State, Identity, and Representations of Danger: Competing World Views on Indian Nuclearisation

Abstract

What explains India's nuclear detonation in May 1998? Some offer a realist, others a nuclear-apartheid, and some an identity-logic explanation for this detonation. My contention in this article is that the nuclear policy choice made by India in 1998, under the BJP government, is a culturally situated one and the logic of (in)securities that the state has used to justify this decision draws upon the ideological lenses of its then policy makers. To this extent, I compare how ideological perceptions of the post-colonial Indian state's leaders (evidenced under the Congress Party and the BJP) have articulated divergent notions of nationalisms, nationalist identities, and (in)securities perceived by the Indian state – thereby suggesting a link between political leaders’ ideologies, articulation of statist identities, (in)securities, and nuclearisation policies.