The key problem is with the voluntary moratorium. Once we decide to have nuclear bombs then we should keep up the process of testing, we need to make them better, lighter, more lethal, more

1. The Nuclear Muddle
Laveesh Bhandari
Indicus Analytics
The Canadians want to once again give us their technology, the Australians
do want to sell more of their Uranium, the US wants to get India into its
fold, and even the Japanese are not averse to a nuclear India. The Indian
government is also quite happy with that. The Indian public has made it
very clear in the past (like many other large democracies) that they would
like the state to develop, test and maintain a nuclear arsenal. The world has
more or less given up on trying to keep India non-nuclear. Given that India
will have some sort of a nuclear arsenal what would make most sense is that
arsenal be limited. The world would like that, and Indians are also not
averse to this idea. So on all of this there is more or less universal
agreement.
But even a limited nuclear arsenal requires some testing and everyone knows
that. So before signing any of those non-proliferation treaties the western
nations gave themselves enough time and tested. This must have been
India’s argument as well in its negotiations. Given that we like to see
ourselves as a nuclear power, and given that the other powers don’t really
mind that anymore, why should there be a problem with us testing? After all
would not testing allow us to develop better quality nuclear bombs? Or
better ones that can better be targeted and those that have minimum
collateral damage. Democracy has made the left see right, and now we have
a consensus on the matter. Congress or no Congress, India will voluntarily
chose to test.
The government is claiming this, the left is also claiming it wants this, of
course no one really knows what the BJP wants but it seems that’s the key
issue. The Ping us theM and his foreign minister both claim that we can
test. The right and the left agree that it does not. There is therefore only
one way out.
Lets do a few tests. That would be the scientific way. Whenever theory
does not yield a deterministic outcome, one needs to resort to empiricism.
So what we need to do very quickly is to do a couple of underground tests
and see the response. But the problem is there is no treaty. So it may be

2. better to quickly sign the treaty let it go through the US congress, do
whatever has to be done, and then quickly do a couple of tests as soon as
everything is through.
Two things could happen. First - Australia will stop giving us their
Uranium, and Canada its technology, and US its military ware. We did not
have any of this in the first place anyway so no real loss. Second – they will
accept that this was allowed in the treaty. In this case we can go on happily
testing or voluntarily not testing for the next few years.
The key problem is with the voluntary moratorium. Once we decide to have
nuclear bombs then we should keep up the process of testing, we need to
make them better, lighter, more lethal, more