Was MEA Right To Cite 'Cultural Inheritance' As A Reason No-First Use Of Nuke?

The Indian Parliament’s Standing Committee report on India-Pakistan relations mentions an interesting reason for why the country stands where it does on a no-first use nuclear policy.

The report says that the Committee was looking to understand if a no-first use policy was counter-productive at a time when Pakistan’s Nuclear programme is progressing rapidly. In its response the Ministry of External Affairs said that India’s stand on the matter “reflects our cultural inheritance and our tradition of restraint and responsibility in nuclear matters.”

While a tradition of restraint arguably cannot be questioned in matters relating to Pakistan, the cultural inheritance argument is being turned on its head as we speak.

Professor Upinder Singh, Head of the History Department at Delhi University, in a recent book, has challenged the idea that India has historically been non-violent. In the book titled ‘Political Violence in Ancient India’, Singh, the daughter of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, tries to bust the myth that Indians are an essentially non-violent people.

In a recent interview to The Times Of India, Singh says that the Buddha and Mahavira lived in very violent times and that their reaction to the violence was to preach peace. Speaking about Ashoka’s change of heart after the Kalinga war, Singh says that “the interesting thing is that in the same deeply reflective inscription, Ashoka warns the forest tribes that he will not hesitate to use force against them if required. Ashoka's powerful and heart-felt pacifism had limits.”

And finally, Singh also took on the likes of Gandhi and Nehru who preached non-violence. She tells the newspaper that Gandhi was aware of India’s violent past but by using non-violence as a philosophy and overthrowing the British, “he created an impression that non-violence was somehow deeply rooted in the Indian psyche.”