End of uncertainty

The past, as always, is prologue. In their reactions to yesterday8217;s nuclear tests, the world powers should bear this in mind, and resist the understandable urge to demonise India as a rogue state. India has only shown its resolve to take its version of restraint to a new level. Twenty-four years ago it had shown a similar resolve with the first test of a fission device. No Indian is complaining now 8212; no institutional voice can be heard, at least. It was the same story in Indira Gandhi8217;s day. No wing of the ruling power structure, from the legislatures to the corporate sector, voiced serious objections to the test. In the intervening years, there has been a wide-ranging debate in legislatures, talk-shops and the media, and an unequivocal, institutional consensus has evolved. The government has merely used this consensus to initiate a change in policy direction, to break with traditional patterns of thought which were created by the ghost of Congress past.

It is precisely this consensus, evolved slowly overtime, which foreign powers should take into account. True, knees will twitch a bit out there, but the tests should not be seen as the expression of a single despot8217;s will, as the belligerent initiatives of Libya and Iraq were. Neither can it be dealt with by an airstrike on some presidential palace. In a democracy, it is futile to try to isolate a single centre of power. Demonising India in the international sphere will not help either. There is sufficient evidence that India has suffered provocation at the hands of other powers in its region which has refused to go away for at least the last ten years. India8217;s new stand is the expression of its national will. To come to terms with it, the powers which have been lobbying for a ban on all nuclear testing will have to come to the negotiating table. The use of coercive measures like embargoes and sanctions will only succeed in hardening the will of a resurgent India. A solution can evolve only if other powers finally get around to understanding the problems thatIndia faces 8212; the problems that led to its refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in the first place. Now that India has crossed the nuclear threshold, no power enjoys the luxury of a knee-jerk any more. Here on, the process will call for a lot of realism from the international community.

Our government, too, must proceed with caution. Significantly, the Prime Minister has only congratulated the nation on displaying its ability to weaponise. At no point did he show an intent to induct nuclear weapons in the armed forces. The immediate objective of the tests is obvious: daring Pakistan to show whether it has comparable capability and end the uncertainty of the last few weeks. But the long-term objective is to tell the world that the time for unqualified restraint is over. India is no longer satisfied with its subaltern role of being a lonely, unsung campaigner against the CTBT. In the nuclear game, the point is to impress, not to use. And the motive is to bring other parties to the negotiatingtable. It is now up to the world powers to react, just as the Indian government has done, with measured restraint.