India-Pakistan Relations: A 50-Year History:
India-Pakistan Relations: A 50-Year History:
Shortly after 3:45 PM on May 11, 1998 at Pokhran, a desert site in the Indian state of Rajisthan, groups of local Bishnoi herders—whose customs forbid killing animals or cutting trees—heard a huge explosion, and watched in amazement as an enormous dust cloud floated in the sky. What the Indian farmers did not realize, but the diplomats in Washington and around the world soon grasped, was the fact that India had just joined the United States, Russia, England, France and China as the newest member of the nuclear club. On that warm May afternoon, Indian nuclear scientists successfully exploded three atomic devices amounting to about six times the destructive power of the American bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The next day, as the world tried to absorb the frightening news, India ignited two more nuclear explosions.
Pakistan Responds:
As the five nuclear powers, all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, discussed ways to punish India as well as ways to prevent Pakistan from testing its own nuclear devices, the leaders of Pakistan were busily moving forward with their own nuclear plans.
On May 28th, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister at that time, announced that following India's lead, Pakistan had successfully exploded five "nuclear devices." Not content to equal India's five tests, Pakistan proceeded on May 30th to explode yet a sixth device and at the same time the Prime Minister announced that his government would soon be able to launch nuclear war heads on missiles.
Both President Clinton and a majority of the world community condemned Pakistan's nuclear testing, although China was much less harsh in its criticism of Pakistan, its close ally. Following the sanctions policy after India's tests, the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada and Germany ended their aid to Pakistan and asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank to place a moratorium on loans to Pakistan. However, despite President Clinton's wish to impose a world-wide system of economic sanctions on India and Pakistan, a vast majority of western nations have refused to join the effort.
The Story Behind the Headlines
Despite the seeming suddenness of India's and Pakistan's decisions to test nuclear devices and in so doing seek to join the other five world nuclear nations, the headlines following the explosions "heard round the world," had a fifty-year history.
Since their independence as new nations in 1947, India and Pakistan have followed a path of mutual animosity. Pakistan was created as a national homeland for the Muslim-majority areas of the subcontinent, while India proposed to become a secular nation that included about 85 percent Hindus, but also more than ten percent Muslims as well as large numbers of Sikhs, Christians and members of other religions.Soon after the partition of the sub-continent into the two nations, about 17 million people fled their homes and journeyed to either Pakistan or India. In one of the largest exchanges of populations in history, violence soon broke out with Muslims on one side and Sikhs and Hindus on the other. The resulting blood shed in the Punjab and West Bengal regions left more than one million people dead in its wake.
In the midst of this refugee movement and open violence, the governments of India and Pakistan hastily tried to divide the assets of British India between the two new countries. From weapons and money, down to paper clips and archaeological treasures, all had to be divided.
Foreign Policy Relations
Russia has had close relations with India since Indira Gandhi became prime minister in 1966. Russia provides most of India's military sales. After the demise of the Soviet Empire, Russia is unable to provide economic or military aid to India.Pakistan relied on its close alliance with the United States from 1954 through the 1980s. During the 1990s, leaders looked more to China for support and military technology and hardware; China is currently a major supplier of these components to Pakistan. The Pakistani foreign minister traveled to China for consultations ten days before Pakistan conducted nuclear tests. Pakistan will suffer far more than India as a result of economic sanctions by world community. Loss of aid will result in undermining of currency, great increase in debt and increase in poverty.Today, U.S. relations with India and Pakistan are strong. In March 2006, when U.S. President George W. Bush visited South Asia, he remarked that we "are now united by opportunities that can lift our people." In India, he commented that "The United States and India, separated by half the globe, are closer than ever before, and the partnership between our free nations has the power to transform the world."
Positions of World Leaders on India and Pakistan Nuclear Testing
The [non proliferation] treaties are discriminatory and hypocritical. Our hope is that those nations that want to continue their nuclear monopoly will accept that the same rules should apply to all. (Boston Globe, May 29, 1998)
China is India's number-one threat. It is encircling India with missile and naval deployments of suspicious intent. (TIME Magazine, May 25, 1998)
We have to prove that we are not eunuchs. (TIME, ibid.)
Today we have evened the score with India....I would like to again assure all countries that our nuclear weapons systems are meant only for self-defense.... (New York Times, May 30, 1998)
To try to manifest your greatness by detonating atomic bombs when everybody else is trying to leave the nuclear age behind is just wrong. India and Pakistan must give up their arms race--a self-defeating cycle of escalation. (New York Times, May 13, 1998)
Facts: Nations with Nuclear Weapons
The following nations possess nuclear weapons, have carried out tests and have missiles to deliver nuclear warheads.
- United States (pop. about 268 million), 1,030 tests since 1944. Now has 12,070 nuclear warheads. Missiles with range of 8,100 miles can reach anywhere in the world.
- Britain (pop. about 59.1 million), 45 tests since 1952. Has 380 warheads. Missiles have range of 7,500 miles.
- France (pop. about 58.8 million), 21 tests since 1961, most recent tests 1995, 1996. Now has 500 warheads. Missile range 3,300 miles.
- Russia (pop. about 146.9 million), 715 tests since 1945. Has 22,500 warheads. Missile range 6,800 miles.
- China (pop. about 1 billion, 300 million), 45 tests since 1964. Has 450 warheads. Missile range 6,800 miles. Has nuclear armed missiles directed at Indian cities in Tibet and Himalayan border.
- Israel (pop about 6 million), no tests, but has more than a hundred warheads. Missile range 930 miles.
- India (pop. about 988.7 million), six tests since 1974. Has about 65 warheads. Missiles named Prithvi has range of 1,550 miles. Presently developing Agni missile similar to Pakistan Gauri missile.
- Pakistan, (pop about 141.9 million), began nuclear program in 1972. Now has about 15-25 warheads. Missile range 930 miles. Has received technology and missiles from China
More Facts and Stats
- Percentage of national spending on defense: Pakistan 25%, India 14%
- Size of armed forces: Pakistan 600,000; India 1.2 million, China over 2 million.
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