India S Nuclear Debate

Making the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party’s nuclear tests in 1998 its starting point, this book examines how opinion amongst India’s ‘attentive’ public shifted from supporting nuclear abstinence to accepting — and even feeling a need for — a more assertive policy, by examining the complexities of the debate in India on nuclear policy in the 1990s. The study seeks to account for the shift in opinion by looking at the parallel processes of how nuclear policy became an important part of the public discourse in India, and what it came to symbolise for the country’s intelligentsia during this decade. It argues that the pressure on New Delhi in the early 1990s to fall in line with the non-proliferation regime, magnified by India’s declining global influence at the time, caused the issue to cease being one of defence, making it a focus of nationalist pride instead. The country’s nuclear programme thus emerged as a test of its ability to withstand external compulsions, guaranteeing not so much the sanctity of its borders as a certain political idea of it — that of a modern, scientific and, most importantly, ‘sovereign’ state able to defend its policies and set its goals.

The US–India nuclear deal, popularly known as the 123 Agreement, announced by George W. Bush and Manmohan Singh on 18 July 2005, was a defining moment in the relationship of the two countries, as also India’s relationship with the non-proliferation regime. The Bush administration’s implied recognition of India’s nuclear weapons, and its abrupt reversal of three decades of sanctions to restore Indian access to nuclear fuel, reactors, and dual-use technologies despite being a non-proliferation treaty non-signatory, led to contentious debates in both India and the USA. A Debate to Remember emphasizes the multifaceted debate in India over the nuclear deal using concepts from science and technology studies. It focuses on the intense contestation over the civil-military mix of India’s separation plan, the competition between the Iran–Pakistan–India pipeline and the nuclear deal, the role of retired nuclear scientists, and the issue of liability that has stalled the full implementation of the nuclear deal. The impact of domestic factors on issues ranging from the civil-military status of breeder reactors to the Indian insistence on no restriction on future nuclear testing in the 123 Agreement is also revealed in this book.

India has come a long way from being a nuclear pariah to a de facto member of the nuclear club. The transition in its nuclear identity has been accompanied by its transformation into a major economic power and underlines a pragmatic turn in its foreign-policy thinking. This book provides a historical narrative of the evolution of India’s nuclear policy since 1947, as the country continues its pursuit for complete integration into the global nuclear order. Situating India’s nuclear behaviour in this context, the book explains how India’s engagement with the atom is unique in international nuclear history and politics. Aided by declassified archival documents and oral history interviews, it focuses on how status, security, domestic politics, and the role of individuals have played a key role in defining and shaping India’s nuclear trajectory, policy choices, and their consequences.

Collated articles from Indian print media on the Agreement between July-Oct., 2007.

Publisher Fact Sheet The definitive history of India's long flirtation with nuclear capability, culminating in the nuclear tests that surprised the world in May 1998.

The US-India nuclear deal, popularly known as the 123 Agreement, announced by George W. Bush and Manmohan Singh on 18 July 2005, was a defining moment in the relationship of the two countries, as also India's relationship with the non-proliferation regime. The Bush administration's implied recognition of India's nuclear weapons, and its abrupt reversal of three decades of sanctions to restore Indian access to nuclear fuel, reactors, and dual-use technologies despite being a non-proliferation treaty non-signatory, led to contentious debates in both India and the USA. This text emphasises the multifaceted debate in India over the nuclear deal using concepts from science and technology studies.

Karsten Frey gives an analytic account of the dynamics of India's nuclear build up, putting forward a new comprehensive model which goes beyond the classic strategic model of accepting motives of arming behaviour, and incorporates the dynamics in India's nuclear programme.

"In May 1998, India and Pakistan put to rest years of speculation about whether they possessed nuclear technology and openly tested their weapons. Some believed nuclearization would stabilize South Asia; others prophesized disaster. Authors of two of the most comprehensive books on South Asia's new nuclear era, Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, offer competing theories on the transformation of the region and what these patterns mean for the world's next proliferators." "With these two major interpretations, Ganguly and Kapur tackle all sides of an urgent issue that has profound regional and global consequences. Sure to spark discussion and debate, India, Pakistan, and the Bomb thoroughly maps the potential impact of nuclear proliferation."--Cubierta.