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---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 19:53:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Vijay.Prashad at mail.cc.trincoll.edu,
Vijay Prashad <vprashad at Mail.Trincoll.Edu> To: foil-l at foil.org Subject: The Hindutva Bomb
FOIL: Below is a letter that Biju Mathew and I have sent to the ethnic media in the US(India Abroad, India West, Asia On-Line, etc.). We hope that others will also write on the issue. In solidarity, Vijay Prashad.
11 May 1998.
Dear Editor,
At 3:45pm on 11 May, the Indian state conducted three nuclear tests in the Rajashtani town of Pokhran (the site of the first test in 1974). Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee affirmed the position he took in Parliament in March that "our party feels India should have the bomb since it will place the country in a strong position vis-a-vis the outside world." In an interview to Frontline (24 April 1998), Defense Minister George Fernandes noted that "India has to restore its pride and its place in the world." It appears that this action by the BJP minority government is intended to send a jingoistic message to China, Pakistan and to the entire world. There is no ambiguity in the message. One of the three devices was a thermonuclear bomb whose only value is as an offensive weapon (there is little that this test can show towards the harnessing of nuclear power for the energy sector). The BJP's 1998 election manifesto promised to "expedite the country's nuclear policy and exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons." Let there be no illusions that there is every indication that the May tests will lead to the conversion of India into an active nuclear power (with the bombs loaded onto the Agni missiles).
Hours after the triple explosion, Pakistan's foreign minister Gohar Ayub Khan noted that the blasts have "sucked Pakistan into an arms race." India and Pakistan already lead the world in the import of conventional arms (mainly produced in Europe and the USA). With an intensification of this new nuclear race, the budgets of these two neighbours will be heavily burdened by what is euphemistically called "defense." The pressing needs of the masses will once again be squandered as merchants of death barter basic needs for immense profit. The carefully developed relationships between the neighbours created by the Gujral Doctrine have now collapsed. Regional denuclearization, barely on the map as it is, now seems to have been effectively killed off by the BJP.
We strongly condemn the explosion of these devices and the BJP's policy of nuclear hawkishness. There is enough indication that the BJP has resorted to this to whip up jingoistic sentiments within the country; we are opposed this cheap way to generate support, one that is at the expense of peace and social justice. There is nothing swadeshi about this kind of heinousness.
If India is to "restore its pride," let it do so by upholding the noble traditions of ahimsa and of panchsheela rather than betray that fine heritage (crafted in the 1950s) for the sordidness of power politics. There is little to be gained from being the Big Boys on the Block, a macho and juvenile tactic in an age of terrific weaponry. India must renounce the nuclear option to restart a moral campaign to denuclearize the world. This is the only sane solution, but one not viable if the BJP remains in power.
Yours Etc., Vijay Prashad (Professor of International Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, CT.) Biju Mathew (Professor of Business, Rider College, Princeton, NJ)