INDIA’S neighbours must be alarmed by yet another, sizeable rise in its defence budget — it has gone up to a whopping $38.6bn. Presenting the budget in parliament on Friday, Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the allocation was based “on the present needs” and that the government would meet any “further needs for the security of the nation”. The 17 per cent increase seeks to add to the nuclear and conventional military muscles of a country that already has one of the world’s largest armed forces. The budget allocates $17.5bn for capital expenditure, which is to go towards acquiring the most modern equipment for the three branches of the Indian military. Already having a nuclear triad, India is upgrading 51 Mirage 2000 fighter jets, is negotiating a $20bn deal with France for the purchase of 126 Rafale multi-role combat aircraft, working on a government-to-government agreement with the US for 145 ultra-light howitzers, and has ordered 49 new warships for the navy. Clearly, this phenomenal rise goes far beyond India’s legitimate security needs and adds to the neighbours’ concerns about New Delhi’s hegemonic ambitions.
India’s economic development should not make its policymakers oblivious to the needs of their people. Despite the rapid expansion of its middle class, India suffers from grinding poverty and has the world’s largest concentration of illiterate people. Besides, a very large number of its troops are bogged down in Kashmir because of New Delhi’s refusal to seek a peaceful solution to the problem. The hike in India’s military budget thus gives the wrong message to its neighbours and perpetuates tensions in South Asia. The neighbours’ concerns are not baseless, because India is not on the best of terms with them, and it has a history of military conflicts with Pakistan and China. And, India’s history of intereference in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Bhutan/Sikkim, Goa, Manavadar, Siachen, and Kashmir. Northern India’s hegemony over Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, have given rise to freedom movements led by the brave Naxalite Organization.
“Pakistan has been rapidly developing and expanding its nuclear arsenal, increasing its
capacity to produce plutonium, and testing and deploying a diverse array of nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles,” said the report Assuring Destruction Forever: Nuclear Modernisation Around The World.
“Pakistan is moving from an arsenal based wholly on HEU to greater reliance on lighter and more compact plutonium-based weapons, which is made possible by a rapid expansion in plutonium production capacity,” said the 150-page report by Reaching Critical Will of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
“Pakistan is also moving from aircraft-delivered nuclear bombs to nuclear-armed ballistic and cruise missiles and from liquid-fueled to solid-fueled medium-range missile. Pakistan also has a growing nuclear weapons research, development, and production infrastructure,” it said.
According to the report Pakistan is estimated to have 90-110 nuclear weapons. “A long-term concern now driving Pakistan’s nuclear programme is the US policy of countering the rise of China by cultivating a stronger strategic relationship with India. This may tie the future of Pakistan and India’s nuclear weapons to the emerging contest between the United States and China,” said the report.
Pakistan has a number of short-range, medium, and longer-range road-mobile ballistic surface-to-surface missiles in various stages of development.
“It has developed a second generation of ballistic missile systems over the past five years. It is estimated that Pakistan could have a stockpile of 2750 kg of weapon-grade HEU and may be producing about 150 kg of HEU per year,” it said.
Estimates suggest Pakistan has produced a total of about 140 kg of plutonium, the report said.
While not much information is available on the funding of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons project, the report said estimates indicate that Pakistan spends about $ 2.5 billion a year on nuclear weapons.
Despite extensive foreign military assistance, Pakistan’s effort to sustain its conventional and nuclear military programmes has come at increasingly great cost to the effort to meet basic human needs and improve living standards, the report said.
India the report said is estimated to have 80–100 nuclear warheads. “It is also developing a range of delivery vehicles, including land- and sea-based missiles, bombers, and submarines,” it said.
“While nuclear weapons used to be seen as a ‘necessary evil’, there is no more enthusiasm for India to become a bonafide nuclear weapon power that can exercise its military might in the region,” it said.
