The first International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons will be observed on 26 September 2014. Will the Bhagavad Gita, which Robert Oppenheimer cited to explain his philosophy of life before and after the Trinity nuclear test of 1945, inspire Modi, Obama and their contemporaries in the comity of nations to do their duty by reducing the salience of nuclear weapons in international affairs?
New Delhi
25 September 2014
The redrawing of the boundaries of Ukraine may have come at an inopportune moment in the contemporary discourse on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Ukraine’s dismemberment at the hands of Russia, coming as it did after it renounced what was the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world at the time of disintegration of the erstwhile Soviet Union, could impel certain nuclear holdouts to retain and refine their nuclear arsenals or spur some nuclear threshold states to cross the Rubicon and seek to insure themselves against potential violation of their sovereignties. It didn’t help that Russia also signalled its intention to finesse its security strategy by further developing its nuclear capabilities, which, in turn, has forced the US and NATO to revisit some of the underlying assumptions of their extant policies in eastern Europe. At the same time, those developments have once again brought to the fore and highlighted the perils of indiscriminate nuclear sabre-rattling and the human and humanitarian costs of atomic pursuits. Already, there are in excess of 16 thousand nuclear weapons worldwide today. According to a latest data published by an American magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the largest concentrations of nuclear weapons are residing in Russia and the US, which together possess 93 per cent of the total global inventory; while Pakistan is reported to be quantitatively and qualitatively increasing its arsenal and deploying its weapons at more sites. Also, the failure of the nuclear-haves to break free from the vice-like grip of “Pehle Aap” (Hindi for you first or after you) culture, which pervades their thinking insofar as delegitimising the use of nuclear weapons and reducing their salience in international affairs are concerned, stands exposed. The entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), for instance, is held up on account of the inability of eight countries – the US, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – to sign and/or ratify it. The US has signed but not ratified the treaty, which China cites to defend itself; Pakistan, in turn, finds in India’s reluctance to even sign the treaty, let alone ratify it, a convenient escape clause for itself. Possibly, an early US ratification could have a domino effect on the remaining seven countries.
India’s own attempts at pushing for an international consensus on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament date back to 1954 when Jawaharlal Nehru became the first statesman to call for a “stand still” agreement on nuclear testing after the US conducted a series of nuclear tests, including the detonation of a nuclear device that was equivalent to a thousand Hiroshimas, in the tiny Pacific Ocean archipelago of Marshall Islands. That was followed by Indira Gandhi’s joining five other heads of state and/or government in issuing the Appeal of May 1984 to draw world attention to nuclear disarmament and Rajiv Gandhi’s now eponymously-named “Action Plan to usher in a worId order free of nuclear weapons and rooted in non-violence” that was unveiled on 9 June 1988 at the United Nations General Assembly. However, by then India had decidedly begun to embrace a foreign- and security policy that was dictated by realpolitik; and the nuclear tests by India in 1998 validated it. The consequent decline in India’s moral stature and political will ensured that her voice on disarmament remained feeble. However, it was around the same time that Kazakhstan was making itself heard, first by renouncing its nuclear arsenal and subsequently by forging a Central Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty, which was signed by all five Central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. On 2 December 2009, the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly accepted Kazakhstan’s proposal for declaring 29 August as the International Day Against Nuclear Tests. On this occasion last month, the victims of nuclear tests such as a 46-year-old armless painter Karipbek Kuyukov and the Hibayushas (Japanese for survivors of an explosion) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki came together to shake off the international community’s inertia and to urge them to expedite disarmament talks which are otherwise progressing at a glacial pace. Kazakhstan’s efforts towards a global test ban, leading to an eventual ban on nuclear weapons, needs to be admired in India and around the world.
The way forward
Kazakhstan, Japan or Marshall Islands are not alone in their endeavours. Joining them in a campaign to showcase the humanitarian costs of nuclear tests and nuclear weapons are Norway and Mexico, which hosted the first two editions of a global conference. Austria will host a third in December this year. Considering India’s own past efforts at campaigning for disarmament, it would do well to consider making common cause with like-minded countries such as Japan and Kazakhstan. The essential features of the four-fold Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan are similar to the four specific steps that Japan’s foreign minister Fumio Kishida articulated recently in an article published by Foreign Affairs, a leading American magazine on international relations. For his part, Prime Minister Narendra Modi could use his talks with world leaders and his intervention at the United Nations General Assembly this year to signal his government’s intent. Mr Modi has already said in an interaction with Japanese journalists on the eve of his just concluded visit to Tokyo that “there is no contradiction in our mind between being a nuclear weapon state and contributing actively to global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.” Incidentally, the first International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons will be observed on 26 September, on the eve of Prime Minister Modi’s address to the 69th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. According to the United Nations, “As of 2014, not one nuclear weapon has been physically destroyed pursuant to a treaty, bilateral or multilateral and no nuclear disarmament negotiations are underway. Meanwhile, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence persists as an element in the security policies of all possessor states and their nuclear allies. This is so despite growing concerns worldwide over the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of even a single nuclear weapon, let alone a regional or global nuclear war.” In 2015, the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference will take place; the year will also mark the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings. Also, the United Nations plans to convene no later than 2018 a high-level international conference on nuclear disarmament to review the progress made in this regard. All these occasions could be used by the international community to discuss nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. A push for a global no-first-use could be a good starting point of those talks, to begin with.
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| Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe |
Although Mr Modi has iterated India’s commitment to a universal, non-discriminatory and global nuclear disarmament and a unilateral and voluntary moratorium on nuclear explosive testing, Japan’s special sensitivities continue to cause a delay in signing of a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with India. In such a situation, even a tentative first step in this direction would endear India to those sections of the Japanese society that remain sceptical of civil nuclear cooperation with a non-NPT and non-CTBT country such as India. Towards the end of his visit to Japan, Mr Modi had said that he had gifted copies of the Bhagavad Gita to his Japanese interlocutors, including the Emperor. He explained his actions thus: “I have nothing more valuable to give and the world has nothing more valuable to get.” Hopefully, going forward, the Bhagavad Gita would help resolve the moral dilemmas confronting many a world leader and stir their collective conscience to do their duty. As for Mr Modi himself, he maintains that he is an incorrigible optimist. “Some people say a glass is half empty; some people say a glass is half full. I say the glass is half filled with water and half filled with air,” he had told the BJP Parliamentary Party, by way of an explanation, soon after he led the party to a historic win in the May 2014 parliamentary elections. That personal philosophy of Mr Modi could come in handy for India as it negotiates a minefield that is the contemporary global discourse on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
Will the Bhagavad Gita do to the leaders of India and the United States what Lord Krishna did to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra in the Mahabharata? Will the Bhagavad Gita, which Robert Oppenheimer cited to explain his philosophy of life before and after the Trinity nuclear test of 1945, inspire Modi, Obama and their contemporaries in the comity of nations to do their duty by reducing the salience of nuclear weapons in international affairs?
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