India’s reluctance to perceive any ‘existential threat’ inevitably made the multilateral path to nuclear security a ‘default option’ until it decided to cross the nuclear Rubicon in 1998. Identify and analyse some of the major reasons behind this shift in India’s position on the nuclear question. (2025, 20 Marks)
The premise reflects a realist argument made by Rajesh Rajagopalan (2019): states that fear a non-nuclear threat to their survival, such as Israel and Pakistan, need nuclear weapons for first use; India, the preponderant power of its region, did not. Universal disarmament was therefore its cheapest security. May 1998 is best explained not by a new existential threat but by the closing of the multilateral path just as nuclear coercion became a real risk.
The default option and how it worked
- Jawaharlal Nehru kept the door ajar: moving the atomic energy bill on 6 April 1948, he warned that if India were compelled, no “pious sentiments” would stop it.
- India led on disarmament: the 1954 standstill proposal on testing, the five principles of UNGA Resolution 2028 (1965) for a balanced NPT, and Rajiv Gandhi’s Action Plan (1988) for time-bound elimination.
- After 1962 and China’s 1964 test, India sought great-power guarantees, not a bomb; the 1974 device was called a peaceful nuclear explosion and not followed up. Vipin Narang (Seeking the Bomb, 2022) treats India as the classic hedger: shortening the road to the weapon while stopping short of it.
Major reasons behind the shift
1. The multilateral path closed. The indefinite extension of the NPT (May 1995) made the 1967 cut-off permanent, and the CTBT (1996) made its entry into force depend on India’s ratification. The option could now be legislated away, while the 1988 plan was ignored; Jaswant Singh called the result nuclear apartheid (Foreign Affairs, 1998).
2. A two-front nuclear neighbourhood. China’s arsenal, and its help to Pakistan, met a Pakistani capability already visible in the 1986–87 and 1990 crises. Pakistan flight-tested the Ghauri missile on 6 April 1998, and George Fernandes named China India’s “potential threat number one” weeks before the tests. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s letter to Bill Clinton cited an “overt nuclear weapon state on our borders”.
3. Strategic solitude. The Soviet collapse removed the partner of 1971, while Washington sought to cap and roll back India’s programme and, in December 1995, exposed and halted test preparations.
4. Technological maturity. Dhruva (1985), the missile programme (1983), Agni (1989) and weaponisation authorised in 1988–89 gave India a deliverable capability whose designs, especially the thermonuclear one, needed testing before the window shut.
5. Domestic politics and status. The BJP’s 1998 manifesto promised to induct nuclear weapons, yet a Congress government had prepared tests in 1995: the consensus crossed party lines.
Weighing the reasons
| Explanation (Scott D. Sagan, 1996–97) | What it explains | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Security | Why the option was kept | Threats did not change sharply after 1995 |
| Norms (rejecting a discriminatory order) | Why it had to be used before the CTBT froze it | Does not explain the bomb itself |
| Domestic politics | Why May 1998 | Cannot explain the cross-party groundwork |
- George Perkovich (India’s Nuclear Bomb, 1999) stresses the scientific establishment and the pull of prestige over security. Right on timing, but the closing window was every government’s premise after 1995.
- The crossing preserved the old logic: a testing moratorium, no first use and calls for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. Pakistan’s tests (28 and 30 May 1998) confirmed India’s dilemma, and the 2005–08 accommodation recognised India as a de facto nuclear power.
- The restraint is still being tested: SIPRI’s 2026 Yearbook counts about 190 Indian warheads, 12 of them deployed for the first time.
Conclusion
India crossed the Rubicon not because survival was suddenly at stake but because the regime threatened to make second-class status permanent while two nuclear neighbours could coerce it. Multilateralism stopped being an available option without ceasing to be a preference. 1998 was a realist adaptation of the Nehruvian conditional, not its abandonment.