No-first-use policy on nuclear arms to continue: Experts
NEW DELHI: At best, BJP’s poll manifesto that promised to “revive” India’s nuclear doctrine leaves reviewing it open-ended. But spiking the no-first-use of weapons policy — the fulcrum of the doctrine — ushered in by the NDA in 2003 and unchanged by the two UPA governments, is unlikely.
A range of strategic experts and commentators, who have closely followed this policy, see little reason for India to change a doctrine that has served it well and is the basis for many partners entering into strategic relationship with the country, which remains outside the cusp of non-proliferation treaty.
All of them welcome a review of the policy to make it aligned with the geopolitical realities of the day. “Abandoning the nofirst policy doesn’t do us any good. Doing so will make many partners doubt our intentions,” Lalit Mansingh, a former foreign secretary who served in the Vajpayee regime, said. “Changing the policy of no-first- use will be seen as provocative. I don’t think that is the intention, as radical it could be, reflected in the manifesto if you read through the entire section dealing with foreign policy in the document,” said MK Bhdrakumar, a former career diplomat well-versed with the topic.
“Any such sudden move on no first use could be hasty and imprudent”, added Uday Bhaskar, distinguished fellow at Society for Policy Studies. India’s nuclear doctrine is against no first use and also against using nuclear weapons MK BHADRAKUMAR, ex-diplomat on countries that do not possess such weapons.
THE ONLY AIM IS TO REFRESH POLICY: BJP
A promise in the BJP manifesto to “study, revive and update” India’s nuclear doctrine may have triggered a media debate, but party leaders indicate it did not mean that a future NDA government has committed itself to reversing the “no-first-use” policy of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. After nuclear tests in Pokhran in 1998, the Vajpayeeled government had also pledged not to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.
The BJP manifesto says the strategic gains acquired during his regime on the nuclear programme has been frittered away by the subsequent Congress governments in the last 10 years.
Party leaders insist the first priority of a future NDA government will be to press the refresh button on India’s strategic and civilian nuclear programme as the “world has moved in the last decade”.