amount of particulate matter. More recent nuclear plants are designed to trap the short-lived (half-life = 1.83 hours) argon 41.50 Low-level liquid wastes, consisting mostly of tritium but also small quantities of cesium 137 and strontium 90, are released into nearby water bodies, such as the sea in the case of coastal reactors. Data on such releases are scarce -and often conflicting -but the available data suggest that releases at Indian reactors are much higher on a per unit electricity output basis when compared to similar reactors elsewhere. Reactors also produce a number of solid and liquid wastes during operation and maintenance that are not directly discharged into the environment. Solid wastes include materials such as protective clothing, paper and cloth wipers and discarded equipment that are contaminated by contact with the reactor system; and materials such as ion-exchange resins and filters that are contaminated by their use in cleaning and conditioning the reactor coolant and moderator, and the fuel storage bay water. The bulk of the radioactivity, however, is contained in the spent fuel coming out of the reactors, which is reprocessed. Reprocessing: The next step in the process of making nuclear weapons is to reprocess the spent fuel that comes out of nuclear reactors to obtain plutonium. The irradiated spent fuel contains the largest quantities of radioactivity produced in the fuel cycle. Spent fuel is first stored in water-filled pools for cooling. After cooling, the fuel rods are chopped up, dissolved in acid, and other solvents and different chemicals are added to precipitate the different elements. Reprocessing is the dirtiest part of the nuclear fuel cycle, producing large amounts of solid, liquid and gaseous radioactive waste. The largest component (by volume) is low-level waste that comprises 84% of the volume of the waste stream; however, this only contains about 0.1% of the total radioactivity from the spent fuel. Intermediate-level waste accounts for 14% of the volume, and contains about one per cent of the radioactivity. High-level waste constitutes the remaining two per cent, but contains nearly 99% of the total radioactivity. For each tonne of spent fuel reprocessed, Indian reprocessing facilities generate 2.2 cubic metres of high-level waste, 15.4 cubic metres of intermediate-level waste and 92.4 cubic metres of low-level waste. Since there is no way of removing the radioactive nature of these wastes, exposure to these wastes will continue to be harmful to humans and other forms of life for thousands of years. They have to be isolated from human contact and possibly monitored if they are not to cause radiation doses. This need for stewardship is unprecedented in human history. TABLE 3 Total Nuclear Waste Generation in India

Source: Compiled by M.V. Ramana, Dennis Thomas and Susy Varughese, "Estimating Nuclear Waste Production in India," Current Science 81, no. II (10 December 2001): 1458-1462.

Apart from radiation exposure and waste generation during regular operations, these facilities also become extremely contaminated and have to be decontaminated. In the case of India's smallest full-scale reprocessing facility at Trombay, decontamination generated about 300 tonnes of solid wastes; about 60,000 litres of medium-level liquid wastes; and about 13 million litres of low-level liquid effluents. 51 The official collective dose to workers was about 30 person-Sv. There are also reports that many of these operations use temporary workers whose radiation exposure is not monitored. This would only increase the total radiation exposure and adverse health impact. Because of the radioactivity which releases heat, the wastes coming from reprocessing must be stored in cooled tanks. Loss of cooling could cause explosions. For example, on 29 September 1957, a large explosion (estimated to be between 70 and 100 tonnes of TNT equivalent) occurred at the Mayak nuclear weapons facility in the former Soviet Union; it contained 70-80 tonnes of highly radioactive waste with a total radioactivity of 20 million curies.52 The chief long-lived components and their contributions to total activity are listed in Table 4; it has been estimated that the collective radiation dose was nearly 6000 person-Sv, which would result in about 300 cancer deaths. The fallout settled along a 400-kilometre long swath of land, covering an area of over 20,000 square kilometres.53 TABLE 4 Characteristics of Radioactivity Released, in the 1957 Accident

Source: Data from B.V. Nikipelov et al., "Accident in the Southern Urals on 29 September 1957," International Atomic Energy Agency Information Circular, 28 May 1989, cited in Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris and Oleg A. Bukharin, Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), III.

Fabrication The making of the cores of nuclear weapons, known as pits, from plutonium requires extensive chemical and metallurgical operations. These involve not only plutonium but also other toxic materials such as beryllium

and hydrofluoric acid. Plutonium dust if inhaled in large quantities (about 100 mg of plutonium for adult humans) would cause death from acute respiratory failure within a week. At lower doses that are likely to result from working in pit-manufacturing facilities, inhalation of plutonium increases the risk of lung, bone and liver cancers. It has been estimated that somewhere between three and 12 cancer deaths would be caused for each milligram of plutonium inhaled.54 This estimate assumes that the plutonium is relatively insoluble. If it were to be in a chemical form that dissolves rapidly, then this would increase by a factor of up to six. Plutonium metal is also very susceptible to fires. In the US, for example, there were many fires in the nuclear weapons complex, especially at the Rocky Flats Plant. 55 Fortunately, the amount of plutonium converted to respirable aerosol in such fires is only about 0.05-0.07 per cent.56 But since the total amount of plutonium at facilities could be quite large, even this small fraction could lead to releases of sizeable quantities. The release of 1 kg of plutonium aerosol near one of South Asia's large and crowded cities and its dispersal by wind could lead to 5,000-20,000 cancer deaths.57 Plutonium fabrication operations also carry the risk of accidental criticality. At least eight accidental criticality events are known to have occurred in the US nuclear weapons complex; and some have had fatal consequences due to very high radiation exposure.58 There is also the danger of an accidental detonation during the process of assembling the chemical highexplosive components around the plutonium pit. This has occurred at least once in the US in March 1977.59

Nuclear Testing The last step before manufacturing and deploying nuclear weapons is conducting explosive tests. Two thousand and fifty-one nuclear tests have been conducted all over the world since 1945. Of these, 528 have been in the atmosphere, under water, or in space. The rest have been underground.60 The effects of atmospheric testing are both local and global. Local effects in regions near testing sites and, in some cases, due to winds, even hundreds of kilometres away, led to relatively large doses of exposure to radioactivity to the inhabitants of these areas. Dissident Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov was one of the first to calculate that atmospheric tests cause about 10,000 deaths and other health injuries globally per megatonne of the explosion.61 These deaths would occur over thousands of years, largely due to inhalation of carbon 14 (which has a half-life of 5730 years) resulting from the explosion. Since the estimated cumulative yield of atmospheric tests by the US, Russia, UK, France and China is about 545 megatonnes, this implies that over the next few thousands of years, over 5 million people will die from cancers induced by atmospheric testing. There are two kinds of environmental dangers associated with radioactivity from underground tests. Both of these stem from the radioactive remnants of the nuclear reactions that are responsible for the energy produced in a nuclear explosion. The first is that radioactive contamination may escape into the atmosphere. The second danger would be the radioactive remnants left underground making their way into ground water or to the surface. TABLE 5 Key Radioactive Remnants, Half-lives, Production Rates

Source: Data from Merrill Eisenbud and Thomas Gesell, Environmental Radioactivity (San Diego: Academic Press, 1997), 279.

Releases to Atmosphere: Several underground tests have Vented', i.e. failed to contain the radioactivity due to faulty design, and released fission products into the atmosphere. Others have late-time seeps, whereby radioactive gases were released into the atmosphere gradually over a period of several weeks or months. And finally radioactivity is sometimes released during routine post-test activities. In the US, more than half of all the underground tests conducted at the Nevada test site after 1963 have led to radioactivity being released to the atmosphere.62 Similarly in the former Soviet Union, nearly 60 per cent of the underground nuclear tests conducted at the Novaya Zemlya test site released radioactivity into the atmosphere. 63 While these releases are typically small compared to releases from atmospheric tests, they demonstrate that underground testing does lead to radioactive contamination of the atmosphere. The following table lists some of the significant venting incidents in the US. TABLE 6 Significant Incidents of Venting

Source: Data from Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress, The Containment of Underground Nuclear Explosions (Washington D.C.: Office of Technology Assessment, 1989).

According to public statements by the DAE, none of the tests conducted at Pokhran released any radioactivity. However, residents of the villages near the test site have complained, both in 1974 and in 1998, of different kinds of physical illnesses. In particular, the reported cases of nose bleeding and burning eyes may have resulted from exposure to beta radiation.64 Without a thorough independent examination, it is not possible to confirm the veracity of the complaints or their causes. It is worth mentioning that it is difficult to predict, a priori, whether a test is likely to vent. On the basis of several hundred tests, the US uses a formula that relates the depth of burial to the cube root of the yield, with a minimum depth of burial of about 185 metres. A 10 kilotonne explosion is buried at a depth of about 260 metres or more. 65 Based on this estimate, the Indian explosions of 11 May 1998, which are said to have been conducted at a depth of 200-300 metres with the largest explosion having a yield of 45 kilotonnes, could well have resulted in venting of radioactivity. The 1970 Baneberry test, which resulted in a massive vent, had a yield of only 10 kilotonnes and was conducted at a depth of about 275 metres.66 Thus, even if the Pokhran tests did not actually result in venting, there was considerable risk of that occurring. TABLE 7 Approximate Underground Radioactivity Estimates, as of 1999 (in curies)

Source: Data from M.V. Ramana, "Underground Tests: Ravaging Nature," The Hindu Survey of the Environment (June 1999). a Assuming the official yields of the Indian tests in 1974 and 1998 to be 12 kt and 58 kt (5 explosions) respectively. b Assuming that the total yield of the Pakistani tests is 35 kt (6 explosions).

Releases to Groundwater: The major effects of atmospheric releases of radioactivity from underground tests are relatively shortlived, and in most countries have been dominated by similar releases from aboveground testing. The long-term effects of underground testing are more likely to arise from the immense quantities of radioactive material, much of it very long-lived, left below the ground and which may lead to contamination of water and the food chain. The extent of the problem can be seen from Table 7, which estimates the amounts of various radioactive isotopes that have been left underground in different countries. For long, officials in charge of nuclear testing have claimed that because all the radioactive material is trapped within the cavity left behind by the explosion, this vast accumulation of radioactive material under the ground did not lead to any hazards. In particular, though it stayed radioactive for thousands of years, plutonium was considered not to pose a threat because it is largely insoluble in water.67 However, as recent studies have shown, plutonium has indeed escaped from underground test cavities and migrated a significant distance, by attaching itself to colloids, i.e. small particles suspended in water. 68 Through this process, plutonium is transported at a rate approximately that of the motion of groundwater (about a hundred metres per year). While the transportation rate is small, the long half-life of plutonium allows for the possibility of migrating significant distances in groundwater. Besides plutonium, it is known that tritium has contaminated subsurface groundwater.69 Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of 12.3 years; it decays by emitting a beta particle. Since its chemical properties are identical to hydrogen, it can combine with oxygen and isotopes of hydrogen to produce tritiated heavy water, which is easily absorbed by plants, animals and humans. Any tritiated water vapour that is breathed in, absorbed through the skin, or ingested, would result in complete absorption of the entire radioactivity. The absorbed tritiated water is rapidly distributed throughout the body via the blood, which in turn equilibriates with extracellular fluid in about 12 minutes. Since tritiated water can pass through the placenta, it also could lead to mental retardation and other developmental effects when ingested by pregnant women. Even if the extent of contamination and its rate of spreading are slow, it must be remembered that test sites such as Pokhran are usually located in desert environments. Water is a precious commodity in such places. Even polluting a few wells could cause incredible hardships and make it impossible for a local community to live there.

Conclusion Rosalie Bertell has put it most succinctly: "If we kept accounts of our health, as well as we do of our money, nuclear activities whether for war or peace would be banned immediately."70 Unfortunately keeping good and reliable accounts of public health is not a priority since those with hefty bank balances do not mind sacrificing

those without any, in the name of development, progress, national security and prestige. Nuclear weapons do not have to be used in war to affect people's health and the environment; the process of manufacturing and testing them does precisely that along every step of the way. Many of these harmful effects arise from producing nuclear energy as well. The people who bear the brunt of these are often disempowered in the first place. Thus, for them and for others, nuclear weapons are a constant threat to their well-being. * We would like to thank the Anumukti team for their help. M.V. Ramana would like to thank AHnde Lin procuring several useful reference and Arjun Makhijani and Frank von Hippel for useful comments. Ramana's research was supported in part by a Reasearch and Writing grant from the MacArthur Foundation and part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation

The Last Deadly Sin: Effects of Nuclear Weapons on Humans THOMAS GEORGE On 6 August 1945, a nuclear weapon was detonated over Hiroshima. Humankind had for the first time created a weapon that had the potential to destroy all life as we know it. Besides the conventional ways in which bombs kill and maim – blast, pressure and heat – a new and extremely deadly poison, radiation, had been used in war against innocent citizens.

Radiation: The Phantom Menace In 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen was the first to become aware of the potential of some hitherto unknown rays, which he called 'X' rays, to penetrate the human body and cast an image. This potential was soon put to use in medicine, both for diagnosis and for treatment. Numerous patients received radiation treatment not only for tumours, many of which seemed to disappear miraculously with the new treatment, but also for diseases like fungal affectations of the skin. However, it soon became obvious that radiation had ill effects as well. Not only did it cause burns, but it seemed to cause cancers too. In fact, even today, numerous people in the West are being treated for skin cancers due to the radiation treatment they had undergone in their youth for fungal infections. The occurrence of cancer demonstrates that some of the effects of radiation are immediate and dramatic, while others are slow and take many years to become manifest.

Atomic Structure1 It wasn't long after the discovery of x rays that the character of these rays was revealed. They are a form of energy and certain substances have the ability to spontaneously emit them, while still others can be forced to emit them. All substances are composed of one or more of over a hundred different kinds of basic materials known as elements. There are 92 naturally occurring and at least 11 artificially produced elements, ranging from the simplest and lightest naturally occurring element, hydrogen, to the heaviest artificial element, lawrencium. The simplest structural unit of any element that can exist, while still retaining the characteristics of the element, is an atom. It is composed of a central nucleus surrounded by a varying number of electrons. The nucleus consists of a number of fundamental particles; the most important of which are the protons and the neutrons. The proton is a particle having a positive electric charge, equal to but opposite in sign to that of an electron. The proton's mass is approximately 1,845 times greater than that of the electron. The neutron is an uncharged particle having a mass slightly greater than that of the proton. Electrons are negatively charged particles which orbit the nucleus at discrete energy levels referred to as electron shells. Atoms are electrically neutral when the number of negatively charged electrons orbiting the nucleus is equal to the number of positively charged protons within the nucleus. When the number of electrons is greater than or less than the number of protons in the nucleus, atoms are not electrically neutral and carry a net negative or positive charge. They are then called ions and are chemically reactive, tending to combine with other ions of opposite net charge. The total mass of an atom is less than that of sum of the masses of the individual particles present in that atom. This is because when the basic particles combine to form an atom, a certain amount of mass is converted to energy, which is required to hold the nucleus together. Atoms of different elements have different numbers of protons in their nuclei. The number of protons in the nuclei determines the atomic number of an element. However, the number of neutrons present in the

nucleus of an element can vary. This does not affect the chemical properties of the different atoms since the number of electrons, which in the case of a neutral atom is equal to that of the number of protons, is not changed, but it has profound effects upon the stability of the nucleus. The total number of protons and neutrons in an atomic nucleus is referred to as the atomic mass number. Therefore it is possible for an element to exist in several subtypes, all having the same number of protons in their nuclei and therefore the same atomic number, but having different numbers of neutrons and therefore different atomic mass numbers. Such atomic species, which have identical atomic numbers but different atomic mass numbers are called isotopes. The stable isotopes of elements have definite proportions of neutrons to protons. As atomic mass numbers increase, the ratio of neutrons to protons increases according to a definite pattern. If isotopes vary from this pattern, they become unstable.

Radioactivity The nuclei of certain naturally occurring isotopes and of some others produced artificially are unstable, i.e. they either break up into other elements or release some energy in the form of radiation and are transformed into other isotopes or other elements. This process is called radioactivity or radioactive decay. There are three kinds of radiation that can be released: alpha (positively charged heavy helium nuclei), beta (fast electrons), and gamma (a form of electromagnetic radiation that is more energetic than x rays). All these are classified as ionising radiation since they are capable of removing an electron from another atom or molecule. The time taken for half the atoms of a given sample of a radioactive element to decay is called the half-life. The half-lives of different radioactive substances range from fractions of a millionth of a second to billions of years. Radioactive substances can release one of three kinds of rays—alpha, beta and gamma rays. Besides these, neutrons can also be released.2 Fission: This is a process by which a heavy unstable nucleus divides or splits into two or more lighter nuclei, with the release of substantial amounts of energy. The materials used to produce nuclear explosions by fission are those isotopes of uranium or plutonium which undergo fission most readily. When a free neutron of appropriate energy is captured by the nucleus of a fissionable atom, the resulting unstable nucleus will split producing two or more fission products (atoms of different elements formed from the protons, neutrons and electrons originally comprising the nucleus before its fission), two or three free neutrons, and a large amount (in relation to the size of the atom) of energy (approximately 200 million electron volts). The free neutrons that are emitted can in turn induce further fission events under the right conditions, leading to a chain reaction. Fusion: This is the opposite of fission. Here two light nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus. The elements used in fusion weapons are isotopes of hydrogen—deuterium and tritium. It is the fusion reaction between deuterium and tritium that provides the main source of fusion energy in such weapons. Since these two elements are gases at ordinary temperatures, they are inconvenient to use in weapons. Hence the principal material used in fusion weapons is lithium-6 deuteride. For two nuclei to combine, there must be enough energy to force the two nuclei together, overcoming the forces of repulsion. The only practical way to do this is by means of a fission explosion. Therefore fusion weapons must contain a basic fission component, the socalled 'primary'. Excitation and Ionisation When alpha, beta or gamma particles enter the human body, the effect, in the words of Karl Morgan, who was in the Health Physics Division of the Manhattan project that built the first atom bombs, is equivalent to letting a madman loose in a library. 3 The energy that the particles contain is transferred to the cells of the human body by either excitation or ionisation. In excitation, smaller amounts of energy are transferred, and the recipient atomic or molecular system is converted from a stable state to an unstable state. The transferred energy is held only for a short time before the excited atom or molecule returns to its stable state either by releasing the excess energy as an x ray or by

transferring its energy to another atom or molecule. Upon ionisation an electron is knocked off from an atom or molecule, thereby leaving the atom with a net positive charge. A common basis for comparing the various types of radiation and their effects is linear energy transfer (LET), the average amount of energy released per unit length due to excitation and ionisation reactions as the ionising particle travels through a medium. Radiations with low LET such as x rays produce diffuse ionisations throughout the medium. On the other hand, the LET with neutrons is so high that a single track is usually enough to provide enough ionisations to kill the cell.

Radiation and Health Singularly impressive in our work was the evidence of the vulnerability of the developing brain. Brain lesions revealed how radiation dismantles the orderly and precise arrangements of brain cells, scrambling them into a tangled confusion of cells of altered size while decimating other brain cells.4 Radiation affects the fundamental processes of cell functioning and there is no way to treat it or reverse its effects. The effects of radiation depend on both the intensity of the dose and the health of the person who is exposed to it. Two kinds of effects are observed—deterministic and stochastic. Deterministic effects: Deterministic effects occur at relatively large doses; in these one can predict with reasonable certainty what would happen to an 'average' human being exposed to such doses. At much lower doses, the effects become probabilistic; that is, among several individuals exposed to the same (low) level of radiation, only a few will suffer from damage to health. An example of the latter is increased rates of incidence of cancer. In order to ascertain the deterministic effects of radiation on the human body, an estimate called the lethal dose 50 (LD 50) is used. This signifies the radiation dosage that would be lethal to fifty per cent of a healthy adult population. Most official documents quote a figure of 400-500 rem given as a short-term dose as the level at which 50 per cent of a healthy adult population would die from radiation sickness.5 Actually, since ail populations contain a varying number of elderly people, those with preexisting diseases, and children, this dose will kill much more than fifty per cent of the people exposed. An additional short-term effect of radiation could be superficial burns produced by soft radiation (beta and low-energy gamma rays). If the body is exposed to several thousand rem, a so-called 'central nervous system syndrome' predominates, and the victim suffers from an inability to respond to stimuli, unsteadiness, stupour and difficulty in breathing, before death. At doses of the order of 1500 rem, the 'gastro-intestinal syndrome' occurs before death. The inner surface of the intestines is burnt. With supportive therapy, these victims could survive a painful week or so with bloody diarrhoea and incessant vomiting, before death. At lower doses, up to 200 rem, victims have radiation sickness. They suffer nausea, diarrhoea, delayed healing and decreased resistance to infection. A large number of the blood cells are killed increasing the possibility of infection, and causing bleeds. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki deaths from infection were common in the second and third weeks after the bombs were detonated, and deaths due to bleeding occurred in the third to sixth weeks. Stochastic effects: Besides the deterministic (or non-stochastic) effects, there are also stochastic or chance effects. These occur at lower doses which are not enough to cause the visible, dramatic effects that are commonly associated with radiation. But they can be lethal to the susceptible person. It is widely accepted that almost any level of radiation increases the risk of these stochastic effects. The most important of the stochastic effects is the development of cancer. Radiation damages the material that controls cell functioning, and as a result the cell may lose its ability to rest. This causes runaway cell proliferation, which can form a tumour. Leukaemia (a form of blood cancer) was the first cancer to be detected among the survivors of the atomic bomb, but cancer of the breast was the most common in the longterm. The female breast is the organ most sensitive to cancer induction after ionising radiation. If the reproductive cells are affected, the children born to the affected parents may be affected, and they in turn may produce defective germ cells and the error will be passed on to succeeding generations. In addition, exposure to radiation could also result in increased incidence of children born with defects,

increase in the number of stillbirths and deaths soon after birth, mental retardation, cataracts and decreased fertility. The developing embryo is easily damaged by radiation. In Nagasaki, of 177 pregnant survivors, 45 gave birth to stillborn children. In Hiroshima, many children were born with small heads and were mentally retarded. James Yamazaki, one of the first American doctors to work at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, describes one of the children born to a mother exposed to radiation: "When we examined him at the age of five, his head was extremely small. He was unable to speak, had to be fed, had no bladder control, showed evidence of heart complications, was unable to maintain the focus of his eyes and suffered from mental retardation." 6 In other words, the child had lost nearly all of the faculties that make human life enriching.

Effects of Nuclear Explosions Seichi, eighteen, lay swathed in bandages critically burned when the bomb caught him at work at the Ohashi Ordnance Factory....On the seventh day after the bomb Seichi's cries to his mother turned to a whisper, his discomfort cannot be relieved. Seichi died.7 The destructive action of conventional explosions is almost entirely due to the transmission of energy in the form of a blast wave. In a nuclear explosion, on the other hand, energy is transferred not only in the form of a blast wave, but also as thermal and nuclear radiation. Therefore, the nuclear weapon is primarily a biological weapon. The radiation is of two kinds—initial ionising radiation mainly of neutrons and gamma rays emitted in the first minute after detonation; and residual nuclear radiation which is the hazard in fallout. Thermal Injury I asked Dr Koyama what his findings had been in patients with eye injuries. "Those who watched the plane had their eye grounds burned," he replied. "The flash of light apparently went through their pupils and left them with a blind area in the central portion of their visual fields....Most of the eye- ground burns are third degree, so cure is impossible."8 The first effect of a nuclear weapon on any victim in the vicinity of the explosion is exposure to thermal radiation, since tremendous amounts of energy are released in a nuclear explosion and temperatures of several tens of million degrees centigrade develop in the immediate area. (This may be compared to a conventional, non-nuclear explosion, for example with TNT, where the temperature is only a few thousand degrees centigrade.) The surrounding atmosphere is converted to a brilliantly hot sphere of air and gaseous residues, the so-called fireball. Immediately after formation, the fireball begins to grow rapidly and rise like a hot-air balloon, vapourising nearby objects. The initial rapid expansion of the fireball severely compresses the atmosphere producing a powerful blast wave. The fireball emits enormous amounts of electromagnetic radiation, called thermal radiation, similar to sunlight. The visible part of it accounts for the blinding flash seen upon detonation as well as the subsequent brightness of the fireball. This can cause both temporary blindness and permanent scarring of the retina and visual impairment. The infrared part results in widespread burns and sets off fires. These scattered fires begin coalescing to start a firestorm. This happened in Hiroshima, roughly twenty minutes after the detonation. A firestorm burns with great ferocity and is characterised by gale force winds blowing in towards the centre of the fire from all points. Blast Injury There had been an air raid alarm earlier that morning, but no bombs fell. Some people had come out of shelters as eleven o'clock approached, only to hear the distant throb of bomber engines. Before many could take cover again, there was a flash of extremely bright light, blinding even on the far side of the mountain ridge, then a thunderous blast that shook the school building for a full minute, followed by terrifying darkness as the atomic cloud eclipsed the sun....The industrial area was engulfed in flames, thousands appeared dead, and the survivors were running in panic, many of them left with only burning shreds of their clothing. The railroad station, a quarter of a mile away, was destroyed. Health services were paralysed with the destruction of the University Medical Center.9

As a result of the very high temperatures at the point of detonation, the hot gases are forced outward from the centre of explosion at very high velocities. They act like a giant piston that hammers against everything in its path. There is a huge increase in pressure, and, following the blast wave, winds with velocities of up to several hundred kilometres per hour. After the explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the pressure of the blast at a point directly under the epicentre was estimated to be 4.5 to 6.7 tonnes per square metre at Hiroshima, and 6.7 to 10 tonnes at Nagasaki.10 At high overpressures (i.e. close to the point of explosion) the lungs and eardrums burst. In addition, the damage caused by the blast wave is more widespread due to the damage it causes to buildings, and because of the objects picked up by the blast wind and converted into missiles. Millions of everyday objects fly through the air at tremendous speeds, and these otherwise innocuous objects become deadly missiles, pounding and smashing everything in their path. Radiation Injury After a nuclear explosion, blast and thermal injuries will far outnumber radiation injuries. But radiation injuries are much more complex and have the potential to not only harm those exposed to the explosion but future generations as well. It is this aspect of nuclear weapons that is little understood. They have the terrifying possibility of completely destroying all life as we know it. The radiation exposure comes from two sources. First, the nuclear reactions that are responsible for producing the tremendous amount of energy released during a nuclear explosion also produce neutrons and gamma rays that travel relatively large distances. The second source is fallout. As the fireball cools, the vapourised materials in it condense to form a cloud of solid particles. This gets contaminated with radioactive isotopes generated by the explosion and falls down to the earth as fallout. The distance the fallout travels depends not only on the force of the explosion, but also on meteorological conditions which cannot be controlled. For example, after a nuclear test at Bikini Atoll on 1 March 1954, an area of the Pacific 500 km downwind and varying in width to a maximum of 100 km was severely contaminated. Other Immediate Effects Superficial burns from beta radiation can be deadly. Dr Kohei Koyano, a Japanese physician at Nagasaki, describes what happened: "All around us were many students and nurses gathered, all suffering from wounds and in some the entire body was burned with skin hanging from their limbs and body like thin strips of paper, dipped in blood. They were in pain, thirsty, crying for water."11 After exposure during the nuclear tests on the Marshall Islands, many of the victims experienced itching and burning of the skin; some had burning of the eyes and tearing. These symptoms subsided in two days, but within two weeks the victims experienced loss of hair from the surface of the body and skin lesions.12 Many of the exposed are likely to suffer poor healing of minor injuries because the cells required for healing can be damaged at doses of 100 rem. Late Effects These are seen in people who have received sublethal doses, especially those exposed to radioactive fallout. Many of the residual fission products in fallout tend to concentrate in selected body organs. Some of the effects include—increased incidence of leukaemia and other cancers, accelerated ageing and decreased lifespan, increased incidence of children born with defects, increase in the number of stillbirths and deaths soon after birth, mental retardation, cataracts, and decreased fertility.13 At Hiroshima and Nagasaki there were no significant effects due to radioactive fallout because the bombs were detonated at relatively high altitudes. On the other hand after a nuclear test (conducted by the United States) of a thermonuclear weapon detonated near the surface in the Marshall Islands, there was intense exposure to radiation to the people of Rongelap Island, American servicemen on Rongerik Island and also the crew of a Japanese ship, Fukuryu Maryu. In the first decade after the test there was evidence of retarded growth in children who were under five years old at the time of the test. In the second decade it became evident that the growth retardation was due to malfunction of the thyroid gland. Nonmalignant thyroid tumours were common. All children who were under the age of ten at the time of exposure had reduced

thyroid function, thyroid tumours or both. One child died of leukaemia at the age of eighteen. Another developed thyroid cancer.14 Environmental and Other Effects 15 Use of nuclear weapons could have severe environmental effects as well. Fire would consume the forest cover. Extensive dust bowls would be formed due to poor water retention. Flowering plants, young trees, mammals and birds are also sensitive to radiation, therefore whole ecosystems could be affected. Epidemic infectious disease would decimate the surviving human population. Since both crops and farm animals will be affected, famines will also be common. Whatever public shelters are available will be overcrowded with thousands trying to cram into the inadequate space. Liver, lung and intestinal diseases will spread rapidly under these conditions. Heat, humidity and lack of proper ventilation will provide ideal conditions for the spread of infective organisms. The water and food supply, sewage treatment and waste disposal will be seriously affected. This will lead to epidemics of intestinal diseases, and some new and unusual ones are likely to surface. Insects are highly resistant to radiation (cockroaches can survive gamma radiation of 40,000 roentgen which is a hundred times the LD 50 for humans).16 Bacteria, viruses and fungi, all of which can cause disease in humans, are resistant to radiation. Because insects are more resistant to radiation than animals and humans, and due to the presence of huge numbers of corpses, waste and untreated sewage, there will be a huge increase in insects. Mosquitoes would multiply rapidly; millions of flies would breed. Diseases such as typhus, dengue, malaria and encephalitis would spread. Fatal Attraction It is clear, therefore, that nuclear bombs are the most evil of the results of human technology. Unlike any hitherto existing weapons, they can ensure not only the annihilation of the human race, but of the earth as a liveable planet. Only insane people would even consider ideas like limited nuclear war. Some people believe that it is possible to limit a nuclear war to certain target areas and that the rest of the world can be safe. This idea is based on a number of assumptions of what the country that is attacked will do, and the kind of defence the aggressor can mobilise. These theories have a high degree of uncertainty built into them, as they try to predict human behaviour. In the particular case of nuclear war, one mistake can lead to the destruction of the world, and therefore the risk is too high to be taken. Humankind simply cannot afford the risk, because of its potential to completely destroy life for all time to come. It cannot be over-emphasised that no generation has the right to destroy not only itself, but also all generations to come.

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Introduction 1. This was the death count at the beginning of November 1945, by which time the worst of the acute illnesses developed as a result of the bombing was over. See The Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 364-367. People affected by the bomb continue to die due to the long-term effects of exposure to nuclear radiation, notably an excess of cancers. 2. "The Indian Memorial Submitted to the International Court of Justice on Status of Nuclear Weapons in International Law: Request for Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice," reproduced in Seminar, (August 1998): 71-74. 3. "Nuclear Notebook," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (September/October 2002): 73-75. 4. Indian Nuclear Doctrine, para 4.3, . 5. Robert Jay Lifton and Richard Falk, Indefensible Weapons: The Political and Psychological Case Against Nucleansm (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 23. 6. E.P. Thomp son, "Overthrowing the Satanic Kingdom," reprinted in lokayan Bulletin 15, no. 1-6 (1998-99): 31. 7. Jonathan Schell, The Gift of Time (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998), 201. 8. dIND, para 3.1. 9. Ibid., para 3.2. 10. For an update on efforts towards deployment in India see M.V. Ramana, "A Nuclear Wedge," Frontline, 8 December 2001; available on the internet . 11. For an elaboration of the risks involved see R. Rajaraman, M.V. Ramana and Zia Mian, "Possession and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons in South Asia: An Assessment of Some Risks," Economic and Political Weekly 37, no. 25 (22-28 June 2002): 2459-2466. 12. Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), vii. 13. Panchjanya, 20 June 1999, quoted in Praveen Swami, The Kargil War (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 1999), 100. 14. On the ties between the RSS and the BJP see Achin Vinaik, (contd) Communalism Contested: Religion, Modernity and Secularization (New Delhi: Vistaar Publications, 1997), especially the last essay "The Communalization of the Indian Polity". For a history and description of the various formations of the Sangh Parivar, see Tapan Basu, Pradip Datta, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar and Sambuddha Sen, Khakhi Shorts and Saffron Flags (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1993). 15. Bruce Riedel, "American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House," Centre for the Advance Study of India Policy Paper, University of Pennsylvania, 2002. 16. See for example Pervez Hoodbhoy, "What, Us Worry?" Los Angeles Times, 9 June 2002. 17. This assumption about nuclear weapons is stated in the closest to a formal Pakistani nuclear doctrine that is available publicly: a newspaper article by former officials. See Agha Shahi, Zulfiqar Ali Khan and Abdul Sattar, "Securing Nuclear Peace," The News, 5 October 1999 18. Landau Network, "Nuclear Safety, Nuclear Stability, and Nuclear Strategy in Pakistan: A Concise Report of a Visit," . 19. M.V. Ramana, Bombing Bombay? Effects of Nuclear Weapons and a Case Study of a Hypothetical Explosion (Cambridge, USA: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1999). 20. Matthew McKinzie, Zia Mian, A.H. Nayyar and M.V. Ramana, "The Risks and Consequences of Nuclear War in South Asia," in Out of the Nuclear Shadow ed. Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian (London and New Delhi: Zed Books and Rainbow Publishers, 2001), 195. 21. An analogy may help us think about this. Imagine that someone is pointing a gun at you. It is natural to feel afraid. This is true even if you have a gun pointing at the other person. India and Pakistan are in a similar situation. You would be much more secure if both guns are at least put back in their holsters, even more secure if the bullets are removed from the guns—and most secure, at least as far as guns go, when neither person has a gun. Likewise, India, Pakistan and other nuclear weapon states should stop brandishing their nuclear weapons, and take steps towards lowering the risk of their use, and ultimately eliminate them. 22. George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 456 23. M.K. Gandhi, "The Atom Bomb and Ahimsa " reprinted in Lokayan Bulletin 15, no. 1-6 (1998-99): 19-20. 24. H.G. Wells, Outline of History (London and New York: George Newnes and Macmillan, 1920). 25. For example Pakistan's Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz bas stated: "I see no possibility of an accidental nuclear war between Pakistan and India. Pakistan has an effective command and control system." Quoted in Pervez Hoodbhoy, "A False Sense of Security in a Post-Nuclear Subcontinent,"

Asian Age, 16 November 1998. 26. W.D. Leahy, I Was There (New York: Whittlesey House, 1950), 436-42, quoted in Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 14. 27. Belief in nuclear-arms based security has been even described as genocidal. See Ashis Nandy, "The Epidemic of Nuclearism," reprinted in Out of the Nuclear Shadow, 199-202. 28. International Court of Justice, "Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons," reproduced in International Legal Materials 35, no. 4 (July 1996): 831. 29. The importance of the Court's Opinion can hardly be overstated. Over the past few years, it has been used repeatedly by countries like Malaysia and Myanmar to pass resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly calling for the immediate commencement of negotiations leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons, each winning overwhelming majorities. For details see the various issues of disarmament diplomacy addressed at ; and the Reaching Critical Will website < http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/>. 30. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 46. 31. Zia Mian, A.H. Nayyar, Sandeep Pandey and M.V. Ramana, "What they can agree on," The Hindu, 10 July 2001. 32. "We are Prepared: Army Chief," The Hindu, 12 January 2002. 33. "Uncalled for Concerns: Fernandes," The Hindu, 12 January 2002. 34. "We will win nuclear war, says India," The Times, 31 December 2001. 35. Rashid Ahmed, "PM to Jawans: Battle Ahead Will Be Decisive," The Hindustan Times, 22 May 2002. 36. P. Jayaram, "George Warns Pak of Retaliation," India Abroad News Service, 2000, http://www.indiainfo.com. 37. "Limited war can erupt anytime: Gen Malik," The Times of India, 7 January 2000. 38. I.P. Shukla, "No Weapon Will be Spared for Self-defence: PM," The Hindu, 3 January 2002. 39. Ardheshir Cowasjee, "What the Bomb Can Do," Dawn, 23 June 2002. To put this in perspective, it helps to look at General Beg's attitude towards nuclear war: "You can die crossing the street, or you could die in a nuclear war. You've got to die someday anyway." 40. Gaurav Sawant, "R-Day March Gets a 700-km Missile Salute," The Indian Express, 26 January 2002. 41. Praful Bidwai, "Our Mutual Nuclear Death Wish," The News International, 7 February 2002. 42. "Possibility of War Cannot Be Ruled Out," The Times of India, 12 December 2001. 43. The strategy of counter-proliferation means using military measures to deal with potential/perceived threats from countries possessing weapons of mass destruction. 44. "Every country has the right to pre-emptive strike: Jaswant Singh," The Indian Express, 30 September 2002. 45. Kanti Bajpai, "The Fallacy of an Indian Deterrent," in India's Nuclear Deterrent: Pokhran II and Beyond ed. Amitabh Mattoo (New Delhi: Har Anand, 1999), 185. 46. M.V. Ramana, "For a Just Peace—The Anti-nuclear Movement in India," Social Science Research Council Neiusletter (12 May 1999)

Chapter 1 1. Bharat Karnad ("A Thermonuclear Deterrent," in India's Nuclear Deterrent After Pokhran II, ed. Amitabh Mattoo [New Delhi: Har-Anand, 1998], 111), argues that the US must be regarded as a threat which warrants nuclear weapons. 2. On how India can leap into the ICBM club, see Karnad, "Thermonuclear Deterrent," 139. 3. On the Brasstacks crisis, see Kanti Bajpai, P.R. Chari, Pervez I. Cheema, Stephen P. Cohen and Sumit Ganguly, Brasstacks and BeyondPerception and Management of Crisis (New Delhi: Manohar, 1996). 4. The various Pakistani proposals are cited in Akhtar Ali, "A Framework for Nuclear Agreement and Verification," in Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia: The Prospects for Arms Control, ed. Stephen P. Cohen (New Delhi: Lancer International, 1991), 269. 5. See Surjit Mansingh, "The Agreement on Bilateral Relations between the Governments of India and Pakistan Signed at Simla on July .2, 1972," appendix D in India's Search for Power: Indira Gandhi's Foreign Policy, 1966-1982 (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1984), 390-391. 6. On non-offensive defence, see Bjorn Moller, Common Security and Nonojfensive Defense: A Neorealist Perspective (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992). 7. For valuable insights into the failure of conventional deterrence, see the massive study of Alexander George and Richard Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974); Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War: The Nature of International

Crises (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981); and John Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983). 8. The distinction between deterrence and defence is discussed at length in Glenn Snyder, Deterrence and Defence: Towards a Theory of National Security (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 3-51. 9. After the tests of May 1998, there were some public protests in India against nuclear weapons. Some of those involved in organising the protests came together to build the Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament (MIND). MIND has undertaken various anti-nuclear activities. Its major published statement is Out of Nuclear Darkness: The Indian Case for Disarmament (New Delhi: Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament, n.d.). A number of anti-nuclear groups as well as groups working on issues ranging from environment to gender to development came together to hold a two-day national convention in New Delhi in November 2000. The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (India) was constituted following the convention. 10. On the moral arguments against nuclear weapons, see various essays in Avner Cohen and Steven Lee, ed., Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity: The Fundamental Questions (Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Allenheld, 1986); Russell Hardin, John J. Mearsheimer, Gerald Dworkin and Robert E. Goodin, ed., Nuclear Deterrence: Ethics and Strategy (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1985); and Charles R. Beitz, Marshall Cohen, Thomas Scanlon and A. John Simmons, ed., International Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). For an Indian view of deterrence see Bimal Krishna Matilal, "Between Peace and Deterrence," in Peace Studies: The Hard Questions., ed. Elaine Kaye, Oxford Peace Lectures 1984-85 (London: Rex Collings, 1987), 59-82. 11. Some of these concerns are expressed by K. Subrahmanyam, "Implications of Nuclear Asymmetry," in Nuclear Myths and Realities ed. K. Subrahmanyam (New Delhi: ABC Publishing House, 1981), 214-215. 12. The growing warmth in India-US relations may well change China's view of India. As New Delhi and Washington come closer, Beijing may well see India as part of a US-led containment structure around China. China- Pakistan relations may deepen as a result and their nuclear cooperation could intensify. A very complex quadrilateral relationship between China, India, Pakistan and the US could be the end product. The relationship may not be particularly stable. China would have an interest in driving a wedge between India and the US. The US would have an interest in doing the same between China and Pakistan. India could well attempt to divide China and Pakistan. And Pakistan would exert itself to ensure that India and the US stayed apart. 13. See Subrahmanyam, Nuclear Myths, vii. 14. The rise of non-nuclear Germany and Japan as great powers (based on economic prowess), and the decay and collapse of a nuclear-ridden Soviet Union, further challenge the linkage between nuclear weapons, status and influence. What is reasonably evident now is that a nuclear India would be unable to match China for status and influence unless it made important economic, social and political changes. 15. Most recently, the Indian and Chinese foreign ministers met in Beijing in July 1999 during the Kargil conflict and President KR. Narayanan made a state visit to China in May 2000. 16. On India-China trade, see "Indo-China Business Council Sets Trade Target at $5 Billion," The Times of India, 8 July 1997; and "Seven Fold Increase in Sino-Indian Trade," The Hindu, 17 July 1997. 17. On Nehru' s very 'realistic', even pejorative views of China, see Steven A. Hoffman, India and the China Crisis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 18. On Pakistan-China nuclear cooperation, see Anil Joseph Chandy, "India, China and Pakistan," in The Peacock and the Dragon: India—China Relations in the 21st Century ed. Kanti Bajpai and Amitabh Mattoo (New Delhi: (contd.) Har-Anand, 2000), 315-329; Raja Menon, A Nuclear Strategy for India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000), 95-97, 101, 177-179; and the omnibus issue on "Sino-Pakistani Strategic Cooperation," Peace Initiatives 5, no. 3—5 (May—December 1999). See George H. Quester, The Politics of Nuclear Proliferation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 205-209, for an early prediction that Pakistan and China may cooperate on nuclear weapons issues, given their common enmity to India. Quester noted though that there were incentives on both sides not to do so as well. 19. The United States' uneasy relationship with Britain and France over nuclear issues is documented in Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arms Race (New York: Vintage Books, 1987), 67-89, 132-133, 135-136. 20. On tbe Sino-Soviet nuclear relationship and how it ended, see George W. Ball, The Discipline of Power: Essentials of Modern World Structure (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), 201. 21. In 2000, a report suggested that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal may be bigger and more advanced than India's. See the MSNBC story, "Pakistan's Nukes Outstrip India's, Officials Say: US Reverses Assessment of South Asia's Nuclear Balance, . This report is almost certainly fallacious and rests in part on a misconstrual of statements made by senior US officials. Most estimates place India ahead at least in terms of the stock of fissile material available for nuclear weapons. India is thought to have enough fissile material for about 85-90 weapons, Pakistan between 15-25. See Rodney W. Jones, Mark G. McDonough (with Toby F. Dalton and Gregory D. Koblentz), Tracking Nuclear Proliferation: A Guide in Maps and Charts, 1998 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1998), 111, 131. 22. The possible Pakistani role in and China's anxiety about Xinjiang has been widely noted. See Robert S. Greenberger and Matt Forney, "China Tests Weapons Limits With Pakistan," in Peace Initiatives 5, no. 3—5 (May-December 1999): 88; and Madhu Bhalla, "Sino-Pakistani Trade and Economic Relations," in Peace Initiatives 5, 144. For a Pakistani admission of China's concerns about Xinjiang, see Fazal-ur-Rahman, "Pakistan's Relations With China," in Peace Initiatives 5, 173, 186. 23. The imperatives of the cold war meant that the US would go a long way in 'denying' Pakistan to China. This gave Pakistan a subtle bargaining chip with the Americans and ensured that the US did not become overbearing towards Islamabad. This is suggested in Swaran Singh, "SinoPakistani Defence Cooperation: Joint Ventures and Weapons Procurement," in Peace Initiatives 5, 3 24. India and the US, it should be remembered, did cooperate for some years on anti-Chinese activities and intelligence gathering, especially in Tibet. See John Kenneth Knaus, Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), 255-291. Knaus was the CIA operative in charge of American covert operations inside Tibet. India—US cooperation began in 1962 and continued until about

1969/1970 when the US essentially withdrew. See also N.C. Menon, "Tibetan Adventure First 'Revealed' China's Nuclear Programme in '62," The Hindustan Times, 13 April 1999. 25. Greenberger and Forney, ("China Tests Nuclear Weapons," 89) (contd.) make the point that the US-Taiwan and China-Pakistan arms relationships are linked: President George Bush, in a tight re-election race and heeding pressure from Congress and the ailing post-Cold War US defence industry, announced that he would sell F-16 aircraft to Taiwan, which China considers a runaway province. In response, the unhappy Chinese appeared to ship missiles to Pakistan Once more there were protracted discussions and Chinese evasion [over China's relationship with Pakistan]. But now it was the Clinton administration that had to grapple with the problem. 26. For a useful discussion, see Bhalla, "Sino-Pakistani Trade and Economic Cooperation," 144—151. 27. On China's conventional weapons sales to Pakistan, see Singh, "Sino-Pakistani Defence Cooperation," 2-13- From 1966 to 1979, China supplied $630 million of conventional arms. In 1984-88, China was second only to the US in conventional arms transfers to Pakistan to the tune of 330 million dollars. Between 1986 and 1990, China exported 1.202 billion dollars worth of conventional arms to Pakistan. Between 1991 and 1995, China contracted to sell another $1.2 billion of arms. See also Bhalla, "Sino-Pakistani Trade and Economic Relations," 140-142. 28. The Director of the CIA noted before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in Januaiy 1998: "Conventional arms sales have lagged in recent years, encouraging Chinese defence industries to look to WMD technology-related sales, primarily to Pakistan and Iran, in order to recoup." See "American Views on China's Nuclear Exports and Assistance to Pakistan," appendix II in Peace Initiatives 5, 38. 29. Singh, ("Sino-Pakistani Defence Cooperation," 2) hints at this possibility. 30. See Chandy, “India, China and Pakistan,” 317; and Kiran R. Sawhny, “The Sino-Pakistani Nuclear Alliance: Prospect and Retrospect,” in Peace Initiatives 5,21. 31. As General Talat Masood, a former director general of ISI, told the Indian journalist, Bharat Bhushan, on Kargil: "Pakistan considers itself an aggrieved party [in Kashmir]. And therefore it tends to go for high-risk policies. The Kargil maneouver is part of that high-risk policy.... However, the nuclear factor [also] emboldened Pakistan to take a high risk." Bharat Bhushan, "In the 'Enemy' Country," in Guns and Yellow Roses: Essays on the Kargil War ed. Sankarsham Thakur (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 1999), 101. 32. On the effect, of nuclear weapons on sub-conventional conflict and Pakistani thinking, see the essays in Samina Ahmed and David Cortright, ed., Pakistan and the Bomb: Public Opinion and Nuclear Choices (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), especially by Pervez Hoodbhoy and Zia Mian.

Chapter 2 1. For a history of the development of the bomb by the US, see Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986). 2. See L. Ramdas, "Arrogant Nuclearism," Frontline, 22 October 1999. 3. The South African White Paper on Defense, . 4. "Defence outlay hiked by record Rs 12,893 cr," The Hindustan Times, 1 March 2000; The Union Budget (2000-01), http://finmin.nic.in/fiib.htm. 5. For details on tbe judgement of the International Court of Justice on nuclear weapons, see Siddharth Mallavarapu, "A Mandate for Nuclear Prudence: International Court of Justice on Nuclear Weapons," this volume. 6. As well as a near war following tbe 13 December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. Editors. 7. Some estimate the expenses to be even higher. For example, a senior military officer interviewed by Amitav Ghosh claimed that Siachen costs India about Rs 800 million per day. See Amitav Ghosh, Countdown (New Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 1999), 40. 8. See for example, Raju G.C. Thomas, "Arms Procurement in India: Military Self-Reliance versus Technological Self-Sufficiency," in Military Capacity and the Risk of War: China, India, Pakistan and Iran, ed. Eric H. Arnett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 110-129. 9. Indian Nuclear Doctrine, http://www.meadev.nic.in/govt/induc!d.html#pr. 10. See M.V. Ramana, Bombing Bombay: Effects of Nuclear Weapons and a Case Study of a Hypothetical Explosion (Cambridge, USA: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1999). 11. T. Jayaraman, "Questions about capabilities," Frontline, 11 September 1999. 12. For a detailed discussion, see Zia Mian, "A Nuclear Tiger by the Tail: Problems of Command and Control in South Asia," this volume. 13. Bruce G. Blair, John E. Pike and Stephen I. Schwartz, "Targeting and Controlling the Bomb," in Atomic Audit: The Costs and. Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940, ed. Stephen Schwartz (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 197-268. 14. See Honore M. Catudal, Nuclear Deterrence: Does it Deter? (London: Mansell Publishing, 1985), 56. 15. See Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1977), 101-102. 16. See Bruce Russett, The Prisoners of Insecurity: Nuclear Deterrence, the Arms Race, and Arms Control {San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1983), 121.

17. H.L. Abrams, "Strategic Defense and Inadvertent Nuclear War," in Inadvertent Nuclear War: The Implications of the Changing Global Order, ed. H. Wiberg, I.D. Petersen and P. Smoker (Oxford: Pergamon, 1993), 39-55. 18. Bruce G. Blair, Harold A. Feiveson and Frank von Hippel, "Taking Nuclear Weapons off Hair-Trigger Alert," Scientific American (November 1997): 74-81. 19. See Shaun Gregory, The Hidden Costs of Deterrence: Nuclear Weapons Accidents (London: Brassey's, 1990). 20. See Zia Mian, M.V. Ramana and R. Rajaraman, "Plutonium Dispersal and Health Hazards from Nuclear Weapons Accidents," Current Science 80, no. 10 (25 May 2001): 1275-1284. 21. 'See Scott Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies (New York: Basic Books, 1984 and New Delhi: Orient Longman, forthcoming). 22. See John Lev/is Gaddis, "The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System," International Security 10, no. 4 (spring 1986): 99-142. 23. John Mueller, "The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons: Stability in the Postwar World," International Security 13, no. 2 (fall 1988): 5579. 24. George Lee Butler, "Time to End the Age of Nukes," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (March 1997): 33-36. 25. Stephen I. Schwartz, introduction to Atomic audit,22 26. Gar Alperovitz and Kai Bird, "The Centrality of the Bomb," Foreign Policy, no. 94 (spring 1993): 3-20. 27. Jonathan Schell, The Gift of Time (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998), 189. 28. M.K. Gandhi, "The Atom Bomb and Ahimsa," reprinted in Hiroshima's Shadow, ed. Kai Bird and Lawrence Lifschultz (Stony Creek, USA: The Pamphleteer's Press, 1998), 258-259. 29. Gar Alperovitz, "Hiroshima: Historians Reassess," Foreign Policy no. 99 (summer 1995): 15-34.

Chapter 3 1. "Global Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945-2000," NRDC Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 56, no. 2 (March/April 2000): 79. 2. For details see Robert S. Norris, Andrew S. Burrows and Richard W. Fieldhouse, Nuclear Weapons Databook, vol. 5, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994). 3. Frank von Hippel, Barbara G. Levi, Theodore A. Postol and William H. Daugherty, "Civilian Casualties from Counterforce Attacks," in CitizenScientist ed. Frank von Hippel (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), 137-149. 4. Bruce Blair, Strategic Command and Control (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1985), 281. 5. Paul Bracken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 3. 6. Ashton B. Carter, John D. Steiribruner and Charles Z. Zraket, Managing Nuclear Operations (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1987), 3. 7. Lee Butler, "Zero Tolerance," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 56, no. 1 (January/February 2000): 20-21. 8. Ibid., 72. 9. Bruce Blair and Henry Kendall, "Accidental Nuclear War," Scientific American 263, no. 6 (December 1990): 53-58. 10. See for example, Blair, Strategic Command and Control. 11. 'Bracken, Command and Control of Nuclear Forces, 12. 12. Ibid., 12-13. 13. See Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies (New York: Basic Books, 1984 and New Delhi: Orient Longman, forthcoming). 14. See Scott Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 15. Ashton B. Carter, "Communications Technologies and Vulnerabilities," in Managing Nuclear Operations ed. Ashton B. Carter, John D. Steinbruner and Charles Z. Zraket (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1987), 217-281. 16. Kevin O'Neill, "Building the Bomb," in Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 ed. Stephen I. Schwartz (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 33-103. .

17. Robert S. Norris, Steven M. Kosiak and Stephen I. Schwartz, "Deploying The Bomb," in Atomic Audit, 105-195. 18. Bruce Blair, John E. Pike and Stephen I. Schwartz, "Targeting and Controlling the Bomb," in Atomic Audit, 197-325. 19. See Thomas B. Cochran, William M. Arkin, Robert S. Norris and Milton M. Hoenig, Nuclear Weapons Databook Series, vol. 1, U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities (Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1984). 20. Herbert L. Abrams, "Human Reliability and Safety in the Handling of Nuclear Weapons," Science and Global Security 2, no. 4, (1991): 325-349. 21. Peter Stein and Peter Feaver, Assuring Control of Nuclear Weapons, CSIA Occasional Paper no. 2, Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, 1987. 22. Sidney Drell and Bob Peurifoy, "Technical Issues of a Nuclear Test Ban," Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 44 (1994): 285—327. 23. See Blair and Kendall, "Accidental Nuclear War"; and Bruce G. Blair, Global Zero Alert for Nuclear Forces, Brookings Occasional Papers, The Brookings Institution, Washington D.C., 1995 24. For a history of India's nuclear weapons programmes see George PerkoVich, India's Nuclear Bomb (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); on command and control see P.R. Chari, "India's Nuclear Doctrine: Confused Ambitions," The Nonproliferation Review (fall—winter 2000): 123-135. 25. "PM Approves Formation of National Security Council," The Hindu, 29 November 1998. 26. Manoj Joshi, "Rocky Road Ahead for India's First-ever CDS," The Times of India, 18 May 2001. 27. "Government Asks Military to Draw Up Blueprint for Control of N-forces," The Hindustan Times, 4 March 2001. 28. Rahul Bedi, "Power Struggle Over Indian Chief," Jane's Defence Weekly, 7 March 2001. 29. Raj Chengappa, "Worrying Over Broken Arrows," India Today, 13 July 1998. 30. General Musharraf Made Acting CJCSC," The News, 10 April 1999. 31. "National Command Authority Formed," Dawn, 3 February 2000. 32. Shakil Sheikh, "Strategic Organisations Put Under NCA Control," The News, 28 November 2000. 33. "Mubarikmand to Chair NESCOM," Nucleonics Week, 25 January 2001. 34. Chengappa, "Broken Arrows." 35. Agha Shahi, Zulfiqar Ali Khan and Abdul Sattar, "Securing Nuclear Peace," The News, 5 October 1999 36. Jasjit Singh, "A Nuclear Strategy for India," in Nuclear India ed. Jasjit Singh (New Delhi: Knowledge World, 1998), 306-324. 37. K. Subrahmanyam, "A Credible Deterrent," The Times of India, 4 October 1999. 38. Bharat Karnad, "A Thermonuclear Deterrent," in India's Nuclear Deterrent: Pokhran II and Beyond ed. Amitabh Mattoo (New Delhi: HarAnand, 1999), 108-149 39. David Albright, "India's and Pakistan's Fissile Material and Nuclear Weapons Inventories—end of 1999," Institute for Science and International Security, http://www.isis-online.org. 40. T.S. Subramanian, "Technological, Scientific Success," Frontline, 23 May 1998. 41. See Brian Barker, et al., "Monitoring Nuclear Tests," Science 281 (25 September 1998): 1967-1968; see also Raj Chengappa, "Is India's H-bomb a Dud?" India Today, 12 October 1998; William Broad, "Experts Greet India's H-bomb with Suspicion," The Neiv York Times, 19 May 1998; and Mark Hibbs, "India Exaggerated Test Yields," Nucleonics Week, 10 June 1999 42. Barker et al., "Monitoring Nuclear Tests," 1968. 43. M. Ziauddin and Faraz Hashmi, "Dr Samar Calls For Setting Up Command and Control Structure," Dawn, 3 June 1998. 44. Albright, "Fissile Material and Nuclear Weapons Inventories." 45. Sohail Iqbal, "Hydrogen Bomb Test Awaits Govt. Signal," The News, 1 June 1998. 46. Draft Report of National Security Advisory Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine, Ministry of External Affairs, 1999, www.meadev.gov.in/govt/indnucld.htm. 47. Subrahmanyam,” Credible Deterrnt.” 48. Douglas Barrie and Simon Sardzhyan, "Arms Control in Crosshairs in Sensor Sale: System Would Improve Accuracy of Indian Missiles," Defense News, 26 March 2001.

49. "India-Russia to Discuss Nuclear Submarine Lease," The Times of India, 17 February 2001. 50. Atul Aneja, "India-Israel to Hold Security Dialogue," The Hindu, 16 May 2001. 51. Kesava Menon, "Israeli Phalcon Sale to India in Trouble," The Hindu, 21 August 2000. 52. "Submarines may be Equipped with Nuclear Arms: PN Chief," Dawn, 27 January 2001. 53. The Story of the Pakistan Air Force 1988-1998 (Islamabad: Shaheen Foundation, 2000), 132-133. 54. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb. 55. Story of the Pakistan Air Force, 133. 56.Anwar Iqbal, "Pakistan Test-fires 1,500 km Range Missile," The News, 7 April 1998. 57. Manvendra Singh, "Experts Rebut Pak Claims on Missile," The Indian Express, 8 April 1998. 58. Ranjan Roy, "Indians Raise Doubt Over Pakistani Missile Test," The Associated Press, 8 April 1998. 59. Harinder Baweja with Zahid Hussain, "Ghauri: Fire in the Sky," India Today, 20 April 1998. 60. "Pakistan Warned of US Strike to Avoid Misunderstanding," Jane's Defense Weekly, 2 September 1998. 61. "Pakistan Analysing Violation: Gohar," Dawn, 29 May 1997. 62. Shakil Sheikh, "India's Many Motives of Airspace Violations," The Neivs, 2 June 1997. 63. Mark Suzman, "Tension mounts as India shoots down Pakistani aircraft killing 16," The Financial Times, 11 August 1999 64. "Pak Plane Had Violated Pact, Intruded Four Times," The Hindustan Times, 13 August 1999 65.

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66. For such efforts see Marc Dean Millot, Roger Molander, and Peter A. Wilson, "The Day After" Study: Nuclear Proliferation in the Post-Cold War World, vol. 2, Main Report (Santa Monica, RAND Corporation, 1993); and Bradd C. Hayes, International Game '99: Crisis in South Asia, Decision Support Department Center for Naval Warfare Studies (Newport: United States Naval War College, 1999). 67. See Zia Mian, "Renouncing the Nuclear Option," in Pakistan and the Bomb: Public Opinion and- Nuclear Options ed. Samina Ahmed and David Cortright (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 47-68. 68. "How Israel Got the Bomb," Time, vol. 107, 12 April 1976, quoted in Peter Pry, Israel's Nuclear Arsenal (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984), 31— 32. 69. Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option (New York: Random House, 1991), 22570. Ibid., 223, 227. 71. "Bracing for a Nuclear Attack, India Plans Operation Desert Storm' in May," The Indian Express, 1 May 2001. 72. "Unmanned Aerial Spies Used in Wargames," The Times of India, 8 May 2001. 73. Harinder Bajewa, "Readying for Nukes," India Today, 28 May 2001. 74. "Wargame, A Chance to Test Air Force Efficacy," The Hindu, 9 May 2001. 75. "Indian Forces Test Skills against NBC Background," The Hindu, 10 May 2001. 76. "Bracing for a Nuclear Attack," The Indian Express. 77. Barry Posen, Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). 78. Hasan Zaheer, The Separation of East Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1995), 358. 79. Ibid., 360. 80. David Gardner, "Subcontinental Stand-off," The Financial Times, 22 February 2000. 81. 'Mohammad Ahmedullah, "Indian Air Force Advocates First Strike Capability," Defense Week, 2 January 2001. 82. See Stein and Feaver, Control of Nuclear Weapons.

83. Dan Caldwell and Peter Zimmerman, "Reducing the Risk of Nuclear War with Permissive Action Links," in Technology and the Limitation of International Conflict ed. Barry M. Blechman (Washington D.C.: Foreign Policy Institute, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 1989), 137-150. 84. Stein and Feaver, Control of Nuclear Weapons, 64. 85. See Norris et al., British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons. 86. Blair, Global Zero Alert, 17. 87. Caldwell and Zimmerman, "Reducing the Risk of Nuclear War," 155. 88. Steve Coll, "The Man inside China's Bomb Labs," The Washington Post, 16 May 2001. 89. Blair, Global Zero Alert, 9. 90. Shahi et al., "Securing Nuclear Peace." 91. Tanvir Ahmad Khan, "A Command and Control System," Dawn, 15 February 2000. 92. Stein and Feaver, Assuring Control of Nuclear Weapons, 24. 93. Bracken, Command, and. Control of Nuclear Forces, 168. 94. Pervez Hoodbhoy, interview in Pakistan and- India Under the Nuclear Shadow (New York: Eqbal Ahmad Foundation, 2001), documentary film. 95. Blair, Global Zero Alert, 60. 96. "Blast in Jabalpur Ordnance Factory," The Times of India, 25 March 1988. 97. Chinu Panchal, "Army Apathy to Ordnance Fire," The Times of India, 29 March 1988. 98. Man Mohan, "Panel bad Warned on Safety at Arms Depots," The Times of India, 2 May 2000. 99. "Fire in Ammo Store Near Balasore," The Statesman, 10 November 1998. 100. "War Reserves Worth Several Hundred Crores Wiped Out," The Times of India, 30 April 2000. 101. Sarabjit Pandher, "Experts Question Army Version on Fire," The Hindu, 2 May 2001. 102. "Fire at Ammunition Depot Put Out," The Hindu, 26 May 2001. 103. Vishal Thapar, "Depot Fire an Act of God: Army Vice-Chief," The Hindustan Times, 26 May 2001. 104. Ibid. 105. "80 Killed, 1000 Injured: Army Ammunition Dump Blows Up in Pindi," Dawn, 11 April 1998. 106. "MRD Convenor Seeks Judicial Probe into Ojhri Blasts," Dawn, 21 April 1988. 107. "80 Killed, 1000 Injured," Dawn. 108. "Ammunition Depots to be Shifted: Junejo," Dawn., 11 April 1998. 109. Air Marshal (Retd.) Ayaz Ahmed Khan, "Lessons from the Ojhri Disaster," The Nation, 10 April 2000. 110. Lieutenant Colonel Fazl-e-Ali Naqvi, "What is Wrong with our Training," Pakistan Army Journal (summer 1995): 7—13 111. Ibid. 112. Shaun Gregory and Alistair Edwards, "The Hidden Cost of Deterrence: Nuclear Weapons Accidents 1950-1980," Bulletin of Peace Proposals 20, no. 1 (1989): 11-24. 113. William Arkin and Joshua Handler, Naval Accidents 1945-1988, Neptune Paper no. 3, Greenpeace and The Institute for Policy Studies, Washington D.C., 1989. 114. Narrative Summaries of Accidents Involving U.S. Nuclear Weapons, 1950-1980 (Interim), US Department of Defense in coordination with Department of Energy, Washington D.C., 1981. 115. See Drell and Peurifoy, "Nuclear Test Ban," 298-299. 116. See Shaun Gregory, The Hidden Cost of Deterrence: Nuclear Weapons Accidents (London: Brassey's, 1990).

117. "U.S, Nuclear Weapons Accidents: Danger in our Midst," The Defense Monitor 10, no. 5 (1981). Also available at . 118. Ibid. 119. Jaya Tiwari and Cleve J. Gray, "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents," Center for Defense Information, . 120. "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents: Danger in our Midst," The Defense Monitor. 121. Brian Cloughley, "Transition Time in Pakistan's Army," Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 April 2000. 122. Report of the Comptroller and. Auditor General of India, on the Ministry of Defence for the year ended March 1997, http://www.cagindia.org/reports/defence/19983ookl/index.htm. 123. Ibid. 124. Rajya Sabha, Crash of Fighter Planes, Unstarred Question no. 1099, 9 December 1998, http://alfa.nic.in/rs/main.htm. 125. Rajya Sabha, Air Crashes in IAF, Unstarred Question no. 1396, 15 December 1999 http://aifa.nic.in/rs/main.btm. 126. Manoj Joshi, "IAF: Vanishing Airforce," India Today, 14 December 1998. 127. Rajya Sabha, Air Crashes, Unstarred Question no. 613, 1 March 2000, http://alfa.nic.in/rs/main.htm. 128. "MiG Jets Crash after Take Off," The Hindu, 19 August 1999. 129. "Pilot dies in MiG Crash," The Hindu, 23 May 2000. 130. C.V. Gopalakrishnan, "MiG Crash Revives Safety Issue," The Hindu, 8 May 2001. 131. "India: Mirage 2000 avionics upgraded," Jane's Defence Upgrades, 11 December 1998. 132. Narendra Gupta, "The Advanced Jet Trainer," The Hindu, 13 January 2000. 133. Ashley J. Tellis, "Stability in South Asia," RAND Documented Briefing (Santa Monica: RAND, 1997). 134. George K. Tanham and Marcy Agmon, The Indian Air Force: Trends And Prospects (Santa Monica: RAND, 1995), 85. 135. Attrition Statistics, Pakistan Institute for Air Defence Studies, http://www.piads.com.pk/users/piads/attritionpaf.html. 136. "Pakistan Military Aircraft Catch Fire After'Airbase Crash, Six dead," Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 10 September 1998. 137. Richard M. Weintraub, "Afghanistan Says it Downed F16 Fighter from Pakistan; U.S. Officials Say Soviet Pilots Involved," The Washington Post, 2 May 1987. 138. Ghulam Hasnain, "Air Force Plane Crashes into Pakistani Neighborhood," The Associated Press, 30 July 1998. 139. Ali Abbas Rizvi, "The Mirage Drop-Tank Accident of 8 May 1997 in Karachi," Pakistan Institute for Air Defence Studies, http://www.piads.com.pk/users/piads/aarizvil.html. 140. Air Marshal (Retd.) Ayaz Ahmad Khan, "Air Accidents in spite of High Efficiency," Defence Journal, August 1998. Also available at http://www.defencej ournal.com/aug9 8/airacci dents.htm. 141. "PAF Chief Stresses Need for Safety Measures," Dawn, 8 April 1999 142. Khan, "Air Accidents." 143. Ibid. 144. See Drell and Peurifoy, “Nuclear Test Ban,” 285-327. 145. Ibid., 301. 146. Ibid., 11. 147. Thomas B. Cochran and Christopher E. Paine, "Hydronuclear Testing and the Comprehensive Test Ban: Memorandum to Participants JASON 1994 Summer Study," Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington D.C., 1994. l48. Robert S. Norris and William Arkin, "Soviet Nuclear Testing, August 29, 1949—October 24, 1990," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 54, no. 3 (May/June 1998): 69-71. 149. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 181—183. 150. Raj Ckengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India's Quest to be a Nuclear Power (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2000), 304.

151. Ibid., 304. 152. One N-device at Pokhran was a Weapon," The Hindu, 20 June 2000. 153. Chengappa, Weapons of Peace, 436. 154. Ibid. 155. "India Testfires Agni II, Pakistan Cries Foul," The Statesman, 17 January 2001. 156. "Interview with A.Q. Khan," The News, 30 May 1998. 157. Hedrick Smith, "A Bomb Ticks in Pakistan," The Neiv York Times, 6 March 1998. 158. Sohail Iqbal, "Hydrogen Bomb Awaits Government Signal," The News, 1 June 1998. 159. Khalid Qayyum, "Shaheen Missile Awaits Go-ahead for Test Fire," The Nation, 1 June 1998. 160. Iqbal, "Hydrogen Bomb." 161. Zia Mian, M.V. Ramana and R. Raj araman, "Plutonium Dispersal and Health Hazards From Nuclear Weapons Accidents," Current Science 80, no. 10 (25 May 2001): 1275-1283. 162. See Table I. For a detailed study of the effects of a nuclear explosion on a single large South Asian city see M.V. Ramana, Bombing Bombay: Effects of Nuclear Weapons and a Case Study of a Hypothetical Explosion, (Cambridge, USA: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1999). 163.

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Chapter 4 1. 'Praveen Swami, "Kashmir at a Crossroads," Frontline, 20 June 1998. 2. Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), vii. 3. June 1999, http://www.pak.gov.pk/kashmir/. 4. In October 1998, Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif forced the army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, to resign following a controversial speech made by the general. The next chief, General Pervez Musharraf, is generally said to have taken the decision to initiate hostilities in the Kargil-Dras-Batalik sector within months of taking over from General Karamat. On the issue of whether deterrence held between India and Pakistan, opinions sharply differ. The opponents of nuclearisation point out that far from creating stability, overt nuclearisation has actually made the two countries more conflict prone, at least to the extent of small-scale conflicts. The proponents, on the other hand, put a different spin on the same argument. They say that it is precisely for reasons of deterrence that the two countries cannot now afford to fight an all-out war. To that extent, and given the number of casualties suffered by India, they point out that it was deterrence that prevented India from escalating the war by opening up multiple fronts. However, this argument does not take into account that at the very outset of the conflict India found the international community on its side, which may have been a major factor in its decision to not take the battle to the Pakistani side for fear of losing the goodwill. Moreover, it correctly appreciated the fact that given international, especially US pressure, it would have been difficult for Pakistan to try and release pressure on its troops occupying the heights by opening up another front and forcing India to reorganise. 5. See “Limited war can erupt anytime: General Malik,” The Times of India,7 January 2000. General Malik was reported to have said that limited wars could range from the ones at Saltoro Ridge in the Siachen Glacier in the 1980s to the recent Kargil war, to those fought in confined sectors along the long frontiers. However, it was not possible to outline the exact contours of any future war with certainty. 6. Pakistan's military strategy has generally been pegged to bold, frontal offensives while keeping the war confined to the area of its choice. India, on the other hand, has tried to stop Pakistani advances and overcome its earlier reverses by expanding the zone of conflict and increasing the costs of war for Pakistan. With its nuclear capability as a strategic equaliser, Pakistan seems to think it has neutralised that Indian advantage. 7. The proponents of the strategy of limited war, however, argue that the idea is linked to Pakistan's use of nuclear weapons early-and-first in a conflict. The adversary has to take that into account before it can allow deterrence to fail. Given the secrecy on both sides it is difficult to know whether any studies have been carried out to test the concept, but the theory of deterrence is restricted to certain "clearly definable elements that do not vary over time or with respect to participants." These include: "1. The cost or damage that would be incurred in the event of war; 2. The credibility of the threat to use particular weapons; 3. The nature of the decision making process and the rationality of the decision makers; and 4. The amount and clarity of communication between the actors, and potential for distortion and misunderstandings." [Gerald M. Steinberg, "Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East: Lessons from the 1991 Gulf War," The Nonproliferation Review 5, (fall-winter 2000).] The existence of these factors in the case of India and Pakistan is a matter of conjecture; past conflicts do not offer any clear evidence one way or the other. 8. It makes sense to think that limited war would remain limited only when it does not lead to any credible threat to an adversary's interests which it considers vital. To that extent, one can argue that the aggressor would try its best to prevent escalation dominance beyond a certain point. This is the thin edge of the wedge. For instance, just the introduction of a new weapons system within the conflict can force the threatened side to go up on the escalatory ladder forcing the threatener to either back off or try to dominate the conflict once again. In fact, there are a host of factors which make it difficult for the threatener to maintain the original level at which it has planned to pitch the conflict.

9. While nuclear weapons and the threat perceptions on both sides have evolved within a certain politico-strategic configuration, this essay eschews the larger debate on the issues that bedevil relations between the two neighbours. 10. Mario E. Carranza, "An Impossible Game: Stable Nuclear Deterrence After the Indian and Pakistani Tests," The Non-proliferation Review (spring-summer 1999): 11-24. capability implicit in the production of weapon prototypes lie larger concurrent technological capabilities This of course is not correct." See Raja Menon, A Nuclear Strategy for India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000), 24. 11. The best study that argues in favour of the classic deployment model has been done by Rear Admiral Raja Menon. Rear Admiral Menon argues that deterrence is not merely the function of nuclear weapon prototypes produced by the scientists. "The implication is that behind the technical (contd.) 12. Peter Feaver, "Command and Control in Emerging Nuclear Nations," International Security (winter 1992/1993): 160-187. 13. See Bruce G. Blair, The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1993). 14. Stephen I. Schwartz, ed., Atomic Audit: The Costs And Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1998), xxii. 15. This would of course require Pakistan to review its national security strategy. Given the ground situation and India's increasing inability to address Pakistan's core concerns, the prospect of such a review continues to dwindle. 16. For one proposed control regime and its verification, see Zia Mian and M.V. Ramana, "Beyond Lahore: From Transparency to Arms Control," Economic and Political Weekly (17-24 April 1999): 938-942. 17. See Nazir Kamal and Pravin Sawhney, "Missile Control in South Asia and the Role of Cooperative Monitoring Technology," Cooperative Monitoring Center Occasional Paper no. 4, Sandia Laboratories, USA, October 1998. 18. Zia Mian, A.H. Nayyar, Sandeep Pandey and M.V. Ramana, "What they can agree on," The Hindu, 10 July 2001. 19. Therese Delpech, "New Stages of Nuclear Disarmament: A European View," in The Nuclear Turning Point: A Blueprint for Deep Cuts and DeAlerting of Nuclear Weapons, ed. Harold A. Feiveson (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1999), 335. 20. See Robert Norris, William Arkin, Hans Kristensen and Joshua Handler, "Chinese Nuclear Forces," Bulletin of Atomic Scientist (September/October 2001): 71-72. 21. While this is the number generally given by open sources, some Indian analysts dispute this. They also point to China's modernisation programme involving both ICBMs as well as deploying a more modern nuclear submarine force along with submarine-launched missiles. 22. For details on Li Bin's exposition of no-first-use see "Visible Evidences of No-First-Use Nuclear Strategies," (Contribution to tbe Eleventh Summer Symposium in Shanghai, July 28-August 1, 1999); "China's Nuclear Disarmament Policy," in The Nuclear Turning Point, ed. Harold A. Feiveson (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1999), 325-332; and "Exploring Visible No-First-Use," (paper presented at the Fourth Pugwash Workshop on "The Future of the Nuclear Weapon Complexes of Russia and the USA," Moscow and Snezhinsk, Russia, 8-14 September 1997). 23. That this is not being done despite agreement to do so is clear from the conflicting responses by India and Pakistan to India's military exercise Poorna Vijay in May 2001. While India said it had notified Pakistan about the exercise, Pakistan denied there was pre-notification. Moreover, while Pakistani sources said the exercise was a corps-level activity, India said it was a division-level exercise. Be that as it may, it is quite clear that as things stand, even the military confidence-building measures (CBMs) that are in place do not seem to work. At the very least, governments on both sides are given to scoring political points through disinformation that tends to further vitiate the atmosphere. India and Pakistan present the best example of the paradox that CBMs work the best when they are needed the least. 24. This should also be clear from the failed 2001 Agra summit between General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee. While a lot of work was done by experts to prepare drafts on how to address the nuclear issue, Pakistan did not show much enthusiasm in tackling the problem when it saw India's reluctance to discuss the issue of Kashmir, 25. For more on the issue of India and China see Kanti Bajpai, "Strategic Threats and Nuclear Weapons: India, China and Pakistan"; and Ye Zhengjia, "China-India Relations," this volume. 26. While India claimed to have conducted the 1998 nuclear tests because of a threat from China, a 1996 survey conducted by the Kroc Institute clearly showed that an overwhelming number of respondents looked at India's nuclear capability as a response to Pakistan's capability. See David Cortright and Amitabh Mattoo, ed., India and the Bomb (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996).

Chapter 5 1. Ye Zhengjia, "Sino-Indian Relations: Clearing the Atmosphere," Frontline, 10 October 1998. Also see, Ye Zhengjia, "India and China: Lessons from the Past," Frontline, 25 December 1999. 2. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, A Collection of Documents Exchanged between China and India on Issues Relating to their Relations in regard to the Tibetan Region of China, the Sino-Indian Boundary Question and Other Issues, August 1950—April 1960, in Chinese (Beijing: Ministry of External Affairs, Government of the People's Republic of China, n.d.), 63-64. 3. Lei Yingfu, My Days as Military Staff in the Supreme Command, in Chinese (Nanchang: Baihuazhou Culture and Arts Publishers, 1997). 4. Here are some of Major General Lei's recollections from My Days'. In early November 1959, a decision-making meeting of top leaders, including Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Peng Zhen and Hu Qiaomu,

was convened in Hangzhou to discuss the way to avoid increasingly bloody clashes along the Sino-Indian border. At the meeting Major-General Lei was instructed to report on the situation at the frontier to the leaders. When he said that the Chinese border guards wanted to fight back against the Indians, Chairman Mao intervened and said that so long as 'the border guards of both sides were posted face to face, border clashes could not be avoided. So he proposed disengagement, both sides moving their forces 20 km back from their positions.... (202) Mao also made further efforts to explain his policy of peace on the Sino-Indian boundary question to many quarters within China. He made three major points: (1) As a socialist country, China stood for peace and against war, and China did not want any other country's territory. (2) China needed a long period of peaceful and stable international environment so that it could become prosperous. (3) War threats to China were mainly from the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, not from India.... (204) Beginning from June 1962, the Indian armed forces speeded up (contd.) their forward movement on the Sino-Indian border. They even crossed the 'McMahon Line' in the eastern section, killing Chinese border guards and their officers, while setting up a series of check-posts in the western section. The Government of India mistook the Chinese conciliatory and restrained stance for a sign of weakness and thought that China was vulnerable to Indian attacks....It was due to the Indian side's repeated actions of armed provocation and encroachment on Chinese territories for two years that Mao was forced to finally change his mind. (205) In October 18, 1962, Mao Zedong said at an enlarged meeting of the Party Polit-Bureau: "For many years, we have taken a number of measures to seek a peaceful resolution of the boundary issue, but the Indians rejected all Now that Nehru is determined to fight with us, we have no alternative but to keep him company. As the saying goes, 'from an exchange of blows, friendship grows.' Maybe we have to counter-fight them before we can have a stable border and a peaceful settlement of the boundary question can be expected. Our counter-attack is, however, only meant to serve as a warning to Nehru and the Government of India that the boundary question cannot be resolved by military means." (210) 5. Ye Zhengjia, "The Current Security Situation in South Asia and its Impact on China," in Chinese, International Studies 2 (1996): 27—29. This is a quarterly magazine published by the China Institute of International Studies, Beijing. 6. I worked in India for about twelve years. In New Delhi, I met friendly armed forces officers who had taken part in the 1962 war, yet they bore no ill feeling towards China. In South India, I met a young actor who served as a tour guide. On the last evening he quietly told me about his own story with respect to 1962. He said that he had lived in what India calls Arunachal Pradesh in his teens. His family had left for Assam because they feared that the Chinese were coming. After one month, the Chinese army had withdrawn to the north. He went back home with his family. His neighbours, who had lived through the experience, said that the Chinese soldiers did not ill-treat the local people and were actually very kind to them. 7. Zhengjia, "Sino-Indian Relations." 8. Ibid. 9. Editors note: The 'Gujral doctrine' enunciated by I.K. Gujral when he was foreign minister (1996-97) and continued when he was prime minister (1997-98) saw India showing a spirit of accommodation to all its smaller neighbours in South Asia. (There was no formal statement or document.) The 'Lahore process' describes the decision taken in Lahore in March 1999 by Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to actively pursue the settlement of all disputes between the two countries. The decision was in effect sabotaged by the Kargil conflict of May-June 1999. 10. George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 12. 11. Ibid., 144. 12. Ibid., 12. 13. Ibid.( 13. 14. Zhengjia, "India and China."

Chapter 6 1. have tried to explore the connections between the two sets of questions in the analysis of economic problems in "Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory," Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (1977); and On Ethics and Economics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987). 2. Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Macmillan, 1991). 3. See Kenzaburo Oe, Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, 1995). 4. The Times of India, 28 June 1998. 5. Abdul J. Kalam, quoted in John Burns, "Nuclear Anxiety: The Overview India Detonated a Hydrogen Bomb, Expert Confirm," The New York Times, 18 May 1998. 6. On this see George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). See also T. Jayaraman, "Science, Politics and the Indian Bomb: Some Preliminary Considerations" (The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, C.I.T. Campus, Chennai, 2000, mimeographed). 7. Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament (Oxford: Signal Books, 2000), 1. 8. For a graphic account of this episode and the chain of events related to it, see Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of Atomic Scientists (New York: Penguin Books, I960). 9. Kenzaburo Oe, Hiroshima Notes, trans. David L. Swain and Toshi Yonezawa (New York: Grove Press, 1996), 182.

10. Pankaj Mishra, "A New, Nuclear India?" in India: A Mosaic, ed. Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein (New York: New York Review of Books, 2000), 230. The essay is dated 28 May 1998. 11. Amitav Ghosh, "Countdown: Why Can't Every Country Have the Bomb?" The New Yorker, 26 October-2 November 1998, 190. See also his later book, Countdown (New Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 1999), which further develops some of his arguments. 12. N. Ram, Riding the Nuclear Tiger (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 1999), 106. See also his Preface to India: A Mosaic. 13. See Ghosh, Countdown, 62. 14. Arundhati Roy, "The End of Imagination," Frontline, 14 August 1998. See also her Introduction to India: A Mosaic. 15. Arundhati Roy, "Introduction: The End of Imagination," in New Nukes ed. Bidwai and Vanaik, xx. 16. Ghosh, "Countdown," The New Yorker, 190. 17. Ibid„ 197. 18. C. Rammanohar Reddy, "Estimating the Cost of Nuclear Weaponization in India" {The Hindu, Chennai, 1999, mimeographed). 19. The so-called PROBE report cites two distinct estimates made by two government committees, which came to roughly the same figure; see Public Report on Basic Education (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), 13520. Robert Rhodes J ames, Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963 (New York: RR. Bowker, 1974), 8629 -8630. 21. Theodore C. Sorenson, Kennedy (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1965), 705. See also E.R. May and P.D. Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes (Cambridge, USA: Harvard University Press, 1997). This too brings out how close the world came to a nuclear annihilation. 22. Bidwai and Vanaik, Neiv Nukes, xiii, xv. 23. Eric Arnett, "Nuclear Tests by India and Pakistan," SIPRJ Yearbook 1999 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 377. 24. Even though it is not clear whether Fernandes knew about the dates of the impending tests, he would certainly have seen - and in part been in charge of — the connection between Indian defence postures and its international pronouncements. See interview of George Fernandes, "China is Enemy No. One," The Indian Express, A May 1999 25. "Nuclear Anxiety: India's Letter to Clinton on the Nuclear Testing," The New York Times, 13 May 1998. 26. Mark W. Frazier, "China-India Relations since Pokhran II: Assessing Sources of Conflict and Cooperation," Access Asia Review 3 (July 2000): 10. 27. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994 (New York: United Nations, 1994), 54-55, and Table 3.6.

Chapter 7 1. J. Bronowski, Science and Human Values (New York: Perennial Library, 1990), was a major contribution to the ethical aspects of nuclear weapons. 2. See Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (New York: Collier Books, 1961). 3. Auschwitz—How many perished, vol. 21, Ved Vashem Studies, (Jerusalem, 1991): 11. 4. Ibid. 5. The Kaiga debate (November 1998) was organised by the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. It brought together proponents of nuclear power from the Department of Atomic Energy and several opponents from civil society to present their cases. 6. Peter Schneider ("The Good Germans," New York Times Magazine, 13 February 2000) shows that there were many Germans who protected Jews in the midst of Nazi terror, thus challenging "the theory of mass guilt and deepening the culpability of the collaborators". 7. The Nuremberg trials were portrayed in the Hollywood movie Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) that starred Spencer Tracy as the judge trying Nazi judges. 8. See Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper Perennial, 1998). 9. Some scientists perhaps hoped that the weapons would never be used and others even opposed the use of the weapons after they were developed. 10. See M.V. Ramana, Bombing Bombay: Effects of Nuclear Weapons and a Case Study of a Hypothetical Explosion (Cambridge, USA: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1999). 11. R.B. Attarde, V.K. Shukla, D.A.R. Babu, V.V. Kulkarni and Anil Kakodkar, "The Question of Nuclear Yield," Frontline, 27 November 1999.

12. M.V. Ramana, "The Question of Nuclear Yield," Frontline, 8 January 2000. 13. For example, P.K. Iyengar, a former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, has called for India to develop a neutron bomb because they kill life without causing massive destruction of other kind. See his "India must test n-bomb before signing CTBT," The Hindu, 2 May 2000. 14. Appreciation of the importance of dissent can be found in the most unexpected quarters. The US Central Intelligence Agency has an officer in charge of "contrarian thinking" whose failure "to challenge the experts of the agency and other intelligence agencies" was the "key incident" that contributed to the "intelligence failure" of the US not predicting the Indian nuclear tests. See "CIA reviewing early warning systems: report," The Hindu, 5 July 1998. 15. These statistical figures are quoted in Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, India Development and Participation (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), 410. 16. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), 157-158. The HPI is a measure of human poverty. It is a composite index that measures, for the developing countries, deprivation in life expectancy, literacy and economic provisioning (access to safe water and the percentage of children who are moderately or severely underweight). 17. The share of space, atomic energy and defence in government spending on research and development was 48 per cent in 1994-95, this rose to 52 per cent in 1999-2000. See S. Chandrashekar and K.P. Basavarajppa, "Technological Innovations and Economic Development—Choices and Challenges for India," Economic and Political Weekly (25 August 2001): 3238-3245. 18. Interview with Abdul J. Kalam, "We can design any missile," India Today, 15 June 1989. 19. I thank Shiv Vishwanathan for this insight. 20. For more details see http://www.freespeech.org/isanw/. 21. Amulya K.N. Reddy, "Nuclear Power: Is it necessary or economical?" Seminar 370 (June 1990): 18-26; Amulya K.N. Reddy, Gladys D. Sumithra, P. Balachandra and Antonette D'Sa, "Comparative Costs of Electricity Conservation, Centralised and Decentralised Generation," Economic and Political Weekly 25, no. 22 (2 June 1990): 1201-1216.

Chapter 8 1. Alvin M. Weinberg, "Social Institutions and Nuclear Energy," Science, 7 July 1972, 27—34. The choice of the term 'priesthood' to describe nuclear engineers is appropriate in ways other than Weinberg intended. As Antonio Gramsci argued: "In the absence of [a sentimental connection], the relations between the intellectual and the people-nation are, or are reduced to, relationships of a purely bureaucratic and formal order; the intellectuals become a caste, or a priesthood." See Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971 and Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1996), 418. 2. "The guided missile and nuclear programs in India.. .constitute a 'strategic enclave.' This enclave is defined as a subset of the Indian militarysecurity complex—specifically, the set of research establishments and production facilities that are responsible for the development of these new programs. It is 'strategic' because the end product of the efforts forms the most advanced technological means toward the goal of national security and represents the currency of international prestige and power today. It is an 'enclave' because institutionally, spatially and legally, the hightechnology sectors of space and nuclear energy are distinct and different from the existing structure of the Indian military-security complex." Itty Abraham, "India's 'Strategic Enclave': Civilian Scientists and Military Technologies," Armed Forces and Society 18, no. 2 (winter 1992): 233. 3. See for example George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 458-459. 4. There is, of course, a difference between science and technology, and the vast majority of work that goes on in designing and manufacturing nuclear weapons would fall under the rubric of technology than science. Nevertheless, we use the terms science and scientists in a generic fashion without distinguishing them from technology for three reasons. First, public pronouncements about the bomb often portray it as a triumph of science rather than as an expression of technological prowess. Following the 1998 nuclear tests, practically all political parties showered praise on 'our scientists' rather than 'our engineers'; Prime Minister Vajpayee, in fact, added Jai Vigyan (Hail Science) to the old slogan: Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan (Hail Soldier, Hail Farmer). Thus, in public consciousness, the makers of nuclear weapons are identified as scientists rather than engineers. Second, more often than not, the leaders of nuclear weapons programmes around the world have been physicists rather than, say, engineers. Third, a substantial portion of the actual technical work done to develop a bomb can legitimately be considered scientific, including, for example, modelling the neutronics as a function of time or calculating the intensity of radiation pressure. 5. See for example, Robert Gilpin, American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962); Lawrence Badash, Scientists and the Development of Nuclear Weapons: From Fission to the Limited Test Ban Treaty 1939-1963 (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1995); and Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). There are few similar studies about scientists in other nuclcar weapon states. 6. See for example, David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); Margaret Gowing, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Nuclear Energy, 1945—1952 (London: Macmillan, 1974); Laurence Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic (contd.) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965); John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988); and Avner Cohen, Israel and- the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). 7. Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America: A Half-Century of Denial (New York: Avon Books, 1995), 251. 8. Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America 1945-47, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, USA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1970).

9. See for example Bruno Vitale, "Scientists as Military Hustlers," in Issues in Radical Science (London: Free Association Books, 1985), 73-87. 10. Solly Zuckerman, Scientists and War: The Impact of Science on Military and Civil Affairs (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1966), 29. 11. 'Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in- Modern America (Cambridge, USA; Harvard University Press, 1995), 111. 12. This formulation draws on Richard Lewontin, Biology as Ideology (New York: HarperCollins, 1992). 13. Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 293. 14. Julien Benda, The Treason of the Intellectuals trans. Richard Aldington, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1969); originally published as La Trahison des Clercs (Paris: B. Grasset, 1927). 15. Gyan Prakash, Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 3. 16. It has been argued that this 'independence' or 'detachment' makes science seem objective and authoritative, giving it the legitimising power that makes science a resource for the state. Chandra Mukerji, A Fragile Power: Scientists and the State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 191. 17. Paul Forman, "Behind Quantum Electronics: National Security as Basis for Physical Research in the United States, 1940—1960," Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 18 (1987): 149—229 18. Alan Sokal, "What the Social Text Affair Does and Does not Prove," in A House Built on Sarid: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about Science, ed. Noretta Koertge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 22. Also available at http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/noretta.html. 19. "Atomic Energy Commission," August 2002, http://www.dae.gov.in/aec.htm. 20. Ashok Kapur, "India: The Nuclear Scientists and the State, the Nehru and Post-Nehru Years," in Scientists and the State: Domestic Structures and the International Context, ed. Etel Solingen (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994), 209-229. 21. V. Shiva and J. Bandyopadhyay, "The Large and Fragile Community of Scientists in India," Minerva 18 (1980): 575-594. 22. Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament (New Delhi: Oxford University- Press, 1999), 235. 23. Achin Vanaik, "Ideologies of the State: Social-Historical Underpinnings of the Nuclearization of South Asia" (paper presented at workshop on Nuclear Understandings: Science, Society and the Bomb in South Asia, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 17 February 2000). On 'official nationalism' see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). 24. Vanaik, "Ideologies of the State." 25. G. Venkatraman, Bhabha and his Magnificent Obsessions (Hyderabad: Universities Press, 1994), 141. 26. Itty Abraham, "Towards a Reflexive South Asian Security Studies," in South Asia Approaches the Millenium: Reexamining National Security, ed. Marvin G. Weinbaum and Chetan Kumar (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), 17-40. 27. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 18. 28. Shyam Bhatia, India's Nuclear Bomb (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1979), 85. 29. Zia Mian, "Homi Bhabha killed a Crow," in The Nuclear Debate: Ironies and Immoralities, ed. Zia Mian and Ashis Nandy (Colombo: Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, 1998), 12. 30. Abraham, "Reflexive South Asian Security Studies," 31-32. 31. Abraham, "Reflexive South Asian Security Studies," 32. 32. Mian, "Homi Bhabha Killed a Crow," 12. 33. Raja Ramanna, Years of Pilgrimage (New Delhi: Viking, 1991), 60. 34. M.R. Srinivasan, "India's Atomic Adventure," Frontline, 15 August 1997. 35. The word indigenous was often applied to even minor modifications of imported systems. One ironic example of this practice is Abdul Kalam's description of an effort at reverse-engineering a Russian rocket-assisted take-off system as "indigenous development". See A.P.J. Abdul Kalam with Arun Tiwari, Wings of Fire: An Autobiography (Hyderabad: Universities Press, 1999), 51. 36. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 30, 482. 37. W.B. Lewis and H.J. Bhabha, "The Canada-India Reactor: An Exercise in International Co-operation," in Proceedings of the Second United Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, vol. 1, Progress in Atomic Energy (Geneva: United Nations, 1958), 355358. 'CIR' stands for Canadian Indian Reactor; the 'US' was added later on when the USA supplied heavy water for the reactor.

38. Robert Bothwell, Nucleus: The History of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 350—371. 39. See for example the description in Peter Pringle and James Spigelman, The Nuclear Barons (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981), 165-178. 40. Ruth Fawcett, Nuclear Pursuits: The Scientific Biography of Wiljrid Bennett Lewis (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994), 110-114. 41. See for example H.J. Bhabha and N.B. Prasad, "A Study of the Contribution of Atomic Energy to a Power Programme in India," in Proceedings of the Second United Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, vol. 1, 89-101. A careful assessment shows that the breeder reactor programme is not likely to contribute significantly to India's electricity needs; see Rahul Tongia and V.S. Arunachalam, "India's Nuclear Breeders: Technology, Viability and Options," Current Science 75, no. 6 (25 September 1998): 549-558. 42. Statement by H.J. Bhabha at the Conference on the IAEA Statute, 27 September 1956, quoted in J.P. Jain, Nuclear India, vol. 2 (New Delhi: Radiant Publishers, 1974), 39-49. 43. Statement in the Lok Sabha, 10 May 1954, reprinted in India and Disarmament: An Anthology of Selected Writings and Speeches (New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, 1988), 33—37. 44. Lawrence Wittner, The Struggle Against the Bomb, vol. 2, Resisting the Bomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 100. 45. Ibid., 34. 46. Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, vol. 3 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969), 80, quoted in Dhirendra Sharma, "India's Lopsided Sciences," Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 47, no. 4 (May 1991): 35. Also available at http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1991/may91/may91sharma.html. 47. Dhirendra Sharma, "Science and Control: How Indian Atomic Energy Policy Thwarted Indigenous Scientific Development," in The Revenge of Athena: Science, Exploitation and the Third World, ed. Ziauddin Sardar (London: Mansell Publishing, 1988), 73-80. 48. Wittner, Resisting the Bomb, 100. 49. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 36. 50. Ibid. 51. Leonard Beaton and John Maddox, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons (London: Chatto and Windus, 1962), 138-140, quoted in W.P.S. Sidhu, "The Development of an Indian Nuclear Doctrine since 1980" (Ph.D. diss., Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, 1997). 52. Venkatraman, Bhabha, 172.' 53. Jawaharlal Nehru, "Defence Policy and National Development," note of 3 February 1947, in Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru vol. 2, 2nd ser., (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund), 364, quoted in Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy and the Postcolonial State (New York: Zed Books, 1998 and New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1999), 49. 54. Abraham, Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb, 114—120. 55. Bidwai and Vanaik, South Asia on a Short Fuse, 64. 56. Bhatia, India's Nuclear Bomb, 109. 57. Broadcast by H.J. Bhabha on All India Radio on United Nations Day, 24 October 1964, reproduced in Jain, Nuclear India, 158-161. 58. Bhatia, India's Nuclear Bomb, 113-14 59. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 65. 60. Ibid. 61. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 6562. Ibid., 82-83. 63. Ibid. 64. Homi Bhabha, "Safeguards and the Dissemination of Military Power" (paper presented at the Twelfth Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, 27 January—1 February 1964),. reproduced in Jain, Nuclear India, 139-145. 65. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 114. 66. K.D. Kapur, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Diplomacy: Nuclear Power Programmes in the Third World (New Delhi: Lancers Publishers, 1993), 309. 67. Abraham, Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb, 144.

68. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 12369. This may seem at odds with the earlier description of the DAE as being hierarchical and not conducive to dissent, as well as Ashok Kapur's observation that the "majority of workers and administrators in the scientific establishments play only a marginal role." But it must be remembered that Ramanna was, by then, fairly high up in the DAE. 70. R. Chidambaram and C. Ganguly, "Plutonium and Thorium in the Indian Nuclear Programme," Current Science 70, no. 1 (10 January 1996): 21-35. 71. R. Chidambaram and Raja Ramanna, "Some Studies on India's Peaceful Nuclear Explosion Experiment," in Peaceful Nuclear Explosions IV: Proceedings of a Technical Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy Organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency, 1975), 421-436. 72. Khushwant Singh, "Explosions in the Desert: Meet the Scientists," The Illustrated Weekly of India, 14 July 1974; "Where do we go from Pokharan?" Science Today, June 1974. 73. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 176. 74. Abraham, Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb, 149. 75. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 242. 76. Sidhu, "Develop ment of an Indian Nuclear Doctrine." 77. The 1962 Atomic Energy Act claims to provide lor the development, control and use of atomic energy for the welfare of the people of India and for other peaceful purposes and for matters connected therewith. See http://www.dae.gov.in/rules/aeact.htm. 78. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 242—243. 79. Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India's Quest to be a Nuclear Power, (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2000), 255-261. 80. Ibid., 260. 81. Timothy V. McCarthy, "India: Emerging Missile Power," in The International Missile Bazaar, ed. William C. Potter and Harlan W. Jencks (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), 201-233. 82. For details about the orders and deliveries see Steven J. Zaloga, Soviet Air Defence Missiles (Alexandria, USA: Jane's Information Group, 1989). 83. Kalam, Wings of Fire, 73. 84. S.M. Flank, "Reconstructing Rockets: The Politics of Developing Military Technology in Brazil, India and Israel" (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993). 85. Anand Parthasarathy, "A Firm Purpose," Frontline, 10-23 June 198986. Indranil Banerjie, "The Integrated Missile Development Programme," Indian Defence Review (July 1990): 104. 87. A Man and his Mission: Interview with A.P.J. Abdul Kalam," Frontline 25 September 1998, 88-90; McCarthy, "Emerging Missile Power," 204; A recent example of this practice was the Memorandum of Understanding that DRDO signed with Bharathiar University to collaborate on, inter alia, "plasma engineering and special coatings," which are clearly topics related to problems faced when missiles reenter the atmosphere from space. "DRDO Signs MOU with Bharathiar University," Current Science 74, no. 9 (10 May 1998): 723. 88. "DRDO Institutes Ten New Award Schemes: Awards for 1998 Announced," Current Science 76, no. 6 (25 March 1999): 719. 89. Between 1983 and 1987, the Indian defence budget increased by 50 per cent. See Neeraj Kaushal, India's Defense Budget: Can it be Reduced? ACDIS Occasional Paper, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, June 1995. 90. Rajiv Gandhi, "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons," speech at the United Nations General Assembly, 9 June 1988, reproduced in India and Disarmament: An Anthology (New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, 1988), 280-294. 91. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 273—274. 92. K. Subrahmanyam, "India's Nuclear Policy—1964-98 (A Personal Recollection)," in Nuclear India., ed. Jasjit Singh (New Delhi: Knowledge World in association with Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 1998), 26-53. 93. Subrahmanyam, "India's Nuclear Policy," 44. 94. See for example Steve Coll, "India Faces Nuclear Watershed," Washington Post, 7 March 1992. 95. Ramanna, Years of Pilgrimage, 100. 96. P.K. Iyengar, "Forty Years with Atomic Energy," farewell address, 4 February 1993, in Collected Scientific Papers of Dr P.K. Iyengar, vol. 5 (Bombay: Bhabba Atomic Research Centre, Library and Information Services Division, 1993), 85.

97. Rahul Bedi, "India should own up to Atom Bomb," The Daily Telegraph, 20 September 1994. 98. R. Chidambaram, "Say No to Regional Capping," interview by Raj Chengappa, India Today, 30 April 1994. 99. M.R. Srinivasan, interview, The Indian Express, 19 September 1994. 100. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 365. 101. Ibid. 102. Praful Bidwai, "Nuclear India: A Short History," 25 August 2002, http://www.angelfire.com/mi/MIND 123/PRAFUL.html. 103. Arundhati Ghose, statement made in the Plenary Meeting of the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva, 20 June 1996, http://www.indianembassy.org/policy/CTBT/ctbt_cd_june_20_96.html. 104. "Budget Doubled, Target Elusive: Interview with R. Chidambaram," Frontline, 26 January 1996. 105. Dinshaw Mistry, India and- the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, ACDIS Research Report, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, September 1998, 30.] 106. Parvathi Menon, "A Former Prime Minister Speaks Out," Frontline, 20 June 1998. 107. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 407. 108. Ibid. 109. "AEC Chief Says India Ready 'To Go Nuclear'," Deccan Herald, 4 March 1998. 110. David Albright "The shots heard round the world," 25 August 1998, http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1998/ja98/ja98albright.html. 111. Joint press statement of the DAE and the DRDO, New Delhi, 17 May 1998, http://www.india_emb.org.eg/sector6E/IB_Engl_5.html. 112. "India Can Make Neutron Bomb: Chidambaram," The Hindu, 17 August 1999. 113. "India Must Test N-bomb before Signing CTBT," The Hindu, 2 May 2000. 114. ''"India to Design ABM on US lines: Kalam," The Times of India, 5 January 2000. 115. "Beam Weapon in Final Stages," The Hindu, 19 August 1999. 116. "Questions in Lok Sabha: Govt proposes to build another nuclear reactor," The Hindustan Times, 16 December 1999. 117. Robert Anderson, Building Scientific Institutions in India: Bhabha and Saha (Montreal: Center for Developing Area Studies, 1975), 26-28. 118. Abha Sur, "Egalitarianism in a World of Difference: Identity and Ideology in the Science of Meghnad Saha," (forthcoming). 119. T.V. Satyamurthy, "India's Post-Colonial Nuclear Estate," in No Clear Reason: Nuclear Power Politics, edited by the Radical Science Collective (London: Free Association Books, 1984), 110-111. 120. Anderson, Building Scientific Institutions in India, 49. 121. Dhirendra Sharma, India's Nuclear Estate (New Delhi: Lancers Publishers, 1983), 31. 122. M.V.N. Murthy, Madan Rao, R. Shankar, J. Samuel and A. Sitaram, "Voices against the Militarization of Science," Current Science 75, no. 11 (10 December 1998): 1110-1111. 123. Sharma, "India's Lopsided Science." 124. Arnulya K.N. Reddy, "Nuclear Power: Is it Necessary or Economical?" Seminar (June 1990): 18-26. 125. See Arnulya K.N. Reddy, "Designing Nuclear Weapons: The Moral Question," this volume. 126. On people's science movements, see Vinod Raina, "Promoting People's Science," Seminar (May 1999): 39-43. 127. See M.V. Ramana and Surendra Gadekar, "The Price We Pay: From Uranium to Weapons," this volume. 128. For more information see http://www.freespeecK.org/isanw/. 129. N. Srinivasan, "Nuclear Tests and our Power Programme," in Voices Against Nuclear Weapons (Chennai: Indian Scientists Against Nuclear Weapons and Tamil Nadu Science Forum, August 1998), 10. 130. Beena Sarwar, "Peace Workshop Stresses Need for New Strategies," Inter Press Service Report,

131. For an elaboration of tbis argument, see M.V. Ramana, "For a Just Peace—Tbe Anti-nuclear Movement in India," Social Science Research Council Newsletter 12 (May 1999). 132. See H.A. Feiveson, "Thinking About Nuclear Weapons," Dissent (spring 1982): 183-194. 133. Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena (New York: Basic Books, 1974), ix. 134. On the role of scientist-advisors in the US see Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent. 135. Sukumar Muralidharan, "'Weaponisation is Harmful': Interview with M.R. Srinivasan," Frontline, 6 June 1998. 136. T. Jayaraman, "Indian Science After Pokhran II," Seminar (August 1998): 60-64. 137. David Dickson, The New Politics of Science (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), 18. 138. On the 'new' social movements, see for example Arthur Bonner, Averting the Apocalypse: Social Movements in India Today (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990); and Gail Omvedt, Reinventing Revolution: New Social Movements and the Socialist Tradition in India (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1993).

Chapter 9 1. international Court of Justice, "Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons," reproduced in International Legal Materials 35, no. 4 (July 1996):831 2. "Opinion," 831. 3. Restraints have generally been regarded as 'minimal' in this sphere, but it would be fallacious to conclude that they do not exist at all. See B.S. Chimni "Nuclear Weapons and International Law: Some Reflections," Indian Journal of International Law 37, no. 2 (April-June 1997): 250-261, 252. Chimni draws attention to Ian Brownlie for an original formulation in this respect, see "Some Legal Aspects of the Use of Nuclear Weapons," International and- Comparative Law Quarterly 4 (1965): 437-451, 437. 4. United Nations General Assembly, Resolutions Adopted by the General Assembly during the First Part of its Fifty-Third Session (9 September—18 December 1998), Press Release GA/9541, 28 January 1999, 167. 5. Richard Falk, "Nuclear Weapons, International Law and the World Court: A Historic Encounter," Indian Journal of International Law 37, no. 2, (April-June 1997): 150. 6. Government of India, "The Indian Memorial Submitted to the International Court of Justice on Status of Nuclear Weapons in International Justice," reproduced in Seminar (August 1998): 71—74. 7. "India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine," Arms Control Today, July/August 1999 8. See Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament, "India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine: A Critique," http://www.angelfire.com/mi/MIND123. 9. For an advocacy of integration into the 'nuclear order', see C. Rajamohan, "Nuclear Defiance and Reconciliation," synopsis of seminar proceedings in Post-Pokhran II: The National Way Ahead (New Delhi: India Habitat Centre, 1999), 5-23. A critique of this diplomatic approach may be found in the former Ambassador Arundhati Ghose's account "Post-Pokhran II: Aims Control and Disarmament Aspects," in Post-Pokhran II, 85—98. 10. C. Uday Bhaskar, "Impact of Nuclear Doctrine," The Hindustan Times, 20 September 1999 11. John Burroughs, The (Illegality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice, (Munster: Lit Verlag, 1997), 9 12. Kate Dewes and Robert Green, "The World Court Project: How a Citizen Network can Influence the United Nations," Pacifica Review 7, no. 2 (1995): 17-37. Also available at http://www.pgs.ca/pages/wc/wcdewes1.html. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. "Opinion," 819. 17. Burroughs, (Illegality of Threat, 9. 18. "Opinion," 818. 19. "Opinion," 818. 20. "Opinion," 819.

21. Falk, "Nuclear Weapons," 151. 22. "Opinion," 821-822. 23. "Opinion," 821-822. 24. "Opinion," 820. 25. "Opinion," 820. 26. V.S. Mani, "The Nuciear Weapons and the World Court," Indian Journal of International Law 37, no. 2 (April-June 1997): 174. 27. "Opinion," 820. 28. "Opinion," 820. 29. "Opinion," 820. 30. "Opinion," 821. 31. "Opinion," 821. 32. "Opinion," 821. 33. "Opinion," 827. 34. "Opinion," 827. 35. "Opinion," 827. 36. "Opinion," 827. 37. "Opinion,' 828. 38. "Opinion,' 828. 39. "Opinion,' 828. 40. "Opinion,' 829 41. "Opinion,' 829. 42. "Opinion,' 829. 43. See Mani, "Nuclear Weapons and the World Court, " 184. 44. "Opinion," 822. 45. Opinion, 822, 830-831. 46. See Robert Green, ed., Implications of the Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice on the Legal Status of Nuclear Weapons: A Discussion Paper by the World. Court Project (London: Pottle Press, 1996), 16. 47. "Opinion," 823. 48. John Burroughs, "The Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons," Human Rights Advocates no. 28, (summer 1997): 7—8. 49. Opinion, 826. 50. "Declaration of Judge Ski Jiuyong," International Legal Materials 35, no. 4 (July 1996): 832. 51. Burroughs, (Illegality of the Threat, 43. 52. Ibid., 39. 53. Ibid„ 7. 54. See Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament,(New Delhi: Oxford University Press,1999),46. 55. Ibid., 46. 56. Jaswant Singh, "Against Nuclear Apartheid," Foreign Affairs 77, no. 5 (September/October 1998): 41-52.

57. See Bidwai and Vanaik, South Asia on a Short Fuse, 63-75. Coexisting along with these multilateral disarmament initiative proposals, India during this phase, under the stewardship of Nehru, also domestically witnessed the sanctioning and setting up of the atomic infrastructure in India as part of a script of postcolonial modernity. See Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1998). 58. "Memorial,"72. 59. "Memorial,"72. 60. "Memorial,"73-74. 61. See Chimni "Nuclear Weapons and International Law," 250. 62. Nagendra Singh, Nuclear Weapons and International Law (London: Steven and Sons, 1959), 252. 63. Ibid., 3-4. 64. Richard Falk, Lee Meyrowitz and Jack Sanderson, "Nuclear Weapons and International Law," Indian Journal of International Law 20 (1980): 54-595. See especially footnote 94 in the text of the article. 65. Ibid., 571. 66. Chimni, "Nuclear Weapons and International Law," 261. 67. See special issue on "The Legality of Use of Nuclear Weapons" of the Indian Journal of International Law 37, no. 2 (April-June 1997). 68. See in particular the interventions by V.S. Mani, "The Nuclear Weapons and the Wodd Court," Indian Journal of International Law 37, no. 2 (April-June 1997): 167-184; and Yogesh K. Tyagi, "Judicial Statesmanship without Political Courage," Indian Journal of International Law 37, no. 2, (April-June 19'97): 185-201. 69. "Opinion," 831. Also see Falk, "Nuclear Weapons, International Law," 157. 70. Mani “Nuclear Weapons and the World Court,” 184 71. P, Sreenivasa Rao, "Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons," Indian Journal of International Law 37, no. 2 (April-June 1997): 225. The article carries a caveat that the views expressed in it are the peronal views of the author and do not in any manner represent the views of the Indian government. 72. Ibid., 223. 73. “India’s Draft Nuclear Doctrine,”33-34 74. "India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine," 33-34. 75. Ibid, 33. 76. Ibid., 33. Also highlighted by Amitabh Mattoo in "India's Nuclear Doctrine: Its Search for Strategic Autonomy," The Times of India, 19 August 1999. 77. "Opinion," 822. 78. "Declaration of President Bedjaoui," International Legal Materials 35, no. 4 (July 1996): 1346. Also see Burroughs, (Illegality of Threat, 45-46. 79. V.S. Mani, "Editorial Comment: Symposium on India's Nuclear Tests 1998," Indian Journal of International Law 38, no. 2 (April—J une 1998): 218-226. 80. "India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine," 3381. "Dissenting Opinion of Judge Christopher Gregory Weeramantry," International Legal Materials 35, no. 4 (July 1996): 909 82. Ibid., 909. 83. "India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine," 33. 84. "Memorial," 72. 85. "Opinion," 822, 86. "Opinion," 822. 87. "Opinion," 829. 88. C. Rajamohan maintains a distinction between disarmament as a tactical diplomatic posture and disarmament in 'realist' terms. See for instance a parallel characterisation of 'no first-use' as a 'wrapping' rather than as 'policy' in the discussion following his presentation "Nuclear Defiance and Reconciliation," in Post-Pokhran II, 53-80.

89. Kanti Bajpai "India's Diplomacy and Defence After Pokhran II," in Post-Pokhran II, 29. See also responses to the presentation, Post-Pokhran II, 53-80. 90. C. Raja Menon, "The Nuclear Doctrine: Yoking a Horse and Camel Together," The Times of India, 26 August 1999. 91. W.P.S. Sidhu, "The Doctrine is Full of Holes," The Indian Express, 8 September 1999. 92. Mattoo, "India's Nuclear Doctrine." 93. See Green, Implications of the Advisory Opinion. 94. Burroughs, (Illegality of the Threat, 9. 95. Ibid., 51. 96. Ibid., 3. 97. Phon van den Biesen, foreword to (Illegality of the Threat, x. 98. See Peter Weiss, Peter. "Law and the Pathology of Nuclearism." In Testing the Limits: The India-Pakistan Nuclear Gambit. Transnational Institute, Amsterdam, and Institute for Policy Studies, Washington D.C., 1998. Also available at http://www.tni.org/testing/weiss.htm. 99. “Memorial,” 74.

Chapter 10 1. Count Mouravieff, "Message of the Czar (1898)," reprinted in Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Documents Relating to the Program of the First Hague Peace Conference (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), 1. 2. Robert D. Warth, Nicholas II {London: Praeger, 1997), 51, 53. 3. Calvin DeArmond Davis, The United States and- the First Hague Peace Conference (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), 99. 4. Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890-1914 (London: Macmillan, 1966), 447. 5. Jan de Bloch, The Future of War, trans. R.C. Long (Boston:'Ginn, 1899). 6. Ruth Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1996 (Washington D.C.: World Priorities, 1996), 7. 7. See, for example, Nicole Ball, Security and Economy in the Third. World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); Frances Stewart, "War and Underdevelopment: Can Economic Analysis Help Reduce the Costs?" Journal of International Development 5 (1993); Frances Stewart, "The Root Causes of Conflict; Some Conclusions," working paper 16, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, 1998; Alex de Waal, "Contemporary Warfare in Africa," in Restructuring the Global Military Sector, vol. 1, New Wars ed. M. Kaldor and B. Vashee (London: Pinter, 1997); David Keen, "A Rational Kind of Madness," Oxford Development Studies 25 (1997); David Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars, Adelphi Papers 320 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1998); Mary Kaldor, New and. Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999); Paul Collier, "On the Economic Consequences of Civil War," Oxford Economic Papers 51 (1999); and Paul Collier, "Doing Well out of War" (World Bank, Washington D.C., 1999, mimeographed). 8. For an enlightening discussion of this issue, see R-L. Punamaki, "Childhood under Conflict: The Attitudes and Emotional Life of Israeli and Palestinian Children," research report 32, Tampere Peace Research Institute, Tampere, 1987, 15-17. 9. R.M. Garfield and A.I. Neugut, "Epidemiological Analysis of Warfare: A Historical Review," fournal of the American Medical Association (1991): 266. 10. Anatol Rapoport, Strategy and Conscience (New York: Schocken, 1964). 11. See Pbilip Mirowski, "When Games Grow Deadly Serious: The Military Influence on the Evolution of Game Theory," in Economics and National Security ed. C.D. Goodwin (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991). 12. It is not my intention to single out The Hindu for special scrutiny. It just happens that the relevant archives are conveniently posted on The Hindu website. In any case, front-page items tend to be much the same among the major English language dailies in India. If anything, The Hindu is likely to have more coverage of development issues than most other newspapers. 13. The displacement of development-related articles might have been even worse in the absence of a large decline in front-page coverage of corruption- related issues between 19% and 1999- In 1996 and 1997, high profile scams (the Bofors affair, the JMM case, the hawala scandal, the fodder scam etc.) captured a great deal of front-page attention—about the same amount as defence or development. 14. The list of countries at war is taken from Dan Smith's remarkable "war and peace atlas" (the reference period is 1990—95). Dan Smith, The State of War and Peace Atlas (London: Penguin Reference, 1997), 90-96. The population figures are from the World Development Report 1998-99 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). If India and China are excluded from the calculations (India appears in Smith's list, but not China), the proportion of persons living in a country at war remains much the same. 15. In some countries, there is even a possibility that the haphazard reduction of military expenditure under pressure has contributed to a surge in

internal violence, as underpaid or demobilised soldiers turned to looting, crime and other forms of 'economic violence'. See Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence. Reaping 'peace dividends' seems to require broader measures than an indiscriminate reduction in military expenditure. 16. Economic, sanctions, sometimes regarded as a 'humanitarian' alternative to war, are no less brutal, as the recent case of Iraq illustrates. See Jean Dreze and Haris Gazdar, "Hunger and Poverty in Iraq, 1991," World Development 20 (1992); and Richard Garfield, "Morbidity and Mortality among Iraqi Children from 1990-1998," Occasional Paper 16:3, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1999 17. Internal wars and inter-state disputes are, in many respects, contrasting phenomena, and considering them together (as is done in parts of this paper) is not entirely satisfactory. Internal wars are further discussed in Jean Drèze, "Militarism, Development and Democracy," Economic and. Political Weekly 1-7 (April 2000): 1171-1183. 18. See Collier, "Economic Consequences of Civil War." 19. For further discussion, and detailed sources, see Jean Drèze, "Militarism and Development: An Introduction" (STICERD, London School of Economics, 1999, mimeographed), 20. On these issues, see Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Amartya Sen, "Wars and Famines: On Divisions and Incentives," in Economics of Arms Reduction and the Peace Process ed. W. Isard and C.H. Anderson (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1992); Joanna Macrae and Anthony Zwi, ed., War and Hunger (London: Zed, 1994); and E. Messer, M.J. Cohen and J. D'Costa, "Food from Peace: Breaking the Links between Conflict and Hunger," Food, Agriculture, and the Environment Discussion Paper 24, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C., 1998, and the literature cited there. 21. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, "UNHCR by Numbers," 1999, http://www.unhcr.ch/un&ref/numbers/numbers.htm . 22. M.J. Toole and R.J. Waldman, "Refugees and Displaced Persons: War, Hunger, and Public Health " Journal of the American Medical Association 270 (1993). The review is based on studies of displaced populations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nepal, Bangladesh, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Bosnia. 23. R-L Punamaki, "Childhood under Conflict," 16. The author presents strong arguments against various myths about "the positive effects of war on the human psyche," best understood as "the results of social norms and propaganda." 24. For a sample of case studies (among many others), see C.P. Dodge and M. Raundalen, Reaching Children in War: Sudan, Uganda andMozambique (Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1991); B. Bhatia, M. Kawar, and M. Shaheen, Unheard Voices: Iraqi Women on War and. Sanctions (London: Change, 1992); J. Cliff and A.R. Noormahomed, "The Impact of War on Children's Health in Mozambique," Social Science and Medicine 36 (1993); Helen O'Connell, ed., "Women and Conflict," special issue of Focus on Gender 1 (1993); and M. Turshen, and C. Twagiramariya, ed., What Women Do in Wartime: Gender and. Conflict in Africa (London: Zed, 1998). A useful survey of the impact of war on children can be found in D. Cairns, ed., Children and Political Violence (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). 25. See Tilman Briick, "Macroeconomic Effects of the War in Mozambique," working paper 11, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, 1997; also see J. Cliff and A.R. Noormahomed, "Health as a Target: South Africa's Destabilization of Mozambique," Social Science and Medicine 27 (1988); Cliff and Noormahomed "Impact of War on Children's Health"; UNICEF, Children on the Front Line: The Impact of Apartheid, Destabilization and- Warfare on Children in Southern and South Africa, 3rd edn. (New York: UNICEF, 1989); N. Boothby, P. Upton and A. Sultan, Children of Mozambique: The Cost of Survival (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991); Hilary Anderson, Alozambique: A War Against the People (London: Macmillan, 1992); William Finnegan A Complicated- War: The Harrowing of Mozambique (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); M. Garenne, R. Coninx and C. Dupuy, "Effects of the Civil War in Central Mozambique and Evaluation of the Intervention of the International Committee of the Red Cross," Journal of Tropical Pediatrics 43 (1997); and de Waal, "Contemporary Warfare in Africa." 26. Garenne et al., "Effects of the Civil "War in Central Mozambique," 43. 27. Here is how one observer describes the atmosphere in war-torn Mozambique: In Mozambique, people do not refer to the 'war years' because most people have never experienced years of peace....RENAMO systematically cuts off noses, ears, lips, and breasts, gouges out eyes, cuts off limbs and children's fingers as punishment or just for the sake of mutilation.. ..As a critical part of its strategy to destroy the rural economy and any chance of development, RENAMO has made special targets of health and educational facilities and personnel all over the country By 1988, 46 per cent of the entire primary health care network had been sabotaged, either by outright destruction or by looting Schools are burnt down or looted, books and school equipment are destroyed, teacher training centres are attacked, teachers are killed, mutilated, kidnapped or terrorised, and students are attacked It is a war of constant destabilisation, a relentless and menacing pursuit to destroy everything which makes Mozambique function economically and cohere socially. Anderson, Mozambique, 65-89. 28. On a more cheerful note, there have been many positive developments in Mozambique since 1992, including rapid economic growth and democratic elections. 29. A prime example is the vicious cycle of violence and famine in Somalia in the early 1990s: "Famine thus bred banditry, and banditry in turn caused famine." Alex de Waal, "Dangerous Precedents? Famine Relief in Somalia 1991-93," in War and Hunger, 145. 30. I refer here to social gains rather than to private benefits. The latter can also be important (for some), and perpetuate conflicts; on this issue, see Keen, "A Rational Kind of Madness"; and Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence. 31. 'Arthur Marwick, ed., Total War and Social Change (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988); and Arthur Marwick, The Deluge: British Society and the First World War, 2nd edn. (London: Macmillan, 1991). 32. Jay M. Winter, The Great War and the British People (Cambridge, USA: Harvard University Press, 1986) 244. Insightful as it is, this study is far from conclusive on the issue of wartime living standards. Winter's own data show that occupation-specific wages failed to keep pace with the cost of living (Table 7.7). The author correctly notes that unemployment disappeared during the war, and also argues that there was a shift- from lowpaid to better-paid occupations, but nowhere does he demonstrate that these and other gains (such as separation and survivor allowances) were sufficient to offset the loss of earnings from adult men. In fact, wartime consumption patterns clearly indicate declining real incomes, on average as well as among the working class. See also Peter E. Dewey, "Nutrition and Living Standards in Wartime Britain," in The Upheaval of War:

Family, Work and Welfare in Europe 1914-1918 ed. R. Wall and J.M. Winter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). It is possible that, contrary to Winter's assessment, public health measures (as opposed to higher private incomes) were the driving force behind continued infant mortality decline in wartime Britain. There is scope for further research on these issues. 33. Marwick, The Deluge, 19; emphasis in the original. 34. Deborah Thom, "Women and Work in Wartime Britain," in The Upheaval of War, 315. 35. Ibid., 317. 36. For a helpful review of this debate, see Ian F.W. Beckett, "Total War," in Warfare in the Twentieth Century: Theory and Practice ed. C. Maclnnes and Y.D. Sheffield (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988); also see the editorial introduction and annotated bibliography in Marwick, Total War. 37. On this contrast, see various contributions in Marwick, Total War; and Wall and Winter, The Upheaval of War. 38. Some observers have also noted various examples of "the opportunities for empowerment and politicisation which may arise for women in situations of conflict," due to the participation effect and related processes. O'Connell, "Editorial," in "Women and Conflict," v. For insightful case studies, see O'Connell, "Women and Conflict"; and Turshen and Twagiramariya, What Women Do in Wartime. 39. Stanislav Andreski, Wars, Revolutions, Dictatorships (London: Frank Cass, 1992), 13. 40. Iraq, it is said, "has not recovered to this day" from the destruction of its ancient irrigation system by the Mongols in the twelfth century (Stanislav Andreski, Elements of Comparative Sociology [London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964], 117). The environmental consequences of the Gulf war may last even longer: the lethal depleted-uranium shells that have been fired at thousands of targets in Iraq and Kuwait have a half-life of 4.5 billion years. See Doug Rokke, "Depleted Uranium: A Hazard for Eternity," (paper presented at a conference on Sanctions in Iraq, Cambridge University, 1999). 41. 'There is convincing evidence that military expenditure slows down economic growth and reduces public expenditure on the social sectors. See M. Knight, N. Loayza and D. Villanueva, "The Peace Dividend: Military Spending Cuts and Economic Growth," IMF Staff Papers (Washington D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1996); Saadet Deger "Human Resources, Government Education Expenditure and the Military Burden in Less Developed Countries," Journal of Developing Areas 20 (1985). For an introduction to the extensive literature on these issues, see Dreze, "Militarism and Development: An Introduction." 42. Andreski, Comparative Sociology, 118. 43. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1999). 44. Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda. (New York: Liverigkt Publishing, 1928), 45. G. Philo, and G. McLaughlin, The British Media and the Gulf War (Glasgow: Glasgow University Media Group, 1993), 13- In a more colourful vein, Falklands veteran Max Hastings, described newspaper reports in London as "complete and absolute rubbish from beginning to end". Robert Harris, Gotcha! The Media, the Government and. the Falklands Crisis (London: Faber and Faber,1983), 100. On propaganda in wartime Britain, see also Cate Haste Keep the Home Fires Burning: Propaganda in the First World. War (London: Allen Lane, 1977); M.L. Sanders and P.M. Taylor, British Propaganda during the First World. War, 1914-18 (London: Macmillan, 1982); and Glasgow University Media Group, War and Peace News (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1985). 46. Bimal Bhatia, "The Media's Role in a War," The Hindustan Times, 3 August 1999 47. K. Subrahmanyam, "A Perilous Decade," The Times of India, 19 May 1999. 48. N. Bhaskara Rao, "The Media and the Kargil Conflict," The Hindu, 31 July 1999. 49. See, for example, The Hindustan Times, 17 December 1999. For a more detailed examination of these issues, see "The Media and Kargil: Information War with Dummy Missiles," (Centre for Monitoring the Media, (contd.) Mumbai, 1999, mimeographed). This was summarised in Geeta Seshu, "Media and Kargil: Information Blitz with Dummy Missiles," Economic and Political Weekly, 9 October 1999- See also P. Sainath, "Army Court Summons Journalists," The Hindu, 7 November 1999; Siddharth Varadarajan, "Toeing the Official Line," Vidura 36 (1999); and other contributions to Vidura, July-September 1999. 50. Sagarika Ghose, "Muted Voices," Outlook, 25 May 1998. The statement about RAW is attributed by Chari to one of RAW's own former directors. 51. Bhatia, "Media's Role in a War." 52. Martin Shaw, Post-Military Society: Militarism, Demilitarization and. War at the End of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991). 53. In India, for instance, the democratic process has exercised a restraining influence on the Hindu right, which has been repeatedly constrained to tone down the more aggressive parts of its political programme in order to avoid losing votes. 54. There is a substantial literature on the relation between democracy and the incidence of war. Bruce M. Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold. War World. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); and J.R. Oneal and B.M. Russett, "The Classical Liberals were Right: Democracy, Interdependence, and Conflict, 1950-1985," International Studies Quarterly 41 (1997), are useful introductions. 55. On this issue, see particularly Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peaces and Spencer R. Weart, Never at War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight One Another (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), and the literature cited therein.

56. The conflicts in Kargil and Kosovo are recent additions to the list of grey cases. 57. Some studies suggest that the relation between war incidence and democracy has the shape of an inverted 'U': war incidence is low at both ends of the spectrum of democratic rights. See P. Collier and A. Hoeffler, "Justice-Seeking and Loot-Seeking in Civil War" (World Bank, Washington D.C., 1999, mimeographed). For interesting historical evidence on the "peaceful disposition of military dictators", see also Andreski, Wars. 58. See Rudolph J. Rummel, Death by Government: Genocide and. Mass Murder in the Twentieth Century (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1994); and Rudolph J. Rummel, Statistics of Dernocide: Genocide and. Mass Murder since 1900 (Munster: Lit, 1998). 59. Andreski, Wars. 60. R. Hardin, J. Mearshimer, G. Dworkin and R. Goodin, ed., Nuclear Deterrence: Ethics and Strategy (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1985). 61. As one leading authority on the subject puts it, "nuclear weapons can help reach many important political goals." Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 22. This interpretation of 'nuclear deterrence' is quite common in strategic studies, particularly in the United States. See, for example, Henry A. Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and. Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957); Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961); Robert J. Art, "Between Assured Destruction and Nuclear Victory: The Case for the 'Mad-Plus' Posture," in Nuclear Deterrence ed. Hardin et al.; Robert Powell, Nuclear Deterrence Theory: The Search for Credibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and Paul Bracken, Fire in the East: The Rise of Asian Military Power and the Second Nuclear Age (New York: HarperCollins, 1999)- For case studies of actual nuclear threats, see Daniel Ellsberg, "Call to Mutiny," in Protest and Survive ed. E.P. Thompson and D. Smith (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1981); and Richard K. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1987). 62. Amitav Ghosh, Countdown (New Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 1999), 14. 63. Bracken, Fire in the East, 97. 64. Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, USA: Harvard University Press, I960); Schelling, Arms and Influence. 65. Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 2nd edn. (London: Macmillan, 1989), provides a comprehensive and insightful introduction to the literature on nuclear strategy. On the hopeless 'search for credibility' in strategic studies, see also Powell, Nuclear Deterrence Theory. Note that I am not concerned here with nuclear threats against non-nuclear states. Those are credible, and have indeed been effective in several instances, (see Ellsberg, "Call to Mutiny"). The case against such threats is ethical rather than strategic. 66. Bruce G. Blair, statement to the House National Security Committee, 13 March 1997, http.//www.house.gov/hasc/1997schedule.htm 67. Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (Hodder and Stoughton, 1965), 705. 68. E.R. May and P.D. Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes (Cambridge, USA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 30. 69. Thomas Schelling, "Nuclear Strategy in Europe," World Politics 14 (1962): 422, quoted in Jervis, Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 97. It is worth noting that these brainwaves are not irrelevant academia. Schelling's ideas had a profound impact on US strategic thinking, and a direct influence on Henry Kissinger. See David Landau, Kissinger: The Uses of Power (London: Robson Books, 1974), 56. 70. See Martin Shubik, "The Dollar Auction Game: A Paradox in Non-cooperative Behavior and Escalation," Journal of Conflict Resolution 15 (1971). 71. To all these problems must be added the practical dangers of accidental nuclear war. There are several hair-raising books on the subject. One expert, who is not prone to exaggeration, estimates that the probability of (contd.) accidental nuclear war within ten years hovered around 0.05 during the cold war. See Paul Bracken, "Accidental Nuclear War," in Hawks, Doves, and Owls: An Agenda for Avoiding Nuclear War ed. G.T. Allison, A. Carnesale and J.S. Nye (New York: W.W. Norton, 1985), 50. The risks of accidental nuclear war have probably increased since the end of the cold war. See Blair, Statement to the House National Security Subcommittee. 72. K. Subrahmanyam, "Kargil Balance Sheet," The Ti?nes of India, 26 July 1999. 73. May and Zelikow, Kennedy Tapes, 30. 74. AS one commentator notes: "The detailed 'outbreak scenario' of World War I would probably bave been rejected as the plot for a third-rate comedy of errors as simply too outrageous. But the bizarre series of events did occur and brought with it enormous suffering." Herman Kahn, Thinking about the Unthinkable in the 1980s (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 19. 75. C. Wright Mills, The Causes of World War Three (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1958), 85. 76. To illustrate, in 1998, UN peacekeeping forces had a total strength of 15,000—compared with more than 22 million for worldwide armed forces (International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance: 1998/99 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998], 284, 300). The ratio of worldwide peacekeeping to military expenditures is similar—about 1 to 1,000.

Chapter 11 1. For a detailed discussion of this phase in Indian history, see Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885-1947 (New Delhi: Macmillan, 1983). Also see A.R. Desai, Social Background to Indian Nationalism (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1959); and Bipan Chandra, Economic Nationalism in India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1966). 2. Religion was indeed used as a vehicle for mobilisation during the national freedom movement. Ganesh Chaturthi and the icon of Shivaji

introduced by Tilak, and the institution of the Thangal during the Moplah revolt in Kerala, were instances of religion being put to use in the political realm. These, however, were qualitatively different from the whipping up of religious passions directed against the members of another religion. 3. Purushottamdas Thakurdas, A Plan of Economic Development for India, vol. 1 and 2 (London: Penguin, 1945). The signatories to the plan included J.R.D. Tata, G.D. Birla, Ardeshir Dalai, Sri Ram, Kasturbhai Lalbbai, A.D. Shroff and John Mathai. 4. Prabhat Patnaik, “On the political Economy of Underdevelopment,” in Prabhat Patnaik Whatever Happened to Imperialism and Other Essays (New Delhi: Tulika, 1995),43-44. 5. Prabhat Patnaik, "Recent Phase of Economic Development," in Whatever Happened to Imperialism, 166. 6. The substantial reduction in incidence of poverty was partly the result of higher outlays on poverty-alleviation and more rapid economic growth in the 1980s; and partly because we find the emergence of regional parties engaging in competitive populism (I am not using populism in the pejorative sense here), laying stress on supply of food at highly subsidised priceas even if it meant using up investible resources. This was practiced (contd.) by, for example, the Left-led governments in Kerala and West Bengal, and the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh. It led to a considerable decline in the percentage of population living below the poverty line in these states. A similar expansion of central and state government populist programmes took place to a smaller extent in other parts of India. Public investment (as measured by gross capital formation) rose from 8.4 per cent of GDP in 1980-81 to 11.2 per cent in 1986-87 before falling off to 9.5 per cent in 1989-90. Private investment during the 1980s followed a more erratic course and was considerably lower (oscillating between 3-5 and 5 per cent of GDP). See EPW Research Foundation, National Accounts Statistics of India (Mumbai: EPW Research Foundation, 2002), 72. 7. The rising tide of protests in the mid-1970s had a significant rightwing content. For instance, the massive Railway strike of 1974 was not led by any of the Left unions. Similarly, the role of the Left, specifically the Communist Party of India (CPI) in the anti-corruption movement in Bihar during the early and mid-1970s was far from positive. While the formal position of the CPI (Marxist) was to support the JP movement of the mid1970s, the physical presence of its own ranks in the movement was at best marginal, notably in the Hindi-speaking regions where the movement had taken a mass character. 8. For example, the slogans against Abdul Ghafoor, the Congress chief minister of Bihar. See Minoo Masani, Is JP the Answer (New Delhi: Macmillan, 1975), for a detailed discussion of this aspect. 9. Though economic liberalisation is formally dated at July 1991, the movement in that direction began in the 1980s. 10. See Economic Survey (New Delhi: Government of India, 2002), 10. 11. Between 1972-73, and 1974-75 (when the monsoons failed), the consumer prices increased by 53 per cent. See Reserve Bank of India, Hand book of Statistics on Indian Economy (Munbai: Reserve Bank of India,2001),49. 12. Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India's Quest to be a Nuclear Power (HarperCollins: New Delhi, 2000). 13. Bharatiya Jana Sangh, "Principles and Policies Resolution adopted at the XII plenary session. Vijayawada, January 1965," in Party Documents, 1951-1972, vol. 1 (New Delhi: Bharatiya Jana Sangh, 1973), 20. 14. Bharatiya Jana Sangh, "Manifesto-1958," in Party Documents, vol. 1, 103. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Party Documents, vol. 1,15. 18. Bharatiya Jana Sangh, "Manifesto-1967," in Party Documents, vol. 1, 148-149. 19. National Agenda for Governance, released by the National Democratic Alliance, 18 March 1998, para 26. 20. It is widely believed that in 1996, when the BJP assumed office even without a majority in parliament, it gave the go-ahead for the tests. But sinde the newly-formed government was voted out within less than a fortnight, the tests could not be carried out. 21. The 'official' position however, was in no way reflective of the popular opinion. Contrary to the apparent support for the nuclear tests, the jingoism that accompanied the tests was hardly reflective of the popular mood in the country, particularly rural India. This was amply demonstrated by the results of the elections conducted later in 1998. Even in the September 1999 mid-term general elections, though the BJP-led coalition returned to power, the fact that the BJP could just manage to retain as many seats in the Lok Sabha as it had earlier, is a clear illustration that the party failed to gain much from the so-called euphoria about Pokhran II. 22. "PM's Statement," The Hindu, 12 May 1998. 23. "President Congratulates Scientists," The Hindu, 12 May 1998. 24. Ibid. Interestingly just a day after Gujral spelled out this unqualified adulation for the nuclear establishment he cautioned the political establishment against any euphoria and even offered his services to help the government deal with the adverse reaction from other countries. See "Gujral Sees No Cause for Celebration," The Hindu, 15 May 1998. Another former prime minister, H.D. Deve Gowda too hastened to hail the tests as an "achievement" by the scientists, but that it was "essential to promote and preserve peace not only in the neighbourhood but also in the world." See "An Essential Step Says Gowda," The Hindu, 13 May 1998. 25. "President Congratulates Scientists," Hindu.

26. Ibid. 27. "Tests, a National Achievement: Congress," The Hindu, 14 May 1998. 28. "N-question not Partisan: Sonia," The Hindu, 15 May 1998. 29. Laloo Prasad Yadav, former chief minister of Bihar and an important adversary of the hindutva brigade, too hailed the scientists for their untiring efforts of 40 long years. See "No Party Politics on National Security Issues: Laloo," The Hindu, 16 May 1998. Similarly, Mulayam Singh Yadav, a former defence minister in the United Front Government (1996-98) said his government had been "almost ready for the tests quietly [sic] and a strategy was being prepared to avoid any retaliatory actions and hostile reactions," and that it could not be done because the government soon lost power. See "Mulayam Tells Government not to Yield on CTBT," The Hindu, 16 May 1998. 30. Avoid Arms Race Pursue Disarmament," People's Democracy, 17 May 1998. 31. Sitaram Yechury, "From Jingoism to Pro-imperialist Shift in Policy," People's Democracy, 21 May 1998. The article added: "While maintaining that concerns of national security are supreme and non-negotiable, India had so far chosen not to produce nuclear weapons but to keep the nuclear option open. This was based on the confidence, as indeed these tests have proved, that as and when the need arises, we can rise to the occasion appropriately." And questioning the need for the tests, Yechury makes the following point: "In any case, we repeat, no dramatic changes were there in our security and threat perceptions during the last six weeks to require such a drastic step. In the absence of any credible explanation by the Government, one can only conclude that it was BJP's domestic political compulsion that prompted the timing and manner." 32. However, there were critical voices within the Left. Prakash Karat, another member of the politburo, writing in the same issue of People's Democracy expressed a different opinion. The commonest of follies committed by even those who do not share the BJP's jingoistic and chauvinist aims is to see the Pokhran tests purely in scientific-technological terms, divorced from the political ideological framework in which the BJP government has taken this deliberate decision According to this simplistic view point this is a symbol of India's independent assertion and growing strength which should be welcomed by all patriotic citizens. This is a dangerous illusion arising from the failure to link the drive for acquiring nuclear weapons with the Hindutva agenda of the BJP and its mentor, the RSS. Karat adds, "It is on the crest of this naivete that the BJP hopes to project itself as the only nationalist force capable of defending India's national interests....Forces like the RSS and its various outfits which do not hesitate to wield the nuclear weapon as an instrument to consolidating power and settling scores with 'Muslim Pakistan', can only push India back to barbarism." Prakash Karat, "Nuclear Weaponisation: Foil the RSS-BJP Gameplan," People's Democracy, 31 May 1998.

Chapter 12 1. The concept of 'nuclear ambiguity' refers to the longstanding policy of the Indian state to refuse to commit itself either to a stance of outright nuclear armament or to a stance of outright disarmament. For a discussion, see David Cortright and Amitabh Mattoo, "Indian Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons Policy," in India and. the Bomb, ed. David Cortright and Amitabh Mattoo (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), 3-22; and Devin Hagerty, "The Power of Suggestion: Opaque Proliferation, Existential Deterrence, and the South Asian Nuclear Arms Competition," Security Studies 2, no. 3-4 (spring-summer 1993): 256-283. 2. For a survey of these approaches, see George Perkovich, introduction to India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 1-12; and Scott Sagan, "Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons: three models in search of a bomb," International Security 21, no. 6 (winter 1996/97): 54-86. 3. For a classic statement on structural realism, see Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading: Addison Wesley, 1979). 4. See Richard Ashley, "The Poverty of Neorealism," in Neorealism and its Critics ed. Robert Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). 5. For an effective dismantling of this particular 'security' argument, see Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Nuclear Disarmament (Northampton: Interlink Publishing Group, 2000). 6. My approach is informed by the 'social constructivism' school of international relations theory, which argues that identity and interests of both state units and the overarching international structure are 'intersubjectively' constructed rather than exogenously determined by a preexisting international system. See Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), for a comprehensive discussion of this approach towards a more dynamic social-historical understanding of state sovereignty. 7. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and- Spread, of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), for a discussion of the concept of official nationalism. 8. Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 16. For a discussion of Brubaker's conception of "the nation as frame", see Srirupa Roy, "Instituting Diversity: Official Nationalism in Post-Independence India," South Asia 22, no. 1 (1999): 79-99. 9. See Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Sciencel Secrecy and- the Postcolonial State (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1999), 2021. As Abraham observes, "what the state could do was install massive, modern, awesome technological artefacts—dams, steel mills, new cities, nuclear reactors—objects embodying a different rationality, which would transform traditional landscapes through their sheer power; the hope was that the technological artefact would stand in relation to the people as a modern fetish." Indian Atomic Bomb, 20. 10. See Ashutosh Varshney, "Contested Meanings: Hindu Nationalism, India's National Identity and the Politics of Anxiety," Daedalus (summer 1993): 227-261; Amrita Basu, "The Dialectics of Hindu Nationalism," in The Success of India's Democracy ed. Atul Kohli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); and Thomas Blom Hansen, The Saffron Wave (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999). 11. For a discussion of the 'master frames' or the broad goals and ideological orientations that social movements draw upon and reproduce, see David Snow and Robert Benford, "Master Frames and Cycles of Meaning," in Frontiers in Social Movement Theory ed. A.D. Morriss and C.

McClurg-Mueller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 133-155. The concept of'frame analysis' or the manner in which societies organise and reproduce meaning is derived from the pioneering work of the sociologist Erving Goffman. See Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (London: Harper and Row, 1974). 12. The concept of an ideological formation as an 'economy of stances' is derived from the recent work of Hansen. See Hansen, The Saffron Wave, 24-25. 13. For details, see Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); and Srirupa Roy, "Divided We Stand: Diversity and National Identity in India" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1999), 82-120. 14. See Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World.: A Derivative Discourse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991). 15. Mushirul Hasan, Nationalism and Communal Politics in India, 1885-1930 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1991); Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971). 16. See Rajni Kothari, Politics and People: In search of humane India, vol. 1 (New Delhi: Ajanta Publishers, 1999), 36-58. While Kothari's discussion of the Congress system focusses on the institutional aspects of the one-party dominant system, I would like to extend this analysis to include an understanding of the ideological aspects of the 'Nehruvian' political culture that held sway in the public domain during this period. 17. In Nehru's Discovery of India, discussions of Indian unity are invariably phrased in terms of an unnameable 'geist-Yfae unifying presence that 'actually' underlies the surface-level diversity that is so readily apparent to any observer of Indian culture and history. See Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, centenary edn. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985), 35—36, for a discussion of this 'amazing' yet ultimately 'inner' (and therefore inexpressable) location of Indian unity. 18. For an insightful discussion of the dichotomisation of 'enlightened' nationalist leaders and the 'humble masses3 in the discourse of Indian nationalism, see Sanjay Seth, "Nationalism, National Identity, and 'History': Nehru's Search for India," Thesis Eleven 32 (1992) 37-54. 19. See Chatterjee, Nation and its Fragments, 200-208; and Hansen Saffron Wave, 48—49, for a discussion of the 'technocratic' construction of the Indian state as an 'antipolitical' and scientific planner that by definition transcended the profane and messy realm of 'ordinary polities'. 20. Abraham, Indian Atomic Bomb, 20—21. 21. For a discussion of the institutional culture of postcolonial Indian science, see Abraham, Indian Atomic Bomb; Zia Mian, Homi Bhabha Killed a Crow, monograph (Colombo: RCSS, 1999); Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Technobrat (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 1997); and Shiv Visvanathan, Carnival of Science (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998). 22. See Abraham, Chap 2 in Indian Atomic Bomb. 23. According to Tom Nairn, the ideology of nationalism is driven by two sets of (contradictory) imperatives: the need to prove the nation's antiquity at the same time as its novelty must be established. For a recent (and revised) statement of this, see Tom Nairn, Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited (London: Verso, 1997). 24. In the Nehruvian Vision of new India, as expressed in his speech at the inauguration of the Rehan Dam in 1963, dams would be the (contd.)"temples of modern India". Jawaharlal Nehru, speech at the opening of the Nangal canal, 8 July 1954, in Jawaharlal Nehru's Speeches, vol. 3 (New Delhi: Government of India, 1958), 353. 25. See Abraham, Indian Atomic Bomb and Mian, Homi Bhabha. 26. Abraham, Indian Atomic Bomb, 17—21. 27. For the political theorist Michel Foucault, power relations should be understood in terms of the 'productive' aspects and abilities of 'disciplinary' power, rather than its 'negative' or 'juridical' aspects. Power should not be understood in simplistic binary terms of domination versus resistance; instead we should pay attention to the ways in which often invisible (yet insidious) 'microcapillaries' of power work to constitute or produce social life in a way that renders impossible the notion of effective resistance from a position 'outside' power relations. See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), for a classic statement on disciplinary power; and Timothy Mitchell, "The Limits of the State: Beyond statist approaches and their critics," American Political Science Review 85 (1991): 77-96, for an original and persuasive application of the Foucauldian approach to state- society relations 28. See Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 189-227; and Haider Khan Nizamani, "Rewriting Third World Security: A comparative study of nuclear discourse in India and Pakistan" (Ph.D. diss., University of British Columbia, 1997), 86-105. 29. Nizamani, "Rewriting Third World Security," 86-105. 30. Article 356 in the Indian Constitution allows the imposition of 'President's Rule' in states in certain exceptional circumstances. Under its provisions, the state government is dismissed and the central government assumes responsibility for governance, through its appointee, the state governor. While one of the chief architects of the Indian Constitution, B.R. Ambedkar had expressed the hope that this article would be a 'dead letter' that would be used very sparingly, and while the first two decades of the Indian republic saw only 10 instances of President's rule, in the post- Nehruvian period (from 1967 until 2000), it has been imposed a total of 84 times in 24 states. (Constituent Assembly Debates, vol. 9, 177.) In 1994, a Supreme Court decision was handed down in an attempt to specify the circumstances under which Article 356 could be invoked. The Bommai decision unambiguously reserves the 'final word' on whether law and order has been compromised and whether there is a threat to 'national interest or security' to the central government, and all checks and balances that exist are contained within this central level (the Supreme Court, the president, and the prime minister). 31. Bal Thackeray, quoted in New York Times, 13 May 1998.

32. In an important contribution to the discussion about the 'non-nuclear' origins of the pro-nuclear attitude of Indian elites, Vanaik argues that the liberalisation of the Indian economy beginning in the late 1980s resulted in considerable socioeconomic upheaval and generated new sets of social-economic insecurities. In this context, the valorisation of the bomb can be seen as an attempt to resolve (individual and group) insecurity through the acquisition of (international) 'status'. Achin Vanaik, paper presented at the SSRC-IPS workshop on Science, Society, and the Bomb in South Asia, Dhaka, February 1999. See a similar discussion of the 'status-driven' nature of the Indian nuclear programme in Amitav Ghosh, Countdown (New Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 1998), 106. 33. M.V. Ramana, "Toward a Just Peace," Social Science Research Council Newsletter 12 (May 1999). 34. For South Asian Citizens Web, see http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex; and for South Asians for Peace, http://www.egroups.com/groups/sap. 35. Of course, India—Pakistan relations have dramatically worsened since the nuclear tests, as a result of the Kargil war of 1999. As many analysts rightly argue, the possession of nuclear capability by the two states was a condition of possibility for the events in Kargil, demonstrating yet again the hollowness of the concept of nuclear deterrence, a concept that ultimately begs the question of what exactly is being deterred. As Kargil demonstrates, the waging of 'conventional' war clearly suffers no setback when states 'go nuclear'. 36. In 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published on its cover a graphic of an 'atomic clock' which would symbolise how close the world was to nuclear destruction. The hands were originally set at seven minutes to midnight (the 'last quadrant' of time), and in the intervening years, there have been sixteen changes in position to indicate significant changes (contd.!) in the nuclear status quo, as more states 'went nuclear' (the hands would be moved forward) or as progress was made towards nuclear disarmament (the hands would be moved back). The last change was made in June 1998, when the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests moved the world five minutes closer to the nuclear midnight—the present time is set at nine minutes to midnight. For a discussion of the clock's conception and history, see chttp://www/bullatomsci .org/ clock.html>. 37. This is a term coined by Jonathan Rauch, who builds on the work of Mancur Olson to argue that the proliferation of 'single-issue' groups impedes and 'chokes' the democratic process. See Jonathan Rauch, Demosclerosis (New York: Times Books, 1994). 38. Prime Minister Vajpayee listed the nuclear tests of 1998, the 'victory' in Kargil in 1999, and the Sardar Sarovar Dam project as the three distinguished contributions of his government. Vinay Kumar, "People cheer as work on Narmada dam resumes," The Hindu, 1 November 2000. 39. Of course, this does not mean that such activities do not take place outside New Delhi. However, these efforts are often less visible, in large part due to the way in which 'national' media coverage is geographically circumscribed, conflating the nation with events and situations unfolding within the capital city. 40. The distinction between 'arboreal' and 'rhizomatic' practices is derived from Deleuze and Guattari. As they argue in their indictment of 'arboreal' practices of identity-formation, "[t]o be rhizomorphous is to produce stems and filaments that seem to be roots, or better yet connect with them by penetrating the trunk, but put them to strange new uses. We're tired of trees. We should stop believing in trees, roots, and radicles. They've made us suffer too much. All of arborescent culture is founded on them, from biology to linguistics." See Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 15.

Chapter 13 1. George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), 74-79. 2. See Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1999), 143-144. 3. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 451. 4. In March 2000, at a seminar at the Delhi School of Economics on nuclear weaponisation in South Asia, two members of the NSAB, both economists, observed that a presentation of an earlier version of this essay was the first that they had seen of the costs of nuclear weaponisation in India. In other words, the NSAB had not conducted even a rudimentary cost exercise when it was drawing up India's nuclear doctrine. 5. Abraham, Indian Atomic Bomb, 143—144, 6. There have been a number of other estimates made over the years. For example: (1) A US government estimate made in 1966, apparently as part of an exercise to persuade India not to go nuclear. (Declassified cable to US Embassy in New Delhi, 24 May 1966,http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive/NSAEBB/NSAEBB6/index.html). (2) A 1983 seminar in New Delhi which heard one speaker mention Rs 3,600 crore a year ($330 million at the prevailing exchange rates) over a decade and another talk of $5 billion a year over 15 years. See Bhabani Sen Gupta, Nuclear Weapons: Policy Options for India (New Delhi: Sage, 1985), 111-115. (3) In 1987 a media report placed the cost of a 150-bomb arsenal between $500 million to $1.5 billion a year over a decade. See "India-Pakistan Nuclear Weapon Issue Discussed," India Today, 31 March 1987, cited in Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 283. (4) In 1992, the well-known strategic analyst K. Subramhanyam estimated that it would cost India Rs 10,000 crore and take seven years to build a small arsenal with a mobile delivery system. K. Subrahmanyam, quoted in Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 327. (5) In 1998, the Movement for Indian Nuclear Disarmament (MIND) estimated the cost of nuclear weaponisation at Rs 40,000 crore. This was largely an update of a 1985 government committee report (discussed later in this paper) with some assumptions of import content and the cost of a C3I system. See Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament, "Nuclear Arms, the Budget and the Economy," 1998, http://www.angelfire.com/mi/MIND123/BUDGET.html 7. A lakh is 100,000; and a crore is 100 lakh. A million is 10 lakh; and 100 crore make a billion. 8. A detailed discussion of the debate can be found in Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, 74-80. 9. Major General D. Som Dutt, "India and the Bomb," Adelphi Papers no. 30 (International Institute of Strategic Studies, London, November 1966). 10. K. Sub rahmanyam, "Indian Nuclear Policy, 1964—98—A Personal Recollection," in Nuclear India, ed. Jasjit Singh (New Delhi: Knowledge World in association with Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 1998), 41. Interestingly, the author notes without comment that the

committee which included senior members of the armed forces, atomic energy and defence research establishments "produced a report within a couple of weeks after intensive deliberations." "India's Nuclear Policy," 41. 11. Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2000), 301. 12. Ibid., 301. 13. Ibid., 302-303. 14. Brigadier Vijai K. Nair, Nuclear India (New Delhi: Lancer, 1992). 15. General K. Sundarji, "Minimum Nuclear Deterrence," The Hindu, 11 January 1991. 16. General K. Sundarji, "Imperatives of Indian Minimum Nuclear Deterrence," Agni 2, no. 1 (1996): 17-22. 17. General K. Sundarji, Blind Men of Hindoostan (New Delhi: Vikas, 1987). 18. Bharat Karnad, "A Thermonuclear Deterrent," in India's Nuclear Deterrent: Pokhran II and Beyond, ed. Amitabh Mattoo (New Delhi: HarAnand, 1998), 108-14919. Ibid., 147. 20. Indian Nuclear Doctrine (New Delhi: National Security Advisory Board, August 1999). 21. "India shall pursue a doctrine of credible minimum nuclear deterrence. In this policy of'retaliation only', the survivability of our arsenal is (contd.) critical." dIND, para 2.3. "India will not be the first to initiate a nuclear strike, but will respond with punitive retaliation should deterrence fail." dIND, para 2.5. 22. Statement by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the Lok Sabha, 15 December 1998. 23. dIND, paras 2.6, 3.1, and 5.6. 24. dIND, paras 2-5. 25. See for, example, Major General Dutt, "India and the Bomb"; Brigadier Nair, Nuclear India\ General Sundarji, "Imperatives of Indian Nuclear Deterrence"; Kanti Bajpai, "The Fallacy of an Indian Deterrent," in India's Nuclear Deterrent, 150—188; and Rear Admiral Raja Menon, A Nuclear Strategy for India (New Delhi: Sage, 2000). 26. It is interesting to observe that as far back as the 1950s, some decisions were being taken at least partly from the point of view of keeping the nuclear option open. Itty Abraham in his history of the Indian nuclear programme notes that one of the arguments used in the 1950s by Raja Ramanna, later chief of the AEC, to convince Homi Bhabha of the desirability of India using the natural-uranium heavy-water route for power generation was that it would produce plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons (this is in addition to the fact that if India took this route the country's resources of natural uranium would enable it to be self-reliant in its nuclear power programme): "Further, natural uranium reactors gave us the nuclear option, as India's relationship with several countries was strained." Raja Ramanna, quoted in Abraham, Indian Atomic Bomb, 121. The 1950s were the decade of close friendship between India and China though relations with Pakistan had been strained since independence. But it is noteworthy that back then senior scientists in the nuclear establishment were making arguments that even indirectly involved making the bomb. (See also M.V. Ramana "La Trahison des Clercs: Scientists and India's Nuclear Bomb," this volume.) 27. Mark Gorwitz, "The Indian SSN Project: An Open Literature Analysis," 1996, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/india/sub/ssn/index.html.. 28. "Indian Nuclear Submarine Programme Languishing," The Hindustan Times, 28 October 1998. 29. Costs incurred in other countries are not always the best indicators because salary and wage costs are much lower in India. And research and development costs — a major component in development of warheads, missiles and satellites — consist of large salary costs. But at the same time costs in other 'advanced' countries are lower because of inputs from other sectors of the economy, in particular electronics and a more advanced defence industry. Thus, development costs are frequently higher in India. However, international comparisons are occasionally made in the exercise, as a cross-check. 30. A 25 per cent increment to total investment costs is used in the MIND estimate of Indian expenditure. In the comprehensive 1998 study conducted at the Brookings Institution of US costs between 1944 and 1996, overhead costs in some categories like defences, and command and control, varied between 7 and 11 per cent. However, operating expenses as defined in the study could be as high as between 55 per cent (in nuclear weapons material production) and 80 per cent of total costs (in nuclear weapons research, testing, development and production). See Stephen Schwartz ed., Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 197, 270 and 559—566. This study is referred to hereafter as the 'Brookings study'. 31. 'In the cold logic of nuclear planning, 10 Chinese and 5 Pakistani cities will be targeted with three bombs for each city. Alter allowing for reserves and potential destruction during a first strike, the total requirement is placed at 125 to 150 nuclear bombs. See both General Sundarji, "Minimum Nuclear Deterrence"; and Brigadier Nair, Nuclear India. 32. The upper range of estimates is 55—110 and has been made by M.V. Ramana and A.H. Nayyar, "India, Pakistan and the Bomb," Scientific American (December 2001): 60-71. The lower range of estimates has been made by R. Ramachandran, "Pokhran II: The Scientific Dimensions," in India's Nuclear Deterrent, 34—458; and a mid-range of 60 bombs by David Albright, "India and Pakistan's Fissile Material and Nuclear Weapons Inventory, end of 1998," (Institute of Science and International Security, 1999). 33. M.V. Ramana, personal communication.

34. "Govt. Proposes to Build another Reactor': Statement in Parliament," The Hindustan Times, 16 December 199935. G.G. Mirchandani and P.K.S. Namboodiri, Nuclear India—A Technological Assessment (New Delhi: Vision Books, 1981), 46—48. 36. The Economic Times, 20 May 1998. 37. Unless otherwise indicated all estimates by General Sundarji are from "Imperatives of Nuclear Deterrence"; by Brigadier Nair from Nuclear India.; while data from Admiral L. Ramdas are from personal communication. 38. Schwartz, Atomic Audit, 94-98. 39. Stephen Schwartz, personal communication. 40. M.V. Ramana, "Economics of Nuclear Power from Fast Breeder Reactors in India," (paper presented at a seminar at the Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research, Mumhai, 20 August 2001). Also personal communication. 41. Bajpai, "Fallacy of an Indian Deterrent," 164-165. 42. "Govt okays longer-range Agni missiles," The Times of India, 1 June 2001. 43. "Nuclear-powered Submarines: India's Strategic Trump Card," Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 June 1998. 44. Andrew Hull, ' 'In Search of the Real SagarikaJane's Intelligence Review, 1 July 1998. 45. See "ATV: All at sea before it hits the water," Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 June 1998; "India's Submarine Plans," Foreign Report, 5 November 1998; "India inching towards indigenously built N-powered submarines," The Times of India, 3 October 1998; Mark Gorwitz, "The Indian SSN Project." 46. See "Submarine-based n-capability vital," interview of Navy Chief, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, The Hindu, 2 October 1998. Also see General Sundarji, Blind Men ofHindoostan-, and Brigadier Nair, Nuclear India. Admiral Bhagwat in the interview said: "It [a nuclear-powered submarine] is the only way out for a nation committed to a no-first use. The world has no better vehicle for ensuring second strike or retaliatory capability than the nuclear submarine. These are, of course, principles we are theorising about " 47. Rear Admiral Menon talks of a fleet of 6 nuclear submarines {Nuclear Strategy, 226—227). Brigadier Nair writes of a fleet of a minimum of 5, including making allowance for maintenance, port calls etc. {Nuclear India, 171). 48. Air Marshal S.K. Kaul, former chief of Indian Air Force, personal communication; and Admiral Ramdas, personal communication. 49. The cost of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited assembling the Sukhoi aircraft under the agreement is placed at Rs 150 crore per aircraft; and the whole programme, to be carried out in Orissa, is estimated to cost Rs 20,000 crore. "Indian Sukhois," Moscow Times., 29 January 2002. 50. Other proposals include acquistion of mid-air refuelling aircraft. "IAF to get mid-air refeulling aircraft," The Hindustan Times, 6 August 2001. 51. "New Missile Group to be Raised for Agni-II," The Hindustan Times, 3 August 2001. 52. In 1990 it was reported that Bharat Dynamics would produce Prithvi at an annual production rate of 40—50 missiles. (See I. Banerjie, "The Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme," Indian Defence Review, July 1990, 99—108.) A later estimate mentions a production rate of 3 missiles a month, about 35 a year. G.J. Gerardi, "India's 333rd Prithvi Missile Group," Jane's Intelligence Review 7, no. 8, (1995): 361-364. 53. G. Balachandran, personal communication; General Sundarji, "Indian Minimum Nuclear Deterrent." 54. Brigadier Nair, Nuclear India, 207; Admiral Ramdas, personal communication. 55. “India to Prime its Missile Programme with ‘Surya’,” Press Trust of India, October 1999 56. "3,000-km Agni Ready," Deccan Chronicle, 23 September 2000, reporting on discussions between tbe Defence Minister, George Fernandes, and tbe Parliamentary Defence Committee. 57. Gorowitz, "Indian SSN Project," cites Indian media reports placing tbe cost in mid-1996 at $1 billion, whicb at the currency rates of that time is equivalent to Rs 3,500 crore. 58. Rear Admiral Menon, Nuclear Strategy, 227; Admiral Ramdas, personal communication. 59. For a detailed discussion of C4I2 in India see Zia Mian "A Nuclear Tiger by tbe Tail: Problems of Command and Control in South Asia," this volume. 60. See for example Neil Joeck, "Maintaining Nuclear Stability in South Asia," Adelphi Paper no. 312 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1997). 61. See Kapil Kak, "Command and Control of Small Nuclear Arsenals," in Nuclear India. And also General Sundarji, "Minimum Nuclear Deterrence"; and "Imperatives of Minimum Nuclear Deterrence." 62. Kapil Kak who argues for a very modest system does not for instance see any role for early warning systems in the Indian arsenal. Kak, "Command and Control," 284.

63. G. Balachandran on the other hand suggests that an adequate C4I2 can be had for as little as Rs 1,000 crore. Personal communication. 64. "India eyes $3.75 billion nuclear command plan," Defense News, 17 January 2000. 65. “India to spend $95 billion on arms in next 15 years,” The Times of India, 14 June 2001. The news item cites US media reports. 66. M.V. Ramana, personal communication; Prof. S. Chandrasekhar, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, personal communication. 67. Prof. S. Chandrasekhar, personal communication. 68. V.K. Atre, scientific advisor to the Defence Ministry, quoted in "Electronic systems alone cannot stop incursions." The Hindu, 22 April 2000. 69. N.K. Pant, "Shared space for war and peace," The Telegraph, 22 August 2001; "New Indian satellite could provide military surveillance," 23 October 2001, www.newscientist.com. 70. "JaPan plans $1.7 billion spy satellite," BBC News Online, 30 October 1998. 71. 'But Schwartz, one of the authors of Atomic Audit, feels that this may be on the low side. However, his comparison is with the expensive (and over-designed?) US satellites. Personal communication. 72. "lsrael, India forge strategic relationship," The Christian Science Monitor, 18 January 2002, http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0118/p06s03wosc.html; "Russian airframes for IAF AWACS 'almost' ready," The Hindu, 18 January 2002. 73. Manoj Joshi, "Dubious Shield," India Today, 19 October 1998. 74. See Issue no. 48 of India-Pakistan Arms and Military Watch http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/messages. See, for an earlier proposal on the same system, Wing Commander N.K. Pant, "Russian Arms in Indian Forces," http://www.ipcs.org/issues/articles/549-mi-pant.html. 75. "Indo-Israeli partnership for new missile shield," The Hindu, 6 September 2001. 76. "India poised to test-launch ICBM," report, 4, May 2001 Rediff.com, cited in Defense News. This report suggests that India has been working on the ICBM Surya since 1994. A 2002 media report says the DRDO is aiming for a test launch of a 6,000-km Surya in 2004. ("Nuclear Weapons at Core of Some Modernisation Efforts," Defense News, 3 June 2002.) 77. In the case of France: "Overall, the seven submarines commissioned since 1972 have cost over FF370 billion....That type of figure never makes it into parliamentary reports, because the drafters never take account of the whole range of costs that rocket-launching submarines entail. For example.. .they are always escorted by other submarines carrying conventional torpedoes to defend them and numerous sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft to guide them?" Bruno Bariollot, "Researcher Reveals Cost of Nuclear Deterrent Programme," interview in Paris Le Nouvel Observatuer, 18 February 1999. Lt. Gen. V.R. Raghavan, (personal communication), a former Director General of Military Operations, and now a defence analyst, argues that an Indian submarine fleet will need 'a small protective' fleet to ensure the survival of the submarines. This is the view of Admiral Ramdas as well. 78. If this is the cost of future weaponisation, what possibly will a full costing of the entire weaponisation programme amount to in India? Once past costs are included, beginning with the production of plutonium in the nuclear power reactors, we may end up with a figure in current prices in excess of Rs 100,000 crore—equivalent to 10 per cent of India's GDP in 1998-99. 79. Rs 8.6 to a US dollar. World Development Indicators, 2001 (Washington D.C.: World Bank, 2001), 291. 80. Interestingly, this estimate of a 0.5 per cent of GDP annual outlay on nuclear weaponisation is of an order of magnitude that has been otherwise mentioned. A decade ago General Sundarji suggested that an Indian nuclear deterrent could be assembled with an expenditure of 0.5 to one per cent of GDP—though his programme did not include a complex C*I2 system. In early 2000, media reports of a government committee's estimates also mentioned the same figure: a study done for the Eleventh Finance Commission of the Government of India placed the annual burden of weaponisation at 0.5 per cent of GDP. See "Report moots 3-5 per cent of GDP as defence spending," The Business Standard, 25 February 2000). 81. A11 figures on Government of India expenditure, receipts and taxes are from the budget documents of the relevant years. 82. We should note that this is only one component of total government outlay on education, since the state governments too have separate budgets for education. 83. As in education, central government spending on health is only a fraction of total public expenditure on health. But the central government outlay is a crucial component of spending on public health programmes like prevention and cure of tuberculosis, malaria, HIV/AIDS, leprosy and other illnesses; the central government is the main funder of public research and training in medical health; and the outlay finances the leading allIndia institutes of health care and education. 84. Estimates made by two government committees cited in Public Report on Basic Education (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), 135. 85. The Constitution (Ninety-Third Amendment) Bill, 2001; Bill no. 106 (New Delhi: Lok Sabha, 2001), 4. 86. Schwaitz, Atomic Audit, 194. 87. Ibid. For inter-service rivalry on delivery systems, anti-satellite programmes and more in the 1950s and 1960s see pages 128, 278 and 29988. Ibid„ 189.

89. "More hydrogen and neutron bomb tests needed," Press Trust of India, 24 July 2000. 90. "Indian Air Force Advocates First Strike Capability," Defense Week, 2 January 2001. 91. Ibid. 92. "India has 'problems' managing nuclear arms," The Hindu, 14 August 2001. 93. For a discussion of the US experience in this regard, see Atomic Audit, 20-22. 94. Michael Attiyah, President of the Royal Society, is quoted as saying that "history would show that the UK's insistence on a nuclear capability was fundamentally misguided, a total waste of resources "and a significant factor in Britain's relative economic decline over the past 50 years."" "Leading UK scientist atacks arms trade," The Guardian, 1 January 1995. 95. See “India to lease Russian nuclear submarines,” The Hindu, 28 January 2002; “Indo-Israeli partnership for new missile shield,” The Hindu, 6 September 2001; “India, Israel discuss new military purchases, Jerusalem Middle East Newsline, April 2001 http://www.menewssline.com .(contd.) "Defence Cooperation: The India-Russia Military Equipment Relationship," The Statesman, 26 November 2001; and "Indo-Russia Missile Tested," The Hindu, 13 June 2001. 96. India to spend $95 bn." 97. "Economic Implications of the Acquisition and Further Development of Nuclear Weapons," in Basic Problems of Disarmament: Reports of the Secretary-General (New York: United Nations, 1970), 99-108. 98. Schwartz, Atomic Audit, xxii. This excludes projected future costs of dismantling nuclear weapons, waste management and environmental repair. Once these items are included the figure goes up to $5,821.1 billion (1996 prices). 99. Ibild., 3. 100. Bruno Barrillot, Audit Atorruque: Le Cout de L'arsenal Nucleaire Francais, 1945-2010 (Lyon: CDRPC, 1999). Summary translation provided by author, personal communication, 1999. 101. Camille Grand, "French Nuclear Policy after the Cold War: How to Combine Deterrence and Arms Control," Strategic Analysis, July 1998. 102. John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 107-108. 103. The Brookings researchers have translated this amount into the equivalent of $28 billion at 1996 prices. Scwhartz, Atomic Audit, 613. 104. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, 108. 105. Scwhartz, Atomic Audit, 611—612. 106. Cited in Atomic Audit, 614. 107. Jasjit Singh, "The challenges of strategic defence," Frontline, 14 April 1998. 108. Schwartz, Atomic Audit, 615. 109. Basic Problems of Disarmament, 147. 110. Thomas W. Graham, "The Economics of Producing Nuclear Weapons in Nth Countries," in Strategies for Managing Nuclear Proliferation— Economic and Political Issues ed. D.L. Brito, M.D. Intriligator and A.E. Wick (Lexington: Lexington Press, 1983). 111. A great deal of this exercise was based on the Indian costs, or rather estimates of Indian costs up to and after Pokhran I. It is interesting though that this was perhaps the first study to carry out a detailed accounting of past costs of the entire Indian nuclear programme—from mining of uranium, to reprocessing of spent fuel. The Graham estimate is that over a quarter of century from 1954 onwards India spent the equivalent of $2.4 billion (in which year's prices is not specified) on all components of its programme. 112. A couple of other references and studies can be mentioned here. For example, the US Department of Defense, in 1962, estimated the cost to a country wanting to acquire a 'modest' arsenal. See Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 100. Also see Leonard Beaton, A World, of Nuclear Powers? (The American Assembly, Prentice-Hall, 1966), cited in Major General Dutt, "India and the Bomb."

Chapter 14 1. Sukumar Muralidharan and John Cherian, "The BJP's Bombs," Frontline 23 May 1998. 2. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and. its Health and Environmental Effects (Cambridge, USA: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995). Also see Arjun Makhijani, "Making the Bomb: Without Consent, With Injury," The Hindu Survey of the Environment (May 1999): 21-27. 3. "Secretary Richardson Announces Proposal to Compensate Thousands of Sick Workers," US Department of Energy Press Release, 12 April 2000; also available at http://tis.eh.doe.gov/portal/feature/pr00103.htm.

4. In the late 1950s, over a quarter of all resources devoted to science and technology development in the country went to the DAE. Though it was subsequently overtaken by the Department of Space, the total amount spent on the DAE, the Defence Research and Development Organisation, and the Department of Space has been increasing as a fraction of all government research and development budgets. In the late 1980s, for example, the proportion was over 60 per cent of the total. See Itty Abraham, "Security, Technology and Ideology: 'Strategic Enclaves' in Brazil and India, 1945-1989" (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1993), 177. 5. Vipin Gupta and Frank Pabian, "Investigating the Allegations of Indian Nuclear Test Preparations in the Rajasthan Desert: A CTBT Verification Exercise Using Commercial Satellite Imagery," Science and Global Security 6 (1996): 101-189. 6. Paucity, however, does not mean absence. There is a small but growing trend of outsiders challenging the nuclear and defence establishments on technical grounds, which needs to be further encouraged. See M.V. Ramana, "La Trahison des Clercs: Scientists and India's Nuclear Bomb," this volume. 7. See M. Rama Jois, "Hazards Arising from Nuclear Plants: Tbe Right to Information," in Nuclear Energy and Public Safety ed. Vinod Gaur (New Delhi: Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, 1996), 102-113. 8. The text of the Atomic Energy Act is available on the internet at http://www.dae.gov.in/rules/aeact.htm. 9. Buddhi Kota Subbarao, "India's Nuclear Prowess: False Claims and Tragic Truths," Manushi 109 (November-December 1998); also available at http://www.freespeech.org/manushi/109/nuke.Ktrril. For an application of these provisions to an individual critical of the nuclear establishment see M.S. Siddhu, "Victimised by the Official Secrets Act: the story of Dr. B.K. Subbarao," Manushi 108 (September-October 1998); also available at http://www.freespeech.org/manushi/108/subbprof.html. 10. J. Carson Mark, "Explosive Properties of Reactor-Grade Plutonium," Science and Global Security 4, no. 1 (1993): 111-124; US National Academy of Sciences, Management and. Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium (Washington D.C.: National Academy Press, 1994), 32; US Department of Energy, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Assessment of Weapons-usable Fissile Material Storage and Excess Plutonium Disposition Alternatives (Washington D.C.: US Department of Energy, 1997), 37. 11. US Department of Energy, Additional Information Concerning Nuclear Weapon Test of Reactor-Grade Plutonium, Openness Press Conference, Washington D.C., 27 June 1994; also available at http://www.osti.gov/html/osti/opennet/document/press/pc29.html. 12. R. Ramachandran, "Pokharan II: The Scientific Dimensions," in India's Nuclear Deterrent: Pokharan II and Beyond ed. Amitabh Mattoo (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 1999), 34-61. 13. International Commission on Radiological Protection, 1990 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1991), 22. 14. See for example "Radiation Exposure Limits," Nuclear India, March 2000; also available at http://www.dae.gov.in/ni/mar2000/mar2000.htm>. 15. For example, the stated figures for argon 41 releases from the Madras Atomic Power Station in 1990 vary by 37.5 per cent. See E. Chandrasekharan, V. Rajagopal, M.A.R. Iyengar and S. Yenkatram, "Dose Estimates due to Argon-41 in the Kalpakkam Environment," Bulletin of Radiation Protection 15, no. 1 (January—March 1992): 18-19; and I.S. Bhat, M.A.R. Iyengar, R.P. Gurg, S. Krishnamony and K.C. Pillai, "Environmental impact of PHWR type power stations—India experience," Conference Proceedings on Small and Medium Scale Nuclear Reactors, New Delhi, 1991, 532—539. Since there is one author (M.A.R. Iyengar) who is a co-author in both papers, this is even more inexplicable. 16. ''"Nuclear Power in India: A White Elephant?" Business India, 4 September 1978, 20-35. 17. Chuck Hansen, US Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History (Arlington: Aerofax, 1988), 32. 18. Brian Barker et al., "Monitoring Nuclear Tests," Science 281 (25 September 1998): 1967-68. 19. India does claim to have done some amount of uranium enrichment at the Rare Materials Plant at Rattehalli near Mysore. However, since uranium enrichment is not the focus of the Indian bomb-making efforts, we shall not consider it here. 20. T.S. Gopi Rethinaraj, "Tritium Breakthrough brings India closer to an H-bomb Arsenal "Jane's Intelligence Review, January 1998, 29-31. 21. There are three chief forms of ionising radiation from radioactive substances—alpha, beta and gamma radiation. For details see Thomas George, "The Last Deadly Sin: Effects of Nuclear Weapons on Humans," this volume. 22. United Nations Scientific Committee on the.Effects of Atomic Radiation, Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation: UNSCEAR 1993 Report to the General Assembly (New York: United Nations, 1993), 390. 23. Committee on Health Risks of Exposure to Radon (BEIR VI), Health Effects of Exposure to Radon (Washington D.C.: National Academy Press, 1999), 110. 24. Ibid., 270. 25. T.S. Subramaniam and. Suhrid Sankar Cbattopadbyay, "From Ore to Yellow Cake," Frontline, 10 September 1999. 26. Aziz ur Rahman and Jayanta Basu, "Living in death shadow," Sunday, 4 April 1999. 27. This is at the Jaduguda mines, the richest uranium deposit; see Sanjib Chandra Sarkar, Geology and Ore Mineralisation of the Singhbhum copper-uranium belt, Eastern India (Calcutta: Jadavpur University, 1984), 19328. Merril Eisenbud and Thomas Gesell, Environmental Radioactivity (San Diego: Academic Press, 1997), 206.

29. Peter Diehl, "Uranium Mining and Milling Wastes: An Introduction," World Information Service on Energy website, http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/uwai.html>. 30. World Information Service on Energy website http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/mdaf.btml>. 31. A.K. Singh, D. Sengupta and Rajendra Prasad, "Radon Exhalation Rate and Uranium Estimation in Rock Samples from Bihar Uranium and Copper Mines using the SSNTD Technique," Applied Radiation and Isotopes 51 (1999): 107-113. 32. A.U. Sonawane et al., "New ICRP Dose Limit and Prospects for its Implementation in Nuclear Fuel Cycle," Bulletin of Radiation Protection 15, no. 1 (January—March 1992): 10-12. 33. "A Deformed Existence," Down to Earth, 15 June 1999; also available at http://www.oneworld.org/cse/html/dte/dte9906l5/dte_srep.html. 34. Buddha Weeps in Jaduguda, documentary film, Krittika Films, Ranchi, 1999 35. See for example Beate Ritz, "Radiation Exposure and Cancer Mortality in Uranium Processing Workers," Epidemiology 10, no. 5 (September 1999): 531-538. 36. SP. Aruna Prabhavati et al., "Sister-chromatid Exchanges in Nuclear Fuel Workers," Mutation Research 347 (1995): 31-35. Sister chromatid exchanges are reciprocal interchanges of the two chromatid arms within a single chromosome. 37. R.C. Sharma et al., "Inferences from Thorax Counting on Selected Occupational Workers of Nuclear Fuel Complex," Bulletin of Radiation Protection 10, no. 1 and 2 (January—June 1987): 121—124. Though not specified, it appears that this limit is based on the radiation dose delivered rather than- the chemical toxicity. See for example Shiv Datta et al., "Computations of Uranium Burden Buildups in the Body Organs of Occupational Workers," Bulletin of Radiation Protection 10, no. 1 and 2 (January-June 1987): 37-40. 38. "Nuclear Horror," The Hindu, 14 October 1999. 39. Sonawane et al., "New ICRP Dose Limit," 10-12. 40. Ibid. 41. U.C. Mishra and S. Krishnamony, "Radiation Protection and Environmental Impact from Nuclear Power Plants," Indian Journal of Power and River Valley Development: Development in Nuclear Power Generation Number (October-November 1994): 332-346. 42. M.R. Srinivasan, "Thirty Reactor Years of Maintenance Experience—An Introspection," in Selected Lectures of Dr M.R. Srinivasan (Mumbai: Bbabba Atomic Research Centre, 1990), 78-85. 43. International Atomic Energy Agency, Operating Experience ivith Nuclear Power Stations in Member States in 1997 (Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency, 1998), 317-319 44. See M.V. Ramana, "Disturbing Questions," Frontline, 4 June 1999 45. Operating Experience with Nuclear Power Stations, 301-320. 46. See Nayan Chanda, "The Perils of Power," Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 February 1999; and T.S. Gopi Rethinaraj, "In the Comfort of Secrecy," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 55, no. 6 (November/December 1999): 52-57. 47. For a list of nuclear-related accidents see the list put out by Greenpeace on the internet at http://www.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/chernob/rep02.html 48. This study has been published in detail in a special issue on Rawatbhata in Anumukti 6, no. 5 (April/May 1993): 2—32. Extracts from the study have been published in International Perspectives in Public Health 10 (1994). See also Sanghamitra Gadekar and Surendra Gadekar, "Rawatbhata," in Nuclear Energy and Public Safety, 57—87. 49. Rupa Cbinai, The Sunday Observer, 6 September 1992 (also available at http://members.tripod.com/-no_nukes_sa/other.html); and "Villagers at Risk from Atom Leak, Experts Claim," The Daily Telegraph, 6 July 1995. 50. Bhat et al., "Environmental impact of PHWR type power stations." 51. Ann MacLachlan, "India's Kalpakkam Plant can reprocess mixed-carbide fUel from FBTR," Nuclear Fuel (3 June 1985): 11. 52. Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris and Oleg A. Bukharin, Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), 109-113. 53. Richard Stone, "Retracing Mayak's Radioactive Cloud," Science (8 January 1999): 164. 54. Steve Fetter and Frank von Hippel, "The Hazard from Plutonium Dispersal by Nuclear-warhead Accidents," Science and Global Security 2, no. 1 (1990): 21-41. 55. Len Ackland, "The Day we almost Lost Denver," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 55, no. 4 (July/August 1999): 58-65. 56. D.R. Stephens, Source Terms for Plutonium Aerosolization from Nuclear Weapons Accidents, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Report UCRL- ID-119303 (n.d.); John M. Haschke, Evaluation of Source-Term for Plutonium Aerosolization, Los Alamos National Laboratory Report LA1231 (1992).

57. Zia Mian, M.V. Ramana and R. Rajaraman, "Risks and Consequences of Nuclear Weapons Accidents in South Asia/' Princeton University/Center for Energy and Environmental Studies Report no. 326 (September 2000); also available at http://www.princeton.edu:80/cees/arms/index.shtml. 58. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Plutonium: Deadly Gold of the Nuclear Age (Cambridge, USA: International Physicians Press, 1992), 50. 59. Nuclear Wastelands, 62. 60. Robert S. Norris and William M. Arkin, "Known Nuclear Tests Worldwide, 1945—98," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 54, no. 6 (November/ December 1998): 65-67. 61. Andrei D. Sakharov, "Radioactive Carbon from Nuclear Explosions and Nonthreshold Biological Effects," Atomic Energy (USSR) 4, no. 6 (June 1958), reproduced in Science and Global Security 1 (1990): 175—187. 62. C.R. Schoengold, M.E. DeMarre and E.M. Kirkwood, Radiological Effluents Released from U.S. Continental Tests 1961 through 1992 DOE/NV317 (Las Vegas: Bechtel Nevada, 1996). 63. Donald J. Bradley, Behind, the Nuclear Curtain: Radioactive Waste Management in the Former Soviet Union (Columbus, USA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory/Batelle Press, 1997), 506. 64. Amar De, "In Pokhran, their Eyes are Burning, Noses Bleeding," The Economic Times, 21 May 1998. 65. Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress, The Containment of Underground Nuclear Explosions (Washington D.C.: Office of Technology Assessment, 1989)66. Barton C. Hacker, Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing 1947-1974, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 248. 67. More precisely, the Pu ion-exchange factor = ratio of velocity of ions to velocity of water = ICH; see Bernard L. Cohen, "High Level Radioactive Waste," Reviews of Modern Physics 49, no. 1 (January 1977): 1-20. 68. A. Kersting et al., "Migration of Plutonium in Ground Water at the Nevada Test Site," Nature 397, no. 6714 (7 January 1999): 56-59. 69. United States Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office, Final Impact Statement for the Nevada Test Site and OjfSite Locations in the State of Nevada, Summary, August 1996, S-21. 70. Rosalie Bertell, personal communication to Surendra Gadekar.

Chapter 15 1. 'This section is based on the analysis presented in NATO Handbook on tbe Medical Aspects of NBC Defensive Operations, December 1999, http://www.nbc-med.org. 2. The energy (or radiation) that results from nuclear disintegration may be a combination of several types, each having a characteristic mass and electrical charge. Gamma rays are photons like light or x rays but have higher energy. They have neither mass nor charge. Beta rays are electrons with positive or negative charge moving at very high speeds. Alpha rays are positively charged helium nuclei, moving at high speeds. Excess neutrons may be ejected from a nucleus. They are called thermal neutrons at low speeds and fast neutrons at high speeds. Neutrons have mass but no charge. 3. Karl Morgan, quoted in Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger; Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth (Summertown: The Book Publishing Company, 1985). 4. James N. Yamazaki, Children of the Atomic Bomb (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 101. 5. Roentgen equivalent in man (REM), is the quantity of a particular type and energy of radiation that when absorbed by a human being produces the same effect as the absorption of 1 roentgen of gamma rays. The Sievert is the unit in the SI system. 6. Yamazaki, Children of the Atomic Bomb, 74. 7. Ibid., 63. 8. Michihiko Hachiya, Hiroshima Dairy: the Journal of a Japanese Physician, August 6-September 30,1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,1995). 9. Yamazaki, Children of the Atomic Bomb, 5. 10. Ibid„ 73. 11. Ibid„ 64. 12. Physicians for Social Responsibility, "The Medical Consequences of Thermonuclear War," The New England Journal of Medicine 266, no. 22 (31 May, 1962): 1135.

13. Ibid., 1136. 14. Yamazaki, Children of the Atomic Bomb, 112. 15. The discussion here is based on the analysis in H.L. Abrams and W.E. Von Kaenel, "Medical Problems of Survivors of Nuclear War," The New England Journal of Medicine 305, no. 20 (12 November 1981): 1226-1232. 16. Roentgen is the fundamental unit of the quantity of gamma radiation or x radiation. It is measured by the ionisation, as a quantity of electricity, produced in a standard volume of air by the flux of radiation.