K Santhanam, a director for 1998 test site preparations at Pokhran India, has recently admitted during a discussion on CTBT organised by IDSA that the 1998 Indian nuclear tests were not a complete success but just a fizzle.

He has also emphasised the need for India to conduct more tests to improve its nuclear weapons programme besides refraining from signing the CTBT.

Though there was an immediate rejection of the claims by the Indian ministry of defense and the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, yet it has alarmed the strategic think-tank as to why an Indian scientist has touched such an important sensitive issue in public.

The Indian designs could be many. Firstly, recently during the G8 summit in July 2009, the member countries had focused on India for pursuing it to sign NPT during the forthcoming 2010 NPT Review Conference, which India wants to avoid.

Secondly, India might want to wave off the growing Obama pressure to sign the CTBT and NPT amid recently concluded Indo-US nuclear deal.

Thirdly, India might have reached an introvert decision to sign the CTBT and NPT vis-à-vis Pakistan to accrue maximum advantage in the near future and wants to conduct one last series of tests to validate and improve its nuclear arsenal.

Fourthly, it is well known that the 1998 nuclear testing was more of a politically motivated activity by BJP in order to strengthen its declining popularity.

So there are all the chances that tests might have been a partial success as had also been pointed out by the British observers at that time. India now really requires a ratification of the same due to increased pressure on the present Congress government amid their continuous embarrassing missile tests failures.

Fifthly, India maintains a no first use (NFC) nuclear doctrine, which means to first absorb the nuclear strike and then to retaliate massively in the same coin. Having their second strike capability at a lower acceptability threshold, Indian scientists and the military bureaucracy might be in the dire need of acquiring the same both in sea as well as the land for which nuclear testing is a must.

Sixthly, it might be a US covert effort to motivate India indirectly to strengthen its presumably weak nuclear muscle amid growing Chinese potential both against the Indians as well as US interests in the subcontinent. If it is not true then, seventhly, India might want to check and examine the Indo-US nuclear deal for “constraints”, if any, on their “strategic autonomy”.

Lastly, might be that the Indian defense ministry claim is true and the Pokhran tests were a success but yet Indian nuclear scientists want to make the weapons smaller, lighter, more powerful, besides ensuring their technology validation.

Having critically examined the recent Indian nuclear manoeuvre, Pakistan must act sensibly, timely and try to be proactive instead of being reactive. Pakistan's strategic analysts must sit together and critically analyse the situation before it gets too late. It is a matter of security which we can't afford to vision off in the present geopolitical situation prevailing in the subcontinent.

AHMED SAEED MINHAS

Islamabad