Pokharan-III

: Sunday, May 11, 2008 is the 10th anniversary of Pokharan-II. We could have said, on the eve of this anniversary, how things have changed. Things did change. But India is still back to the nuclear-strategic square one. How India managed to slip back to status quo ante is the story of these 10 years. Let’s begin the story with China.

China’s attitude towards India has always been a good indicator of New Delhi’s global strategic clout. China was contemptuous of India as the latter was preparing for its “peaceful nuclear explosion” in 1973. A recently declassified letter (March 2, 1973), from Henry Kissinger to Richard Nixon, showcases the utter contempt Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai had for the Indian leadership.

Kissinger says, inter alia, “In South Asia, the Chinese believe India remains Moscow’s principal agent; their distrust of New Delhi remains as potent as ever... Chou (Zhou) displayed a particular contempt for the Indians and a personal dislike for Indian leaders. He related several cynical and disdainful anecdotes about Prime Ministers Nehru and Gandhi.... In response, I said that we would go slow in any improvement of relations with New Delhi and would keep the PRC informed.”

Little had changed by the time the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government conducted the Shakti series of nuclear tests on May 11 and 13, 1998. The then Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan and the then US secretary of state Madeleine Albright took the lead in drafting Security Council resolution No. 1172. This was aimed at emasculating New Delhi’s nuclear capabilities and, just to make sure the message got through, added the Kashmir issue.

Ten years later, the global calculus has dramatically reversed. Pokharan-II didn’t only result in strategic gains for India but the 2006 Indo-US nuclear deal also offers de facto nuclear weapon status. Washington views New Delhi as a countervailing force to Beijing and discourages any weapon supplies to China. Russia, after the collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union, remains a principal hardware supplier to India. But it also sells the same weaponry to China. And it is monitoring negotiations on the Indo-US nuclear deal before resuming nuclear fuel supplies to India. China now accommodates India, after assessing New Delhi’s current relations with Washington.

No one understands the Chinese mindset towards India better than the former defence minister, George Fernandes. Two months after 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld had come to India to meet Fernandes. Rumsfeld had made it clear...

Ads By Google

Message*	Maximum characters allowed

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*

TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).

I agree to the terms of use.