India

Introduction:

India became an independent country on August 15, 1947 and almost immediately stepped to the front lines of the movement for universal nuclear disarmament. Writing in the Harijan in September 1948, India’s prominent political and spiritual leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi said, “I regard the employment of the atom bomb for the wholesale destruction of men, women and children as the most diabolical use of science.” In the same year, India introduced a

resolution in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly that stressed the need for effective international control of atomic energy.

In 1954, India was the first country to stress the need for an end to all nuclear weapons testing, and in 1965 it proposed a nondiscriminatory nonproliferation treaty. In 1978, India proposed an international convention that would prohibit the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. In 1982, India called for a “nuclear freeze,” that is, a prohibition on the production of fissile material for weapons, on production of nuclear weapons, and on related delivery systems. At the UN General Assembly Special Session on Disarmament in 1988, India put forward a Comprehensive Plan for total elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

While India pursued a solely “peaceful nuclear program” in the 1950s, by the mid-1960s it reconsidered its aversion to nuclear weapons in the face of escalating regional instability. India’s two main rivals in the region have been Pakistan and China.

India’s earlier decision to develop the complete nuclear fuel cycle allowed it to easily acquire technical capability to build nuclear weapons when the geopolitical situation changed. In November 1964, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri authorized theoretical work on the Subterranean Nuclear Explosion for Peaceful Purposes (SNEPP). India commissioned a reprocessing facility at Trombay, which was used to separate out the plutonium produced by the CIRUS research reactor. This plutonium was used in India's first nuclear test on May 18, 1974, described by the Indian government as a “peaceful nuclear explosion.” An expert analysis of the explosion demonstrated India’s capability to produce nuclear weapons.

On May 11, 1998, India tested three devices at the Pokhran underground testing site, followed by two more tests on May 13, 1998. One of the detonations was claimed to be thermonuclear.

The Indian arsenal is estimated to consist of 70 assembled nuclear warheads, with only about 50 fully operational. India has a declared nuclear no-first-use policy and continues to advocate the end to nuclear testing and global disarmament “based on the principles of universality, nondiscrimination and effective compliance.”

India has not signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) or the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Analysis:

• India's Nuclear Program by Volha Charnysh, September 3, 2009