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T V R Shenoy

The BJP was ready for nuclear tests as far back as May 1996

What was the most surprising thing about India's tests under the Pokharan sands? Perhaps the fact it was a surprise at all. Consider the following:

The prime minister was expected to attend the G-15 summit at Cairo. He pulled out even though there was no domestic crisis anchoring him to Delhi.

The home minister was scheduled to visit Lakshadweep, and this engagement too was cancelled without assigning any reason. And of course the defence minister has been talking about the threat to India posed by Chinese nuclear weapons based in Tibet.

The American security establishment understood what was in the wind. Asked for a reaction after the tests took place, a spokesman said it was a pity that the Indian government hadn't acceded to the American request to defer the exercise indefinitely. Was it a coincidence that the message from Washington arrived just three days before the testing?

But what gave the United States the confidence that it would succeed in such interference in India's sovereign right to conduct its own defence policy? Was it the jelly-spined attitude of successive ministries over the years? To cite but one such instance, isn't it true that the Narasimha Rao regime put the Agni missile project into cold storage under pressure from Washington?

It can now be revealed that the BJP was prepared to reverse this policy as far back as May 1996 at the time of the first Vajpayee ministry. However, two factors prevented India from acquiring nuclear power status two years earlier.

First, it was considered unethical for a government that lacked a parliamentary majority to take such a major decision. Second, the scientists asked for a minimum of three weeks to conduct a test. (Building a nuclear weapon is relatively easy; staging an underground test is a tougher task.) So Vajpayee and his ministers left it to the United Front to give the necessary orders.

Unfortunately, foreign policy in the intervening period was dominated by Inder Kumar Gujral. That apostle of unilateral concessions wasn't a man who had the stomach for a fight.

But why did nuclear policy take up so much of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's attention at a time when most politicians were busy angling for power? Simply this -- the BJP leader has long taken an intelligent interest in foreign affairs. He knew that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiations were in the final stage at Geneva at the time.

It must be understood that the BJP has never objected to the CTBT as such. But it was entirely against perpetuating the unfair nuclear regime if India had signed on as an acknowledged nuclear power.

India's technological prowess was never in doubt. After Pakistan fired its Ghauri missile, Dr R Chidambaram, head of the Indian nuclear programme, quietly responded, "We are ready. We are only waiting for a green signal."

It is a shame that the green signal couldn't be given until the Vajpayee ministry was firmly in the saddle. Once the new government had won the vote of confidence the scientists were told to go ahead.

So much for the background. What does the future hold now that India is a proven nuclear power, not just assumed to be such? Will India agree to accept the CTBT provisions? And what about economic sanctions?

Defence Minister George Fernandes has expressed his anxiety that India is becoming a "soft state". I hope he is wrong. President Clinton has already imposed stringent economic sanctions. So have Japan and Australia. And New Zealand has withdrawn its emissary from Delhi.

Oddly, the most reasoned reactions have come from those seemingly most under threat from India -- Pakistan and China. Perhaps it isn't so strange after all. Both realise that every nation has the right to conduct defence policy as per its own perceptions. Neither Pakistan nor China have bothered too much about the sensitivities of foreigners when it comes to their own nuclear policy.

But are we as a nation prepared to stand up to possible bullying from the West as the Chinese did over the decades? Well, let us cross that bridge when we are forced to do so. For now, it is enough that we finally have a government that examines national security questions without looking to Washington for approval!

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