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Nuclear tests have isolated India, says Gadgil

Senior Congress politician Vitthal N Gadgil said the nuclear tests at Pokhran in May had isolated India and internationalised the Kashmir issue.

"We have lost our moral edge," the former Union minister said at a seminar on post-nuclear India in Calcutta yesterday.

Gadgil said the explosions had made no difference to the threats to India, especially from the United States. He called America the real devil, "always after its own national interest".

He said India had shown remarkable restraint for 24 years after the first nuclear test in 1974, but whenever it raised the issue of a nuclear-free world, it was isolated in the United Nations.

Calling Pakistan's tests a "Chinese version", he wondered about America's stand when China supplied nuclear technology to Pakistan in 1986.

Accusing America and China of being involved in a game to turn the world bipolar, Gadgil said the US would not change its anti-India policy despite India acquiring nuclear weapons.

West Bengal Assembly Speaker Hashim Abdul Halim blamed the Centre for the current inflation, saying it was a fallout of the tests. Both India and Pakistan had suffered economically and politically after the tests, he said.

He pointed out that the Soviet Union disintegrated despite having a huge stockpile of nuclear arms. He said a nation becomes strong not by acquiring nuclear arms but by improving the lot of its people.

Orissa Assembly Speaker Chintamani Samantray termed India's tests "unnecessary", saying they had only created more enemies outside and accelerated inflation inside.

West Bengal Parliamentary Affairs Minister Probodh Chandra Sinha said public opinion should have been sought before carrying out the tests. He said the pressure on India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty probably forced the decision, but the tests had not yielded much.

Justice K M Yusuf of the Calcutta High Court wondered if the tests had not divorced India from Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of ahimsa (non-violence).

UNI

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