Shockwaves

The other day I was watching a rather interesting interview of Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy the particle physicist from Pakistan. The noble doctor has been hammering away for nuclear disarmament for many years. However I was a little puzzled by his argument against India's nuclear program. His contention is that the nuclear explosion at Pokhran in 1974 was a disaster for India! How so? Hoodbhoy argues that it was this explosion that got Pakistan to work on theirs and go nuclear. He further argues that it was this explosion that eventually lead Pakistan to have the nuclear bomb and get military parity with India. While this may be true it is worth remembering that while Pakistan may be India centric, India is not. India's nuclear program was aimed not at Pakistan which has always been considered to be an irritant rather than a threat. The bigger threat was China and that too in a neighborhood that was hostile after successive wars were fought. Let us hark back to 1974 for a moment. Pakistan and China were an alliance, to whom the American's were cosying up under a Richard Nixon who disliked India. The Russian's were our only ally and China was a nuclear power that could always arm twist a non nuclear India.I do not see what other choice India had but to catch up with the Chinese

. Hoodbhoy goes on say that since Pakistan now has a nuclear bomb that country can harbor terrorists, who can strike at India with impunity and India will not be able to respond for fear of provoking a nuclear war. Kargil proved otherwise, didn't it? India used conventional weapons to smash occupying troops. I do not think that the equation is as simple as Hoodbhoy makes it out to be. India need not fight a war to choke Pakistan off. It can be done by diplomatic and economic means, which even the Pakistanis seem to now recognize. The People's Republic of China has developed and possessed weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and nuclear weapons. China's first nuclear test took place in 1964 and first hydrogen bomb test occurred in 1967. This was a full ten years before India's. China has been implicated in the development of the Pakistani nuclear program. In the early 1980s, China is also believed to have given Pakistan a "package" including uranium enrichment technology, high-enriched uranium, and the design for a compact nuclear weapon. Chinese complicity is what worries and should worry India and not Pakistan as Hoodbhoy erroneously believes.