Operation Shakti, the series of five underground nuclear tests that India conducted on May 11 and 13 1998, was a seismic event in Indian history. The shock waves from the desert galvanised the spirit of a troubled nation and sealed her status as an emerging power. Roughing out the US-led sanctions, a confident, post-Pokhran India went on to build up strategic heft and renegotiate her place in the diplomatic cosmos. Twenty years on, the nation has managed to reap outsized strategic, military and geopolitical gains from the tests.
While India’s nuclear capability had never been questioned since the first test of 1974, the lack of overt weaponisation had serious ramifications on the country's security and her international standing. The 1998 nuclear tests reversed some of the damage caused by this ‘testing non-decision’, bolstered overall national security and opened up new politico-military space for the country.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a weakened India had lumbered on in a hostile international arena. A triumphant United States had seized the unipolar moment and was in the process of press ganging other nations into an unequal post-Cold War international order. Even a cowed Russia and a cautious China had largely gone along with US unilateralism in that period. On the trade and economic front, the neo-liberal Washington Consensus was being foisted on developing states, which had little stomach or might to challenge it. On the security front, under the garb of non-proliferation and human rights, America was bombing and bullying its way into creating an international security system totally subservient to it.
Legitimate Indian security concerns regarding the nuclear and missile nexus between China and Pakistan were barely heard, let alone addressed, by Washington.
China—which had locked in its status as a recognised nuclear weapons state, though it was a rampant proliferator—loomed large on the Indian security imagination. Its aggressive transfers of nuclear and missile technology to Pakistan had pushed India into a strategic cul-de-sac.
Meanwhile, the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that the single trusted source of arms and advanced weapons platforms was gone. India’s attempt to build up indigenous technology in critical fields like nuclear, computing, aerospace and missiles was met with hostility and derision in the west. Even the howls of protest made by New Delhi about the proxy war waged by Pakistan against it and which had left thousands dead, did not elicit a constructive response internationally.
In sum, India was too weak and weak-willed to be anything other than a petty regional wrangler. She had no clout to constructively engage with the US-led international system and advance her security or geopolitical interests.
The Pokhran tests helped change all that. That is because of the inherent disruptive potential of overt weaponisation vis-à-vis a state’s place in the international arena. As the nuclear scholar Anne Harrington, noted, “Just as access to wealth in the form of money determines an individual’s opportunities and place in a social hierarchy, access to power in the form of nuclear weapons determines a state’s opportunities and place in the international order. In both cases, the physical form of the fetish object is valuable because it serves as a carrier of social value.”
Overt weaponisation allows a state that pursues it the capability to punch above its weight. China, which was a pariah state for much of the 1950s, saw a return to normal international relations only after it tested nuclear weapons and built up rudimentary delivery systems in the mid-to-late 1960s.
Unlike in 1974, successive Indian governments ensured that the weaponisation process was carried forward to its logical conclusion. Release of the draft nuclear doctrine, putting in place a rational nuclear command structure and development of the nuclear triad were critical parts of this process.
The demonstration of this resolve was key in the rethink of the US approach to India. Hitherto, engagement with India was hyphenated with questions related to Pakistan. As an emerging power, however, it meant that she could be a bigger player in the Asia-Pacific security order and a flank power to China. By slow steps, constructive engagement with the US and its allies bolstered India’s security standing. Though still lacking de-jure recognition as a nuclear weapons state, India is globally accepted and treated as a de-facto nuclear state. The famous US-India July 2005 joint statement recognises the country as a state with advanced nuclear technology. This is a far cry from a few years back, when India’s nuclear programme was regarded as a rogue venture.
The overt weaponisation signalled by the 1998 Pokhran tests had also helped India vis-a-vis China. As China’s economy and military dwarfs India’s, the possession of a usable nuclear arsenal and attendant deterrence capability will be key to India’s security.
Considering the antagonistic relations with Pakistan, many western critics of the Indian nuclear programme had issued dire warnings about the tests turning the region into a nuclear flashpoint. This has now been completely disproved by empirical experience. If anything, under the nuclear overhang, India and Pakistan have shown greater capacity for escalation control and a remarkable capacity for imaginative de-escalation steps.
Within months of the Pokhran tests, the Kargil conflict broke out. Though the conflict involved air and ground elements on the Indian side, New Delhi localised the conflict to limit chances of further escalation. On the Pakistan side, though there was heated rhetoric and nuclear sabre-rattling, Islamabad quickly cut losses and climbed down, after its position became militarily and diplomatically untenable.
The same pattern became evident in the crisis over the December 2001 Parliament attack. Though there was large-scale military mobilisation on air, land and sea on both sides and despite there being sufficient casus beli (justification for war), both sides de-escalated quickly. Islamabad even signalled a tactical abandonment of proxy war to facilitate a downward spiral in tensions. Even the egregious attacks on Mumbai in 2008 did not lead to military conflict. In fact, under the nuclear overhang, the potential catastrophic costs of a nuclear exchange or high-intensity military conflict have put an effective lid on their mutual antagonisms.
In short, embracing the bomb has paradoxically stabilised the region, boosted comprehensive national power and better positioned India internationally. Why now question the assertions of late president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, that Indian nuclear weapons are weapons of peace?
A word must also been put in for India’s original 'nuclear lobby'. This included sections of the Department of Atomic Energy, some far-sighted military officers and some outspoken civilian analysts. For their continued lobbying for overt weaponisation, they were derided in the media and policy-making circles. They were either characterised as Strangelovian or as plain stupid.
Now that India has reaped the manifold benefits of testing, it might be a good time to thank those few, but brave, voices.
Sankar R. is an independent journalist.
This article is part of a series from THE WEEK on the 20th anniversary of the Pokhran-2 nuclear tests undertaken by the government of Atal Behari Vajpayee. The Pokhran-2 tests—which saw India test 5 nuclear weapons at Pokhran, Rajasthan on May 11 and 13, 1988—led to India declaring itself as a nuclear weapons state. This series covers archival materials on how THE WEEK covered the Pokhran tests in 1998, the preparedness of India's military in a nuclear age and the threat of terrorists getting their hands on 'dirty bombs'.