Pokhran II BJP's harmful legacy Defeat of BJP-Allies National task of today

THE BJP government fell before it could celebrate the first anniversary of the Pokhran nuclear tests in a big way. Nevertheless, the BJP decided to observe May 11 as "National Resurgence Day" which is neither surprising nor unexpected. For there is nothing else for the BJP to celebrate, given the dismal record of the 13-month Vajpayee government. The hallmarks of the opportunist coalition headed by Vajpayee have been rising prices, growing unemployment, attacks on the minorities, authoritarian onslaughts on democracy, and unscrupulous and corrupt deals to remain in power. The BJP has to fall back, therefore, on the old RSS recipe of jingoistic nationalism.

So, in the run up to the elections, the bomb will once more be projected as the BJP government's big achievement. The Pokhran tests are being shown as the BJP's important contribution to the country's might. In the mythology of the RSS, the nuclear bomb will make India invincible against its enemies such as Pakistan and China. Steeped in this mythology, the Vajpayee government took the major decision to go for the nuclear tests and weaponisation, soon after assuming office. Vajpayee was fulfilling the RSS chief Golwalkar's call for making the bomb as a step towards a strong Hindu rashtra. That the making of the bomb was the first priority for the BJP government was affirmed by the RSS joint general secretary, K S Sudarshan, who after the Pokhran tests revealed that going in for the nuclear explosion was decided by the 13 day old Vajpayee government in 1996 but it fell before the decision could be implemented.

The one year since the Pokhran tests have amply shown the fallacy of this decision. India has not emerged stronger, but weakened by this adventurist policy. India found itself isolated internationally from its friends and the non-aligned community of nations. With the retaliatory tests conducted by Pakistan in Chagai, the two countries were set to enter into a nuclear arms race.

DISASTROUS EVENTS

In the first few days after the tests, the stance of the BJP led government led to a series of events which had disastrous implications:

(i) Vajpayee wrote to President Clinton on May 13, 1998 (the day of the second round of tests) citing China as the threat to justify nuclear weaponisation. This so-called confidential letter was published by the New York Times.

(ii) L K Advani, in a written statement on May 18, warned Pakistan that India is a nuclear weapons power and declared that problems such as Kashmir will have to be solved in this new geo-political light.

(iii) Immediately after the Pokhran tests, the Vajpayee government signalled its willingness to negotiate signing of the CTBT through an official statement made by the prime minister's principal secretary.

These three facts, taken together, explain the ideological basis of the nuclear policy of the BJP leadership. Firstly, both China and Pakistan are targetted as the reason for going ahead with nuclear weaponisation. Secondly, a conscious effort is made to woo the United States by citing China as a security threat and expressing its willingness to do business with the Americans by offering to negotiate on the CTBT.

If one looks back on the statements and stance of BJP leaders in the early days after the Pokhran blasts, it is full of jingoistic bombast and ultra-nationalist rhetoric. The BJP calculated that this will help them to consolidate the precariously placed Vajpayee government and isolate the secular opposition.

BANKRUPTCY & DESPERATION

The BJP thought that the domestic political benefits would far outweigh the consequences of international isolation. That this was a grave miscalculation became evident to them only after the results of the assembly elections in four states in November when the BJP was routed, including the state of Rajasthan where Pokhran is situated.

The BJP suffered this debacle because it wrongly thought that it can whip up jingoism and thus wipe out the ill effects of its right-wing policies; that rising prices, collapse of the public distribution system, pro-big business-MNC policies -- all would be condoned by the people for the sake of the bomb. The fact that the BJP is now resurrecting the bomb as an achievement indicates their desperation in the run-up to the election, given the bankruptcy of its government's record in other matters.

The threatened confrontation with Pakistan, the spoiling of relations with China and the universal disapproval of the tests, left the Vajpayee regime's foreign policy in a shambles. To get out of this mess, it chose the option of surrendering to the US.

The BJP leaders had boasted that sanctions imposed by the US and the G-7 countries would have no effect on India's economy. Yet, it desperately sought to negotiate with the US to get the sanctions relaxed or lifted. In fact, the US utilised the sanctions as a lever to get the BJP regime to talk.

FROM JINGOISM TO CAPITULATION

The BJP government quickly passed over from nuclear jingoism to capitulation to the USA. Over a period of eight months, the Vajpayee government held secret negotiations with the US. No other government in India has undertaken such an unprecedented step as the eight rounds of the Strobe Talbott-Jaswant Singh talks. When the full truth about these negotiations come out, it will be a record of infamy. Hiding the truth from the Indian people, the brave nuclear warriors were cowering before the Americans. Pleading for some recognition of India's nuclear status, the BJP government bartered away India's independent and principled position on the nuclear question. It shamelessly offered rich pickings for the US multinational and finance capital by offering to open up the insurance business and guaranteeing free run in every sector of the economy. By September 1998, the Vajpayee-Jaswant Singh duo had committed to the Americans that India would sign up on the CTBT; they only wanted some time to prepare the Indian people to accept this surrender.

As far as South Asia is concerned, the Pokhran tests have initiated a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan. Following Pakistan's tests at Chagai, the BJP-led government has trotted the worn out theory of nuclear deterrence to justify the drive for weaponisation. The Pakistan government has not lagged behind in matching this foolish stance. This has led to the spectre of a nuclear arms race, which will be disastrous for both countries.

The Vajpayee government, egged on by a hawkish nuclear scientific establishment, has announced plans for full-fledged weaponisation. This would, as a realistic estimate made by Rammanohar Reddy in The Hindu, cost the country Rs 40,000-50,000 crore over a decade, since the weaponisation programme would entail a delivery system, command and control mechanisms and acquiring second strike capability. Such a confrontation with Pakistan would end up in a scenario where communalism gets combined with growing militaristic expenditure. This would be directly against the interests of the working people and the poor, with scarce resources being diverted from developing the economy, health, education and other social sector expenditure.

Paradoxically, after worsening relations with Pakistan and introducing a new menacing nuclear confrontation into the relations between the two countries, the BJP and Vajpayee would now like to take credit for a new breakthrough in Indo-Pakistan relations. After talk of "shakti" and intimidating Pakistan, the BJP now claims credit for Vajpayee's bus trip to Lahore. This event took place in the background of continuing American pressure on both India and Pakistan to begin talks to defuse tensions and come to an understanding on the nuclear question under American auspices. The Vajpayee government, in the Strobe Talbott-Jaswant singh talks, accepted the position that the US will act as arbiter in maintaining the nuclear balance between the two countries. Here again the Vajpayee government conceded the sovereign right of India by allowing the United States a vital role in the security aspects of South Asia.

Unable to derive any benefits from the posture of having browbeaten Pakistan with nuclear weapons and unable to explain how India is being bracketed with Pakistan by the world with both countries going in for weaponisation, Vajpayee thought it prudent to accept the American advice and go in for negotiations. While this is a welcome change of stance, the Lahore talks have not yielded anything substantial and the stark reality is that both countries are now yoked together in a nuclear face-off monitored by the Unites States.

The sudden fall of the Vajpayee government has unravelled the plans of the United States to coax India to sign the CTBT and then go on towards the FMCT negotiations. The Vajpayee government is now unable with its present caretaker status to deliver this part of the bargain.

FOREIGN POLICY IN A SHAMBLES

The result of the nuclear gamble is that India's foreign policy is in a shambles. The isolation of India was seen in its marginalisation at the non-aligned summit held in South Africa last year. Having given up its independent non-aligned stance, the Vajpayee government shamelessly supported the American missile attacks against Afghanistan and Sudan. Even in the case of the brazen NATO aggression of Yugoslavia, the Vajpayee government, after its initial critical stance, quickly retreated in the face of American displeasure. Today, India has truly been brought down to the status of Pakistan, a country seeking to please America to find a place in the international community, its nuclear stance being abjectly at the mercy of the United States; its principled stand for nuclear disarmament and against the discriminatory global nuclear order having been abandoned.

This is the harmful legacy of Pokhran II. This legacy has to be undone and disowned. This can be achieved only when the people decide to reject the BJP in the coming general elections and a new secular government comes into being committed to restore India's independent peace-loving and non-aligned foreign policy.