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'The News International' May 14, 2005 THE SEVEN-YEAR N-ITCH HASN'T ENDED Praful Bidwai Intro: The Pokharan-Chagai anniversary highlights the urgency of regional and global nuclear restraint and disarmament. As I write this on the seventh anniversary of the Pokharan-II tests, there is a visible lack of enthusiasm everywhere in India about celebrating the crossing of the nuclear threshold. Nor are many people making (or rather, inventing) connections between nuclear weapons, security, Great Power status, and the ability to influence global affairs. There was no official commemoration of May 11, the first day of the tests, although the day was, rather unfortunately, observed as "Science Day" by the Manmohan Singh government, in keeping with that designation given by the Vajpayee regime through a populist slogan. Among political organisations, the Bharatiya Janata Party alone held a meeting-a tame, poorly attended symposium marked by self-congratulatory speeches. On a prime-time television programme, in which I was a participant, a majority of those who SMSsed their opinion on Pokharan-II from different cities took a critical view of nuclearisation. The newspapers did not carry, as they earlier did, a spate of articles glorifying nuclear weapons and their supposed contribution to making India a great power. From Pakistan too comes some good news. Replicas of the Ghauri missile and the Chagai mountain have been quietly removed from Lahore. All this is welcome indeed. The new climate in India is explained partly by a sense of relaxation that many citizens feel thanks to improved relations with Pakistan, and partly by the fact that economic issues and concerns about the poor state of public services are displacing the middle class's obsession with security and the international "prestige" that nuclear weapons are supposed to bestow upon their possessors. After all, North Korea-which has recently suffered a colossal number of starvation deaths under an extraordinarily brutal and predatory dictatorship-is hardly a candidate for high global stature. However, none of this means that a change of policy is imminent in New Delhi, or that the elite's preference for nuclear weapons has greatly abated. Nor has the establishment's faith been shaken in the doctrine of nuclear deterrence or the utility or efficacy of nuclear weapons as a currency of power. The elite's psychological dependence on the "nuclear fix" continues. As things stand, India under its first non-BJP government since Pokharan-II is unlikely to go slow on its nuclear weapons programme, including the making and stockpiling of fissile material, production of bomb assemblies, and acquisition of delivery vehicles like aircraft, missiles and submarines. Accompanying these will be auxiliary programmes to develop command and control systems, with "Permissive Action Links" (codes authorising the arming of nuclear weapons) and to protect nuclear weapons and those who can authorise their use. And yet, a small aperture of opportunity may have opened, in which it becomes possible to question the wisdom of relying on nuclear weapons for security, and to urge a return to the global disarmament agenda, along with radical proposals for regional nuclear restraint, nuclear risk reduction and disarmament. This has happened for many reasons. First, each one of the assumptions and predictions made by the Bomb lobby in 1998 stands falsified. Nuclearisation has not imparted stability or maturity to India-Pakistan relations. These relations have improved, but in unsteady, precarious and reversible ways. The improvement owes nothing whatever to nuclear weapons. The prediction that nuclear weapons would reliably deter conventional conflict has been proved dangerously wrong, not once but twice-in Kargil, and again, in the 2002 eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. In fact, nuclear weapons have encouraged crass adventurism in both countries. Some of our generals and admirals regard them as a shield or cover behind which to indulge in harassment of the adversary. Second, the operation of nuclear weapons programmes has proved that nukes not only don't replace conventional weapons, but are themselves extremely costly to make, transport, store and deploy. India's military budget has more than doubled in absolute terms since Pokharan-II. Pakistan's spending on defence has risen by a similar amount. This is just for starters. As their nuclear programmes proceed towards deployment and hair-trigger alert, military spending will skyrocket. With an arms race-in the Indian case, two races, the other being with China-, it could spiral out of control, ruinously, for all concerned. Third, there is a new government in New Delhi, which pledges a commitment in its National Common Minimum Programme to global nuclear disarmament. It is updating the Rajiv Gandhi Plan of 1988, which recommends strong regional restraint in the early stages of a 15-year process. At the same time, President Musharraf has argued for a nuclear weapons-free South Asia at least four times before the global public. These conditions favour an expansion of the peace constituency and a better dialogue on regional nuclear restraint. In India, the Left has (after a lot of hesitation) embraced the regional nuclear abolition agenda. So there is a well-regarded political agency to advance it. However, the peace constituency should know it faces several constraints and hurdles, besides its own small size. The official response to it in India and Pakistan will depend greatly on what happens internationally, especially at the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference in session right now (until May 27). This is the second such conference being held after the NPT's indefinite extension in 1995. The first review pledged an "unequivocal" undertaking to eliminate nuclear arsenals and agreed on 13 steps to this end, including early entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, talks on a fissile material cutoff, the principle of irreversibility for nuclear disarmament, and establishment of a subsidiary body in the Geneva Conference on Disarmament to deal with nuclear disarmament. But today, the United States wants to repudiate the 13 steps. It says the resolution is merely "a historical document"; the NPT can only work if it allows the nuclear powers to keep their weapons, but strictly prevents non-nuclear weapons-states from having them! The present Conference has taken 10 days even to agree on an agenda. If it reiterates a genuine commitment to disarmament, and successfully addresses some new concerns, it will be a big success. (These concerns include the apparent ease of withdrawal from the treaty, its strict implementation, nuclear doctrine and disarmament, and safety and security of nuclear weapons.) If the conference ends without resolving any issues, it will generate widespread despair and cynicism, lowering the chances of any regional-level progress in South Asia. A positive outcome in New York will halt the process of "creeping acceptance" of India and Pakistan as members of the Nuclear Club. It could create incentives for regional-level elimination of nuclear arms. To use that opportunity, peaceniks in India and Pakistan must gear themselves up to intervene at the policy level, through advocacy and lobbying among Members of Parliament, bureaucrats, ministers and even armed forces personnel. If they can show small victories, they will gain a great deal. One potential area for a good campaign is the "No-No" idea proposed by none other than Musharraf: India does not buy F-16s/F-18s from the US, and then Pakistan won't acquire any missiles either. This is a worthy demand to make and win. Such small victories could give the peace constituency the strength it needs to fight the menace of nuclear weapons in South Asia.-end- _________________________________ SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN): An informal information platform for activists and scholars concerned about Nuclearisation in South Asia South Asians Against Nukes Mailing List: archives are available @ two locations May 1998 - March 2002: <groups.yahoo.com/group/sap/messages/1> Feb. 2001 - to date: <groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/messages/1> To subscribe send a blank message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> South Asians Against Nukes Website: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN): An informal information platform for activists and scholars concerned about the dangers of Nuclearisation in South Asia SAAN Website: http://www.s-asians-against-nukes.org SAAN Mailing List: To subscribe send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SAAN Mailing List Archive : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/ ________________________________ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SAAN compilers. 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