Tests Bring Wave of Pride for Indians

As countries around the world scorned India for conducting three nuclear tests and Pakistan threatened to swiftly detonate its own device, Indians on Tuesday relished the moment, finding proof in this crisis that their impoverished country had finally elbowed its way into the ranks of the great powers.

“Explosion of Self-Esteem” screamed a front-page headline in the Pioneer, one of India’s leading newspapers.

“A Moment of Pride,” crowed the Hindustan Times in a front-page editorial.

“India has taken the right step,” said Shivji Mishra, an office worker pausing in a sweltering New Delhi market. “This is to show that we are capable of doing things on our own.”

Across this capital, residents saw in the three blasts the end of an era of kowtowing to the West and the arrival of a more assertive nation that could command respect among its friends and summon fear in its enemies.

Indians celebrated the ascendance of the Bharatiya Janata Party, whose leaders promised in elections earlier this year that they would replace half a century of Gandhian passivism with a more muscular role on the world stage.

For the moment, the Indian people seemed to shrug off the potential side effects of the nuclear tests, even as the dangers seemed to grow. These include a souring of relations with the most powerful countries in the world, a drastic curtailment of aid to India’s woebegone poor and the prospect of a three-way nuclear arms race in South Asia.

Some Indians predicted that it would not be long before the euphoria gives way to a hangover.

“People are feeling very proud today,” said I. Natrajan, chief economist at the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi. “I don’t know how many people have realized what could happen. They may soon start feeling very bad.”

The exultant mood swept India a day after the government announced that it had secretly tested three nuclear devices, including, for the first time, a thermonuclear device. The tests made India the world’s sixth state to openly acquire nuclear weapons, along with the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China.

The reaction to India’s nuclear tests was swift and unanimous in condemnation. On Tuesday, President Clinton vowed to squeeze the Indian economy as hard as the law would allow. Japan, which provides $1 billion a year in aid and loans, is likely to adopt some sanctions.

Pakistan, India’s archrival, gave every indication Tuesday that it was rushing to test a nuclear device of its own. Abdul Qadeer Khan, architect of Pakistan’s nuclear program, said he was ready to explode a device whenever his government allowed.

“We in Pakistan will maintain a balance with India in all fields,” Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan declared in Islamabad, the capital. “We are in a headlong arms race on the subcontinent.”

Yet for all the criticism, India remained defiant Tuesday and even seemed to relish the controversy it had created. “India is not going to change course,” said K. L. Sharma, spokesman of the BJP. “If there are going to be sanctions, we will survive them.”

The flap over the nuclear tests seemed only to fuel Indian nationalism, a resurgent force that the BJP tapped with remarkable success as it rode to power two months ago. Some Indian commentators said that India’s decision to develop nuclear weapons--in defiance of the world--revealed a deep-seated yearning in this nation of 980 million people to be regarded as a major player on the world scene.

“This country is in a jingoistic mood,” said Ditankar Banerjee, a retired general and the director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi. “Regrettably, there is a feeling that unless India has nuclear weapons, it will not be taken seriously.”

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his BJP cohorts make up a current in Indian politics that contrasts sharply with the idealism championed by Mohandas K. Gandhi, whose spirit dominated the nation’s consciousness for half a century.

The BJP grew out of a militant, nationalistic movement of Hindus known as the RSS, some of whose followers were convicted of murdering Gandhi in 1948. Only in the past decade has the BJP been able to persuade voters to look beyond its association with the RSS and give the party a shot at running the country.

In nationwide elections earlier this year, the BJP promised Indians a more assertive foreign policy backed up by nuclear weapons. Ever since India conducted a nuclear test in 1974, the nation has been presumed capable of assembling several atomic weapons. Vajpayee and the BJP promised to make what was still an ambiguous policy bold and clear.

Monday’s nuclear tests did just that.

With only a slim majority in the Indian Parliament, the BJP’s leaders have embarked on a course that seems, if nothing else, to be popular with voters. D. P. Sinha, a volunteer working at party headquarters in New Delhi, said Indians were tired of being bullied by Pakistan, America and other countries. “India has been pushed against a wall,” said Sinha, a retired office administrator. “We are finally learning how to strike back.”

To many here, India’s reticence over the years in pursuing its nuclear capabilities earned it nothing but the contempt of others. “We acted with exemplary restraint and responsibility, and it was never acknowledged,” said J. N. Dixit, India’s foreign minister from 1991 to 1994. “The lesson is this: The West will reconcile itself to those countries that go nuclear. And they’ll keep pressuring the ones who don’t.”

Ironically, the Indian government also is hinting that it may finally sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits the testing of nuclear weapons. More than 150 nations have signed, and the treaty’s most notable holdouts are India and Pakistan.

“Now that India has demonstrated its capability,” Defense Minister George Fernandes said Tuesday, “I hope that we as a nation shall be able to pursue--with credibility and greater conviction--our longtime campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons.”