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India's Nuclear and Space Programs: Defense or Development?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Raju G. C. Thomas
Raju G. C. Thomas
Affiliation:
Marquette University
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Abstract

Are the Indian nuclear and space programs driven primarily by defense or development motives? What are India's economic and technological capabilities in these fields?

Defense motives are strong, but are offset by the potential consequences of programs of nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could produce less rather than more security by provoking counter-reactions in Pakistan and China. The underlying development motives are equally strong, but the programs may not be cost-efficient in the short run. Ultimately, the justification for these programs is based on a dual argument: strategic circumstances justify the maintenance of the nuclear weapons option through development of civilian nuclear energy and space programs irrespective of cost or efficiency, while civilian needs in nuclear energy and space-based telecommunications and meteorological systems provide the defense sector with nuclear weapons and delivery systems options. Although at present neither may seem economically justifiable independently of the other, together they provide a reinforcing defense-development justification.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , January 1986 , pp. 315 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1986

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References

1 In a similar approach, Onkar Marwah conceived three potential strategic choices: (a) technical and managerial decisions and policies that generate capabilities allowing for a choice between a civilian and military nuclear and space program; (b)financialand economic decisions based on national priorities and opportunity costs; and (c) political and strategic decisions stemming from the growth of the civilian program. See Marwah, , “India's Nuclear and Space Programs: Intent and Policy,” International Security (Fall 1977), 97Google Scholar.

2 It has become a commonplace observation that India has the largest pool of scientists and engineers after the United States and the Soviet Union. Although the general quality of much of this pool may not be comparable to Western standards, there is a core group—especially in the Departments of Atomic Energy and Space—that compares well with the best in the world.

3 Ramana, , “Inevitability of Atomic Energy in India's Power Programme,’ in Pachauri, Rajendra K., ed., Energy Policy for India (Delhi:Macmillan Company of India, 1980), 221Google Scholar–38, at 221.

4 For the present, at least, there is little slowing down of India's technological momentum even though nuclear power plants have had to be shut down at Tarapur because of delays in the shipment of enriched uranium from the United States, and at Rajasthan because of the lack of heavy water.

5 For this argument, see Chaudhuri, General J. N., India's Problems of National Security in the Seventies (New Delhi:United Services Institution of India, 1973), 16–20Google Scholar.

6 Desai again reiterated this position in 1981, two years after the Janata government fell from power, when he called upon Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to renounce nuclear weapons. Ironically, Desai's preference for unilateral renunciation of nuclear weapons had been rejected earlier even by the majority of his colleagues in the Janata government. See New York Times, June 3, 1981Google Scholar.

7 This treaty was intended as a deterrent against Chinese intervention. Articles 8, 9, and 10 carried clauses of a quasi-military nature, which pledged both sides not to assist each other's adversaries during times of conflict, and to enter into consultations during such times. Article 9 in particular suggested the possibility of Soviet military assistance to India during crisis conditions. For the full text of the Indo-Soviet Treaty, see Current Digest of the Soviet Press 23 (September 1971Google Scholar), 5.

8 In 1973, the consumer price index had risen by 17.8% over the previous year, while the food price index had risen by 21.3%. In 1974, the inflation in consumer prices was running at 28% and in food prices at 31%, largely because of the drastic increases in the price of oil imports and the failure of the monsoon rains in 1973. Figures obtained from Bhalla, Surjit S., “India's Closed Economy and World Inflation,” in Cline, William R. and Associates, World Inflation and the Developing Countries (Washington, DC:Brookings Institution, 1981), 137Google Scholar.

9 A joint company, the Pakistani-Libyan Holding Company, set up in late 1978 by the Libyan and Pakistani governments for promoting industrial development in Pakistan, is considered by Indian observers to be the conduit for Libyan financing of Pakistan's nuclear bomb program. The Libyans, in turn, had purchased about 450 tons of unenriched uranium from the government of President Seyni Kountche of Niger, from where more such purchases are likely. See Hindustan Times, December 31, 1980Google Scholar, and Washington Star, April 14, 1981.

10 There were indications in 1981 that Pakistan already had the capacity to test a nuclear device. See reports in the New York Times, April 28 and 30, 1981, and the International Herald Tribune, May 14, 1981. For a more recent report that Pakistan may have a nuclear weapons capability, see the Washington Post, February 10, 1984.

11 Rodney Jones estimates that by the year 2000, India could possibly deploy 20 to 30 IRBMs as a counter-city deterrent capable of reaching China's urban interior, if not the Pacific coast. See Jones, , Small Nuclear Forces, The Washington Papers/103 (New York:Praeger Special Studies, 1984), 44Google Scholar.

12 See Poulose, T. T., Nuclear Proliferation and the Third World (New Delhi:ABC Publishing House, 1982), 4–12Google Scholar, and Clark, Donald L., “Could We Be Wrong?” Air University Review 29 (September-October 1978), 28–37Google Scholar.

13 Report: 1980–81, Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India, p. 3.

14 Report: 1980–81, Department of Space, Government of India, p. 8.

15 According to the report of the Indian Ministry of Energy, the electricity generated in 1981–1982 by coal-fired thermal plants was 63,644 million kilowatt hours (MKWH) or 56% of total generated; by hydro, 45,623 MKWH or 40.6%; and by nuclear power, 2,867 MKWH or 2.5%. From Report: 1981–82, Ministry of Energy, Department of Power, Government of India, p. 7. The figures in the text were obtained from Ramana (fn. 3), 224.

16 See the Estimates Committee, 1977–78, Sixth Lok Sabha, 16th Report, Ministry of Energy (New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1978), 53.

17 Report of the Working Group on Energy Policy 1979, Planning Commission, Government of India, 1979, p. iv.

18 Report: 1981–82 (fn. 15), 19. Quantities are in metric tonnes.

19 Estimates Committee (fn. 16), 53.

20 Pachauri (fn. 3), 15 and 32; also see India: 1980, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, p. 287.

21 See Hargrave, Robert L., India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation (New York:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), 132Google Scholar.

22 See Ramana (fn. 3).

23 Ibid., 235. Another official discussion demonstrating the comparative advantages of nuclear power over coal-generated power may be seen in the brief section, “Economics of Nuclear Power,” in Performance Budget of the Department of Atomic Energy, 1980–81, Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India, pp. 3–5.

24 Octave J. Du Temple, “Nuclear Power in India: Responding to a Crying Need,” Nuclear News 24 (February 1981), 64–66. Also see the views of R. Ramana (fn. 3), and M. T. Srinivasan, “Where Should All the Energy Come From?” Times of India, December 7, 1980. Ramana, as noted earlier, is Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Center and Secretary to India's Department of Atomic Energy; Srinivasan is the Director of the power projects engineering division of the Department of Atomic Energy.

25 Nuclear News (February 1981); Estimates Committee, 1977–78 (fn. 16), 216–41.

26 Assessments of nuclear electricity-generating capacity in the future vary. According to government forecasts, India will achieve installed capacity of 8,000 MWe by the year 1991, and 10,000 MWe by 2001. See especially Report: 1980–81 (fn. 13), 3. The Estimates Committee, however, forecasts the attainment of only 6,000 MWe by 1991, while the Energy Policy report of the Planning Commission predicts only 5,000 MWe by 2001. Figures from Estimates Committee, 1977–78 (fn. 16), 222, and Report of the Working Group on Energy Policy, 1979 (fn. 17), 65.

37 Apart from the nuclear energy program, research and development at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) promotes the development and application of radioactive isotopes and radiation in various fields such as medicine, agriculture, and industry. BARC's activities encompass the development of over 350 radioactive products that are supplied to some 500 institutions in India and abroad. These products range from radio isotopes for industrial radiography to those used in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. During the year 1980–1981, BARC supplied over 44,000 consignments of radio isotopes within the country, and exported agrochemicals to Brazil, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Zambia. BARC also runs a plant for radiation sterilization of medical products; its services are offered to hospitals and to the manufacturers of medical products. Finally, BARC has set up a seismic station near Bangalore for the detection and identification of earthquakes and underground nuclear explosions, and a high-altitude research laboratory at Gulmarg. Report: 1980–81 (fn. 13). 5.

28 See Hindustan Times, December 15 and 30, 1980, and Times of India, December 15, 1980.

29 From Report: 1980–81 (fn. 14), 8 and 11–15.

30 For the rationales underlying the distribution of the Indian defense budget, see Raju G. C. Thomas, “The Armed Services and the Indian Defense Budget, Asian Survey (March 1980), 280–97.

31 From Report: 1980–81 (fn. 13), 5; and Report: 1980–81 (fn. 14), 37.

32 See Leonard S. Spector, Nuclear Proliferation Today (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), 67. See also a report by Los Angeles Times correspondent Tyler Marshall, reproduced in the Boston Globe, March 1981, according to which the Tarapur and Kalpakkam reactors could generate about 880 lbs. of weapons-grade plutonium a year.

33 Wall Street Journal, November 26, 1984.

34 New York Times, August 11, 1985. During the construction stage, the Dhruva reactor was referred to as the R-5 facility.

35 See Anita Bhatia, “India's Space Program: Cause for Concern?” Asian Survey 25 (October 985), 1013–30, and Jones (fn. 11).