Contesting Security? Postcoloniality, Nationalism and Nuclear Modernity in India Geeta Chowdhry
Northern Arizona University
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen may think that health and education are the reasons why India has lagged behind in development in the past 50 years, but I think it is because of defence. (Lal Krishna Advani 2002).
My friends and I discuss Prophecy, the documentary about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fireball. The dead bodies choking the river. The living stripped of skin and hair. The singed, bald children, still alive, their clothes burned into their bodies. The black toxic water. The scorched burning air. The cancers, implanted genetically, a malignant letter to the unborn. We remember especially the man who just melted into the steps of the building. We imagine ourselves like that. As stains on staircases. I imagine future generations of hushed schoolchildren pointing at my stain . . . That was a writer. Not he or she. That (Arundhati Roy 2003: 2-3).
Though not often acknowledged, the idea of modernity and its concomitants nationalism, and masculinity have played a critical role in the shaping of security as both a discursive and policy field in India. This paper engages overlapping literatures on modernity, nationalism, militarization and masculinities –in an effort to understand the ways in which they have shaped the nuclear security landscape of India. The security landscape of India can be mapped in at least two ways. A conventional mapping involves mainly realist and neo-realist understandings of security with their focus on military security and geopolitical regional and global rivalries, securing of territorial boundaries and the pursuit of “national interest”through thedevelopmentand maintenance of a military force and the weapons necessary to fight wars if necessary. Critical, constructivist and feminist, postcolonial mapping have challenged realist understandings of security and some have argued for a more expansive understanding in which human security has a central place in the security discourse and issues of food, water, bodily
integrity etc are seen as fundamental to human and national security. This paper is a small part of a larger book project addressing realist and critical/feminist/postcolonial mappings of security in India in light of contests over food, water and nuclear security. In this paperIaddressthe“Grand Narrative”ofnuclearsecurity adopted by theIndian Stateas wellasthe alternative,“smaller”narrativesofsecurity thatarereceiving, interacting, colliding with, contesting and resisting the grand narrative. In addition, I suggest that notionsofmodernity,nationalism and masculinity underwritethe “Grand Narrative” of security in India.
Several recent events have reshaped the security landscape of South Asia in profound ways. First, On May 11, 1998 India exploded three nuclear devices in the Pokhran desert in Rajasthan followed by two more nuclear explosions on May 13, 1998 leading Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee to announce that India was now a nuclear state. On May 28 and May 30th, Pakistan also exploded six nuclear devices and declared itself a nuclear state. The nuclearization of Pakistan and India created a new geopolitics for the two nationsas“thehalf-century old conflictwould now have anuclearedge”(Ramana and Reddy, 2003: 1). Second, the plane attacks on the world trade center on September 11, 2001 marked a watershed in the global security discourse leading to retaliatory and preemptive wars between the United States, Afghanistan, and Iraq and the emergence of Pakistan as a key ally of the United States in the fight against terrorism. This move has been greeted by tremendous skepticism in India. Third, the suicide attack on the Indian parliament on 13th December 2001 in which at least 12 people were killed ratcheted the “fear”factorin Indiaand renewed discussionsaboutenemieswithin.Fourth,theCivil Nuclear Cooperation agreement signed between India and the United States on 2ndMarch 2006 which has been hailed by someas“aroad map ofIndia’sintegration with theglobal nuclearorderasafullfledged nuclearweapon state”(Mohan,2006)whileothershave called it a challenge to the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty (Regehr, 2005), has the potential of exacerbating global and regional insecurities, particularly between Pakistan and India. Focusing on the changing landscape of security through an interrogation of
this paper discusses the ways in which the events listed above, conditioned by the ideologies of modernity, nationalism, masculinity and militarism, have molded the security landscape of South Asia and the implications of these events and ideologies for human security in South Asia.
In Defence of the Nation: Narratives of Security and International Relations
The “grand narratives” about security in the field of international relations continue to foreground questions about territorial integrity, sovereignty, war, security and militarization. Although dissident scholarship on security has existed for several decades, the hegemonic position of realism and neo-realism, and to a certain extent neoliberal institutionalism, continues to be the grand narrative of security in international relations (see for example, Carr 1939; Morgenthau. 1950; Waltz 1959, 1979; Keohane 1993). According to this narrative, the primary concern of nation-states is to promote their “nationalinterest”in an anarchicalworld,defined assecuring the nation state against dangerous enemies, and achieving, maintaining and increasing power and prestige. Military power occupies a central place in this narrative as it is of course critical to deterring threats from border intruders.
Since this grand narrative of security has been critiqued elsewhere from critical, constructivist, postmodern and feminist perspectives, I will touch on these critiques only as they apply to my argument (e.g., Agathangelou and Ling 2004; Chowdhry and Nair 2002; Wendt 1987; Tickner 1988; Walker 1993). The constructivist school of security, which includes within it the Copenhagen school of security (see for example, Buzan, Waever and de Wilde 1998; Mc Sweeney 1993) has focused on expanding understandings of security and in particularon thewaysin which “speech acts”orthe rhetorical dimension and “the perceptions, discourses, and framing of the issue by relevantactorstransform athreatinto asecurity issue”(Girschuck 2006).In contrastthe constructivists of the “critical literary/cultural studies” bent focus on the cultural production of insecurity by suggesting that the state, nation, nationalism, the international system and danger/threats are culturally produced (see for example, Weldes, Laffey, Gusterson, Duvall 1999). For example, according to Campbell (1992) the grand narrative
of security naturalizes certain foundational concepts for international relations. For example,conceptssuch as“’thestate,’‘security,’‘war,’‘danger,’‘sovereignty,’etc.”are seen asgiven aswellas“primary and stable”(Campbell1992:10).Instead,hesuggests, these concepts are “performatively constituted” through the manipulation and construction of identities, difference and “the constant articulation of danger” which fosters“an evangelism offear.”In thisgrand narrative,arationalstateisconcerned “with the establishment of boundaries thatconstitute,atoneand thesametime,the‘state’ and the‘international’system”by making “’foreign’certain eventsand actors (Campbell 1992: 69).1
In thissense,wecan understand ‘internationalpolitics’asa ‘practice of the inscription of the dangerous, the externalization and totalization of dangers and the mobilization of populations to control these dangers –all in the name of a social totality that is never really present, that always contains traces of the outside within, and that is never more important than an effect of the practices by which total dangers are inscribed (Richard Ashley quoted in Campbell 1992: 70).
Feminist literature on security, draws attention primarily to the gendered nature of conventional IR by suggesting that realism privileges masculine notions of citizens such as“the “sovereign-man”orthe“hero-warrior”thusmaking “theexclusion ofwomen in the international political order a virtue” (Chenoy 2002: 42). Statecraft of the grand narrative in international relations, which emphasizes anarchy, rationality and the pursuit of order in the grand narrative of realism, is based on “a disciplinary regime of masculine/feminine”operating in thefield ofinternationalrelations”in which “reason, rationality and masculinity are licensed as superior to unreason, irrationality and femininity (Campbell 1992: 10). Further, according to feminist scholars, nationalism,
state are constructed in essentially gendered and racialized ways (see for example Enloe 1993, 2000; Nilsson and Tetreault 2000; Chowdhry, 2000; Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989; Jaywardena 1986). This section draws on the critical and feminist literature on security to suggest that the connections and overlaps between modernity, nation, nationalisms, militarization and masculinities are central to understanding the new security dilemmas of a post nuclearized world in South Asia.
“Modernizing” and securing the nation state is one of the stated foundational goals of international affairs, both of foreign policy establishments of nation states or “mainstream”academicscholarship on internationalpoliticsin India.Thisdiscourseon security generally focuses on issues of security and territorial integrity in service to the modern state and draws upon the forces of nationalism and citizenship to make its claims. The centrality of race/ethnicity and gender to the construction of nationalism and imagined communities has been given considerable attention in feminist analysis (see for example Nilsson and Tetreault 2000; Chowdhry, 2000; Peterson, 1994; Pettman, 1992; Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989; Jaywardena 1986). Critical race theorists and feminists for example, have suggested that women and gender have been a integral part of the nationalist project, whether it is as participants in nationalist struggles, or through the ways in which gender and race become critical components of states, nations, nationalism, citizenship, security and power. Thus, for example, the Indian State’s justifications about gaining nuclear status, as I will discuss later in the paper, are securitized within a modernist rhetoric and in essentially nationalistic, masculinist, and communal ways. Despite this abundant literature, much of international relations scholarship on nation, nationalism, and subjective identities gives “little or token acknowledgementofthesecontributions”(Nilsson and Tetreault2000:4).
The links between nationalism, development/modernity, national security, militarization, and masculinity are perhaps best explored by postcolonial scholars and in particular by postcolonial feminists (Agathangelou and Ling 2004; Krishna 1999; Abraham 1998). According to these scholars, the project of modernity and security are intimately related and the twin projects of the modern state –development and security –
are usually “institutionalized in complimentary ways”;nuclearenergy ispresented as achieving both:
The link between security and development is state power, its form the iterative effort towards its enhancement. State power like all modernist fictions, is directed towards ensuring the fixity and permanence of boundaries, establishing irrevocable difference between inside and outside, and its total sovereignty over what is within . . . Atomic energy is, in this sense, no different from many projects of the modern state. Its particular form, split between the twin objectives of state action, development and security, makes it perfectly suited to be the epitome of themodern state’swillto power(Abraham 1998:14).
Further,asKrishnahassuggested “theattempt to construct nation-states on the basis of exclusionary narratives of the past and univocal visions of the future . . . has unleashed aspiralofregional,stateand societalviolencethatappearsendless”(Krishna 1999:xvii).The“notion ofpostcolonialanxiety” in which the desire forbeing modern is marked by therecognition oftheabsenceofmodernity,is“alwaysatime-in–waiting,” “an endlesssearch formodernization and development”ruled by postcolonialanxiety of “never catching up while endlessly projecting the moment when it might happen” (Abraham 1999: 19). In addition, the hypermasculinized rhetoric and reality of “contemporary violences,both physicaland epistemic,thataccompaniesnation building needs an image, an other/enemy, against which it can define itself. This resonates well with the theme of security in which fear against an “other” determines thesecurity politics of the nation The following section addresses the ways in which discourses of modernity, nationalism, security and masculinity all come together around the issue of nuclearization in India.
TheGrand Narrative:“MuscularNationalism” and NuclearSecurity in India2 Although the discourse of national and nuclear security in India can be placed for the most part securely within the grand narratives of security, let me add two qualifiers. First, when I started this project I was much more convinced about a Grand Narrative (GN). Although the Indian State has closely adhered to the GN of security, as perhaps all states do, it has not always acted monolithically, particularly with regards to its policies that seek to implement the grand narrative. Thus even though the GN of security in India has relied strongly on the geographical and discursive location of enemies and the primacy of the state in determining the security agenda, there have been historical shifts in the nature and degree of its adherence to the GN model. For example, no one doubts that despite some continuity there is a marked shift –rupture if you will --- from early Nehruvian/CongressunderstandingsaboutIndia’sposition on theuseofnuclearweapons and the position of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and even the Congress Party in a post nuclearized South Asia.
Second, although I have not discussed this previously, the overlapping literature on state-society relations, social movements, and the rise of civil-society also provides a useful theoretical tool for this study as well. Briefly, without going into the details about this literature on state and civil-society, I would like to suggest that much of this literature on civil society and the state presents a rather simplified view of both state and civil society. In this literature, the State and Civil society are often presented in oppositional terms, one pitted against the other. Whether it is the right or the left in post-Soviet years, theStateisportrayed aswhatJamesFerguson and AkhilGuptahavecalled “up there” and all its activities, including its development projects are regarded with skepticism. In contrastcivilsociety isglamorized asalways“grassroots”,as“thelocal”,and asector that is a “vigorous, dynamic field of possibilities too long suffocated by the state” (Ferguson, 1998: 51). This view, although seductive because of its simplicity regarding what is good and bad, does little to capture the shifts and overlaps, continuities and ruptures in the struggles over security and its meanings both between and within the state
and civil society. As I will discuss below, neither the state nor civil society is monolithic and many of the contests are going on within as much as they are going on without.
Security in the Nehru Years (1947 to 1964): “Liberationist Masculinity” and “Voluntary Abstinence”3
There are several important conjunctures and actors who were foundational to the Nehruvian modernity/security discourse of India. First, the nationalist anti-colonial project and the condition of postcoloniality marked the project of modernity in India, including the project of nuclear security. According to Abraham (1999: 19), the nationalist anti-colonial project in India which was marked by a belief in the efficacy of science for development purposes laid the foundations for nuclear security in India. But this is where Hindu nationalists parted company with secular nationalists as indicated by the two quotes below. For Hindu nationalists Western science had only recently accomplished what ancient knowledge in India had accomplished years ago. In contrast, for Nehru India was “backward”(notindustrialized)becauseitdid notengage with the scientific revolution. He believed that the power and rationality of Western scientific truthswasgoing to lead India into “lifeand freedom”ItwasthusimportantforIndiato participate in the industrial revolution and to harness atomic energy for power and modernity.
Our seers and sages, four thousand years ago, perhaps in 2000BC, said something about [atomic] energy which scientists are propounding in 2000AD. [Freely translating a Sanskrit verse he goes on] In the infinitesimal as well as the infinite, in the atom as well as the universe resides the one shakti […] the shakti of the atom and the shakti of the atman are the same shakti [. . .and in sum] The analytic methods of science will bring us to the same view as was arrived at by the synthetic process of our sages and seers (Kamath quoted in Abraham 1999: 28)
But we are on the verge I think of a tremendous development in some direction of the human race. Consider the past few hundred years of human history; the world developed a new source of power, that is steam . . . and the industrial age came in. India with all her many virtues did not develop that source of power. It became a backward country because of that . . . Now we are facing the atomic age; we are on the verge of it. And this is something more powerful that either steam or electricity (Nehru quoted in Abraham 1999: 28).
Second, postcolonial anxieties created by the bloody, communal and gendered partitioning of India set the stage for the construction of new enemies inside and outside the boundaries of the state. These old histories and communal identities, which were for the most part kept under control for many years by the secular state of Nehru, would be reconstructed for political purposes under the BJP many years later.
Third, that epistemic communities of scientists like Homi Jehangir Bhabha who trained asaphysicistatCambridge and who wasNehru’schosen man forheading the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) wereinstrumentalin developing theAEC’senergy program in secrecy is a telling story about the tensions within Nehru himself regarding the use of atomic energy. Although Nehru publicly proclaimed the developmental and peaceful uses of atomic energy, the fact that he insisted on secrecy for the program demonstrates that he was intrinsically aware of the possibility of using atomic energy for defence purposes. When questioned in the Constituent Assembly of India about the need for secrecy for a program thatwasallegedly only peaceful,Nehru wasforced to admit:“I do not know how to distinguish between the two [peaceful and defence purposes] (quoted in Abraham 1999: 51). While the ambivalence of Nehru on war, nuclear and atomic energy is legendary, other members in the Constituent assembly spoke the Grand Narrative of realism much more forcefully.
Unless we are in a point of military strength [sic] a very big nation and unless we can have a say in world affairs, I do not think we can make the world pacific. Our national genius being pacific I would then like to tell the world that we must ban the use of atomic energy for warfare and even outlaw war. But we cannot do it by preaching and good wishes alone. Unless we have the capacity to use atomic energy for destructive warfare, it will have no meaning for us to say that we shall not use atomic energy for destructive purposes (Italics in original. Shiban Lal Saksena quoted in Abraham 1999: 51).
Despite the secrecy and support of the atomic energy program for peaceful purposes, Nehru by virtue of his position as the unchallenged Prime Minister of India for 18 years molded the grand narrative of the Indian state on the use of atomic energy for defence purposes. He categorically advocated “voluntary nuclear abstinence” (Bidwai and Vanaik 2001: 63). Nehru was not only the advocate of the “third path” a.k.a. non-alignment in foreign policy he was also opposed to nuclear weapons on “moral, ideological and strategic grounds, and demanded that their possession be called a crime againsthumanity”(Bidwaiand Vanaik 2001:64).In 1954 hecalled foraglobalban on nuclear testing. The reports of US Ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith and secret US documents declassified in 1965 support this assessment of Nehru (Bidwai and Vanaik 2001).In addition,thesedocumentsdiscusswaysto deterChina’simpending nuclearprogram by encouraging a“non-communistAsian state”to detonate“anuclear devicefirst.”They maintain thatIndiawould beagood candidateexceptforNehru’s unwillingnessto “play ball”(quoted in Bidwaiand Vanaik 2000:65).
The quest for modernity and the belief in superiority of scientific rationality during the Nehru years resonated well with the regime of masculinity and femininity
the context of liberation and those that are shaped in the context of domination is useful in understanding the masculinity of the security discourse in the Nehru years. While I am taking certain liberties with Sharoni’s understanding of masculinities shaped in the context of liberation, I suggest that the linkage that Nehru makes between science, atomic energy, modernity and development in a postcolonial nation reflects a masculinity that wantsto shapeIndia’s“trystwith destiny.”Itisadiscoursewhich isguided by themoral imperative of removing poverty, of opening new avenues, hopes and possibilities for all Indians. The focus on social justice through large scale industrialization and state intervention makes the Nehru years in India a good candidate for liberationist masculinity.
Security in the Shastri, Gandhi, Rajeev and Rao Years (1965 to 1984): The rise and fall of Nuclear Ambiguity
During the interregnum of the Lal Bahadur Shastri years, India began the move from nuclear abstinence to nuclear ambiguity. The defeat of India in the 1962 Indo-China war, the support of Canada in designing a thermal reactor and the donation of heavy water by the United States to India, enabled HomiBhabhato “reprocessthespentfuel” from the CIRUS (Canadian Indian research reactor and the US) reactor “to extract plutonium”and to setthe stageforthefirstnuclearexplosion in India
Indira Gandhi continued to ideologically reject nuclear weapons for security and even wentso farasto suggestthatnuclearweapons“may wellendangerourinternal security by imposing avery heavy economicburden”(Bidwaiand Vanaik 2000:66). Despite her public opposition to nuclearization, 1974 saw the first “peaceful nuclear explosion”in India underherregime.Even aftertheexplosion sheinsisted thatthis peaceful nuclear explosion would not affect foreign policy.and in a personal letter to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she explains the peaceful purpose of the nuclear explosion (Bidwai and Vanaik 2000) Although there is no doubt about masculinity of the security discourse during the Gandhi years, particularly the emergency years, she continued to be much more ambivalent in the nuclear security arena. Thus nuclear ambiguity became the official position of the Indian state during the Indira Gandhi years.
The assistance from China and the United States to the Pakistan nuclear program in the 1980s accelerated the demise of nuclear ambiguity and we begin to see references to the threat from Pakistan. However, Rajeev still continued to declare support for disarmament and publicly sponsored the Rajeev Gandhi Plan for total disarmament at the United Nations. At the same time, India began to stall on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a treaty that it had co-sponsored with the United States. In the debates on the CTBT Indian delegates pointed to the inherent hypocrisy of the permanent five who owned nuclear weapons, and stated that India would not sign the CTBT till the five permanent members of the United States agreed to nuclear disarmament.
In thelate1980sand early 1990s,theinfluenceofthegovernment“hawks”.some members of the scientific establishment, and parastatal think tanks such as IDSA mounted and Foreign Secretary J.N. Dixit, reorganized the nuclear establishment and shifted responsibility for nuclear policy statements from the foreign policy establishment to the Department of Atomic Energy and the Defence Research Development Organization. This shift gave power to the hawks both in the foreign policy and scientific establishment. The hawks found support in Prime Minister Narasimha Rao who encouraged the preparations for a nuclear test in Pokhran. Meanwhile on t he global front, India continued tooppose the CTBT strongly at the Conference on Nuclear Disarmament. However, in a move that took India by surprise, the CTBT was signed in the General Assembly. This created considerable concern in the bureaucratic and political circles in India, a concern that the BJP would exploit later.
Communalism, Muscular Nationalism, Dominating Masculinity, and nuclear adventurism in the BJP years:
The advent of the BJP to power changed the security landscape of India in profound ways. The1997 election manifesto of the BJP openly promised considering the nuclearization of India, if elected. Since the BJP and its allies believe in the communal ideology of Hindutva and in the establishment of a Hindu nation. Drawing on revisionist histories and communalized identities, the BJP would construct Muslims both within and
to theconstruction ofHindu nationalism oftheBJP and thatwomen’sbodies,particularly the bodies of Muslim women became the contested site of the communal/nationalist agenda (Chowdhry 2000). Shaped by regimes of masculinity in the context of domination, this vision of a Hinduized muscular nationalism would be used by the BJP regime to instill a psychosis of fear and danger amongst Indians in order to secure support for the bomb. After the explosions, several Shiv Sena and BJP activists are reported to have said “ab mard ban gaye” (we havenow become men)(Interview with Chenoy,2003).Atan ASEAN meeting which Indiaattends,theIndian delegation sang a“song to thetuneofa cheap Hindifilm abouthow Indiaisso greatthatithasabomb”(Interview with Chenoy, 2003). At the elite level too, the discourse was extremely masculinist. The words of President A PJ Kalam of India, who is certainly not a BJP member but a key player in the development of nuclear weapons in India, at the sight of the nuclear explosions are revealing about the fascination of the state with masculine, big projects:
I heard the earth thundering below our feet and rising ahead of us in terror. It was a beautiful sight (quoted in Sen 2003: 170).
In the BJP government and its allies, the coalition between a fundamentalist nationalism (BJP, Shiv Sena, RSS) and a strategic nationalism (previous foreign ministers, defence ministers, active and retired military and defence strategists, active and retired diplomats) relied on a masculine discourse which suggested that Hindus had been emasculated by Muslims in India and by muslim nations such as Pakistan In a show of extreme hate and demographic fears, Sadhavi Rithamabra would exhort Hindus to prove their manhood by raping muslim women (Chowdhry 2000). Mor egenerally, this discourse focused on rationality, fear, danger and a retrogressive muscular nationalism to develop support for the explosions.
Years later it would use the same rhetoric of fear, danger. and enemies within connected to enemies without, to lead a pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat. The role of the Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi in the pogrom, the use of state police to kill,
burn and rape Muslims was never challenged by the BJP federal government and to this day very little justice has been seen by the Muslims of Gujarat.
The post nuclear explosion years in South Asia have been marked by a shift to the rhetoricofnucleardeterrence.India’sofficialstanceon nuclearpolicy isfound in the draftIndian Nucleardoctrine(dIND)ofAugust1999 “which callsforthe useofnuclear weaponsto ensure“rapid punitiveresponse” and to inflictdamageunacceptableto the aggressor”...Pakistan too hassimilarplansforitsnuclearweapons...Thenuclear dream only makesusprisonersofinsecurity”(Ramanaand Reddy 2003:3).In addition, India has now declared a no-first strike policy whilst Pakistan refuses to do so. The promise of security now rests on the shoestring of deterrence.
US attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq in a post September 11 world has led to increasing militarization of South Asia. The rhetoric of politicians who wanted to carry out a US style strike on terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir was a rhetoric of hate that paid no heed to the illegality of US actions, rather it glorified an unthinking, imperialist and macho masculinity. Pakistan, which has always had an uneasy client relationship with the United States has joint the United States in a partnership to fight terrorism at the same time as some of its population becomes increasingly unhappy with Musharraf’sUS allianceandresorts to attacks and bombings within Pakistan This partnershiphas increased anxieties in India More recently, the United States in an effort to counter China has offered a nuclear friendship hand to India which has increased anxieties in Pakistan. However, there have also been efforts to address the Kashmir issue by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Musharraf.in recent negotaitaions. Travel between the two countries has reopened once again. The future of the dialog remains to be seen.
The masculinity of nuclear weapons, what Abraham (1999) has called the shiva lingams of the nuclear age, is obvious and has been addressed by feminists like Carol Cohn. While the phallic shapes, shiva lingams leave no doubt about the masculine nature of this religious enterprise of the modern age, the life/nation destroying capability of
Alternative Narratives of Security in India
The alternative narratives of security are rooted in the movements for social justice,human rights,women’srights,and environmentaljustice;thesenarrativesthus are not monolithic. Although classifications often presume neat categories and no overlaps, for heuristic purposes, we can classify the alternative security narratives in India into at least the following five broad, albeit overlapping categories:4
1)Conventional Security Critiques:
These critiques of the grand narrative come from within the conventional security position and are exemplified by critiques such as that of the BJP by the Congress Party, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India –Marxist known as CPM. In addition, several retired military and diplomatic professionals who have also expressed opposition ot the nuclearization of South Asia can also be placed under this critique.These groups are supportive of nuclear ambiguity and use the language of the grand narrativesuch asprotection ofnationalinterest.They supportthestate’srefusalto sign the CTBT citing imperialism and nuclear racism as the reason for their position They suggest that India should not sign the CTBT unless the permanent five commit to disarming in a time-bound manner.
2) Human Security/Development Critiques:
These are critiques that seek to transcend the conventional security paradigm by focusing on human security. Many development scholars such as economist Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze , journalists such as C. Rammanohar Reddy, and some feminists who fit into this category, have calculated thecostsofnuclearization “around halfapercentageofthe gross domestic product per year. This might not sound like much but it is large enough if we consider the alternative uses of these resources. For example , it has been estimated that the additional costs of providing elementary education for every child with neighborhood schools at every location in the country would cost roughly the same amount of money (Sen 2003: 77). In addition, Jean Dreze has demonstrated the displacement of development concerns by defence and security ones in the media.
Further he demonstrates that an increase in militarization is often accompanied by a decline in GDP, and public services but an increase in environmental degradation, forced displacement, personal traumaand the“breakdown ofthe socialfabric”(Dreze2003: 284-289).
3) Moral Critiques:
A Moral Critique such as the one developed by the Gandhians like Nirmala Deshpande, Narayan Desai and Thakurdas bang, for example. This critique argues that nuclear weapons are weapons of mass murder and thus are morally wrong and should never be adopted. Thus the question of nuclear weapons is not a strategic question, it is an ethical one. This group believes in unilateral disarmament (for a moral argument see Reddy 2003: 189).
4) Feminist Critiques:
It is important to note that feminists were among the first to condemn the nuclear explosions in India. In late May 1998, feminist activists and scholars meeting in Pune for the bi-annualAllIndiaWomen’sStudiesConference which is attended by women from all across South Asia, held a march protesting the nuclear explosions. In addition, all the feminist activist organizations like Jagori, Saheli, AIDWA, and numerous regional ones condemned the explosions. Women of the Hindu right were not so surprisingly supportive of the explosions.
A feminist critique of masculinity and against militarism seems to suggest that feminist groups in India have similar positions on the nuclear question. While the various feminist groups have similar understandings of masculinity, the groups such as AllIndiaDemocraticWomen’sAssociation (AIDWA)which isaffiliated with CPI(M) and has the largest membership, is much more inclined to hold the same position as CPI(M) on the signing of the CTBT. Many feminist scholar/activists who support the anti-nuclear movement have researched the implications of militarization on the lives of women.Forexample,Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin’saswellasUrvashiButalia’s work on the impact of partition on women who were raped addresses the impact of
and who did not go back to their families because of their dishonor and the fear (often real) that families would not accept them back. In addition, the work of Butalia on Kashmiri women and children is a foundational account of the impact of terrorism (committed by state and civil terrorists) on the insecurities faced by women and children.
Despite these differences between the different peace constituencies, there have been several efforts to develop anti-nuclear peace movements in India. Of these efforts, Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament (MIND) and the more recent Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) have been critical. MIND was started in Bombay (current day Mumbai) in 1983 as a response to several global and regional issues. Ronald Reagan’sdeclaration in the1980sto deploy Pershing missilesin Europeand the talk of a nuclear winter produced concern in peace circles globally including in India. At the same time South Asian peace activists were concerned about Pakistan acquiring weapons capabililty and the stockpiling of Plutonium by India. As a result, in 1983, individuals from different walks of life such as teachers, journalists, scholars, artists, scientists particularly from the Tata Institute for Social Research (ironically funded by the Institute for Atomic Energy --IAE) came together to form the Movement in India for Nuclear disarmament (MIND). However, there was considerable pressure put from political and funding institutions such as the IAE and the group began to shift its focus from South Asia to global disarmament issues. Many members of MIND did not support this change, so the group changed its name to Group for Nuclear Disarmament (GROUND)and “MIND ran underground so to speak”(Interview with Bidwai2003).
MIND emerged once again in 1998 after the second nuclear tests in Pokhran (interview with K. Chenoy 2003). The founding members of MIND include Kamal Chenoy, Praful Bidwai, Admiral Ramdas, and Achin Vanaik. The first rally organized across India by MIND was on 6th August 1998, the anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Led by school children, about 5000-6000 individuals marched in New Delhi alone.In Kolkata,“an estimated 400,000 peoplemarched ...in opposition to thenuclear tests conducted a few months earlier . . . Perhaps even more significant were the large number of spontaneous action, mostly unreported, from little heard of towns and
villages”(Ramanaand Reddy 2003:23).ThegoalofMIND wasto changethehearts and minds of the people and to put pressure on the government to denuclearize South Asia through marches, protests, publications etc (MIND no date). MIND has held “discussionsin schoolsand colleges,organized meetingsand demonstrations,designed posters, collected material for an exhibition on the nuclear issue, collated information dossiers, and prepared literature that would generate discussion” (MIND, nd: 5). A MIND officialpublication statesthatMIND is“deeply and firmly committed to universal nuclear disarmament” since nuclear weapons increase insecurity. They propose that Indiadeclareano firstusepolicy,thatIndiaand Pakistan “mustputan end to all nuclear testing,”thatIndia and Pakistan mustnotdeploy nuclearweapons.In addition they must not arm delivery vehicles with nuclear weapons,. Finally, they advocate that India must return to the“nucleardisarmamentagenda”(MIND nd:57-59).
MIND was replaced by the Coalition for Nuclear Peace and Disarmament (CNDP) after a national convention on disarmament in November 2000 (interviews with founding members 2003). CNDP is not a single issue coalition. And it regards human security as intimately related to nuclear security Thus, CNDP focuses on multiple issues and is involved with struggles over food and water security inIndia. For example, Kalpana Srivastava, who was the litigant in public interest litigation on food security against the Governmentof India is also a member of CNDP as is Colin Gonzales who was the lawyer who rpepresentd her in thelitigation. Similarly CNDp has worked closely with the NationalAllianceforPeople’sMovmentand the NarmadaBachao Andolan (Savethe Marmada movement) which has been in the public eye for over a decade now.
CNDP has a National Coordinating Committee (NCC) and a secretariat which guides the NCC. It is important to note that a former Navy Admiral L. Ramdas is the convenor of CNDP. The CNDP played an active part in the Asia Social Forum and the World Social Forum held in Mumbai. At the Asia Social Forum, for example, there were 8 themes related to Peace and Security and the CNDP membership was very active on the panels. CNDP has also organized regional conferences. At the North Indian Regional
Bello, Abdul Razak Noon (the secretary General of Afro-Asian peace and Solidarity Organization), Abdul Javed Saleh (the former mayor of Ramallah and a pacifist critic of Yassar Arafat, Nikkat Khan a feminist anti-nuclear activist form Pakistan, Chadra Muzzafar from Malaysia, Peter Custer from Green Peace, Samir Amin and Hibakusha Matsu Mara and her son, representatives of the South Korean Women for Peace and several Iraqi exiles spoke at these forums in an effort to develop an Asian coalition for Peace (Interview with K. Chenoy 2003). The masculinity and militarism of war, nuclearization, and neoliberal globalization were discussed. It was cautioned that opposition to these grand narratives ravaging the world must not take on militaristic forms. However, many within the CNDP do not take a stand on nuclear energy and a number of members support the use of nuclear energy while others do not support its use.
MIND and laterCNDP respondsto the“Chinathreat”rationaleby suggesting that the BJP is unclear about the threat perception that India faces and that their cause of threat keeps shifting. According to them, India had lived with the Chinese bomb from 1964- 1998 without protesting against it. What changed in 1998? Indeed after Rajeev Gandhi’s visit to China in 1993 and then in 1996, Indo-China relations improved dramatically and two agreements were signed to promote peace and tranquillity between the two countries. In addition, as Praful Bidwai, the founding member of MIND and an ardent anti nuclear activists and journalist suggests, China suspended the medium range missile program, a missile that could target India, in 1995-96. Thus, according to MIND and CNDP the China threat argument just does not pan out.
The Indian state and critics of the alternative security discourses have openly discredited the work and charges of these organization by feminising them, and presenting them as traitors to the nation. The feminization of alternative security discourses which speaks truth to power is not surprising. In language that mirrors the language of International relations as a field, these discourses are dismissed as idealistic, unrealistic and utopian. Only the discourse of the state is seen as presenting realist options in an anarchical world.
This paper has examined the Grand Narrative of Nuclear Security espoused by the Indian State and the alternative narratives that overlap, collide, and contest the Grand narrative. The security contests in India parallel the contests in the discipline of international relations. For example, the Grand narrative of the Indian State parallels the Grand Narrative of realism/neo-realism and to a certain extent neoliberal institutionalism in the academic discipline of International relations. The alternative narratives parallel feminist, ecological, developmental and postcolonial arguments in the field. The paper has also demonstrated that neither the state position, nor that of civil society has been monolithic on the nuclear security issue. While members of the civil society have critiqued the nuclearization policy of the state, the state has also leveled charges of anti-patriotism and anti-nationalism against the peace protestors. Peace activists have suggested that US invasions and imperial adventurism in Afghanistan and Iraq have revived the position of nuclear nationalism in India, as in Iran. Despite the fact that anti nuclear activists have not been able to affect policy (that a no first use was accepted by the National Security Council in India Is not an indication of their influence, rather it was a position also espoused by the foreign policy establishment), the policy arena is not the terrain in which CNDP operates. According to Vanaik, CNDP operates on a different terrain, a terrain which seeks to place obstacles in the legitimization of these policies, a terrain which seeksto “battleforthesoulofIndian nationalism”(interview,2003).
References
1
Campbell (1992) discussion of the construction of foreign policy contrasts with realist/neo-realist and neoliberal institutionalist assumptions about foreign policy in which foreign policy is the instrument through which statesestablish internationalrelations.Campbell’sproblematization offoreign policy as given provides useful critiques of the grand narratives in which states, national interest etc is given rather than constructed.
2 The term muscular nationalism was recently utilized by Sikata Banarjee (2006). Ling and Chang have
ofliberation isprobably stretching Sharoni’sunderstanding,Iuseitto referto post-independence Nehruvian period in India since the masculinities deployed were used to promote modernity and
development. This is not to dismiss the violence engendered by modernity, rather it is to focus on the hope and promise that was in the air.
Voluntary abstinence is a term that is used by Bidwai and Vanaik (2000).
4
These categories were suggested by Achin Vanaik during an interview I conducted with him in New Delhi in April 2003.
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