India’s Leaders Respond Calmly, Reassure Nation

With five nuclear explosions proving that archenemy Pakistan also can unleash the lethal might of the atom, India’s government and military tried Thursday to convince the people of the world’s most populous democracy that they were as safe as before.

“The tests come as no surprise--we are committed to maintaining deterrence,” Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told journalists after an emergency meeting of top Cabinet ministers and government officials. Looking somewhat jittery, Vajpayee, 72, called on his people to stand united in light of the “new situation.”

During a visit to Katmandu, Nepal, Kocheril Raman Narayanan, a former ambassador to Washington who now holds India’s largely ceremonial presidency, said Pakistan’s actions only confirmed what had been known for a long time: that its nuclear capabilities were so advanced that a test was “only a screwdriver away.”

Indian media even said that Gen. Ved Prakash Malik, chief of the army staff, received the news of Pakistan’s tests with a smile--an expression that may have been intended to calm the public. “We are very confident about ourselves,” India’s top soldier reportedly told an informal gathering of reporters when asked how Pakistan might combine its nuclear bombs and latest missiles.

News of the explosions reached India’s capital inthe afternoon, when Parliament was in session but Vajpayee himself was absent. The prime minister had to return to the chamber when opposition lawmakers, some of whom have been highly critical of his decision to detonate five nuclear devices,clamored for a statement on Pakistan’s action.

Until this week, opposition here to India’s own tests was scant, with the public in a patriotic euphoria over the display of India’s scientific prowess and military power. But in sobering comments Thursday, a wide variety of opposition parties accused Vajpayee’s Hindu nationalist-led government, in power little more than two months, of rashly opening a Pandora’s box.

“We have already warned that Indian nuclear explosions will only escalate nuclear war hysteria in South Asia,” the Communist Party of India/Marxist-Leninist said in a statement. “Today’s nuclear blasts by Pakistan only confirm our apprehensions. Both governments must come to their senses and immediately initiate peace talks to reach a no-war pact as soon as possible.”

Leaders of India’s biggest opposition party, Congress, also went into emergency session. While expressing dismay at Pakistan’s actions, they delivered a backhanded swipe at Vajpayee by saying the subcontinent now stands on the verge of a nuclear arms race that should have been avoided.

Congress leaders said it was time for a return to the vision of one of their party’s martyrs, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who before his assassination in 1991 had called for a world free of violence and nuclear weapons and worked for cooperation with Pakistan.

Vajpayee, whose coalition has only a slender three-seat parliamentary majority, said he will give a more detailed report on Pakistan’s tests to the chamber today. On Wednesday, he defended India’s “weapons of self-defense,” and said they would never be used to attack another country.