Should India have nuclear weapons?

As long as the US and other nations has nukes, india has every right to nukes.

thanks,
drfunk

Originally posted by ZeroDeep
I'am Indian, Punjabi to be exact.
I'am not a proponent of India's currest infautuation with aquiring Nuclear weapons, or any other technology that does not help the average, poverised -- mentaly and physicaly -- person in India. India wants to be fed, educated, and capable of putting her children to sleep without confrontation. India is polluted with the filth of oligarchs who know nothing but thier own greed; India cannot even give her children the rights of, life, freedom and liberty; Children die simply for being born into the worship of a lower diety, spit on, used as slave labour, and in some cases, raped: India has mastrubated itself into a neverending cycle of birth-death.

Untill India can prove that it is capable of conquering itself, it will never be able to conquer the world.

Deep

Oye! Tussi jyadda whiskey pee liya??!!
Im no Indian rightwinger, though I believe India needs nukes because HELLO!! we live in a nuke neighbourhood where the ones that have nukes arent our bumchums!! The foreigners get it, i wonder why you have a problem understanding!

And we cannot divert the military budget for 'uplifting the downtrodden' and 'removing corruption' because if theres one section of Indian society where illiteracy, greed, corruption and communalism dont exist, its the Armed forces!

Those problems need to be addressed definitely but not by diverting funds. And they need the youth in India facilitating this dynamic change, not lamenting about it from far foreign lands!

India and china still dispute the boarders of their countries. India needs a deterrant to the Chinese nuclear aresenal. Don't forget China has a Naval base in Burma strategically flanking the bay of Bengal, that in tiself is an obvious threat to Indian power in the region.

my two cents:

India has every right to have nukes as long as other countries have nukes
It's self defense fron China and any other country that could threaten them

Now, if India starts using the nukes pre-emptively, then it's a different story

UO

Originally posted by UnknownOrigins
my two cents:

India has every right to have nukes as long as other countries have nukes
It's self defense fron China and any other country that could threaten them

Now, if India starts using the nukes pre-emptively, then it's a different story

UO

I agree, after they are the worlds largest democracy, so they could claim more right on this basis than the US.

Originally posted by UnknownOrigins
my two cents:

India has every right to have nukes as long as other countries have nukes
It's self defense fron China and any other country that could threaten them

Now, if India starts using the nukes pre-emptively, then it's a different story

UO

wont happen.. India has a no first use policy..

Originally posted by Daedalus3

wont happen.. India has a no first use policy..

Doesn't even come into the equation. Policy can be changed on a whim.

Yes thats a given, but nuclear policies i doubt change at someone governments whim or fancy. Actually no country, unless being totally bogged down on conventional terms, would resort to using nukes in a 'first strike.

Originally posted by mad scientist
India and china still dispute the boarders of their countries. India needs a deterrant to the Chinese nuclear aresenal. Don't forget China has a Naval base in Burma strategically flanking the bay of Bengal, that in tiself is an obvious threat to Indian power in the region.

Actually there has been a cooling off of tensions recently. China's willingness to recognize Sikkhim as a state within India, and recent discussions of opening cross-border trade are helping to cool the tensions. Recent Chinese maps portray as Sikkhim and Arunachal Pradesh as part of India.

The problem is the seperatist factions (i.e. Bodoland, nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya etc) within India who are seeking to destabilise the region.

Thanks for your comments, guys.

[edit on 14-10-2004 by aryaputhra]

^^^ Yes pretty optimistic ain't it? Well I hope things work out. Indo-China cooperation on various fronts would ease tensions in the region..

India's usage re: nuclear weapons has been exemplary till date. Though they developed the capability in the 70s, they have refrained from weaponization for the longest possible time, until the 1990s when advancements in Chinese missile technology and changes in the geopol winds had eroded away Indian conventional parity versus Chinese nuclear delivery forces.

Apart from the no first use policy, India's nuclear weapons program follows the policy of credible nuclear deterrance, and its nuclear doctrine and force structure displays this.

And even now, among the nuclear powers, India has been the least proliferate, and its record should speak for itself.

I would have to say that India is the world's only reluctant nuclear power.

Good point Khalsa...Many on this forum believe that India's nuke program started in 1998 after Pokhran...The first detonation was in 1974..

originally posted by: Daedalus3
Good point Khalsa...Many on this forum believe that India's nuke program started in 1998 after Pokhran...The first detonation was in 1974..

India's first nuclear weapons test in 1974 (codenamed Pokran-1) was conducted in secret, but it constituted the first time that a former European colony in the developing world got its hands on a nuclear weapon, yet India's defeat in a brief Himalayan border war with China in October 1962 gave the government in New Delhi the impetus to pursue nuclear weapons to deter potential Chinese aggression. Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri opposed developing nuclear weapons but elements within the ruling Indian National Congress swayed him to reconsider his opposition to nuclear weapons development.

Notwithstanding the rivalry between India and Pakistan and also Pakistan's help from China in the 1980s and 1990s in developing nuclear weapons technology, there are people in India's legislature who say that because the US relies on close ties with India to provide a hedge against Chinese military intrusions into the Indian Oceans, then nuclear weapons are a way to deter China from counteracting India militarily in event that the US is provoked into a war with Beijing due to a possible PRC invasion of Taiwan.

Link:
www.degruyter.com...