There is yet another thing that denotes India’s feelings towards Japan that most Japanese do not know. India attaches great importance to peace and offers silent prayer in the Parliament every year on August 6 in memory of the victims of atomic bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In this respect, if one excludes the victim nation, Japan, it perhaps has no parallel.

In Japan, there is still a tendency to criticize India for not having signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) or for the nuclear experiments in 1998. But these people in Japan often forget to criticize the five other nuclear powers namely, the US, Russia, China, the UK, and France. This is especially true of China, whose nuclear missiles are directed towards Japan, and yet these critics feign indifference to it.

After the nuclear tests in 1998, India declared a voluntary moratorium on further testing to the international society. India has not exported nuclear technology or facilities till date to any foreign country. Though not a member of the NPT, it respects the NPT in spirit. India’s nuclear weapon development is the result of the need to have the nuclear deterrent, partly because the five nuclear powers are not fulfilling their obligations for nuclear disarmament as obligated by the NPT and partly because China emerges as a threat to India due to its enhancement of the mass of nuclear warheads.

Indians are of the view that ultimately nuclear arsenals should be eliminated. India is critical of the fact that the NPT is an unequal treaty that recognizes only five nations as nuclear powers. In addition, the five nuclear powers are passive towards nuclear disarmament. In exchange for the promise not to acquire nuclear weapons by non-nuclear weapon states, NPT nuclear states promise to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to reduce nuclear weapons. India rejects the NPT as a discriminatory treaty against other countries.

Experiences From My Days As A Diplomat: In The Midst Of India’s Nuclear Tests

In May 1998, two months after the author’s assumption of office in India, India conducted nuclear tests. This was the first time it had done so since the previous nuclear tests in 1974. At that time, the then Congress government had carried out the tests to counter China’s infiltration into Indian territory in 1972. India that had insisted on total abolishment of nuclear weapons 84 Hiroshi Hirabayashi possessed nuclear bombs but had refrained from conducting nuclear tests for long.

In the general elections in spring 1998, the BJP won and was catapulted to power by advocating Hindu supremacy and nationalism. From its election manifesto one got a feeling that it would conduct nuclear tests if voted to power. However, majority of Indians as well as foreign countries did not imagine that India would indeed dare to conduct the nuclear tests that it had refrained from for a quarter of a century. However, on the morning of May 11, the news of nuclear tests by India came as a bolt out of the blue.

Since nuclear tests need preparation time, the new government must have begun preparations for the nuclear tests soon after assuming power. However, the secret never got leaked out because the preparations must have been carried out by only a handful of people. It is estimated that only Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Brajesh Mishra, top guns in the army, and scientists associated with it knew about it.

By the way, Defence Minister George Fernandes was the cabinet minister that the author was most close to, but he was not from the BJP and was the head of a party called Samata Party and was nominated as the convener for the coalition NDA government. He supported Tibet’s freedom struggle, had a spirit of revolt, organized railway strikes in South India, and was a great friend of Japan.

—Excerpted from India: The Last Superpower by Hiroshi Hirabayashi, published by Aleph Book Company. Price: INR 699.

(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)

First Published:Apr 6, 2021 3:47 PM IST