[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 75 (Thursday, June 11, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1123-E1125]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  INDIA CONSIDERS SANCTIONS A BLESSING--INDIAN VILLAGERS REPORT SIDE-
                       EFFECTS FROM NUCLEAR TESTS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. DAN BURTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 11, 1998

  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend two recent news 
articles for all Members' immediate personal review, and I want to 
thank the President of the Council of Khalistan, Dr. Gurmit Singh 
Aulakh, for bringing them to my attention. The first article is from 
the May 30, 1998 edition of the India Tribune in which it actually says 
that U.S. economic sanctions on India could prove to be a blessing in 
disguise, and that India should ``push ahead with determination'' in 
developing its nuclear arsenal. The second article was a report by the 
Reuters news service on May 17, 1998, in which residents of a village 
near where the Indian government conducted its recent nuclear tests 
have been complaining about ``nose bleeds, skin and eye irritation, 
vomiting and loose bowels.''
  These developments should be very disturbing to any Member who wants 
peace between India and Pakistan, and in the entire South Asian region. 
The fact that India is willing to subject its own citizens to nuclear 
fallout in the name of developing its nuclear arsenal speaks volumes 
about their real warring intentions. Indeed, the India Tribune 
encourages its country to not ``panic in the face of international 
furor but stay firm and continue to build up its nuclear weapons 
capability.''
  Can there be any further doubt that India will have the capability of 
raining nuclear missiles down upon Pakistan soon? I think if my 
colleagues read these recent articles carefully, they will reach the 
same conclusion. India will soon have, if they do not have it already, 
that very capability even at the expense of harming its own citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, we must be very diligent that this region does not 
become the epicenter of a World War III-type nuclear conflict. The 
stakes could not be higher.
  I would like to enter the India Tribune and Reuters articles into the 
Congressional Record, and I strongly urge my colleagues to read them 
with the utmost gravity they deserve. Especially in light of the Rand 
Corporation's recent prediction that within a few years there will be a 
war between India and Pakistan. If so, that war could now include 
nuclear weapons.

                 [From the India Tribune, May 30, 1998]

     Between the Lines--India Should Push Ahead With Determination

                         (By Brahma Chellaney)

       The 24th Anniversary of the first nuclear test at Pokhran 
     would have been another occasion to reflect on India's 
     nuclear indecision. But exactly one week before the 
     anniversary, the country shed its chronic ambivalence and 
     consummated its long-held nuclear option. India unleashed its 
     action with a vengeance, carrying out five nuclear tests in 
     two days, unequivocally demonstrating its capability to 
     manufacture the most modern nuclear weapons--thermonuclear, 
     boosted fission and low-yield types. The nation has shown it 
     has compact missile-deliverable nuclear warheads.
       Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation of India's nuclear 
     programme. The Nehru Government set up the Atomic Energy 
     Commission in 1948 to produce ``all the basic materials'' 
     because of nuclear power's ``strategic nature''. Nehru had 
     said even before assuming office that as long as the world 
     was constituted on nuclear might, ``every country will have 
     to develop and use the latest scientific devices for its 
     protection''. By the mid-1950s, India had built Asia's first 
     atomic research reactor, Apsara, and set in motion a broad-
     based nuclear programme.
       After the Cirus reactor started up in 1960, Nehru declared, 
     ``We are approaching a stage when it is possible for us . . . 
     to make atomic weapons.'' That stage was reached 
     unquestionably in 1964, when India completed a facility at 
     Trombay to reprocess the Cirus spent fuel, making it the 
     fifth country to be able to produce plutonium. When the 
     Chinese conducted their first nuclear test in 1964--four 
     months after Nehru's death--Homi Bhabba declared that India, 
     if it decided, could build a nuclear bomb within 18 months.
       China's first nuclear test, barely two years after its 
     invading forces inflicted a crushing defeat on India, sharply 
     heightened this country's insecurity. The following year, 
     Pakistan, taking advantage of India's security travails, 
     infiltrated its men into Jammu and Kashmir, triggering a 
     full-scale war.
       It was Lal Bahadur Shastri who initiated the Indian nuclear 
     explosives programme in 1965. But a series of events put a 
     brake on that programme. These included the passing away of 
     Shastri, Bhabba's own death in a mysterious plane crash in 
     Europe, and the political instability triggered by an 
     initially weak government under Indira Gandhi.
       When India eventually conducted a nuclear detonation in 
     1974, it astounded the world. U.S. intelligence was caught 
     unawares, even though Indira Gandhi had told Parliament in 
     1972 that her Government was ``studying situations under 
     which peaceful nuclear explosions carried out underground can 
     be of economic benefit to India without causing environmental 
     hazards''. Earlier in 1970, India had rejected a U.S. 
     demarche against conducting any nuclear explosion.
       By conducting the 1974 test, Indira Gandhi gave India a 
     tangible nuclear option. The country broke no legal 
     commitment and had the sovereign right to continue the 
     testing programme. As Henry Kissinger told U.S. Congress 
     after the Pokhran test, ``We objected strongly, but since 
     there was no violation of U.S. agreements involved, we had no 
     specific leverage on which to bring our objections to bear''. 
     The test shook the 1968-designed NPT regime to its very 
     foundation.
       Had India continued to test, this regime probably would 
     have disintegrated or been seriously damaged. Instead, the 
     U.S.-led regime emerged stronger and with fangs because 
     India, to the great surprise of the rest of the world and its 
     own public, did not go beyond that one single test. It will 
     remain a riddle of history why Indira Gandhi did not carry 
     out another test.
       One key constraint on India going overtly nuclear was its 
     lack of missile capability. Indira Gandhi sought to remedy 
     this by formally instituting a programme in 1983 to develop 
     ballistic missiles. The essence of deterrence is the ability 
     to retaliate with devastating might after surviving a 
     first strike by an aggressor. Any nuclear deterrent force 
     thus is centered on missiles, not bomber-aircraft, which 
     in India's case cannot reach even the heartland of its 
     leading security concern, China.
       India's nuclear option really opened up in an operational 
     sense only after the Agni was flight-tested in February 1994, 
     completing its triumphant three-test developmental phase.

[[Page E1124]]

     The first Agni test in 1989 was carried out despite, in the 
     words of Rajiv Gandhi, ``ambassadors of certain foreign 
     powers'' threatening punitive sanctions. ``I told them 
     clearly that India would carry out the launch and we would 
     not change our decision under pressure'', the then Prime 
     Minister said.
       All three generations of Nehrus who served as Prime 
     Ministers played an important role in building a concrete 
     nuclear option. India's security planning, however, entered 
     its darkest phase under P.V. Narasimha Rao, whose government 
     slashed defence spending, squeezed strategic programmes, 
     deviated from the traditional disarmament policy and delayed 
     the flight-tests of even the short-range Prithvi missile. Rao 
     showed that India did not need any enemy--it could be its own 
     worst enemy.
       Rao declined to take follow-up action on the Agni, putting 
     the programme in deep hibernation. As Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam 
     said in 1994, the Agni needs no further experimental flight-
     tests but only ``random batch tests'' once its production 
     begins. With the advance of simulation technology, longer-
     range missiles are entering production after one to four 
     flight-tests. The Agni comprises two stages, each tested many 
     times; Its solid-fuelled first stage is the SLV-3 space 
     launcher, while its liquid-fuelled second stage is the 
     Prithvi.
       Agni-type missiles make strategic sense only if they carry 
     a nuclear weapon. While India had demonstrated its delivery 
     capability, it had not demonstrated its ability to build a 
     nuclear warhead for the Agni. A reliable warhead could never 
     have emerged without testing. In fact, without the testing 
     option, India would have had no nuclear option worth the 
     name.
       As the only nuclear-threshold state not to receive tested 
     warhead designs from external sources, India had to 
     forcefully oppose the CTBT and safeguard its testing right.
       Through its nuclear indecision, India had also been 
     undermining its international role, severely cramping its 
     diplomacy and literally inviting the imposition of additional 
     technology controls on it. While the threat of sanctions was 
     being cleverly employed to rein in India, the country had 
     over the years fallen victim to increasing technology 
     sanctions for merely retaining an open nuclear option. Every 
     cost-benefit analysis was showing that India was bleeding its 
     interests, incurring the liabilities of maintaining an open 
     option but not making the security gains.
       India's turning point came when an openly pro-nuclear 
     government took office in March 1998. The new coalition 
     elected to power pledged, in the words of A.B. Vajpayee, to 
     ``exercise all options, including the nuclear option''. No 
     prime minister has assumed office with such a categorical 
     commitment.
       The Vajpayee government was determined not to miss India's 
     closing opportunity to break out of its self-created 
     constraints. The Indian nuclear option had come under 
     increasing siege in the 1990s with the five declared 
     nuclear powers joining hands for the first time to enforce 
     nonproliferation as a global norm. After legitimising 
     their nuclear hegemony through the NPT's permanent 
     extensions, these powers had begun targeting Indian 
     through the CTBT and the proposed FMCT.
       It was this pressure that prompted two previous Indian 
     governments to order a nuclear test, although they retreated 
     from their plan at the eleventh hour. The first test decision 
     was taken by Narasimha Rao in late 1995, but the 
     pusillanimous Rao scrapped the plan after the US government 
     began breathing down his neck. US officials also leaked the 
     test plan to an American newspaper. The newspaper report 
     cited satellite reconnaissance as showing the Indians 
     preparing to test, but since there was no drilling or other 
     activity at Pokhran that a satellite could pick up, the 
     tipoff to Washington most likely came from a high-level 
     source in the Rao government.
       The second test move was initiated by Vajpayee immediately 
     after taking over as Prime Minister in May 1996. The plan, 
     however, had to be aborted as his government ran out of time 
     after the Lok Sabba secretariat advanced the vote of 
     confidence by two days. The H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral 
     governments also seriously considered nuclear testing, but 
     did not order any detonation in the absence of support from 
     their Leftist constituents.
       When Vajpayee became Prime Minister for the second time, he 
     knew that continued inaction would bring India under stepped-
     up pressure from next year, with the 1999 CTBT entry-into-
     force conference to be followed by the NPT review conference 
     in 2000. He also realised that any testing plan would get 
     leaked to the Americans unless it was confined to a handful 
     of decision-makers. That is the reason why even the Defence 
     Minister George Fernandes was not in the loop from the 
     beginning, but was brought into the picture later before the 
     first series of three detonations. Had Fernandes known the 
     plan from the outset, he would not have gone around saying 
     that a nuclear decision would have to await a strategic 
     posture review.
       So when Vajpayee announced that India had conducted three 
     nuclear tests within minutes of each other, he stunned the 
     world and exposed one of America's biggest intelligence 
     failures. The intelligence bungle was compounded by the 
     subsequent Indian tests of two highly sophisticated devices 
     with yields less than one kiloton. Those two blasts showed 
     India can do advanced hydronuclear tests, which are limited 
     to subcritical or slightly supercritical neutron 
     multiplication and release negligible amounts of fission 
     energy.
       It was inevitable that India would come under tremendous 
     pressure once it resumed nuclear testing after a gap of 
     almost a quarter century. But the decisionmakers recognised 
     that the costs of inaction outweighed the costs of action. 
     India had been paying a heavy price for its 1974 test as that 
     step was not linked to a nuclear-deterrent blueprint. The 
     rising tide of technology sanctions since 1974 sought to damn 
     India whether it restrained itself or exercised the nuclear 
     option. The nation decided ultimately to adopt the latter 
     course and get out of a self-injurious situation.
       Having taken the toughest and boldest step necessary to 
     embark on a nuclear-weapons programme, India has to 
     determinedly push ahead without resting on its oars. Any 
     vacillation will bring it under greater external pressure. 
     The more determination it shows, the greater its leverage and 
     ability to beat back sanctions. It cannot panic in the face 
     of the international furore but stay firm and continue to 
     build up its nuclear-weapons capability. When the world sees 
     a resolute India pushing ahead, the present reaction will 
     begin to taper off.
                                  ____


                [From the India Tribune,--May 30, 1998]

                         Sanctions--A Blessing

                        (By J.V. Lakshmana Rao)

       Sanctions are not new to India. When former Prime Minister 
     Indira Gandhi conducted the first nuclear test in 1974, the 
     country came under the grip of a wrath from the US and other 
     countries.
       The supply to nuclear fuel from the US and other countries 
     to India was stopped. At that time, many thought that India's 
     nuclear power projects--of course they were not many--would 
     be crippled by the non-availability of the much-needed fuel.
       But India's nuclear scientists quickly responded and came 
     to the rescue of the country. While they developed their own 
     technique to reprocess spent fuel, they also started 
     indigenous production of nuclear fuel. The Indian government 
     strengthened the nuclear fuel complex in Hyderabad, the 
     uranium mill at Jaduguda in Bihar, uranium mines in Jaduguda 
     and Bhatim in Bihar, the rare earth facilities in 
     Manavalakurchi in Tamil Nadu, Chavara in Kerala and 
     Chbattarpur in Orissa. The working of heavy water plants in 
     Baroda in Gujarat, Talcher in Orissa, Tuticorin in Tamil 
     Nadu, and Thai in Maharashtra were strengthened to boost 
     production. A few more research and development wings were 
     added to the Bhabba Atomic Research Center in Trombay and 
     other institutions in the country. Though the power 
     generation in nuclear power plants suffered briefly, they 
     quickly recovered.
       India also had to face some sort of sanctions because of 
     its missile-development programmes, like Agni and Prithvi. 
     Every successful test at Chandipur-on-Sea sent shock waves in 
     the US. The US refused to supply the super-computer to India. 
     The US feared that India might use the super-computer for 
     defence purposes. The latest indications are that Indian 
     electronics engineers have developed a more sophisticated 
     super-computer system than the one now available in the US.
       Even the present nuclear technology, with which the five 
     nuclear tests were conducted at Pokhran, is fully indigenous.
       As the adage goes that ``necessity is the mother of 
     invention,'' only under pressure, does India develop its 
     resources. Therefore, the present sanctions from the US and 
     other nations should prove to be a ``blessing in disguise'' 
     for India.
       As it is, the US aid to India amounts only a few million 
     dollars out of the grant of about $3 billion annually. The 
     sanctions will surely slow down investments by the 
     multinationals, some of which have taken up huge projects in 
     India. Definitely these multinationals will persuade the US 
     to relax some of the restrictive provisions, so that their 
     interest do not suffer. To make things clear to the world, 
     Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has announced that India 
     would not slow down the economic reforms.
       Though India's foreign reserves position is comfortable, 
     sanctions, can deplete them. There are several ways India can 
     overcome the problem. As as retaliatory measure, India should 
     restrict imports from countries that have imposed sanctions. 
     India should review its import policy and ensure that it 
     imports only very essential items.
       The Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), who have overwhelmingly 
     supported Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's coalition 
     government for the nuclear tests, must show their support in 
     action by investing substantially in India. They should act 
     immediately before their enthusiasm dies down.
       There is a lot of misreporting in the US newspapers about 
     India. The country is projected as a ``sinner.'' A Chicago-
     based mainstream newspaper calls India a ``defiant'' country 
     and publishes a picture, whose caption says that ``Hindus'' 
     burn the flag of a neighboring country. India is a secular 
     country, and it is not understandable how the newspaper could 
     identify the crowd as only Hindus. It has become fashionable 
     for some newspapers to describe the Vajpayee government as 
     the ``Hindu fundamentalist.''
       The usage of words like ``defiant'' and ``Hindus'' is 
     highly objectionable and provocative. The local Indian 
     Consulate turns a blind eye to it, but calls for a press 
     conference of journalists of Indian ethnic newspapers to 
     ``brief'' them on India's nuclear

[[Page E1125]]

     tests. Instead, the Indian Consulate will do well to address 
     a press conference of mainstream newspapers, and let them 
     know that India is ruled by a secular democratic government, 
     and the Indian Constitution has not been amended to call its 
     people only ``Hindus.''
       Indian Consul General in Chicago J.C. Sharma did a 
     commendable job as a participant of a panel discussion on 
     Channel 11 last week.
                                  ____


             [From the Reuters News Service, May 17, 1998]

               Indian Villagers Claim N-Test Side Effects

       New Delhi, India.--Several residents of a village near 
     India's nuclear-testing site have complained of nose-bleeds, 
     skin and eye irritation, vomiting and loose bowels since last 
     week's underground blasts, a report said on Sunday.
       The government has said that no radioactivity was released 
     into the atmosphere over the Thar desert, in the western 
     state of Rajasthan, as a result of its five tests.
       But The Sunday Statesman said that more than a dozen people 
     from the village of Khetolai experienced symptoms of 
     contamination by radiation immediately after the last two of 
     the five devices were exploded on Wednesday.
       ``The residents approached us, gave a list of affected 
     persons,'' the paper quoted a district official as saying. 
     ``Most of them have complained of nose-bleeding, loss of 
     appetite, irritation in skin and eyes.''
       ``We will soon send a team of doctors to examine the 
     affected villagers. Only then can we come to a conclusion. It 
     could also be due to the rise in temperature,'' he said.
       The paper said the people of Khetolai were convinced that 
     the complaints were due to radiation exposure and quoted one 
     man as saying he was suffering nose-bleeds for the first time 
     in his life.
       Another man was worried about his 12-year-old daughter. 
     ``She has been vomiting, bleeding through the nose and 
     feeling restless for two days after the second explosion,'' 
     the paper quoted the girl's father as saying. ``First we 
     ignored it but when the number of victims rose we brought it 
     to the notice of district and army officers.''
       Khetolai is one of seven villages dotted around the Alpha 
     Firing range of the area called Pokhran.