India

India's nuclear balance sheet

Nuclear weapons have already proved incapable of conferring great power status on India.

Four years after the nuclear tests of 1998 is a good time to assess India's stock as a regional and global strategic player. Great power status and consolidation of India's claims to it were claimed to be the primary aim of the tests. The `resurgence of India', which the tests were supposed to herald, seems today some long distance away. In fact, the mood at present is one of despair within and disquiet outside the country, on the prospects of its political stability, economic buoyancy and strategic reliability. India's military is in its battle stations against Pakistan. The Government at the Centre is reduced to retaining power through political deals, which both defy ideological ideals and violate electoral promises to the people. The follow-up required on achieving the stability of nuclear deterrence is missing. Nuclear deterrence seems to have failed both the country and its leadership in making the nation more secure. It would be appropriate to posit that the political leadership which obtained nuclear weapons has not yet understood their essential meaning.

The nuclear reality in South Asia is one of loss of direction after the big bangs of May 1998. India has done no more than raise a few Prithvi regiments for the Army and Air Force. The Agni tests have evoked hardly a ripple in and outside the country. They are soon to be inducted in the defence services. Doubts nevertheless continue to be expressed by scientists in and outside India about its capacity to miniaturise the nuclear warheads adequately to mate with existing missile delivery systems. The Government is unwilling to set these doubts at rest. The first principle of deterrence stability, that of leaving no doubts in the adversary's mind on one's capability, is thus being disregarded. The nuclear doctrine of the nation hangs in limbo, with neither its authors nor the Government claiming it to be official, legitimate or authoritative. There is no known nuclear command authority; the chain of command is unclear to both friends and adversaries. There is no nuclear risk reduction dialogue among the Indian, Chinese and Pakistani Governments.

As far as public perception is concerned, there was a time soon after Independence when the perception was that a few Ministers were corrupt (in the general sense in which we are using the term) and that very few, if at all, senior officers were corrupt. It was also believed that the honest ones, both among Ministers and officers, not only more than made up for the dishonest ones but also kept the latter reasonably under control. The current perception - purely as an informed guess - is that the majority of Ministers and quite a few senior offices (still a minority) are corrupt, and that the honest ones have very little control or influence over the dishonest ones who are, in fact, believed to be in real control. Neither public perception nor any study on politics or public administration seems to support the contention that the real, sole villains are the officers and that the Ministers are more sinned against than sinning.