Uncovering global story of India’s nuclear programme

A Hindustan Times collaboration presents a weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy featuring a global story of India’s nuclear program during its first forty years.

India’s nuclear program is often conceived as an inward-looking endeavor of secretive technocrats. But a new book by the scholar Jayita Sarkar, Ploughshares and Swords: India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War, challenges the conventional wisdom, narrating a global story of India’s nuclear program during its first forty years. Sarkar joined Milan Vaishnav last week on Grand Tamasha, a weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy jointly produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

India conducted test flight of its indigenously developed nuclear-capable Agni V long range ballistic missile on December 26.(PTI File Photo)

In her book, Sarkar writes that the anti-nonproliferation position of leaders of India’s nuclear program was neither moralistic nor ideological—it was pragmatic. “Because India was this country that was not aligned on either side [during the Cold War] but had maintained strong relations with the Soviet Union as well…that made Indian policymakers able to negotiate with multiple parties,” said Sarkar. Among Western policymakers, it created this feeling that if “we don’t listen to Indian policymakers now, they might just go to Moscow. And Moscow felt sometimes felt the same way”. India’s genius was to exploit the opportunities the Cold War afforded to enhance freedom of action for the country.

On the civilian side, Sarkar notes that even today India’s nuclear program is “made up of dreams, hopes, and promises.” Officially, nuclear energy meets only 3.2 percent of the country’s share of electricity production. “Nuclear energy is not cheap, it is not too cheap to meter…unless there is a huge amount of state subsidy. And when that is not possible, it is really hard for any country to draw a lot of electricity from nuclear power,” argued Sarkar. “It is really a story of the presence of the state and how much is possible. But then the non-proliferation regime is what we hear more about because, rightfully so, India was not able to particulate in civilian nuclear trade. This is a fact. But if India were able to…it would not change any time soon because there needs to be adequate—or more than adequate—state support.”