Strategic Outlook

Home Minister’s statement on India’s ‘No-First-Use’ Policy signals India’s resolve to defend its interests and accommodate policies as the situation demands

In a recent event, commemorating the first death anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at Pokhran, the site of India’s five nuclear test explosions, Home Minister Rajnath Singh remarked that India has been firmly committed to the nuclear “no-first-use” (NFU) policy thus far, but “what happens in future depends on future circumstances”. Singh’s remarks have triggered intense speculation on whether India is renouncing the two-decade-old NFU policy and is adopting a more aggressive posture towards its regional strategic rivals, namely Pakistan and China. On a plane reading, Singh’s statement does not indicate any discernible shift in India’s stance on the NFU. However, his cautioning about the “future circumstances” arises from the country’s many immediate and long-term policy imperatives in a rapidly changing strategic environment.

The NFU has been one of the longstanding tenets of India’s nuclear doctrine and its prevalence in the Indian strategic thought can be found well before New Delhi formally acquired nuclear weapons in 1998. Since nuclearisation, the NFU policy has served India’s strategic interests reasonably well, and despite the change in its strategic environment brought about by Pakistan’s acquisition of tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) and China’s rapid military buildup along the eastern borders, New Delhi has remained firmly committed to the NFU. While reiterating this commitment, Singh, however, also subtly signaled India’s adversaries, especially Pakistan, that it cannot take the NFU policy as given under all times and under all circumstances.