26 yrs since N-test, India’s focus shifts from Pakistan to China

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, May 10

Twenty-six years ago, on May 11, 1998, India carried out three simultaneous detonations of thermonuclear devices of varying capacities. Each of these three devices were an improvement over the 1974 nuclear test and aimed at developing missile-carried nuclear explosives.

The present day Indian nuclear arsenal, with an ability to launch a nuclear-tipped missile from land, air and under sea, owes its parentage to the tests conducted in 1974 and 1998. Pakistan carried out its first test on May 28, 1998, triggering a nuclear arms race in the region; China being the other player that had done it first in 1964. On May 11, 1998, India’s three explosions were of 45 kiloton (kt) thermonuclear device, a 15 kt fission device and a 0.2 kt sub-kiloton — less than 1 kiloton — device. Two days later, on May 13, two nuclear devices detonated simultaneously were also in the sub-kiloton range — 0.5 and 0.3 kt.

A decade later, some US-based scientists doubted the yield of the 1998 tests. The Department of Atomic Energy gave out full details in 2009. It said, “The tests carried out in May 1998 gave us the capability to build nuclear weapons from low yields up to around 200 kt.”

The 15 kt fission nuclear test had evolved from the “peaceful nuclear explosion” device tested in 1974. “It had substantial changes from the point of view of weaponisation,” the Department of Atomic Energy had said. It had features needed for integration with nuclear weapon delivery missiles.

The turning point of 1998 kicked off a sort of race among India, Pakistan and China. The Sweden-based think-tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its ‘Yearbook, 2023: Armaments, disarmament and international security’ has a 90-page chapter on nuclear forces.

The annual report in June last year said, “As of January 2023, India was estimated to have a growing a stockpile of about 164 nuclear weapons — a small increase from the previous year.”

These weapons were assigned to a maturing nuclear triad. The report said limited ranges of India’s initial systems meant that until the early 2010s, their only credible role was to deter Pakistan. However, the report says, “in recent years it appears that India has placed increased emphasis on deterring China”.