Even as India is observing the 10th anniversary of the Pokharan II tests which proclaimed this nation a nuclear weapon state, the nuclear future of this country is becoming increasingly doubtful. Our nuclear reactors are operating at 50 per cent capacity and if the Indo-US nuclear deal is not signed and the technology denial against India is not lifted as a result, India’s three-stage nuclear programme and ambitions of using the country’s abundant thorium supplies for nuclear power will receive a severe setback and will be delayed by several decades.

Three parties will decide India’s nuclear future — the Congress, the BJP and the communists. The Congress and the BJP have a continuity in policy since Rajiv Gandhi initiated weaponisation in March 1989. The Pokharan II testing of Atal

Bihari Vajpayee is a continuation of P.V. Narasimha Rao’s attempt to test in 1995. The Indo-US nuclear deal is a continuation and further enlargement by the Congress of the BJP initiative of Next Steps in Strategic Partnership with the United States. Both the Congress and the BJP are committed to seeing India as one of the major balancers of power in the international system and to developing the self-reliant three-stage nuclear programme that Homi J. Bhabha envisioned. The communists are not in favour of Indian nuclear weapons, India’s nuclear future and India as a major balancer of power with an independent foreign policy. As faithful members of the communist ummah they want China to dominate Asia, and the world ultimately, and they would like India to play a subordinate role.

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