By IANS,
New Delhi : Following the recent declassification of 70,000 files, India’s external affairs ministry is in the process of declassifying another set of 220,000 files covering Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Iran, East Asia, Eurasia and the Americas, a senior official said Wednesday.
“We are currently in a process of finalizing a major project to declassify another set of 220,000 files. Records covering Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, East Asia, Eurasia and the Americas are going to be covered in this round,” Pinak Chakravarty, special secretary (Public Diplomacy), said while inaugurating a day-long international conference on the early years of India’s nuclear programme.
The conference was organised by defence ministry-funded think tank Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses along with the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP).
“This is the first time in many years that we have taken the initiative to declassify such a large number of files from the archives of the ministry of external affairs. We hope that this will lead to renewed academic interest and greater understanding of the evolution of Indian foreign policy,” he added.
Throwing light on India’s nuclear policy, Chakravarty said it “remains firmly rooted in the basic tenet that our country’s national security, in a world of nuclear proliferation, lies either in universal, non-discriminatory disarmament or in the exercise of the principle of equal and legitimate security for all”.
“India’s nuclear doctrine, therefore, includes ‘No First Use’ of nuclear weapons and non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states,” he added.
Speaking on the occasion, NPIHP co-director Christian Ostermann said the project aims at making “a contribution to policy analysis by deepening understanding of the goals, interests, the situational circumstances, and the character of nuclear and non-nuclear states in relation to their nuclear outlooks and strategies, that is not a history of the weapons themselves, but their underpinning politics”.
“Only by looking at the underlying politics can we begin to explain the widely divergent nuclear postures chosen by states like China, Pakistan, or the United States,” he added.
Ostermann described “triangulation and multilateralization of our archival efforts through a global network of researchers and institutions” as one of the “most fruitful methodological approaches” to “excavate the documentations from the frequently uncooperative clutches of security establishments and archives”.
He also advocated the “use of local and provincial archives when central state archives remain closed” as another approach to gather information.
Welcoming the external affairs ministry’s release of over 70,000 documents pertaining to India’s post-1947 diplomatic and foreign policy history, Ostermann said the decision “effectively ends an era in which India’s role in the Cold War was researched and told based on documents from other countries – from Russia, China or Hungary”.
In his welcome speech, IDSA director general Arvind Gupta said: “Framing a proper Indian perspective, understanding an interpretation on these key issues and redressing the knowledge gaps is one primary objective of our nuclear history project.
“We seek to undertake this process by exploring all available sources from archives and inputs shared through oral history interviews.”
Referring to the declassified files, he said some of them “pertain to nuclear issues. More files need to be declassified”.
The seminar brought together veterans from the Indian policy community and scholars, with international historians and experts to reminisce, discuss and debate on the many milestones of the origins of international nuclear cooperation, as well as the early years of India’s nuclear programme and the dynamics of decision-making during the crucial years from 1950s to the 1970s.
The seminar is part of the second annual partners meeting of NPIHP. IDSA is a leading partner in the NPIHP, which is spearheaded by the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington DC.
The NPIHP seeks to create an international network of scholars and research institutions to undertake archival research on the history of nuclear weapons, non-proliferation and dynamics of nuclear decision making processes.
The seminar focussed on the early years of international cooperation, nuclear decision-making during the Nehru years and India’s nuclear decision making 1964-74. Leading scholars, journalists, experts and diplomats took part in the seminar.
Several scholars pointed out that India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, though opposed to the bomb, nevertheless was in favour of India remaining ready with capabilities.
India started preparations for a peaceful nuclear explosion after the 1964 Chinese tests. Participants also pointed out that despite the apathy to possession of nuclear bombs, Indian leaders did not discontinue India’s weapons programme at any stage.