May 25, 1998

Risking international opprobrium and economic sanctions, the government has gone ahead with the nuclear tests. Will the gamble work? And at what cost?

By Manoj Joshi

It is one of those quirks of history that the quest for military nirvana in India is inextricably linked to a man who dedicated his life to peace. In May 1974, it was a cryptic message, "the Buddha has smiled", that signalled the country's entry into the nuclear age. Exactly 24 years later, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee chose the auspicious Buddha Purnima to trumpet India's status as the world's sixth nuclear weapons state. "We now have the capacity for a big bomb," a proud Vajpayee told India Today. This time the operation was appropriately code-named Shakti.

For the six men who assembled in the sitting room of the prime minister's official residence at Race Course Road that hot Monday afternoon, it was a tense wait. As three simultaneous nuclear explosions rocked the scorching sands of the Pokhran test range in the Rajasthan desert at 3.45 p.m., the only sound they heard was the purring of the air conditioner. Exactly 10 minutes later, the phone rang in an adjoining room. The prime minister's Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra lifted the receiver hesitantly to hear an excited voice cry "Done!"

Putting the caller on hold, Mishra re-entered the room. Seeing his expression, Prime Minister Vajpayee, Home Minister L.K. Advani, Defence Minister George Fernandes, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Jaswant Singh could barely control their feelings. Advani was seen wiping away his tears. Picking up the receiver, Vajpayee, in an emotion-choked voice, thanked the two scientists who made it happen -- Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) chief R. Chidambaram and head of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

Two days later, as India celebrated its Government's audacity and a stunned US President Bill Clinton imposed sanctions, the sands of Pokhran were ruffled again. This was no earthquake, but two additional tests were conducted. "This completes," said a terse official announcement, "the planned series of underground tests."

1 Operation Shakti
How India kept its secrets and misled the CIA

The genesis of Operation Shakti can perhaps be traced back to March 20, the second day of the BJP-led Government's term. On that day, Chidambaram called on the prime minister. "It was not," says a Vajpayee aide, "a pure courtesy call." A few days earlier, the prime minister-designate had spoken to Kalam, but for an entirely different purpose. Vajpayee wanted the austere DRDO chief to join his Cabinet. Kalam turned down the suggestion, but the two men developed a bond. Nineteen days later, on April 8, much before Jayalalitha's shenanigans began to knock the Government's credibility, Vajpayee summoned both Chidambaram and Kalam and gave them what the scientific establishment was anxiously awaiting: the go-ahead for the tests. Mishra was entrusted the responsibility of liaising with them at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

On the morning of May 7, hand-picked scientists from the DRDO and DAE arrived in Jodhpur. Travelling by night, they reached Pokhran early next morning. At some point thereafter, the devices were placed, keeping in mind the tracks of spy satellites above. It is not as if the sophisticated surveillance systems failed the US Intelligence, as angry senators were later to claim. The available information was incorrectly analysed, thanks to a system of organised deception perfected by the army. For the past few years, India has deliberately kept up a strange routine in Pokhran. Sometimes a new shaft was dug; at other times an older one was cleaned out -- the purpose was to provide a cover for the real activity at the right time.

In Delhi too, information was strictly rationed on a "need-to-know" basis with hierarchy being given a go-by. Thus, the cabinet secretary and the defence secretary were kept in the dark. The defence minister was told of the impending tests on May 9, shortly after the Coordination Committee met to thrash out the coalition's teething problems. Contrary to the prevailing impression, Fernandes was not used as a stalking horse with his flamboyant anti-China utterances. There was just a happy convergence of minds. On May 10, the three service chiefs and the foreign secretary were called in and informed. The next morning, the members of the Cabinet Committee on Security were taken into formal confidence. The President -- who was sleeping off a jet lag -- was informed late in the evening by the prime minister. Less than 24 hours later, a composed Mishra assured "succeeding generations of Indians" that "contemporary technologies associated with the nuclear option have been passed on to them in the 50th year of our Independence". There were fireworks in the streets that night.

2 Why Now?
Ghauri was the last straw, Vajpayee's mind was already made up

It is generally not known that among the only steps taken by Vajpayee in his 13-day first innings in 1996 was a green signal to the DRDO and DAE to begin preparations for a nuclear test. That was before the CTBT was ratified by 149 countries in Geneva. However, the Government fell two days before the tests could begin. The succeeding United Front government of H.D. Deve Gowda declined to go ahead, possibly on account of the Left's opposition.

Ever since China tested the atom bomb in 1964, a nuclear India has been on the "Hindu nationalist" agenda. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha that year, Vajpayee was categorical: "The answer to an atom bomb is an atom bomb, nothing else." In 1969, the then Jana Sangh whizz kid Subramanian Swamy prepared the outlines for an inexpensive A-bomb that could counter China. At the time of the 1974 Pokhran "implosion", Advani went on a patriotic high. "Only twice in recent years," he wrote in The Motherland , "has one witnessed such a mood of national elation. First, when the Indian Army entered Dacca to liberate Bangladesh, and now when India has entered the nuclear club."

Along with Ayodhya, a uniform civil code and the repeal of Article 370, the nuclearisation of India has been an article of faith for the BJP. The party was willing to put aside the first three features of its distinctiveness in forging the National Agenda for Governance (NAG) but was unwilling to compromise on the nuclear issue. "We have always said we are in favour of exercising the nuclear option," says Advani, "not just keeping it open." There is no difference between the "moderate" Vajpayee and the "hard-line" Sangh Parivar on this count.

Therefore, when Mishra says the decision to exercise the N-option was entirely "security driven" and provoked by "a nuclear neighbour to the west of us and another to the north, both working in tandem," it is certain to be greeted with some scepticism. Vajpayee walked into South Block on March 19 with his mind firmly made up. But events did shape the timing: Operation Shakti was authorised two days after the Ghauri test-firing in Pakistan. At that time, Vajpayee's reaction was uncharacteristically subdued, but as Mishra now says, "We had to show a credible deterrent capability not only to the outside world, but to our own people." The military added its weight to the demand. Says former army chief General (retd) V.N. Sharma: "We have been urging the Government to cross the threshhold from the very day the Chinese did their test."

It is the China factor that converted an article of faith into a policy imperative. A spate of information leaked to the American media in 1995-96 underlined the alarming extent of China's military cooperation with Pakistan, especially in missile technology. Equally disturbing from India's point of view were signs that far from containing China, the US has been drawing it into a close embrace. After a visit to Beijing last month, acting Under-Secretary of State John Holum certified that Chinese proliferation activities were no longer a problem. The US has since taken steps to restore the level of cooperation in dual-use technology. Many of these measures are being packaged in advance of President Clinton's proposed visit to China later this year.

Equally alarming is the Sino-US cooperation in India-bashing after the Pokhran tests. On May 14, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan telephoned US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to not only persuade New Delhi to halt testing, but act in tandem to scuttle its entire nuclear programme.

3 Farewell to Nehru
Forget continuity, this is a brave new foreign policy

Prime Minister Vajpayee is a self-confessed admirer of Jawaharlal Nehru. He was never niggardly in his praise for Indira Gandhi's dogged pursuit of national interests, comparing her to the Goddess Durga after the Bangladesh war. In Parliament, he has stressed that foreign policy doesn't change with governments. However, two months into his term, Vajpayee has effected a sharp rupture with the past. So sharp as to disorient his opponents into falling in line with a new consensus based on a show of strength and pragmatism. Even former prime minister I.K. Gujral has concealed his profound distaste for the new course in a flurry of consensual rhetoric. On her part, Congress President Sonia Gandhi was pressed by Congressmen like Salman Khurshid and Mani Shankar Aiyar to unambiguously denounce the N-tests as being the harbinger of an arms race in the region. She hesitated and ultimately yielded before the strength of public opinion, but the theme was subsequently echoed by the Left. Anti-nuclear activist Praful Bidwai, for example, terms May 11 "as the blackest day for India along with December 6". But Vajpayee remains unfazed. He merely sees the shift as one of nuances that involves shedding the "veil of needless ambiguity".

At the root of the divergence is the response to the non-proliferation regime. Till the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1995 and the CTBT in 1996, Indian policy worked on the assumption that it was possible to guarantee national security by keeping the N-option notionally "open" and simultaneously pressing for global disarmament. "Towards this end," says former defence minister K.C. Pant, now a member of the task force to create the national security council, "we very seriously proposed a 15-year plan for the phased elimination of N-weapons in 1988." It was called the Rajiv doctrine and found no real takers among the big powers.

However, after the NPT was extended "in perpetuity", it was apparent that the big powers had no intention of shedding their nuclear arsenal. The moralising tone of India's stand on universal disarmament may have held currency earlier, but became meaningless after 1995. To compound this irrelevance, the CTBT tacitly sought to make the nuclear club a pre-entry, closed shop. It provoked Indian outrage and prompted chief negotiator Arundhati Ghose to declaim that the country would not sign this CTBT "not now, not later".

Yet, the big powers have been reluctant to take no for an answer. There has been sustained pressure on India to play ball and acquiesce before the CTBT Review Conference next year. For the first time since the '70s, the country has also seen the growth of a vocal lobby that echoes an American perspective on strategic issues. Clinton's proposed visit (not yet cancelled) later in the year was widely seen as the culmination of US attempts to secure India's compliance. Earlier regimes attempted to deal with the pressure by skirting the problem and postponing a final decision. Vajpayee has taken the bull by the horns in a dramatic show of defiance. In the process, he has taken Indian foreign policy to nationalist heights, something most of his predecessors secretly preferred, but lacked the political will to pursue. He has also taken a daring gamble where the alternative to victory is defeat.

4 Sanction Raj
How Vajpayee hopes to prevent India becoming a rogue state

Every political leader likes to make his mark in history. Clinton would love to depart from the White House in 2000 as the president who made the world breathe a little more easily. To him, non-proliferation is not merely a strategic doctrine, it is a personal crusade with strong moral overtones. This explains his sharp, swift reaction to India's "terrible mistake" (see accompanying story). Indians are frankly taken aback by his vehemence, particularly the suggestion that he intends asking others to follow suit. "He seems to have taken it personally," said a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official.

The international backlash to the N-tests has been swift and ferocious. The bellicosity of Pakistan was entirely predictable, as was the underlying hypocrisy of China's protests and the moral indignation of the Scandinavian countries, Japan and Australasia. What has, however, angered Indians -- and triggered a vocal nationalist backlash -- are gratuitous references in the foreign media to the country's poverty and suggestions that it is a "rogue state". "Every event which has given the average Indian a sense of pride," says Advani with a tinge of bitterness, "has inevitably provoked acidic comments from the international community."

The MEA, hitherto accustomed to being a bit player in Third World evangelism, has suddenly been catapulted into the centrestage of global diplomacy. It has become India's first line of defence against international isolation and ostracism. So far, formal diplomacy has had mixed results. Despite prompt letters from Vajpayee to his counterparts in the US, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Canada and Germany, India has been unable to prevent a Security Council resolution "deploring" the N-tests. In Washington, Jesse Helms, the indefatigable chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warmed up to the galleries by suggesting that "the Indian Government has shot itself in the foot; it has most likely shot itself in the head".

Yet, the MEA sees encouraging signs in the relatively ambivalent stand of some neighbours, the refusal of the G-8 meeting in Birmingham to countenance sanctions and a division of opinion in Washington. Russia's military and scientific establishments have signalled that they see no cause to review relations with India after the N-tests. There is also added percentage from the onrush of Non-Resident Indian (NRI) patriotism, a community where the BJP has a measure of influence and whose lobbying has forced many governments to temper their anger against India. The Government is already tapping all resourceful NRIs to do their bit for the motherland. Some of this lobbying has even produced results, like the softening of Britain's stand after an initial display of anger. There is also a proposal to float a "patriotic bond" to mop up some surplus dollars from overseas Indians.

There are three levels at which the diplomatic counter-offensive is planned. First, a propaganda war in which the iniquity of the West's reaction is emphasised. "We aim to play on the fact that India is the world's largest democracy. We are not tin-pot dictators," says an MEA official. There have been suggestions that India conduct its own version of Track-II diplomacy using special envoys like Jaswant Singh.

Secondly, Indian diplomats, particularly in the West, are being encouraged to take the focus away from Pakistan and highlight the threats to national security from China. Some members of the Republican right-wing in the US, for example, have already warmed up to this theme. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich has spoken of Clinton's lack of consistency. "If the actions of the Clinton Administration are even indirectly responsible for spurring India's nuclear detonations, this would be a very serious matter," he said. In Russia, Vajpayee has found new admirers in the Communist Party and in Vladimir Zhirinovsky's ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party. In Germany, the presence of a powerful pro-Tibet lobby in the Social Democratic Party has helped offset some of the anger against India.

For the MEA, the situation poses new challenges. Accustomed to straight-line diplomacy, it will now have to show nimble footwork to take advantage of narrow openings. This means that overseas missions will have to be given greater autonomy and less pre-conceived political direction in their search for friends and allies. The Cold War mindset of dividing the world into "progressives" and "reactionaries" has been rendered obsolete by last week's events.

Japan, for example, poses an interesting paradox. On the one hand, there is a natural abhorrence for weapons of mass destruction, and the suspension of all aid is a result of this feeling. However, this moral position is tempered by a traditional affinity to India and a natural suspicion of China. Analysts have been quick to point out that where Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto used the term "regrettable " to describe India's tests, the Government opted for the stronger "deplorable" to condemn China's tests in August 1995. The question is: can Indian diplomacy reconcile these conflicting imperatives successfully to its own advantage?

Finally, taking its cue from China, India hopes to offset strategic misgivings with economic temptations. The Government is engaged in clearing many outstanding foreign investment proposals on the belief that global corporations will pressure their governments to exercise either restraint or outright forgiveness. Money speaks both ways.

5 A daring gamble
Can CTBT offer the elusive permanent solution?

Even the most passionate defenders of the N-option admit that Vajpayee has taken a daring and potentially costly gamble. The open acknowledgement of N-weapons means that the Indian defence establishment has to work on a higher plane. The defence budget devoured 2.2 per cent of the GDP in 1997-98 and weaponisation will inevitably involve higher costs. This means that money from infrastructure and social development will have to be channelled into defence. The prime minister's public standing being at an all-time high, it may be possible to sell a dose of hardship and austerity in next month's budget. Yet, public memory is disgustingly short and if the Government is seen to falter on bread-and-butter issues, nationalism can give way to defeatist anger. Certainly, this is an in-built calculation of the US, which cannot countenance a carefully crafted new world order cracking under pressure from "Hindu nationalism". Grand-standing, while important in establishing ground rules of negotiations, cannot persist indefinitely.

Ironically, it is Vajpayee's formal admission that India is now a nuclear weapons state that offers a concrete sign of a long-term strategy. In every move and action, Indian efforts are to somehow get the world community to accept that India is what it says it is: a full-fledged, paid-up member of the nuclear club. But this is easier said than done because at stake are not merely treaties and cumbersome texts, but real life national interests of the big powers. By themselves, sanctions are unlikely to achieve much, but as long as they are in place, India's relations with the leading countries of the world will remain soured.

Official statements have been careful to provide possible directions in which compromise can be effected. Following the five tests, India has signalled its willingness to adhere to the one and only operative clause of the CTBT: stop N-testing. However, it has also made it clear that this cannot be done in a "vacuum" and demands a measure of "reciprocity". What India means is not difficult to gauge: a lifting of the general embargo that the US and its allies have imposed on the Indian nuclear industry since 1978. Fleshed out, it is nothing short of a revolutionary demand for overturning an unequal nuclear world order that discriminates against late-comers.

Six months ago, writing in the journal Current History, noted South Asia specialist Selig Harrison argued that the US and India could resolve their problems through an up-front bargain. India could carry out some tests and then give binding assurances in Parliament to observe the restraints of CTBT without necessarily signing it immediately. India would also place its civilian power reactors under safeguards, keeping the military reactors undisturbed. In exchange, the US would lift its restriction on India's nuclear sector by amending the NPT.

The first part of what Harrison wrote has come true. The battle is for the remaining part of the bargain. Or, as many conspiracy-theorists suggest, the hidden pages of a rehearsed script. The problem centres on one imponderable: Pakistan's apparent readiness to conduct its own N-test. If Islamabad takes the plunge, India could find that the pressure on it has dissipated. However, given the international mood, it could compound anxiety over fragile states possessing dangerous toys. Either way, the pressure on India to come down to earth will become irresistible.

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