NEW DELHI, 6 October 2003 — Defense Minister George Fernandes yesterday said India had established alternative nuclear command centers to ensure it could effectively retaliate to a nuclear strike.
“We have established more than one (nuclear control) nerve center,” Fernandes told the Press Trust of India news agency in an interview. He said India had set up infrastructure such as nuclear command shelters and bunkers to protect senior leaders, including the prime minister.
India stunned the world in 1998 by conducting five nuclear tests and declaring itself an atomic power. Rival neighbor Pakistan conducted its own tests within days.
India stresses it has a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons. Establishing alternative command centers is standard military practice. “It retains (India’s) right to retaliate in the event that the primary center is rendered ineffective,” said C. Uday Bhaskar, deputy director of the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses, a government-affiliated think tank in New Delhi.
“That India took five years to establish this is a reflection of New Delhi’s reticent response to becoming a nuclear power,” he said. India on Sept. 1 held the first meeting of a Nuclear Command Authority chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to coordinate civilian control over the nuclear program.
In January, India appointed Air Marshal Teja Mohan Asthana as commander-in-chief of a newly set up command and control system over its nuclear forces.
Disclosing establishment of nuclear command and VVIP shelters, Fernandes said in an interview: “We have established more than one (nuclear control) nerve center.”
Besides shelters, he said the country has also focused on educating people about nuclear dangers, making hospitals ready for nuclear emergencies and other connected issues.
On whether action had been taken to safeguard the country’s nerve centers like North Block, South Block and the Parliament, Fernandes said: “All necessary steps to provide these vital places protection had been taken.” When asked about the use of Delhi Metro underground tunneling as nuclear shelters, he simply replied: “Some countries have modified underground railway network to turn into shelters.”
Fernandes’ comments on India’s readiness for a second nuclear strike follow Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s remarks on the possibility of a nuclear conflict with India.
India, sources indicate, has taken serious note of Musharraf’s comments on Pakistan’s nuclear capability. Reading “more than the usual” in Musharraf’s anti-India rhetoric, government sources feel that it is his latest “propaganda innovation” against India. There is also a view that this is an attempt by Musharraf trying to build up a case for a pre-emptive strike against India.
During an interview with Canadian newspaper, Toronto Star, Musharraf said: “They must know that we can retaliate in a big way and they should know that.” Stressing that the “risk of full-fledged conflict with India can never be ruled out in South Asia,” Musharraf said: “However, what is dangerous is whether there will be a conflict between India and Pakistan which can then lead on to a nuclear exchange.”
During the interview, dismissing the probability of India reducing its defense forces, Fernandes said: “We were on the verge of turning our armed forces leaner and meaner but in the midst of proxy war, we have to see we have adequate forces so that this war is won.”
