ANSWER:

India has had an uncomfortable relationship with nuclear weapons. From the early

days of independence, Indian leaders, especially Jawaharlal Nehru, took a very

public and very VOCAL stand against nuclear weapons. But Nehru, a modernist, was

also convinced that nuclear technology had a role to play in NATIONAL development.1

To a lesser degree, he also thought that nuclear weapons technology might have a

role to play in national defence if efforts at nuclear disarmament should fail. These

somewhat contradictory strands are still visible today, as they have been through

much of the last six decades of Indian nuclear policy.

But it would be foolish to suggest that Nehru’s perspective on nuclear weapons

was the only determinant in Indian nuclear policy. India’s nuclear policy was

also influenced by India’s international security condition as well as by domestic

variables such as the vagaries of political change and the influence of bureaucratic

elites. Indeed, India’s decision to build a nuclear force was taken only in the late

1980s, much after it had become clear that Pakistan —with Chinese technological

assistance— had made rapid advances in the nuclear weapons programme. As for

bureaucratic influence, some defence scientists played a key role in keeping the

weapons programme alive even when there was no political support or indeed,

active OPPOSITION, while other bureaucrats were responsible for creating political

awareness of India’s declining nuclear OPTIONS. Nevertheless, these variables suggest

a moderate Indian approach to nuclear weapons and thus reinforce the dominant

tendency towards a political rather a military approach to looking at nuclear

weapons. They do not suggest any dramatic changes nor rapid advance