News and Letters, June 1998

Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry and Mary Holmes

India raises menace of nuclear war

Contributed by Maya Jhansi

Crossing the nuclear threshhold with the five underground nuclear tests conducted by the right-wing BJP-led coalition government, India now stands poised for a deadly arms race with Pakistan in what has become one of the most volatile continents in the world. Fundamentalist leaders in both countries have been sabre rattling over the disputed Kashmir territory. With a history of three wars and two near-wars between the countries, this conflict raises the menace of nuclear war with an urgency not felt since the end of the Cold War. (As we go to press, Pakistan has not only tested its own nuclear devices, but now claims to have affixed nuclear warheads to missles aimed at India.ÐEd.)

Not to be forgotten in this nuclear mania is China, with which India went to war over border disputes in 1962. Indian politicians, in the days preceding the nuclear tests, had declared China to be India' s main enemy and a threat to India' s national security. Since the nuclear tests, a press release by Xinhua, China' s official news agency, charged India with having invaded China in 1962 and having illegally occupied 90,000 square kilometers of Chinese territory. This forebodes the possibility of a revived border dispute, this time with India as a full member of the " nuclear club" to which China has long belonged.

The BJP, heading the recently elected coalition government, however, has more on its nuclear agenda than the so-called external threat to national security they fabricated to justify the tests. The nuclear explosions were meant to cement the BJP' s shaky hold on power. Most of the elected parties in the coalition have rallied behind Prime Minister Vajpayee' s act of nuclear terror in a rare show of unity. Left parties like the CPI and CPI(M) revealed their utter bankruptcy when they restricted their criticism of the BJP to the fact that it had not conducted an open review before going ahead with the tests.

Ideologically, the jingoist rhetoric used to cast the nuclear conflict as one between imperialist powers and the Third World serves to help the BJP maintain its veneer of nationalism while it continues the liberalization policies of past Indian governments. While Indian politicians continue to thumb their nose at the U.S. and western sanctions, they are at pains to maintain a working relationship with the IMF and the World Bank. Indeed, we may see the BJP blaming the worsening economic conditions of the masses on the sanctions imposed by the imperialist powers, rather than on their own sell-out of India to global capitalism through liberalization.

The sanctions imposed by the U.S., the largest nuclear power in the world, stink with hypocrisy. In the end, the U.S. will, of course, only pursue those policies in its own best interest and it remains to be seen whether its two-faced sanctions will have any more bearing on India than those that were slapped on China following the Tiananmen Square massacre. (See April 1998 N&L)

The picture presented by the bourgeois media is that the BJP has united India behind its nuclear frenzy. This is far from the truth. Many Indians see through the BJP' s blatant ideological manipulation. Noting the tragic irony that the explosions were conducted on Buddha' s birthday, May 11, a statement issued by the National Alliance of People' s Movements, an association of over 200 grassroots and environmental movements, denounced the tests, arguing that real national " glory would have been the availability of clean drinking water, housing, employment...health services and opportunities for education."

Several anti-nuke demonstrations have been staged in New Delhi and Calcutta, organized by various grassroots, peace and women' s organizations. Participants carried signs that read " We don' t want Nuclear Bombs in Gandhi' s India!" and " We are clear, No Nuclear!" One demonstrator who was asked by an Indian TV reporter what the protest hoped to achieve, said, " We don' t want the world to think that all Indians support nuclear testing. This is for all people of the subcontinent--we are saying we want peace and not war." Notably absent from these protests was the organized Indian Left.

What India' s nuclear testing reveals is that the fight for a more human world is still a fight for the very survival of human life on this planet. The post-Cold War complacency over nuclear weapons has been dispelled and could lead to a reawakening of the global anti-nuclear movement.