CONTENTS

PREFACE

MAHENDRA GAUR
Director,
Foreign Policy Research Centre,
NEW DELHI

INDIA’S NUCLEAR POLICY

-Madhavrao Scindia

(A keen observer of Indian affairs-internal as well as external-, Madhavrao Scindia had a clear vision of India’s option on nuclear capability in the context of Pakistan having attained the capability of weapon grade enriched uranium. This issue became the subject of heated debate in the country. In response to a questionnaire on the topic sent by the Editor to be used for a discussion, he elaborated his views in a forthright manner.We take this opportunity to incorporate his viewpoint in the form of an article in this issue of the journal-Editor)

Q. 1.    With Pakistan having attained the capability of weapon grade enriched uranium which has security implications for India, do you think that the acquisition of nuclear capability by India is a must ?

The leading Pakistani nuclear Scientist Dr. A. Q. Khan had given an elaborate 8000 word interview to Nawa-a-Waqt an Urdu daily of Lahore in February this year, asserting that Pakistan had attained the capability to produce weapon grade enriched uranium. His statement has given rise to a serious debate in this country on the question of the acquisition of nuclear capability, owing to the climate of mutual suspicion prevailing between India and Pakistan.

Before venturing to answer the question about the acquisition of nuclear capability by India, it would be worth while to analyse (a) the implications of the statements made recently by the Pakistan in this regard, (b) the question whether Pakistan has already tested a nuclear device, and (c) Pakistan’s nuclear policy.

It is not without significance that, though Pakistan had been engaged in its quest for more than a decade, until recently hardly a word was uttered about it, in the presence of foreigners in that country. Now, all of sudden it has become a hot topic of public discussion and as one political commentator has observed, the “conspiracy of silence” concerning its efforts to achieve nuclear capability has been replaced by “a conspiracy of noise”. The discussion is neither virulent nor harsh sounding. Instead, it is well organised to achieve the best effect.

Dr. A. Q. Khan was the first Pakistani spokesman to break this “conspiracy of silence”. Describing his country’s achievement, Dr. Khan has boastfully started that where as even advanced Western countries like Holland and West Germany had taken two decades to master the technology of uranium enrichment through the centrifuge method, Pakistan had perfected it within a short period of seven years. He has also said that if the Pakistani Government headed by General Zia-ul-Haq were to order him and his colleagues to manufacture a nuclear bomb, they were in a position to do so.

Almost immediately after Dr. Khan’s interview, Mr. Sajjad Hyder, a retired diplomat wrote a long article in the “Muslim”. He has advocated that while following ambivalent nuclear policy. Pakistan must, not merely strive to achieve nuclear capability, but also convince both “our friends and potential adversaries” about its capacity to do so. He has even suggested that Pakistan should gift a substantial quantity of enriched uranium turned out by Dr. A. Q. Khan’s enrichment plant to the IAEA as an evidence of Pakistan’s nuclear capability. The primary objective of his article was to ward off the hostile criticism that  the Pakistani nuclear programme had faced in the U.S. Senate foreign relations committee, which was then discussing the next instalment of the U.S. military supplies and economic assistance to Pakistan. But as the Senate by a nine-to-eight vote has cleared the way for the Reagan Administration to continue the aid to Pakistan, it may once again start telling the world in general and the Islamic countries in particular about its determination to achieve nuclear weapons capability.

It seems that by announcing its success in acquiring the weapon grade uranium enrichment capability, Pakistan is striving to place itself in the same category as Israel and to find out its impact on U.S. military and economic aid policy. It is extremely unlikely that the U.S. would invoke the non-proliferation law against Pakistan. At present, the value of Pakistan in the eyes of U.S. policy makers is relatively high than during earlier periods due to a number of factors, such as the recent events in Lebanon, the strategic cooperation agreement between the U.S. and Israel, the U.S. failure to compel Iran to end the Gulf war, the decline in the U.S. credibility in the Arab world and the Arab morale. Hence so long as Pakistan refrains from detonating a nuclear device on its soil, it is likely to get away with its nuclear programme. Thus Pakistan is pursuing a strategy of ambivalence to enhance its bargaining power. By demonstrating its capability not merely to build up a model, but effective enough nuclear arsenal for its own purposes, Pakistan is signaling to the U.S. that unless  that country continues to supply sophisticated military hardware, it will go openly nuclear.

(B) Whether Pakistan has already tested a nuclear device.

Reports are current that Pakistan has attained nuclear capability and that it already possesses an undeclared nuclear arsenal of half a dozen uranium bombs gifted by China and designed to fit in F-16s which are nuclear weapons carriers. An Associated Press report has quoted the Indian foreign Secretary Mr. M. K. Rasgotra as saying that Pakistan has manufactured an atomic bomb and that China may have helped it to detonate its first underground nuclear device, 10 months ago in the Lop Nor desert of Sinkiyang province. The assumption that Pakistan has achieved nuclear weapons capability is further strengthened by reports about a seismic event in Ras Kol mountain region near Quetta in the middle of the last year. Owing to a number of factors, it has not been possible to determine whether the Quetta incident was an earthquake or a low kiloton nuclear detonation.

Though one can neither dismiss these reports about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability as mere gossip, nor take them as gospel truth, reports coming form the U. S. sources have lent credence to the possibility of Chinese collaboration in Pakistan’s efforts for developing nuclear weapons. In an interview published in August 1982 in a New York Journal “Nucleonics  Week” Mr. James Malone the then Assistant Secretary of State and Chief Nuclear negotiator of the U. S. Administration, has stated that China has apparently supplied to Pakistan, material which he refused to specify. In early 1983, Mr. Howard Shaeffer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of the U. S. Government, testifying before the Sub-Committee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the House of Representatives, confirmed that there was a nuclear relationship between China and Pakistan. Though the exact nature of the relationship was not disclosed, the Sub-Committee heard an intelligence briefing on the subject. Recently Mr. Paul Leventhal, President of the Nuclear Control Institute of Washington has also given a testimony about the transfer of sensitive information related to nuclear weapons design to Pakistan by China. Reports say that Pakistan has been passing on the know how about the sophisticated conventional weapons, it has been receiving from the U.S. to China and in return Beijing has supplied the blue prints for a nuclear processing plant as well as heavy water to Pakistan.

Though one can not say with certainTy that Pakistan has already exploded a nuclear device, there have been a number of reports over the last three or four years about Pakistan’s clandestine efforts to acquire equipment needed to produce the trigger device. Hence it would be fair to conclude that Pakistan has been making these attempts alongwith its efforts to acquire expertise of enriching uranium to weapon grade. What must not be lost sight of, however, is that it is now possible to attain nuclear capability without  necessarily physically detonating a device.

(C) Pakistan’s nuclear policy :

It is worthwhile to remember, that Pakistan’s quest for an atom bomb had started a couple of years before India’s peaceful nuclear explosion at Pokharan in 1974. At the famous Multan meeting in January 1972 Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had asked the Pakistani scientists to give him the bomb and they had enthusiastically accepted the assignment. After the Pokharan explosion, Mr. Bhutto had made a vow that Pakistan would find the means to develop a nuclear bomb, “even if it meant the people eating grass”. General Zia-ul-Haq has been clinging to the policy of his predecessor, the late Mr. Bhutto, even though he had him hanged.

Pakistan has been striving to convince its own population and the outside world about its need to go nuclear. It has talked about compelling domestic and external factors, other than getting the better of India for its search for nuclear weapons. For instance Mr. Agha Shahi, its former Foreign Minister had spoken about the possibility of the Soviet Union deploying nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and South Asia becoming a nuclear battlefield. Professor Stephen Cohen of the University of Illinois, U.S.A., explaining Pakistan’s urge to go nuclear has said that it, “belongs to that class of states, whose very survival is uncertain, whose legitimacy is doubted and whose security related resources are inadequate”.

As has been stated earlier, Pakistan is pursuing an ambivalent nuclear policy. Against this back drop the publication of Mr. Akhtar Ali’s book “Pakistan’s Nuclear Dilemma”, has acquired special significance. According to Mr. Akhtar Ali Pakistan should adopt a strategy of nuclear ambiguity. It should go ahead with the development of nuclear weapons capability without declaring its intentions to do so, so as to present an image of nuclear restraint to the outside world. He says that if Pakistan “ exploded a nuclear device, peaceful or otherwise” it would, “nullify the Indian Superiority” and would “destroy the basis of confidence generated in the Indian mind” in the wake of the events of 1971 and 1974. He believes that Pakistan possesses “rudimentary nuclear weapons capability and that tactical nuclear weapons would be effective in pushing back the threat of the conventional push on the Punjab front by India. He says that low yield  small nuclear weapons would be “ideal” for this purpose as they would inflict heavy damage on the advancing Indian columns, without creating the risk of an all out nuclear conflict.

Pakistan has taken full advantage of the prevailing chaos in the world nuclear market to push ahead towards the acquisition of nuclear weapons capability. The fact that Pakistan’s nuclear challenge is grimmer and more real than China’s is revealed  by an analysis of its nuclear policy, the basic features of which are parity with India as a nuclear power without nuclear weapons; thereafter manufacture of nuclear weapons with three clear cut objectives in mind, viz; deter Indians nuclear force, acquire international status and prestige, and instill a sense of pride for their country among its people.

It is obvious that if Pakistan has not already manufactured the bomb, it is striving to acquire it within the shortest possible time. India can not remain a silent spectator to the feverish activity going on the nuclear front in Pakistan and must take effective steps to counter the threat. It would be suicidal for India to accept nuclear weapons a symmetry with Pakistan. In the present environment of Indo-Pakistan hostility, India must act on the assumption that Pakistan would one day use its nuclear weapons capability against India.

If India does not acquire nuclear weapons capability it would lose its conventional superiority over Pakistan. It would not merely endanger India’s security but would also have serious repercussions on the domestic front in the country. It needs no arguments to say that India’s defences must always be stronger than Pakistan’s irrespective of the expenditure involved. A country can not be secure if it hesitates or declines to pay for its essential defence requirements, because nothing is more worthless than inadequate defence, and adequate defence can be costly. Moreover defence preparedness should not depend on warding off immediate dangers. Instead it should be a continuing process. Sweden has not been involved in a war for 150 years, but its per capita expenditure on defence is vastly more than that of India. It has been estimated that India would have to allocate only 8 percent of its total budget on the defence to build up a nuclear arsenal as compared to Pakistan, which would have to divert 30 percent of its budget.

The decision to opt for nuclear weapons capability would not merely help India to maintain nuclear symmetry with Pakistan but would also prove condusive to its self-interest, because India’s potential as a regional, if not a global power can be realised only with the help of nuclear backing.

Q. 2. What impact the Pakistan’s nuclear capability will have on Indo-Pak relations ?

It is thus evident that barring a handful of persons like Morarji Desai, who are conscientious opponents of the development of nuclear power by India, an overwhelming majority of the people hold the view that India should keep open its nuclear option. There is, however no sense in retaining this option, if continuous efforts are not made to extend it to “the maximum limit of the nation’s industrial and technical capabilities”.

The fact that India has also acquired the technology to enrich uranium by the centrifuge process, has now been acknowledged publicly at the highest level by the Government. The Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi, replying to a question in the Parliament on March 22, stated that Indian scientists were keeping abreast of “all aspects of research and development connected with enrichment technology”. The Defence Minister Sh. R. Venkataraman also told the Lok Sabha a day later that the Government would proceed on the assumption that Pakistan had acquired nuclear capability and would prepare the country accordingly.

The uranium enrichment technology would play a vital role in our preparations to ward off the nuclear threat posed by Pakistan, as thermo-nuclear, weapons based on enriched uranium are lighter and more manageable than plutonium based explosives. It is, however, evident that though India is well-ahead of Pakistan in the know-how of plutonium separation, Pakistan is much more advanced than India in the technology of uranium enrichment. Hence it has become imperative that India should now openly and firmly take up a viable programme of uranium enrichment.

Apart from its military advantages, such a programme would enable the country to get maximum returns form its huge investments in the development of atomic energy for civilian purposes. The use of slightly enriched uranium instead of natural uranium would enhance the efficiency of Kalapakkam type of atomic power plants, that are being planned in the country. It would also provide fuel for any light water reactors that may be set up later. Above all it would save the country from the kind of pressures and losses that it had to suffer for nearly five years, because of its dependence on the U.S. for the supply of the of the enriched uranium for the Tarapur atomic power station.