India Missile Test Raises Nuclear Bar for Rival

India’s surprise test Sunday of a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead drew an ominous response from Pakistan’s leaders, raising the specter of a new South Asian arms race.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz said that the missile launch was a matter of “deep concern” and hinted that his country would soon respond with a missile test of its own.

“The decision will be taken in the coming days,” Aziz said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. “Pakistan is obliged to maintain a deterrent in the interests of its security.”

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they attained independence from Britain in 1947, and their rivalry has taken on global importance since each tested nuclear weapons last spring. The two countries, among the most impoverished on Earth, regularly shell each other along a 450-mile disputed border. The Pakistani government backs an insurgency in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Experts fear that the conflict between the two countries could escalate into a nuclear exchange. Missiles on the subcontinent they share could reach their targets in minutes, and recent Western studies have concluded that neither country has sophisticated procedures to control its fledgling nuclear arsenal.

India announced Sunday that it had test-fired a ballistic missile with a range of 1,250 miles--making it capable of reaching targets in not only Pakistan but China as well. India and China also share a disputed border, and went to war in 1962.

The Indian missile, dubbed the Agni II, was designed to complete the nuclear program begun in May, when the Indian government conducted five underground atomic tests. The nuclear explosions tested the warhead; Sunday’s missile launch tested the delivery system.

India’s leaders had been hinting for months that they intended to test a new missile, but they were under intense international pressure to restrain themselves. The government said it did provide advance notice of the test to Pakistan, in accordance with a recent agreement.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, came to power 13 months ago on a promise to boost India’s national pride and give the country a greater voice in international affairs.

“We cannot rely on anybody for our security,” Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said Sunday. “Agni is a symbol of that resurgent India which is able to say, ‘Yes, we will stand on our own feet.’ ”

The Agni missile test came as the BJP’s minority coalition teetered toward collapse. A key coalition partner has threatened to withdraw from the ruling alliance, and many people here speculate that the BJP-led government will fall within days.

“This government came in with a bomb and went out with a missile,” said M. J. Akbar, editor of the Asian Age, a prominent Indian newspaper.

The new missile appears to be of a modern design: Indian officials said it was fired from a mobile launching platform and powered by a solid-fuel rocket. Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes refused to discuss any plans to begin production of the missile.

“We have achieved perfection of a very high order in missile technology,” he said.

One nuclear proliferation expert said Sunday that Indian scientists may have relied heavily on Russian technology to complete the Agni missile. The Russian government may have transferred the solid-fuel missile technology to the Indians earlier this decade, said Henry D. Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington.

“The Indians are relying on the Russians for help,” Sokolski said.

The U.S., along with other Western nations, imposed limited sanctions on India when it conducted its underground nuclear tests last year. Washington, however, has significantly relaxed them in the expectation that the Indian government will sign the global Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The U.S. has repeatedly pressed both India and Pakistan to refrain from any further such tests.

India has said it wants to build a “credible minimum nuclear deterrent,” but it has not yet publicly defined what that might be. Indian officials made it clear Sunday that no amount of arm-twisting would have kept them from their goal.

“We don’t need to be told by anybody about restraint,” Fernandes said. “What we have done is make sure that our security concerns are taken care of. On that, we won’t compromise with anyone.”

Ironically, it was Pakistan’s test of a nuclear-capable missile last April that set off the chain reaction that led to Sunday’s test of the Agni. When the Pakistani government announced the test-firing of the Ghauri missile--with a range of about 930 miles--Indian leaders ordered the underground nuclear tests. Pakistan quickly followed with its own nuclear tests, claiming it detonated six devices in all. There was dispute in the international community over the number of tests each nation conducted.

News reports Sunday said that a new Pakistani missile, with a much greater range than the Ghauri, was ready for testing.

For all the hoopla over the past, polls have shown that the flagging Indian economy is a much higher priority for ordinary Indians than the nuclear tests.

“I do not know much about this test, but it is not the right thing to do,” said Ram Kishore, a 37-year-old shopkeeper in New Delhi. “We are suffering high prices and facing a lot of hardships. The government should do something about this rather than wasting money on missiles.”

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Times special correspondents Syed Talat Hussain in Islamabad and Amitabh Sharma in New Delhi contributed to this report.