Muted Voices

THE nuclear debate appears a bit weighted in favour of the ‘hawks’. This category of predominantly male doomsayers, expounding on macho-sounding and obscure terms, are the same the world over, from Washington to New Delhi. They have been called an elite club of mandarin-philosophers talking of shadowy, unaccountable bodies like the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), a ‘Manhattan class’ with the power to influence billions of rupees, yet lofty, secluded and uniformly gladiatorial.

While the internal political debate is vibrant, the nuclear debate seems to be dominated by hawkish loyalists, echoing a blood-and-thunder anti-West patriotism. Dissent is condemned either as fuddy-duddy misguided Gandhianism, outdated socialism or slogans by West-inspired anti-nationals. There seems to be a ‘manufactured consensus’, a government-inspired sameness of view which then, in the absence of any other view, becomes public discourse. "The liberal voice in the nuclear debate is undoubtedly muted. Forums are limited because of allegations of being a CIA agent," says P.R. Chari, co-director, Institute Of Peace and Conflict Studies.

In the interests of a good debate, where are the ‘peaceniks’? Amidst national euphoria and a battery of telehawks, where is a coherent, sophisticated ‘peace lobby’? Several reasons are given for ‘hawk’ dominance. First, the peaceniks have painted themselves into a broccoli-and-wine radical chic corner, where they are considered too distant from the nationalist urges of Real India and where no political party will touch them. They are often described as destructive cranks of "zero personal credibility". Second, without an actual event until now, there has simply been no opportunity to start a homegrown peace movement and the debate is too immature to be nuanced. Third, the thinking classes are simply not perturbed about foreign or security policy or are too flushed with radioactive nationalism.

Kanti Bajpai, professor of International Relations at Jawarhalal Nehru University (JNU), who believes that India should have unilaterally given up its nuclear option, says that Indian nationalism has become inextricably linked with nuclear weapons. "Somehow, nuclear weapons are caught up with our modern identity, they are seen as an extension of the Nehruvian temples of science and people who oppose them are called deshdrohis (traitors)," Bajpai says. There is a subliminal perception that we were conquered by colonialism because of military defeats, a perception which leads to militarist assertion. "There is a widespread feeling that we have to stand up to the West militarily if we want to safeguard our sovereignty," Bajpai says. The Indian government probably still does not properly appreciate that in a post-Cold War world, economic rather than military power receives greater international prestige.

There are other reasons why the dissenting voice is not heard. Importantly, the lack of independently funded research institutes, like the relatively liberal Brookings Institute in the US, makes most defence experts crucially dependent on the government not only for funds but also for information. The government provides them with raw material and is about the only agency who will buy their expertise. "Information control," says social scientist Dhirendra Sharma, author of India's Nuclear Estate, a critical work on the nuclear establishment, "is one of the crucial ways in which the government secures ‘friendly’ academics and journalists." According to Sharma, the military-industrial-scientific establishment which is in charge of nuclear research is the recipient of enormous amounts of money and is an industry in which several companies like the Kirloskars, Tata, and Larsen-Toubro are involved, an operation that provides kickbacks to several politicians.

No wonder, says Sharma, that this establishment is so secretive, a secrecy that is presented as a matter of national security. Questioning the government line means not only being denied access to what information is available but can also, says Sharma, lead to physical threats.

The lack of information, according to Praful Bidwai, journalist and committed anti-nuclear activist, is of critical importance because without it, people simply do not comprehend what exactly nuclear weapons are about. "The government controls information," Bidwai says, "to disseminate its own views, provide a kind of legitimacy to nuclear weapons which India has historically never granted and propagate a sort of tub-thumping nationalism among scholars and scientists." Independently-funded institutes would ensure that dissent is not mar-ginalised. Instead, defence research institutes are heavily subsidised and controlled by the government.

THE government not only controls information, it also controls patronage and jobs. Chari recalls that a RAW director once told him that if the threat from Pakistan and China was allowed to fade, RAW would have to reduce its staff and budget by one-third. The DRDO, says Chari, is definitely a sinister organisation, which bribes—Chari uses the word ‘suborns’—both journalists and academics to press hardline causes in the media, so that a culture of fear is created and the huge supplies of money that are needed to support this organisation are maintained.

"If you take an anti-nuclear line, you are implicitly threatening a lot of jobs," says Sharma, pointing out that while the DRDO, Atomic Energy and Space get 65 per cent of the National Scientific Research funds, rural development and agriculture get less than 1 and 10 per cent respectively. Sharma says he has been called a CIA agent, his Centre for Science Policy Studies in JNU was shut down, and till today no government office or library stocks his book. Bidwai and Achin Vinaik, co-authors of Testing Times, have also been labelled CIA agents and occasionally publicly abused. Bajpai has even been personally attacked in an editorial in a national daily and Chari was forced to set up his own research institute. Entry into the seminar circuit and field trips abroad are all controlled by the government and those who take a strongly independent line can sometimes be left out of the patronage system.

However, in contrast to Sharma, Amitabh Mattoo, professor of International Relations at JNU, a nuclear rationalist, that is, neither hawk nor dove, says there is no systematic persecution of anti-nuclear activists in India. Bajpai agrees. He says the MEA often invites him for meetings and he has regularly stated that the government must develop a system of listening to multiple points of view before it formulates policies. Mattoo, who describes himself as a nuclear ‘owl’, says the nuclear option must be retained to deal with a belligerent China but at the same time India’s welfare indices must also be met. According to Mattoo, the main reason why the anti-nuclear voice is less heard than it used to be is because the two main constituencies which voiced them in the past—Gandhians and old Socialists—have declined.Gandhians are few in number and there are hardly any old Socialists left.

"The moral argument or moral politics are not considered relevant anymore, realpolitik has replaced moralpolitik," says Mat-too. Old Socialists who believed that nuclear tests would militar-ise society and create a secretive and authoritarian regime are also in decline with the fall of world socialism. Nuclear activism in the West has been a manifestation of middle class radicalism because only the middle class has the economic well being to worry about a potential nuclear war. But in India, the affluent conscience has not had time to develop. Further, not only is foreign policy never seriously debated—after all how much public debate was there on the IPKF in Sri Lanka, anyway?—the middle class does not take the issue seriously enough.

Those who do know about the issue are not inclined to question its ethics. According to Bidwai, Indian nuclear scientists are very conformist and there is still no culture of activist science as there is on medical ethics. "The scientific community is generally Brahmanical, with rigid hierarchical structures. The tests are, in fact, a misuse of science," he says. Chari believes that unless a scientist becomes a bomb-wallah, he isn’t taken seriously or given facilities. "For them the bomb is a career, a bread and butter issue. They can’t oppose it."

 Gandhian activist Suhas Borker feels that although we have reason to be proud of our scientists, the nuclear bomb is not a short cut to greatness. "What kind of greatness is this? With 40 per cent people who have no access to food this is a haywire view of greatness," he says. Bharat Variavalla, visiting professor at the University of Hull, believes that the nuclear option should have been given up years ago. "Today,force is no longer the currency of power. Germany and Japan are both superpowers but both have no nuclear weapons."

 Variavalla says India’s obsession with Great Power status (a legacy of Nehru’s leadership of the Third World) snuffs out real debate. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is known for its stately protocol and its great power complex, but not for its commitment to free speech on the nuclear question, says a foreign policy analyst.

However, does India need to develop its own nuclear debate and not remain governed by terms such as ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’? "The Indian debate on the nuclear question should be different from what it is in the West," says K. Subrahmanyam, often described as a ‘hawk’. "We must be realistic and realise that today it is only the Black and Brown men who are being denied nuclear status by the US. The so-called ‘doves’ are only mouthing imported slogans. We should develop our own debate, keeping our social welfare but also our sovereignty in mind. We should not think of ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’. These are borrowed terms."

Yet, to create an ‘indigenous’ nuclear debate, first it will have to be democratised and many more voices heard.