India�s Strategic Milestones and Maturity: 1974 to 1998 and 2012

On 18th April 2012, Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai made a highly significant policy declaration seeking India’s full membership of the Nuclear and Missile Control Regimes. India has been seeking exemptions from these regimes particularly to obtain nuclear technology for power generation but the declaration, carefully made at India’s premier think tank, the Institute for Defence and Strategic Analyses (IDSA), sent some pleasant shock waves around the world. India has opposed these regimes, set up in the form of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in 1974 against India’s first nuclear test the same year. India has declined to sign these regimes, describing them as “discriminatory,” but also has never violated the provisions or spirit of either the NSG, or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which took force in 1970, or the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) created in 1987. India has followed a home-grown, indigenous nuclear and missile programmes as a deterrent first for China, which exploded its first nuclear bomb in 1964, and then Pakistan which declared its intent in 1972 to go for the atomic bomb.

Mr Mathai’s statement apparently indicates a nuclear-confident India, capable of deterring a nuclear attack, and if it happens, then of massively retaliating, or inflicting unacceptable damage on the enemy/enemies. Notably, the Foreign Secretary’s declaration came around the time when India inducted its first operational nuclear propelled INS Chakra submarine, successfully tested a 5,500km range ICBM (Inter Continental Ballistic Missile) and placed a sophisticated Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite in space. India is also conducting final system checks on its indigenous nuclear propelled nuclear weapon submarine INS Arihant for launch in 2013. Apparently, all the three Services, the Army, Navy and Air Force have placed appropriate assets with India’s Strategic Forces Command, including aircraft, missiles and ships, first for deterrence and second for retaliation while the DRDO has been able to demonstrate limited anti-missile missile capability as well. The technological maturity in India’s strategic programmes is there, and the much desired nuclear triad of weapons launch from Air, Land, Sea and Sub-surface or underwater, is just around. 

Mr Mathai told this writer on the sidelines of the IDSA event that despite the earlier opposition to India’s strategic programmes, “most of the countries in the world, and in the NSG are now comfortable with us, and so are we with them.” “With our programmes aimed at deterrence, and eventual global nuclear disarmament, we have every reason to be a part of the NSG, and other regimes including the Australia Group (AG), Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).” The Foreign Secretary’s declaration was calibrated by the Disarmament and International Security Affairs (DISA) division of the External Affairs Ministry, ably headed by Joint Secretry Bala Venkatesh Varma.

On 18 May 1974, I stumbled upon information that India had conducted a nuclear test. I had gone to a friend’s house for breakfast and the report came by a fluke to me. I had just become a correspondent with UNI news agency. I mentioned the report to a senior colleague who asked me not to spread rumours. A little later, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced the “Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE)” but without giving details. Mr GG Mirchandani, the Chief Editor, encouraged me to follow the development, and I had three reports in succession, giving the location – Pokhran in Rajasthan – how the Indian scientists were monitoring the test site and the first international reaction when Canada withdrew nuclear cooperation with India, all within 10 days or so of the so-called PNE. UNI got quoted worldwide from The New York Times and Newsweek to The Times and Asahi Shimbun. I was rewarded with operational freedom, and by 1980, posted to the Middle East with the prize assignment of a Foreign Correspondent with diplomatic- level allowances.

India says NO to Iran, Iraq and Libya

But India’s nuclear story for me didn’t end there. Three countries at least I know of, Libya, Iraq and Iran, sought nuclear assistance from India to which Mrs Indira Gandhi said a firm “NO.” Libya’s maverick strongman Col Muammar Gaddafi tried to push an agreement in the form of “processing technology for power generation” without mentioning the word nuclear, while both Iran and Iraq offered huge sums. India and Iraq had strong military ties in the form of training, and at one time, there were about 60 Indian Air Force (IAF) officers imparting training to their Iraqi friends on Soviet supplied aircraft, common to both the countries. One of the Indian instructors was also given the highest possible award by President Saddam Hussein. The Iranians also offered funding, and asked for a military training facility for Iranian officers in India. I visited both Baghdad and Teheran several times with Mr Romesh Bhandari, Mrs Gandhi’s chosen envoy for brokering peace between the two neighbours. In 1983, Baghdad was to host the non Aligned Movement (NAM) summit, but as Iranians were not willing to go there because of the ongoing Iran-Iraq war, it was held in New Delhi. Mrs Gandhi’s mandate nonetheless was clear: India will neither supply nuclear technology or weapons nor play the two friends (of India ) against each other. The Iranians in fact took the message with maturity, but Saddam Hussein was upset, and when Mrs Gandhi died, he sent a junior minister to her funeral and let it be known. I was surprised when my Bahraini friend Nabeel al Hamar - later Information Minister - mentioned his (Saddam’s) anger to me even before the Iraqi representative had left for New Delhi. In later years, Indian nuclear scientists did visit Cairo and Teheran but they were all goodwill visits without any meaningful exchange of ideas or technology. Mr Mathai, when pressed for updates or details on India’s non proliferation record, simply said: “It is clean and there for all to see.”

Summer Significance

By design or otherwise, the summer months of April and May are significant for India’s strategic milestones. India conducted the first test on May 18, 1974, and the second on May 11, 1998 in what are called Pokhran-I and Pokhran-II. In 2012, on April 4th, India formally inducted its new nuclear-powered attack submarine, INS Chakra, which is on lease from Russia for 10 years. It does not have nuclear weapons but unlike the earlier Charlie class avatar of INS Chakra, on lease from 1988 t0 1991 from Russia, it has no Russian crew on board and possibly, no strings attached on how it is used. India’s indigenous nuclear powered and nuclear weapon submarine INS Arihant, now under routine system and weapon checks, is a few months away from deployment.

India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which has been spearheading India’s missile programme, is confident and comfortable of both its offensive and defensive systems, some of which admittedly need perfection, but are around the required milestones. On April 19th, DRDO successfully tested 5,500 km range Agni-V, a threshold ICBM (Inter Continental Ballistic Missile) described by DRDO chief Dr VK Saraswat as a “long range” missile. Programme Director Avinash Chander though told this writer that although there was no directive from the Government to develop longer range systems, progressive development was natural to reduce the carrier missile’s weight and increase the warhead load. Technologically, this enhancement in fact can also mean increase in the range if required. Indian space scientists have been able to place multiple satellites in orbit, and the technology would be no different for India’s missile scientists to develop Agni variants into MIRVs (Multiple Independently-Targetable Re-entry Vehicles). Also in April, on the 26th, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched RISAT-II satellite, capable of observing the earth through clouds and darkness with its sophisticated Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) cameras. All these are significant milestones, and considered through an integrated approach, a clear manifestation of India’s maturity in missile and nuclear capabilities.

The Pakistan Factor

Mrs Gandhi had got the first test done in 1974, but India’s nuclear weapons programme was ordered in 1988 by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi after – repeat after – India’s external intelligence agency RAW gave him firm inputs that Pakistan had started making the n-bomb in 1987. India shared the inputs with CIA, but unfortunately, the then George HW Bush administration chose to ignore it till the CIA was forced to admit this confirmation before the US Congress in 1990. Pakistan had declared its intention for a nuclear bomb in 1972, and sought technological assistance from China and financial doles from the Middle East in the name of religion by terming it as an Islamic Bomb. For diplomatic reasons, India delayed the second nuclear test only on 11 May 1998 when the then Prime Minister AB Vajpayee gave the go-ahead. Pakistan followed immediately, confirming the Indian intelligence reports of its weapons programme.

Courtesy: India Strategic

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