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Volume II, No. 1, Spring 2003 |
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Book reviews
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A Review of Ashok
Kapur's Pokhran and Beyond: India's Nuclear Behavior In
the aftermath of the nuclear test undertaken by India in the Pokhran
desert in 1998, a number of serious works have appeared in scholarly
world. Some of these works point to India's obsession with nuclear weapons
without any pre-set aims and perspectives. While other works have laid out
a vision on the part of India's decision-makers in favor of a strong India
imbued with nuclear weapons in order to tackle twin threats emerging from
India's neighbors, Pakistan and China, this work by Ashok Kapur, Professor
of Political Science, University of Waterloo, Canada, is different.
Kapur, who is a widely respected author of several books concerning
India's nuclear policy, provides in this present work an historical
dimension to the evolution of India's nuclear policy since its
pre-independence days, focusing on how that policy has continued to shape
up post-independent policies formulated by several governments, both
Congress as well as non-Congress, in the power corridors of New Delhi. At the very outset of the book (1-9), Kapur outlines the two main theses of his book:
Using
the metaphor of imperial China's Forbidden Cities, the author delineates
the inherent contradiction among early Indian thinkers and statesmen.
While Gandhi and Nehru basically favored a more pacific stand vis- -vis
nuclear disarmament, others such as Tilak and
Subhas Bose argued in favor of using raw power in order to gain
upward stature in the family of nations. Add to it the Indian bureaucracy,
which itself was compartmentalized in terms of
"internal, political and strategic culture, ethos, hierarchy,
decision-making process and institutional interests" (17).
Among the scientific community devoted to atomic technology, there was
also divergence in terms of priority. Although there was "happy
convergence" in their approaches to the development of nuclear energy
to the benefit of Indian society, Meghnad Saha was in favor of indigenous
research being conducted by India's nuclear scientists. Homi Bhabha, on
the other hand, was willing to take the help of foreign firms in order to
enhance the profile of India's nuclear establishment. The
Nehru Years between 1947 and 1964 were widely acknowledged as the
formative, when an elected government in New Delhi handled the nuclear
issue with all seriousness. The pattern of India's nuclear policy was
influenced considerably by a number of factors: war with Pakistan over
Kashmir; war with China in 1962; the accession of the princely states into
the Indian Union (thus outlining the fragility of the new state); and the
tenuous relationship between the majority Hindus and the minority Muslims
in the aftermath of the carnage in the period following India's
independence. Additional factors included: the end of World War II,
the beginning of Cold War and adversarial relationship between US and
USSR, the development of nuclear bombs first by US and, later, by USSR,
and the onset of decolonisation in most part of Asia, Africa and Latin
America. Nehru's
tenure was marked by both a reactive world situation--in terms of East-West
rivalry and in particular between US and USSR for global hegemony--and
proactive measures--in terms of giving Bhabha and associates a green
signal to go ahead and embark upon a nuclear energy policy for India that
could be used for peaceful purposes and if necessary could be developed in
to a military doctrine. The
Shastri-Gandhi Years, 1964-74, was marked by three important external
developments that had significant impact on India's power elite. The 1962
War with China was a wake up call for the Indian military planners to take
seriously the probable use of nuclear energy in future conflict. Second,
the 1964 nuclear tests conducted by China further emboldened the
scientific and political community in India to develop a counterbalance.
And, third, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) raised significant
debate among India's political and bureaucratic circles "to develop
and retain the nuclear weapons option, to contain the demand for nuclear
arms, and to contain the pressure to sign the NPT" (107). While
Kapur is right in noting the seemingly contradictory position taken by
officials and policy-makers, it is also equally true that the ambivalence
suited India quite well during this period and was in consonance with its
national interests. It has to be noted, too, that in 1974 India conducted
what it termed a "peaceful" nuclear test. The
period from 1974 to pre-May 1998, as the author has stated, was marked by
a series of issues in the domestic and external environment. While the
governments of Moraraji Desai, Charan Singh, V.P. Singh, Chandrasekhar,
Deve Gowda, I.K.Gujral, and Atal Behari Vajpayee were weak coalition
governments, full of factional feuds and infightings that led to their
early demise before the end of their respective terms in office, the
governments of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao were marked
by intense international pressure at various crucial junctures that had
serious ramification for India's nuclear policy. Kapur
is correct in his assessment that the period from the post-May 1974 to
pre-May 1998 was a dynamic phase marked by "fundamental
redistribution of power within the Indian bureaucracy and political
system" (212). Apart from the entry of the Indian Armed Forces into
the nuclear debate and decision process, the general public opinion also
swayed in favor of a proactive approach in order for India to stand on its
own in the new international order of the post-Cold War era. In
the concluding chapter, Kapur provides a set of recommended policy outlines
as part of India's new strategic discourse, as against the older,
Nehruvian approach marked by a movement for global nuclear disarmament,
unilateral self-restraint, development of a non-discriminatory
non-proliferation regime, and public help by great powers to India in
times of military crisis. While
one can agree with the author's assertion in favor of negotiated restraint
as opposed to unilateral self-restraint, in terms of operational aspects,
which are so transparent and dynamic at times, it is difficult to
implement and even visualize such hard-core policies. What happens, for
example, if the stakes are too high for India, necessitating it ignore the
unilateral restraint approach in order for it (India) to stay as one
nation in a given set of circumstances? Similarly, to counter the
arguments made by Kapur who talks of "self-help,
deterrence and ability to fight at a time and place of one's
choosing" (228), what happens if the adversary chooses to act in an
irrational manner (using Graham Allison's model) thus upstaging the
well-devised scheme of India's political and military planners? Overall, Ashok Kapur's book is a succinct analysis of India's nuclear policy since its inception in the immediate aftermath of India's independence, to its more decisive shift with the explosion of nuclear devices in Pokhran in the summer of 1998 by the governing BJP government proclaiming itself to be a fully nuclear-weaponized state along with other declared states of the exclusive nuclear club (and which followed swift retaliatory counter measures by Pakistan which also tested nuclear devices as well within weeks). The use of graphics, data, as well as citation of valuable secondary and primary source materials serve to make this book truly first-rate. This book will be of immense help to scholars and South Asia specialists who have long, abiding interests in the nuclear debate of the Indian subcontinent. Mohammed Badrul Alam is Professor of Area Studies and Political Science at Miyazaki International College, Miyazaki, Japan. He is also a member of the board of editors of Project South Asia, a digital library of teaching resources for colleges and universities. Copyright 2003 Teaching South Asia (ISSN 1529-8558) and Mohammed Badrul Alam. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted in any form without written permission from Teaching South Asia or Mohammed Badrul Alam.
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