Nuclear subcontinent

Press, 6 October 1987, Page 16

Nuclear subcontinent

From the “Economist’s” India correspondent

If India and Pakistan ever go towar again nuclear weapons might be used. India could probably put a bomb together in a few weeks, and make 10 or so in six months. Pakistan could probably assemble one or two at short notice. ? The wherewithal is there. India exploded a nuclear device — a "peaceful” one, it said — in its western state of Rajasthan, in 1974. BUt only this year did its unfriendly neighbour, Pakistan, amass enough weapons-grade enriched uranium for a bomb of its Thfe' success of Pakistan’s Kahura enrichment plant may have prodded India into acceler- . bating its own nuclear weapons programme. Its 1974 device was as big as a house; a deliverable ~ bomb would have to fit into an aircraft ..: The fuel for India’s nuclear devices is at present reprocessed plutonium; for the first time India is stockpiling large amounts of weapons-grade plutonium. It is refined from used fuel

taken from reactors that are not subject to international inspection. One source of the fuel is an Indian-built reactor in Madras that started up in 1983; the other is the Dhruva research reactor near Bombay. India is not relying on plutonium alone. The Prime Minister, Mr Rajiv Gandhi, is encouraging India’s scientists to catch up with Pakistan’s in their expertise in uranium enrichment The Indian Government is believed to be building a uranium enrichment plant at Ratanahalii, near Mysore, in the state of Karnataka. Within a few years India and Pakistan might make the leap from collecting the materials needed for a weapon to stockpiling completed bombs. A Pakistani nuclear test would make the leap - probable. It would raise. Pakistan’s prestige among other Islamic countries and would be ;, the ultimate gesture (towards ; India) of Pakistan’s independence. • ■ ■ • Many Pakistanis say that, unless they have a bomb, it is only

a matter of time before India invades their country, as it invaded East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in 1971.

The Indian Parliament is strongly in favour of nuclear weapons, but India’s foreignpolicy makers would like to keep its nuclear status ambiguous. It enables India to campaign for nuclear disarmament, particularly as a spokesman for the Non-Aligned Movement, and does not jeopardise its blossoming trade relationship with America. India can also try to assuage Russia’s anxiety about another nuclear Power among its neighbours. In both India and Pakistan it is sometimes claimed that the bomb will guarantee peace in the region in much the same way it has brought stability to Europe and to relations between the. super-Powers. Perhaps. But the rest of the world would still prefer the theory of deterrence not to be put to this new test Copyright—The Economist