Nuclear Bomb for Sale

1. Patriot Games     (Dr. Shiv Visvanathan)

Welcome to the Patriot Games.

Antonin Artaud could not have done better. The timing was so
immaculate and surreal.

Celebrating the 50th year of our independence, Atal Bihari Vajpayee
erased in one stroke the legacy of the national movement and its
modernist aftermath: Panch Shila, non-alignment, non-violence and the dream of a
world of alternatives. It was a killing of the fathers that Freud would
have been intrigued about.

The props were simple. A man pretending to be prime minister. The
national flag as backdrop. Vajpayee announced that ’India today carried
out three underground nuclear tests at Pokhran at 3.45 p.m.' A quick
terse announcement. A political statement to be followed by a technical
briefing. One correspondent even felt it was like an American press conference. As
American as apple pie and Hiroshima.

The obscenity lay at several levels. It was not just the presence
of Pramod Mahajan with a fascist bully boy smile, standing at the back
playing Pierre Salinger in pyjamas. It was the timing.

On Buddh Purnima, India exploded three nuclear bombs. The era of
the pseudo-secularists has actually arrived. Only a civilization
illiterate about itself would knit the bomb and Buddha together. Yet strangely,
Buddha was the signifier of continuity for both nuclear events. When
Pokhran took place in 1974, the news of the blast was conveyed to Mrs.

Gandhi as ’Lord Buddha has smiled'. History repeats itself, first time as
a tragedy and second time as illiteracy. Gandhi was once asked what do you
think of western civilization? And he said ’It would be a good idea'. If
he were to return today and had been asked ’What do you think of Indian
civilization', he might remark ’that would also be a good idea'. In fact,
the first thing that went out of the window was the ideal of a civilization
with its notions of myth, religion, morals, good conduct and tradition. We
abandoned it all for history and the Nation State. Welcome to the
amoralism of the Patriot Games.

The Patriot Games is played on a subtle chequer board. Let us state
its moves. Step one. It enacts the national movement as a simulation.
There is a new sense of imperial oppression and there are new liberators.
First, there is George Fernandes, the eternal adolescent and the army as chorus
complaining about China. There is a touch of caring here. When George
talks of snowmobiles for our jawans, I love him for it. Then there is the
drumbeat of middle class machismo overthrowing Babar, Clive and Churchill
in cafes and the internet. Militarize. Muscularize. Masculinize goes the
modernist litany from Mambalam to Matunga. It is a plea for technology as
a sign of toughness. If only we would get our act together, we would be
taken seriously. We have the fourth largest army in the world. We have
the third largest pool of scientific talent. Beware. We are one of the
six in the nuclear club.

Beating the drums are two kinds of shakas; the RSS and the
scientists in designer khakhis. The Ramannas and the Iyengars and the
Brahmin hawks like K. Subramaniam. Hearing Raja Ramanna say ’Our boys
have done a wonderful job' reminded me of an old Groucho Marx joke.
Groucho is pretending to be a scientist. He gets up and says ’I am
going to make a great contribution to science. I am planning to retire'.

I

am reminded of the old men of Indian science, the Menons, the
Swaminathans, the Ramannas. I wish they would retire. They have done
enough damage to the idea of peace, sustainable development and the
transfer of technology. This generation of scientists are not like the
Ramans, Sahas or Kosambis. It is a generation of clerks salivating at
every bell ring from the state. The Nation State. Sorry, the National Security
State which is against democracy and peer review, which will not even
allow a simple economic audit of the Indian nuclear programme. Scientific
connivance and political illiteracy make perfect bedfellows.

Step two. Stage a spectacle. Carry out a controlled experiment with
all its grandeur and secrecy. A circus no one saw but everyone has heard
about. Did you hear that India exploded three bombs at 3.45 in the
morning? A state secret to be shared by all. What more could a democracy
want?

The first three experiments encapsulate the history of the bomb
from Pokhran 1974 to Pokhran 1998. There is progress for you. India has joined
the nuclear club. Club is the key word. Not community. Not movement. Club.

Suddenly a whole nation feels upwardly mobile. We have arrived, after a
long pregnancy. Look at the way we read our history. The early efforts
at nuclearism were shrouded in ambiguity and hypocrisy, with weakness.
Remember how Narasimha Rao backtracked under US pressure. But now we
have moved from ambiguity to clarity. Clarity. A bully is clear. So are
the stupid. Truth is more complex. But we have outgrown truth as we become
a national security state.

Step Three. Declare a holiday. Create a festival. Tell the people
the bomb is for them. Fernandes is already claiming people should be involved
in security. Involvement... Participation. The lovely language of World
Bank governance. Now we know his sibling. Wonder what his German socialist
friends think of Fernandes. Hello Petra Kelly. Didn't know your Judas
friend, did you? When Petra died, George and Jaya Jaitley shed crocodile
tears over her "suicide" at Gandhi Peace Foundation. Wonder how Petra
would have reacted to this green Judas had she lived? Khadi and Nuclear
bombs can only exist in complementarity in a mind like George Fernandes.
The radio-active Gandhian.


There is a tremendous sense of euphoria, of achievement. Of
competence. Of David against the Goliaths. Every--almost every--Indian
stands proud at being nuclear, of becoming Goliaths. Look at the long
lines waiting with flowers to congratulate Vajpayee. The Prime Minister stands
bedecked and bewildered like the bridegroom of the year. Our tryst with
destiny is complete. Everyone feels nationalistic. Pass out the barfis.
It could be a hockey match. A Tendulkar century. A riot or a nuclear blast.
We are happy with all four spectacles. Our scientific Tendulkars have
struck effortlessly five times in a row. The crowd is berserk with joy.
Yet there is a sadness when everything is a spectacle. A match. A riot. A
blast. When there is little difference between these events. Worse. People
forget that the worst kind of consumerism is the unquestioning consumption of
science.


The BJP got it right. It knows that nationalism is tough to beat as
a populist idea. After all, caste is fragmentary and class is divisive
but the Nation represents the whole. Look at the way dissent is silenced. Every
political group wants to be implicated, get a lick of the nuclear
ice-cream. The Congress insists that it was Rajiv and Indira who made the ice stick.
The UF insists it is a three-in-one ice-cream. The first layer belongs to
Indira, second to Gujral and the third to BJP. A truly coalitional
ice-cream. A national nuclear ice-cream. Even communists are salivating wondering if
there is a Soviet component they could lay claim to. What is worse, they
know you can't criticize nationalism. When Vajpayee fights the US
imperial bully, Bardhan and Basu will clap. Dissenters sound silly. Praful Bidwai
on BBC sounds as if he has got up from a hangover and murmurs the first
thing that comes into his head, that it is a BJP plot to look decisive.


He is right but when he mouths it, the message has all the inanity of
the butler did it. The audience orchestration is superb. Gujral loves it.
And Ramanna. And K. Subramaniam. And Jasjit Singh. Throw in a touch of Raja
Mohan and Bharath Karnad. It is an orgy of agreement. Prim and proper.
he Akhada langurs show it to the world. The Mani Dixits play it down. To see this in operation
one had to watch his performance in Aap ka Faisala, Aap ka Adalat. It was
debate between Dixit and Kanti Bajpai, professor of International
Relations at JNU. Bajpai is the peacenik as scholar. Quiet. Quietly courageous.
Full of questionmarks and footnotes. Bajpai understands peace. He knows it is
a slow bumbling process and Indians have played a great role in its
evolution. He is honest, ready to cite chapter and verse when Indians
have sinned. Ironically he appears shy, hesitant, ectomorphic. A Ph.D., still
fresh behind his ears.

Mani Dixit is like an old bear, amiable with a pot of honey inside,
oozing the experience of power. The foreign secretary as hero. Talking to
his IIC group. He exposes the hypocrisy of USA, the nukespeak of China.
He underlines the Indian efforts to be moral. The struggles with
complexity and ambiguity; of how Nehruvian idealism was whipped into muscular
pragmatism. It is time to tell the world we are tough like you that we
are high calorie nuclear heroes.


Kani Bajpai is sincere, persistent but Dixit is tough, clipped,
amiably dismissive. A politician who smells a crowd. History is about tough guys.
No more subaltern pap, old chap. We are pragmatists now. Love me, love
my bomb.
The crowd loves it, applauds, happy to be a part of history. Even
compere Manoj Raghuvanshi~s moustache quivers like a weathervane in the
right direction. How many Agni missiles did Gandhi have?

To the potent nationalist gin, the BJP adds the right twist, a
touch of swadeshi lime. The bomb is Indian. Conceived by Indian science.
Executed by Indian technologists. We don~t smuggle technology like Dr.
Khan. No nuclear Dawoods please, we are Indian. Our nuclear bomb is home
grown as Abdul Kalam. The MIT in his bio data stands for Madras Institute
of Technology. Between Kalam, K. Subramaniam, Dixit, Ramanna the swadesi
hum kissi se kum nahin is echoed clearly.


There is a hijacking and distortion of discourse that we must
challenge. The new Dandi march must begin at the villages of Pokhran by
challenging the trustees of this new official morality. We have to state
that the above cast of characters cannot define our moral universe,
anymore than ethical mutants like Clinton or Thatcher. We have to apply
to the bomb, the Gandhian model of technology as one enhancing
innovation, community, debate, trusteeship, and love.


Let me put it tensely and personally. The current ideas of the
bomb, of the nation state, of the new Indian self violates:

-- My sense of security

-- my feelings of community

-- my theory of democracy

-- my celebration of science

-- my idea of foreign policy

-- my sense of history

-- my legacy of swadesi

-- my emotion of being Indian, very very Indian




The nuclear rath yatra has to be halted.


I appeal to our scientists to stand up and be counted. Say no to
the
bomb but do it openly and in conversation.


I request PUCL, PUDR to accept Indian and even Pakistani dissenting
scientists as Prisoners of conscience.


I appeal to our people and those in Pakistan to start a people to
people foreign policy. Our states have run out of ideas for peace.


I ask every community to say no to the bomb from Panchayat to
Internet.


I request our human rights activists, our Gandhians, our feminists,
our ecologists, our Dalits, our housewives, tribals, trade unionists to
stop
this closing of the Indian mind.


India is and has to be a clearing house for ideas on peace,
alternatives, non-violence for the global world. The future is now. We
owe it to our children. Withdraw from the Patriot Games. Its noise as music
covers the jackboots of a coming totalitarian era.


Professor Shiv Visvanathan is Senior Fellow at The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India.


2. Living with the Bomb     (Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy)

The nuclear nightmare has come true. Taunted, jeered, and threatened by
BJP India until it could resist no more, Pakistan too has gone nuclear.
Understandably, as of the time of this writing, joyous crowds are still
dancing in Islamabad over its stunning response to Shakti '98. They, like
the crowds which had celebrated in Delhi just a while ago, are quite
oblivious to the real meaning of what has really happened. But as the
nuclear cycle advances to the next notch, and harsh economic realities
start to bite, the real gravity of the situation will inevitably sink in.
Meanwhile the cabal of neo-fascists and RSS fanatics in Delhi -- the same
that had planned the May 11 tests -- is pondering its next move.


Let us face facts. Our world changed irreversibly and totally just 3 weeks
ago; it is now a world where nuclear annihilation henceforth shall always
be just around the corner. Generations to come -- if they come -- in both
Pakistan and India will agonize over how it all really happened. But it is
fruitless to ask for history to be undone. Instead pragmatism demands that
we look towards what is next and delineate what needs to be done for
mutual survival. With the primal, bestial, and instinctual responses of
the two huge nations in the present state of strong arousal, the ongoing
cycle of action and reaction desperately needs interruption. Unless
moderated and cooled, this lethal competition has an obvious end point.


The immediate formulation of effective war-avoidance measures is crucial.
This means devising a set of technically sound procedures and devices that
will make difficult the unauthorized, unintentional, or accidental use of
nuclear weapons. Indeed, it is highly probable that should nuclear war
ever take place, it will not be by the conscious design of Pakistani and
Indian leaders but, instead, through miscalculation or unintended use of
the weapons in some form. These horrific possibilities will remain as long
as nuclear weapons remain. But one can -- and absolutely must -- work
towards reducing probabilities. Otherwise India and Pakistan may provide
to the world the first proof of failure of nuclear deterrence.


Consider first the issue of launch authority. In Pakistan there already
exists a nuclear coordinating authority consisting of the president, prime
minister, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the chief of army
staff, and the airforce and navy chiefs. In India there is certain to be a
corresponding body. Among other things, one hopes that the rules for the
two nuclear bodies have been written so that complete unanimity is
required of all available members as a condition for launching a nuclear
strike; the disagreement of even one member should be sufficient to halt a
strike.


Even more importantly, the weapons should be configured so that local
commanders, missile operating crews, or pilots, are not able to conspire
into launching a nuclear strike on their own initiative. Failing this, a
small group of wrongly informed or zealot officers from either the
Pakistani or Indian side could start a full-scale nuclear war if they are
in possession of the necessary codes and keys. Pakistan, in particular,
has a long history of coups and extremist officers who have defied
authority and tried to seize power. One should not dismiss the nuclear
dangers that this poses.

Recognizing that unauthorised use was a dangerous possibility, much effort
was devoted by the US in the late 1960's onwards towards developing
technical devices known as Permissive Action Links (PALs). These highly
sophisticated computer-chip based safety devices prevent an assembled
nuclear weapon from being armed unless all pre-programmed requirements are
satisfied. This includes the final launch permission received from the
proper authority, possibly received directly by the weapon through radio
contact.

Now that nuclear weapons are here to stay on the subcontinent, one hopes
that the advanced nuclear weapons states will share PAL technology with
Kashmir in the hope of stimulating the local population to rise up in arms
against unpopular Indian rule. While he expected an Indian response in
Kashmir, to his surprise India attacked across the international border
and a full-scale war ensued. In 1987, General Sunderji's infamous
Operation Brasstacks nearly provoked a war with Pakistan, a war which no
one really wanted at that time.

Can future miscalculations or conflict escalation be avoided? Unless the
two armies are separated from each other along the Line of Control in
Kashmir, this will be very difficult. It is therefore in the mutual
interest of both countries to agree to a large presence of United Nations
troops in Kashmir. By doing so, Pakistan will have succeeded in further
internationalizing the Kashmir issue, and India will have gained in having
slowed the flow of Pakistani supported militants across the border. Will
India agree? Even if it does not, it has been pointed out by international
relation experts that the Security Council could request an urgent
Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice without the
consent of either government.


To conclude: it is absolutely imperative for Pakistan and India to have
the best possible command and control systems, working hotlines, and
satellite data gathering systems. This diminishes the chances of
accidental war, as well as preemptive strikes motivated by unfounded or
imaginary fears. But there will be no margin of safety left if Indian and
Pakistani nuclear weapons are stored in assembled form rather than as
separated components, and if the delivery of nuclear weapons is by
missiles rather than aircraft. A 2-5 minute flight time, almost zero
chances of interception, and the impossibility of recall make
nuclear-tipped missiles the most fearsome and dangerous element in the
nuclear game. If either country deploys its missiles, or keeps
ready-to-use bombs, life shall then dangle from a single strand of hair.