Rajnath Singh says India could use nukes first if circumstances demand

A nuclear no first use pledge assures enemies that they would not be subjected to a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

Over the preceding decade, New Delhi’s stated nuclear doctrine that India would not be the first to use nuclear weapons has been incrementally diluted through ambiguous official statements. These include one in 2010 from a serving national security advisor (NSA), Shivshankar Menon; and another in 2016 from a serving defence minister, Manohar Parrikar, which the defence ministry later qualified as his “personal views”.

On Saturday, speaking to the media in the symbolic location of Pokhran, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh became the latest and highest level official to place a question mark over India’s “nuclear no first use” (NNFU) pledge, when