Doomsday clock

India's tests were devoid of strategic rationale. Even before 11 May, India was militarily more secure than it had been a decade previously, owing to improved relations with China, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The nuclear threat to India had actually decreased, not increased. Even if this were not the case, New Delhi would not have been justified in testing/making nuclear weapons. That would have gone against its own long-stated policy, and its considered doctrine that nuclear weapons are not an effective, rational or legitimate means of meeting threats and that nuclear deterrence is "abhorrent"..India has now taken the inglorious path of the nuclear states. The reason for this has nothing to do with the "principled" global arguments cited by the bomb's apologists: India is fighting "nuclear apartheid" through an "anti-imperialist" bomb; nuclear disarmament will now be taken more seriously by the big five; and this is the best means of jolting them after the indefinite extension of Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the imposition of the "discriminatory" Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)..Going by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's letter to United States President Clinton, the real reasons are not lofty or global but crass, regional and demeaning: India today feels "threatened" by China which"committed armed aggression" against it 36 years ago; and by Pakistan which China has "helped become a current nuclear weapon-state". This is a crude anti-China come-hither gesture to Washington. Further, Vajpayee proposes "cooperation" with (who else!) – the US "to promote the cause of nuclear disarmament". Since when did the US begin promoting the cause? Does this even remotely sound like the principled position of a self-respecting state?.Fifty years after the forces of Hindutva assassinated Gandhi, they finally put his legacy to rest by embracing the theology of mass destruction. The eleventh of May 1998 will go down in South Asian history as India's day of shame. Now, with Pakistan following suit, the dark shadow of a mushroom cloud hangs over all of South Asia. Nuclear devastation is no longer a distant threat; it is suddenly an immediate, felt danger for the 1.3 billion people who live in this turbulent, unhappy, tension-prone region..The bomb's real rationale comes from Hindutva's delusions of grandeur, false notions of prestige, and hegemonistic ambitions. The bomb predates even Ayodhya on the BJP agenda. It goes back to 1951, 13 years before China even tested. For the BJP, it is an article of faith; it had intentions of conducting a test even during its predictably doomed 13-day tenure in 1996..The amazing thing is that the BJP has brazenly bullied other parties and "middle-ground" opinion, and taken one fateful decision after another without a democratic mandate, or even the pretence of a strategic review. India's Operation Shakti signifies the country´s degeneration as a democracy and the emergence of a macho national-security mindset. It celebrates mass-destruction weapons as prestigious..Nuclearisation will degrade India's security through a ruinous arms race with Pakistan and China; destabilise Asian security and set back the global disarmament agenda – in which everyone's security lies. The implications for South Asia are now grim, with Pakistan too, as expected, having tested. Overt India-Pakistan nuclear competition will seriously threaten the region. The two have been to war three times and share a history of mutual distrust and strategic miscalculation. Both are in for a spell of political uncertainty and unstable governments which are tempted with the gain of cheap popularity through nuclear sabre-rattling. Their missile programmes could greatly lower the nuclear threshold in the Subcontinent..A nuclear war is far likelier now in South Asia than it was at any time between the US and the erstwhile USSR. The radioactive clouds that are released, knowing no national boundaries, will blow over the entire region. This is one reason why all the states of the region, barring India and Bhutan, have repeatedly voted for a South Asian nuclear weapons-free zone for 20 years..That demand's logic remains valid. India and Pakistan must not henceforth test, nor make or deploy, let alone use, nuclear weapons. They must be pressed by other South Asian states to make solemn pledges to that effect. It is tragic that their neighbours have been virtually silent. Morally, their criticism would be far more damning than hypocritical America's. Popular protests all over South Asia against India´s and Pakistan´s tests would be the best contribution towards the emerging peace movement in these two countries.