Parmanu Politics

Indian Political Parties and Nuclear Weapons

This study, focusing on the nuclear-politics interface, examines which political party should be given credit, and how much in shaping India's nuclear weapons policy. Taking into account the views of the Congress, BJP and CPI {M), the study concludes that there is no single mother of India's nuclear bomb. In the process, it approves the assumption t hat national political leadership, not the political parties, is paramount in India's nuclear weapons decision making. Furthermore, nuclear policy does not change with the change of government, and changes despite the same party forms the government again. The study highlights how the issue of nuclear weapon has an awesome appearance on the Indian political scene during the last six-decade. Thematically, the book attempts to identify the trends in the policies of the three parties, especially on the role of nuclear weapons in national security, domestic politics, and non-proliferation regime to speculate on the contours of India's future nuclear weapons policy.