[The manifesto claims: "BJP believes that the strategic gains acquired by India during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime on the nuclear programme have been frittered away by the Congress. Our emphasis was, and remains on, beginning of a new thrust on framing policies that would serve India's national interest in the 21st century. We will follow a two-pronged independent nuclear programme, unencumbered by foreign pressure and influence, for civilian and military purposes, especially as nuclear power is a major contributor to India's energy sector." It further goes on to promise that it will study "in detail India's nuclear doctrine, and revise and update it, to make it relevant to challenges of current times" and also maintain "a credible minimum deterrent that is in tune with changing geostatic (sic) realities".
Before we proceed to examine the central issue on hand, it may not be out of place to point out in passing that the assertion that "nuclear power is a major contributor to India's energy sector" is plain wrong. In fact, nuclear power, as on Feb. 28 2014, contributed just over 2% of total installed capacity for production of electricity - 4,780 MW out of total 233,930 MW, as against 12.6% (29,463 MW) contributed by renewables (ref.: table 5 at <http://www.cea.nic.in/reports/monthly/executive_rep/feb14.pdf>). Now coming to the main issue, it needs be recalled that it is under the BJP-led government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee India turned an overtly nuclear weaponised state in May 1998 with five test explosions on May 11 and 13. Initially it was claimed with a lot of chest thumping, in utter defiance of high-pitched global censure, that this development would now place India in an unassailable position as regards neighbouring Pakistan. But as things would turn out, Pakistan, in response, also went overtly nuclear with six test explosions, almost within a fortnight, on the following May 28 and 30. Then the apologists of the move claimed that (overt) nuclearisation, of both India and Pakistan, would stabilise relations between them. What actually happened is that we had the Kargil War in the following May within a year of overt weaponisation because of armed intrusion from across the LoC after a gap of about twenty eight years (since 1971 Bangladesh War). And an Indian Airlines plane would be hijacked the same year (1999) on December 24, and Indian Parliament would come under armed attack on December 13 2001. The biggest peacetime armed moblisation along the Pakistan border, Operation Parakram, which followed soon after causing exchange of threats of nuclear strikes by both the sides eventually ended in a whimper in about eleven months or so. In November 2003 India and Pakistan signed a ceasefire agreement. So it is not at all clear what "strategic gains acquired by India during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime on the nuclear programme" the BJP manifesto is referring to which have been allegedly "frittered away by the Congress"? Read together with the promise to "revise and update" "India's nuclear doctrine" (formulated by the Vajpayee government itself) and the fact that for the RSS/BJP the core mobilising strategy is to whip up hateful passions, and violent aggression, against the carefully chosen, and craftily constructed, adversarial "others" - "internal" and "external", it is, however, chillingly clear that the BJP is once again set to relaunch India with renewed vigour on the path of "nuclear nationalism" with possible horrendous consequences for the billion plus inhabitants of the sub-continent unless forestalled by powerful resistance from within and without. As regards the specific shapes of the likely future moves, it is widely speculated that a BJP-led government would scrap the current "no first use" (of nuclear weapons) policy. If so, it would not only have an adverse impact on the prospects of any forward movement towards global nuclear disarmament, it would also raise the level of uncertainty as regards a possible nuclear strike by India and make the adversaries (with nuclear weapons) even more jittery and prone to resort to nuclear strike at a significantly lower level of perceived provocation. The consequences could just be disastrous. Apart from that, a BJP-led government may also proceed to trash the "voluntary and unilateral moratorium" on further nuclear test explosions, as committed by the subsequent Congress-led government headed by Manmohan Singh as a necessary pre-condition for clinching the Indo-US nuclear deal meant to end India's punitive exile from the global nuclear market, with or without any advance notice. More so, as the manifesto is talking of "strategic gains" being "frittered away by the Congress". Test explosion of a Hydrogen Bomb, or even a (miniaturised) "tactical nuclear warhead", is expected to vastly strengthen BJP's ultra-nationalist credentials before the domestic audience and further expand and consolidate its support base. Such an eventuality would, apart from having profound negative impact on the prospects of global nuclear disarmament, tend to trigger accelerated nuclear arms race in the region and heighten the temperature. Given the fact that nuclear weapons kill indiscriminately and on a massive scale - hundreds of thousands, and its ill effects breach time and territorial barriers, it is a deeply disturbing development. The widespread concerns as regards a likely scrapping of the "no first use" policy by a BJP-led government, if elected, have understandably been attempted to be tackled by giving altogether a different spin to the promise that BJP would "revise and update" India's nuclear doctrine, drawn up by the previous BJP-led regime, in the article carried by the livemint.] http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/rkEybO3sf1wA2vWbxXr0GM/Updating-Indias-nuclear-doctrine.html Updating India's nuclear doctrine There is a case to review and, perhaps, revise and update the Indian nuclear doctrine, which dates back to 2003 W. P. S. Sidhu<http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Author/W.%20P.%20S.%20Sidhu> The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will "study in detail India's nuclear doctrine, and revise and update it, to make it relevant to challenges of current times." (*Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat*, BJP's 2014 election manifesto). Unsurprisingly, these words have perturbed international strategic experts. Everyone remembers how the party delivered on its 1998 manifesto promise to "re-evaluate the country's nuclear policy and exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons". Although the manifesto is not as explicit, it did not prevent outcry that India will abandon its no-first use policy. In a shrill editorial titled *A Risk to India's Nuclear Doctrine*, *The New York Times*warned that in "signalling its willingness to take a more provocative stance toward Pakistan and China, the party does not advance India's interests". Predictably this reaction was prompted by the perception of Narendra Modi<http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/Narendra%20Modi>'s desire to break from the past, despite assurances by him and top party leaders that the no-first use doctrine was intact. The controversy notwithstanding, there is a case to review and, perhaps, revise and update the Indian nuclear doctrine, which dates back to 2003. Indeed, every other responsible nuclear weapon state had regularly done so. The US carries out an elaborate quadrennial nuclear posture review and the latest one in 2010, despite President Barack Obama<http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Keyword/Barack%20Obama>'s Prague plea for a world without nuclear weapons, underlined the continuing role of Washington's nuclear arsenal. Similarly, every French president reviews the role for its nuclear weapons and the UK is debating the future of its nuclear force. Even China regularly presents white papers to explain its nuclear posture, though the 2013 paper dropped the explicit reference to its long-standing no-first-use policy. Thus India will be in the good company of responsible states. There are three factors--two external and one internal--that are likely to impact India's present nuclear doctrine. On the external front, the need to "maintain a credible minimum deterrent that is in tune with changing geostatic realities", as the manifesto notes, will be determined by Pakistan and China. Pakistan's induction of an extremely short-range (60km) battlefield tactical nuclear weapon has undermined the tenuous strategic stability on the subcontinent. This, coupled with Islamabad's inability to prosecute those involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks or to assure that such attacks will not recur, poses a challenge to New Delhi. Little less known is China's reported deployment of the highly accurate and mobile DF-25 missile, capable of delivering single or multiple nuclear or conventional warheads to a range of 3,200km, a significant threat to India. This, coupled with China's growing anti-satellite capabilities (and vulnerability of India's expanding space assets), also reveals the limits of India's present doctrine. In the wake of the series of border skirmishes, which are likely to recur, India would be justified in revising its conventional and nuclear posture accordingly. Finally, India's imminent deployment of the submarine leg of its nuclear triad makes the current de-mated and de-alerted posture nearly obsolete. As the weapons and delivery systems will be on the same platform (even if they are de-mated) and on a higher degree of alert than on land, the 2003 posture will have to be revisited. Also, delegation of use authority will also have to beconsidered<http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/FesGy5sItj3WTJywQdfiKO/Whose-finger-on-the-nuclear-trigger-at-sea.html> . While a revision of India's nuclear doctrine (though maintaining a no-first use policy) is certainly justified and, perhaps, overdue, the manifesto's lack of elaboration on why and how this should occur raises concerns about the motives and objectives behind it. Any new government will do well to explain them. *W.P.S. Sidhu is senior fellow for foreign policy at Brookings India and a senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation, New York University. He writes on strategic affairs every fortnight.* -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
