Breaking nuclear apartheid

How India protected its ability to move ahead with the nuclear weapons programme despite not signing the NPT

- D.B. VENKATESH VARMA

As India marks the 50th anniversary of Pokhran I, we remember that India's journey towards becoming a nuclear power in a hierarchical world has not been an easy one. Finding a place worthy of respect in the nuclear order meant finding the right balance between power and principle and finding the optimal alignment between the three dimensions of state power-political, technological and diplomatic.

The dawn of the nuclear age preceded independent India's ability to shape its contours. India's calls for nuclear disarmament, cessation of nuclear testing and the arms race-articulated strongly by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru since the early 1950s-barely had an impact on the efforts of the nuclear powers to shape the nuclear order in their own image. When the draft of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was finalised in 1967, India's interests were largely ignored. Even though India had acquired by then the ability to reprocess plutonium, the lack of other technological requirements to make a bomb and the fact that the country had not tested a nuclear device weakened its campaign to have its interests protected in the treaty.

Fortunately, prime minister Indira Gandhi took the decision not to sign the NPT. The first Pokhran nuclear test on May 18, 1974, was a major milestone. Indira Gandhi deserves credit for taking the plunge, which previous prime ministers had avoided. The successful test demonstrated that technologically India's nuclear capabilities had matured, backed by a political decision that overcame numerous organisational, ideological and moral considerations that had held India back.