Weaponisation Cost To Be High: Opp
Former finance minister P Chidambaram yesterday said the cost of nuclear weaponisation would be unbearable for the country, and urged the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government to review the direct costs of such a move before implementing it.
He, however, said there was no cause to worry about the indirect costs of sanctions.
Participating in the debate on the Prime Minister's statement on the recent nuclear tests in Lok Sabha, he said the direct cost of weaponisation would be exponential, commensurate with the arms race the action had triggered in the sub-continent. He wanted the government not to go in for nuclear weaponisation.
"For the first time in the country's history, the consensus that guided our foreign policy and nuclear policy stands fractured. We are divided by the government's thoughtless actions and the statements that followed. The tests were carried out just to satisfy the vanity of some party in power. Your government does not have the mandate to take unilateral decisions on serious issues like these", Chidambaram told Vajpayee.
Chidambaram was one of the Opposition speakers who came down heavily on the Vajpayee government for conducting the tests. Other Opposition leaders too questioned the need to conduct the tests at this juncture, and wondered what was the immediate provocation for the action. The government, however, was strongly defended by Union defence minister George Fernandes.
According to Chidambaram, the debate in the Lok Sabha was not about the tests per se, since none could disapprove of the achievements of the scientists involved. However, he said the debate was basically about the "manipulative agenda" of the government, and the "absence of vigorous thinking" on its part on key related issues like stockpiling, active-passive bombs, induction into the armed forces etc.
By issuing anti-China statements, Chidambaram alleged, Fernandes had been used as a pawn by Vajpayee to prepare the ground for the tests. Since it was not long before the United Front government had gone out of office, he wondered where from the sudden threat to the country's security arose that necessitated the tests.
In his perception, there were three options available for the Vajpayee government in the new situation: to go in for a local, limited war; to sign the CTBT, and; to go in for fresh general elections. Of these, he said the most likely scenario was the last, fresh elections. Congress MP K Natwar Singh came down heavily on the government, and wanted to know when this sudden threat to the country had emerged, the day Vajpayee took over or the day he gave the green signal to the scientists to conduct the tests.
He wondered if there was a review of the security environment before conducting the tests, as was promised in the National Agenda.
According to Natwar Singh, Soviet Union had disintegrated because its economy could not bear the high cost of nuclear weaponisation as part of its arms race with the US. He pointed out that the minister of state for external affairs Vasundhara Raje had stated in a written reply that relations with China had been improving in the last decade.