A Question of Priority

To those who remember India's gentle spirit Mahatma Gandhi, who tried to teach his countrymen the virtues of pacifism, the idea that his nation might one day become a nuclear power with a deadly arsenal of warheads seems all but unthinkable. In 1968 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi--daughter of Gandhi's great friend and political successor, Jawaharlal Nehru--warned Indians that nothing would help their enemies more "than for us to lose our sense of perspective and to undertake measures that undermine the basic progress of the country." Yet India has just exploded an atomic device--somewhat smaller than the one dropped on Hiroshima beneath the sands of the northwestern Rajasthan desert--that makes it the sixth member of the world's nuclear club.*

New Delhi insisted that the fallout-free blast on May 18 was for peaceful purposes only. But India's uneasy Asian neighbors, along with many Western nations, were less convinced. At a meeting in Geneva of the 25-nation disarmament conference, the U.S., Sweden and Canada noted regretfully that the test had set back efforts to prevent the spread of atomic weapons. (India never signed the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, on the grounds that it discriminated in favor of the existing nuclear powers.)

Other nations rejected India's explanation, noting that no distinction could be drawn between tests for peaceful purposes and those for arms development. Many diplomats feared that the test would help spur other nations with technical know-how into accelerating their efforts to join the nuclear club. As if to confirm that fear, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan warned that if India builds the bomb, "we will eat leaves and grass, even go hungry, but we will have to get one of our own. We have no alternative." At least eight other nations have the capability of producing nuclear weapons, but only three of these--Australia, Israel and Japan --have potential systems for delivering them.

One troubling question was whether India, which plans to spend some $316 million over the next five years on atomic energy development, has confused its priorities. For a nation where 25% of the 580 million inhabitants subsist below the annual $30 per capita poverty line, such an investment seemed dubious at best.

The World Bank is reported to have said that India will need some $12 billion in aid over the next half-decade. Yet several of India's staunchest aid donors--the U.S., Canada and Japan --voiced dismay at New Delhi's announcement that it would proceed with a costly nuclear-development program. A proposed $75 million U.S. aid program for India may now be in jeopardy. Last week Canada angrily suspended its long-given assistance to India's atomic energy program and promised to "review" other aid programs (excepting food) designated for New Delhi.

Despite the uproar, Prime Minister Gandhi clearly believes that the beneficial military and political fallout from the test justified its priority and expense. India's new nuclear role will probably establish the country as an increasingly potent political force on the Asian subcontinent and among the Third World nations. Ever since China exploded its own bomb in 1964, India has felt the need to attain nuclear status both to remain competitive with Peking and to enhance its security from outside attack. That status will become markedly real if India decides to perfect its ongoing rocketry program by constructing an effective delivery system. Moreover, said Indian Defense Minister Jagjivan Ram in response to Western criticism, the test opens the way for such peacetime industrial uses of atomic energy as river diversion, mining and prospecting for vitally needed oil and gas reserves.

With two nuclear power plants operating and two more under construction--potentially capable of providing enough plutonium to produce more than a score of modest bombs--India is on the threshold of atomic prowess. That prospect alone filled many Indians with pride this week and helped bolster Mrs. Gandhi's strike-embattled administration (TIME, May 20). Yet many others argued that nuclear bombs will have no effect on the economic ills of a country where incomes continue to plummet and prices rise faster than a mushroom cloud. As a Hindustan Times editorial observed last week: "A nuclear bang, albeit peaceful, means little without a corresponding release of economic and political energy."

*Along with the U.S., Britain, France, the Soviet Union and China.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.