EMERSON: You draw a picture of Nehru as much more hardheaded than popularly believed.
PERKOVICH: He was. He made so many speeches where he said, in seemingly categorical terms, we’re not going to build the bomb. On the other hand, he was knowingly working with Bhabha, who was developing a capability that could produce a bomb. Nehru was hardheaded and shrewd and did not want to forestall an option they might want down the road.
This is very important, and it’s a problem to this day. Here was this charismatic, brilliant physicist, educated in Cambridge. He has offers at Princeton and other places. He comes back to India and says, “Look, I’m willing to stay here, but I want to create this grand nuclear establishment and you, the government, have to endow me with the resources.” The government was glad to have someone who could put India on the map, technologically. Nehru essentially gave Bhabha carte blanche. Nuclear policy was made between those two over dinner. There were no checks and balances.
Essentially, yes. If you chart through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, the scientists have been on their own. Bhabha was interested in nuclear explosives as a sign of prowess, not as a military instrument.
India wants to be seen as an emerging great power, like China. It diminishes India’s sense of self-regard to be equated with small and incompetent Pakistan. There’s real resistance to U.S. officials who say, “You really have to work on this relationship with Pakistan.” The Indians say, “Why do you always equate us with Pakistan? Don’t you realize we’re vastly superior to Pakistan?” The Americans who know this say, “This is nuts. You just lost hundreds of men [last summer] to Pakistan in Kargil. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and they’re aimed at you.”
Pakistan today has a greater capacity to put nuclear warheads on missiles and launch them tomorrow than India does. Pakistan has two competing missile programs, which wasn’t known until recently. The A.Q. Khan Labs have the Ghauri missile, assisted by North Korea. The Pakistan Atomic Energy Organization has missiles, too, assisted from China. They’re racing each other for money and prestige, for the title of the great providers of Pakistan’s strategic might. That raises the threat to India, because the Pakistanis are under pressure to go forward.
You’ve got scientists in Pakistan who are out of control, especially A.Q. Khan. He’s kind of a mad scientist. He makes outrageous statements. He’s doing business with North Korea, procuring missiles. He’s a bad dude. One of the key questions for Musharraf Parvez, the new leader, is whether he can rein this guy in. In India you’ve got much more sober scientists, but the government is struggling to figure out how you put limits on these guys. They’re national heroes.
The yield of the 1974 tests was much lower than India claimed, so 1998 must have been lower, because India used ‘74 as a benchmark. No one doubts India has a bomb, but this is about comparative manhood. Indian scientists are upset that their prowess has been questioned–especially by white scientists in the U.S. whom they perceive to be racially motivated.
In April of ‘98, India does one missile test. So Pakistan does two. India then tests five nuclear weapons; Pakistan claims they tested six. They didn’t really, but claim to. That’s the mentality: anything you can do, I can do one better. Leaders in both countries say they don’t want an arms race, but they have done nothing to avoid one. You’re going to see more missile tests, and there will be leaks at some point that Pakistan has warheads either on its missiles or standing right by the missiles. They’re creeping toward a situation like what we and the Soviets had, where you have forces on alert that are ready to go on a moment’s notice. That’s where it gets real dangerous in South Asia.
