Let’s talk about Hiroshima

North Korea and Iran are the more visible nuclear nettles at the state level while the A.Q. Khan episode, relegated to the back-burner for reasons of political expediency, is symptomatic of the iceberg that could yet sink the Titanic (of complacence) if the latest Al Qaeda threats close the terrorism-nuclear material loop. A review of the global nuclear narrative and practice of the last six decades is indicative of the paradoxes, obfuscation and contradictions that punctuate the nuclear domain. In the bargain, nuclear disarmament that was the corner-stone of all nuclear initiatives including the NPT has become even more elusive. More disturbingly, it is no longer part of the global nuclear discourse either at the state level or among the more informed spectrum of global civil society.

Disarmament as an objective remains the normative Holy Grail, for every tenet of humanism and ethical prudence suggests that while nuclear deterrence kept the peace during the Cold War, the reality was the thralldom of the nuclear weapon arsenal on both sides of the east-west divide that could annihilate the entire world many times over! More recently after the end of the Cold War, while the hair-trigger alert kind of situation between the major nuclear powers has become more relaxed, a new challenge has emerged. This is a combination of the revisionist state that seeks to acquire nuclear weapons to redress an unfavorable security situation (North Korea), or a NPT signatory that is perceived to be in violation of treaty obligations (Iran) or a de facto nuclear weapon state that has nurtured a clandestine nuclear proliferation network (Pakistan). None of the existing global regimes are adequate to deal with this and the anxiety that a non-state actor can acquire a nuclear device or radioactive material has become the worst-case scenario.

India, which has distanced itself from the global nuclear order by way of the NPT, is in a paradoxical situation. While restraint and rectitude have always been the defining characteristics of the Indian position, it was compelled to carry out the May 1998 nuclear tests for security reasons — albeit reluctantly. Yet it has always been in the vanguard of the nuclear disarmament movement and submitted a detailed action plan to the UN in 1988. However, this fell on deaf ears and all the major nuclear powers paid lip service to their own nuclear disarmament commitments enshrined in the NPT.

Thus we have a dialectical reality where the bomb which keeps the strategic balance between wary nations has been liberated from the cloistered control of state agencies due to the diffusion of technology and know-how and the determined but inchoate non-state entity can hold out such a threat to both state and society. Consequently disarmament which was once superseded by non-proliferation, arms control and arms reduction has now moved to a new semantic — countries of concern, counter proliferation and de-proliferation.

Within this muddy medley, nuclear disarmament has to be resurrected by civil society and two incidents that have just come to light reveal the need for greater candour and transparency in reviewing the nuclear narrative. Britain, the well-spring of democracy, it appears secretly sold key nuclear ingredients to Israel in the 1950s — and the government of the day was unaware of this deal! And apropos of Hiroshima, the visual footage of what happened to that hapless city at 8.15 AM that morning 60 years ago was deliberately suppressed by the US — and this obfuscation has become par for the course in matters nuclear.

Civil society must be encouraged to recover an awareness and involvement about the nuclear issue that was more discernible in the 1960s (when we had lesser access to information) and the Holy Grail of nuclear disarmament brought back into focus. It may be elusive but the objective provides ethical directivity to current initiatives that have become more frenzied as part of the war on terror. Is there any thing a common citizen in India can do? Yes, light a candle at home, if you can, to remember those who perished 60 years ago. And to know what they experienced, try and hold the tip of your little finger in the flame and multiply the pain and anguish by a factor of thousand plus. That is how 150,000 Japanese people perished on that day. And yes, some of them were soccer players.

The writer is officiating director, Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi