Uncovering global story of India’s nuclear programme | Latest News India

India’s nuclear program is often viewed as an inward-looking endeavor by secretive technocrats. But a new book by scholar Jayita Sarkar, Plowshares and Swords: India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War, challenges conventional wisdom and tells a global history of India’s nuclear program through its first forty years. Sarkar last week joined Milan Vaishnav on Grand Tamasha, a weekly podcast on Indian politics and politics co-produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In her book, Sarkar writes that the anti-nonproliferation position of the leaders of India’s nuclear program was neither moralistic nor ideological – it was pragmatic. “Because India was that country that was not aligned on either side [during the Cold War] but also had strong ties with the Soviet Union…that made Indian politicians able to negotiate with multiple parties,” Sarkar said. There was a feeling among western politicians that “now we don’t listen to the Indian politicians, they can just go to Moscow. And Moscow sometimes felt the same way.” India’s genius was in using Cold War opportunities to expand the country’s freedom of action.

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On the civilian side, Sarkar notes that even today, India’s nuclear program “is made of dreams, hopes and promises.” Officially, nuclear power covers only 3.2 percent of the country’s share of electricity generation. “Nuclear energy is not cheap, it is not cheap to measure … unless there is a huge amount of government subsidies. And if that’s not possible, it’s really difficult for any country to get much nuclear power,” argued Sarkar. “It’s really a story about the presence of the state and how much is possible. But then we hear more about the non-proliferation regime because India has rightly been unable to engage in civilian nuclear trade. That’s a fact. But if India were able to do that… that wouldn’t change anytime soon because there has to be adequate – or more than adequate – government support.”