The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

ARTICLE

B’desh has strategic importance
Need to strengthen Awami League’s position
by Hiranmay Karlekar

Most discussions on India-Bangladesh relations revolve around issues like river-water sharing, illegal migration and the sanctuary and assistance given to secessionist rebel groups in north-eastern India by Dhaka. Little attention has been paid to the wider question of Bangladesh’s strategic importance to India. An understanding of its significance must play a defining role in formulating India’s position on the specific issues between the two countries.

The first thing to consider is geographical location. India’s land link to seven of its north-eastern states is a narrow passage running above Bangladesh’s northern border. Its narrowest stretch, the 50 km-long Siliguri-Islampur corridor, is only 20 km wide at most places. India’s vulnerability here does not normally feature in public discourse because of this country’s vastly superior military strength compared to Bangladesh’s. That problems may arise when this country is engaged in military conflict in other areas was underlined by the bomb explosion at New Jalpaiguri railway station on June 22, 1999, when the Kargil war was at its height. Two of the 10 killed and 16 of the 80 wounded were men of the Gorkha Regiment on their way to Kargil for deployment.

The blast, which was traced to ULFA terrorists aided by Pakistan’s ISI operating from Bangladesh, was aimed at disrupting the transfer of Indian troops from the country’s north-east to the north-western border. That it was not followed by other blasts and guerrilla operations was the result of several factors.

First, it was a localised war and India was not fully extended. It had enough troops to retaliate in the eastern sector if things took a serious turn. No government of Bangladesh could risk such a development, however intense its hostility toward India. The Awami League government, in power in Bangladesh at the time, was certainly not hostile toward India, though it was not effective in preventing Pakistan’s use of its territory for launching cross-border terrorist strikes in India or the DGFI from assisting rebel groups from the north-eastern states based on its soil.

Things can, however, turn out very differently in future if there is a hostile government in Dhaka and India is so fully extended in a war with Pakistan or China that it can hardly strike back at Bangladesh for cross-border terrorism from its soil. Or it may be even worse if Bangladesh is then at war with India in alliance with the countries fighting the latter. It will be unwise to dismiss such a scenario as being too far-fetched. Strategic projections must take all possibilities into account. Besides, that such a development is well within the range of possibilities will become clear if we take other likely developments into account.

Much would depend on what happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is by no means certain that President Obama’s Af-Pak policy will succeed. The deployment of 30,000 more US troops and between 5,000 and 8,000 more NATO troops in Afghanistan may not be enough. According to American troops, the Taliban contingents confronting them are, despite significant inferiority in firepower, highly skilled and motivated, and have been matching them move by tactical move. Also, the resumption of operations in Kunduz in Afghanistan, where peaceful conditions had led to a reduction in the levels of NATO and US forces, reflects sound strategic thinking aimed at spreading out the anti-Taliban forces so thin that they become vulnerable to concentrated Taliban/Al-Qaeda attacks at particular points.

The Taliban fighters, therefore, are highly unlikely to be defeated by the middle of 2011 when the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan is slated to begin. On the other hand, the knowledge that the US would begin withdrawing from that year would boost their morale immensely and persuade them to fight tenaciously to maximise US casualties in the hope that this would increase the pressure on President Obama to hasten the withdrawal, particularly since powerful elements in the Democratic Party want a quick end to the war. Or they must just melt into the local population to resume their offensive once the US and NATO forces leave.

On the other hand, personnel of US and NATO forces may be less inclined to risk their lives knowing that they just need to be safe till 2011 when the withdrawal would begin, and even Pakistanis opposed to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda may refrain from acting against them for fear of post-withdrawal reprisals. The planned increase in the strength of the Afghan Army to 240,000, and the Afghan police to 160,000-from their present strength of 90,000 and 93,000-- to replace US and NATO forces is unlikely to materialise. People are unwilling to join. Also the quality of the officers and men of the army is poor.

The Obama administration’s reassurance that 2011 would mark only the beginning of the withdrawal whose pace would depend on the developments on the ground, and the US would not leave its allies in the lurch, is not cutting much ice given its virtual abandonment of Afghanistan to its fate after the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989, and its diversion of attention, energy and resources to the war in Iraq in 2003. This and the sanctuary and assistance provided by Pakistan substantially accounted for the Al- Qaeda and Taliban forces, shattered and ousted from Afghanistan in December 2001, to recover and pose the serious threat they now do to the Karzai regime.

The beginning of a US withdrawal without a definite indication that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda face defeat would cause demoralisation in Kabul and Islamabad. This and the accompanying surge in the spirits of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda may enable them to win the war and establish control over both Afghanistan and Pakistan and the conventional and nuclear arsenals of both countries, with the former vastly expanded with US military aid. India will then face a sharp increase in cross-border terrorism and several attacks on the scale of 26/11, backed by the military might of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and nuclear blackmail.

Things will become infinitely worse if a coalition government headed by Begum Khaleda Zia, with her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami of Bangladesh, among the constituents, is then in power in Dhaka. This may well be the case because the developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan are likely to come to a head in a few years after the beginning of the US withdrawal. The next parliamentary elections in Bangladesh are due in 2013.

The pathological hatred the Jamaat and the BNP harbour toward India is no secret, nor how Bangladesh had become an important hub of cross-border terrorist strikes in India and of global terrorism, when a coalition government, comprising both and with Begum Khaleda Zia as Prime Minister, was in power from 2001 to 2006. Hence the critical importance for strengthening the position of the Awami League, which has sharply demonstrated its commitment to combating terrorism and friendship with India by rendering Arabinda Rajkhowa and other ULFA leaders to this country along with the functionaries of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland. New Delhi needs to give serious thought to this as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s rescheduled visit next month draws near.

MIDDLE

Trans-Siberian railway
by Trilochan Singh Trewn

Diesel-electric submarines had already joined the Indian naval fleet at Vishakhapatnam when Admiral Sergei Groshkov, supreme naval chief of the Soviet Union, arrived there. He stayed in Palm Beach hotel where my wife served as senior housekeeper. The Soviet naval fleet had about 500 operational submarines at that time. India’s heavy aircraft carrier, now under modernisation in a white sea shipyard in Russia, had been named after this Admiral.

I had the privilege of meeting the Soviet naval chief almost every morning when I used to drop my wife in the hotel. Admiral Groshkov was very informal and casual about protocol, sometimes to an embarrassing extent. One day during breakfast time he caught hold of me and asked me to sit next to him on the dining table for breakfast. This was a privilege which many serving rear admirals of Indian navy could not have!

I was also carrying out liaison duties with dozens of soviet specialists residing at Vishakhapatnam. Their interpreter Anatoli had studied Hindi in Tashkent University. He invited me to meet him at his home in Moscow whenever I happened to be in that area. I casually mentioned to him about my desire to have a look at the famous Trans-Siberian Railway spread between Vladivostok and Leningrad. This railway had been an engineering marvel and a symbol of the Soviet Union since its inception.

During 1976 we made a trip to Stockholm from Mumbai via Tashkent and Moscow. At Mumbai airport we felt the difference as we boarded an Aeroflot plane after security clearance. Air crew declined to have a look at our air tickets and asked us to be seated at any empty seat available. Confusion regarding handbags lying at several places remained till we reached Tashkent.

During the two-day halt enroute at Moscow we met our friend Anatoli who was ever keen to learn more of Hindi throughout our association. Anatoli had his hometown in Omsk located on Trans Siberian railway close to Kazakhstan border. It had a very pleasant climate. Anatoli suggested to visit his home town Omsk and thus experience a ride in the Trans Siberian railway too.

Our rail coach was well heated. Meat, bread, non-vegetarian soup, tea, boiled eggs were there for all meals. We managed with only loaf bread and tea in this prestigious train.

Just before boarding train at Moscow a young passerby asked me to change my US dollars currency into Russian roubles. I did that after consulting Anatoli and thereby got four times the prevailing official bank rate.

Inside our coach there were two large framed photographs of places of tourist interest. One of them was that of a famous church. Curiously enough for us there was a printed headline underneath stating: “house of god” with word “god” in Italics only and not in capital letter. On our querry regarding this discrepancy Anatoli smiled and pointed out that Russia as per prevailing concepts in those days did not recognise god as supreme power but only as a respectable deity not entitled for a capital letter!

During our two-day stay in Omsk we visited a tourist restaurant where we saw plates full of artificial rice, fish, meat joint and eggs in various forms prominently displaced in glass showcases with tags indicating price in US dollar currency. One had only to point at the item and real food in exactly the same quality and quantity as displayed was served. This helped in overcome language problem!

OPED

Pokhran N-tests were a success
Dr Kakodkar replies to doubting scientists

Dr Anil Kakodkar

How credible is India’s thermo-nuclear deterrent? That is the key issue Karan Thapar discussed in the CNN-IBN’s "Devil’s Advocate" programme, broadcast on Sunday, with the former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr Anil Kakodkar. He speaks comprehensively, authoritatively and powerfully to clear all the doubts raised by Dr Santhanam and three other leading scientists about the credibility and success of India’s thermo-nuclear tests of 1998. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Question: Dr Kakodkar, four leading scientists —- Dr Santhanam, Dr Iyengar, Dr Sethna and Dr Prasad —- have raised serious doubts about India’s thermo-nuclear tests of 1998. Dr Santhanam says, "we have hard evidence on a purely factual basis that not only was the yield of the thermo-nuclear device far below the design prediction, but that it actually failed". Do you have a problem on your hands?

Answer: No, I think this is a totally erroneous conclusion. The yield of thermo-nuclear tests was verified, not by one method but several redundant methods based on different principles, done by different groups. These have been reviewed in detail and, in fact, I had described the tests in 1998 as perfect and I stand by that.

Q: I am glad that you began by talking about the yield because both Dr Santhanam and Dr Iyenger have questioned the yield of the thermo-nuclear tests. Dr Santhanam says that the DRDO seismic instruments measured the yield as something between 20-25 kilotonnes which is hugely different from the claim put out by the Atomic Energy Commission that it was 45 kilotonnes. How confident are you of the 45 kilotonne yield?

A: Well, let me first of all say that that the DAE and the DRDO both work together as a team. The DRDO did deploy some instruments for measurements but the fact is that the seismic instruments did not work. I myself had reviewed all the results immediately after the tests and we concluded that the instruments did not work.

Q: Dr Santhanam says that the Bhabha Atomic Energy Centre accepted the DRDO’s instruments and their estimation for the yield of their fission bomb but not for the fusion or the thermo-nuclear. He says how can it be that the instruments worked in one case and not the other.

A: Well that’s not true because the instrument measure the ground motion at the place where the instrument is located. We had to separate out the information which was coming out from the thermo-nuclear and which was coming from the fission test. So the point that I am making is that the seismic instruments did not work. So there is no question of the yield of the fission test being right and the thermo-nuclear test being wrong because no conclusion can be drawn from those instruments either way.

Q: But do you have proof that the yield of the thermo-nuclear test was 45 kilotonnes?

A: Yes. In fact, we have. Within limits of what can be said and I must make it clear here that no country has given so much scientific details on their tests as we have given and this we have published with the maximum clarity which could be done.

Q: The problem is that even in 1998, foreign monitors questioned the yield of the thermo-nuclear tests. At that time, Indian doubts were only expressed in private. Now, Indian doubts have burst out into the open and they are being heard in public. Does it not worry you that these doubts continue —- now both abroad and at home —- and that they have continued for 11 years?

A: Well, it’s unfortunate but it doesn’t worry me because facts are facts and there is no question of getting worried about this. The point is that the measurements which have been done, they have been done — as I mentioned earlier — by different groups. People who carry out the measurements on seismic instruments are a different group. People who carry out the measurements on radiochemical instruments are a different group. There are other methods that you can use — for example, the simulation of ground motion. That’s another group. And all these groups have come to their own conclusions, which match with each other.

Q: And all these five or six different ways of measuring the yield have come to the conclusion that the yield was 45 kilotonnes for the thermo-nuclear device?

A: That’s right.

Q: So in your mind there is no doubt about it whatsoever?

A: Absolutely not.

Q: Now, Dr Santhanam, in addition to disputing the yield has other reasons to believe that the thermo-nuclear device failed. He says that given that the fission device, which produced a yield of around 25 kilotonnes, created a crater of 25 meters in diameter, then if the fusion bomb had been successful and produced a yield of 45 kilotonnes it should have created a crater of around 70 meters in diameter. He says that that didn’t happen and there was, in fact, no crater at all.

A: That’s a layman way of looking at it. The fact of the matter is the fission device yield was 15 kilotonnes, not 25 kilotonnes.

Q: So he’s wrong in saying that it was 25 kilotonnes?

A: That’s right and secondly although the two devices were about 1.5 kilometers apart, the geology within that distance changed quite a bit, partly because of the layers that exist and their slopes but more importantly because their depths have been different. So the placement of the device of the fission kind is in one kind of medium and the placement of the device of the thermo-nuclear kind is in another medium.

Q: So, in fact, what you are saying is that Dr Santhanam is making two mistakes and possibly making them deliberately. First of all, he’s exaggerating the yield of the fission device and secondly he is completely ignoring the fact that the geology of the placement of the fusion was very different.

A: That’s right.

Q: And both of those have led him to an erroneous conclusion?

A: Yes. And, in fact, we have gone through detailed simulation. For example, in simulation you can locate the thermo-nuclear device where the fission device was placed and you can locate the fission device where the thermo-nuclear device was placed. And you get a much bigger crater now because the yield is higher.

Q: This is a very important point that you are making.

A: Yes. And the fission device, which is now placed in the thermo-nuclear position, produces much less ground displacement.

Q: So if in simulation you place the thermo-nuclear device where the fission device was placed, you would get a much bigger crater —- much closer to the 70 metres in diameter that Dr Santhanam would like to see?

A: Well, I don’t remember how much it was but this is actually true. This has been verified by calculations.

Q: Dr Santhanam has yet one more reason for believing that the thermo-nuclear device failed. He says if it had succeeded, both the shaft and the a-frame would have been totally destroyed. Instead, writing in The Hindu, he says, the shaft "remained totally undamaged" and as for the a-frame, he says, it "remained completely intact".

A: Well, I think you must understand the phenomena of ground motion when a nuclear test takes place. Depending on the depth of burial and of course the medium in which it is buried, you could get several manifestations on the surface. You could get a crater and there are different kinds of craters that one could see. You can just get a mound —- the ground rises and remains there. And on the other extreme it can vent out. So in case of the thermo-nuclear device, the placement was in hard rock —- granite —- and with the depth and the yield for 45 kilotonnes, one expects only a mound to rise, which is what happened.

Q: And not a crater?

A: And not a crater.

Q: Clearly you are dismissive of Dr Santhanam’s doubts. Now let me quote to you what one of your predecessors —- former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr P K Iyenger —- said in a statement he issued on September 24, 2009. He says: "The recent revelations by Dr Santhanam are the clincher. He was one of the four leaders associated with Pokhran II, the team leader from the DRDO side, and he must certainly have known many of the details, particularly with regard to the seismic measurements. If he says that the yield was much lower than projected, that there was virtually no crater formed, then there is considerable justification for reasonable doubt regarding the credibility of the thermo-nuclear test." Does it worry you that your predecessors seem to disagree with you but agree with Dr Santhanam?

A: Well, first of all I respect everybody. I respect Dr Iyenger, I respect Dr Santhanam, but the fact is that Dr Iyenger was nowhere involved in the 1998 tests. He was, of course, a key figure in the 1974 tests. Also, the fact is that before the 1998 tests, all work was done under cover —- we were not in the open —- and we required a lot of logistical support and that all was being provided by the DRDO. But things were still being done on a need-to-know basis. So, to assume that Dr Santhanam knew everything is not true.

Q: You are making two important points. One you are saying that the DRDO and Dr Santhanam did not know everything —- the fact that he was the DRDO team leader does not mean that he knew everything that was happening.

A: He knew everything within his realm of responsibility.

Q: You are also saying that Dr Iyenger isn’t fully in the picture and, therefore, his opinion is not necessarily valid.

A: He is not in the picture as far as the 1998 tests are concerned.

Q: So, he doesn’t really know about the 1998 tests.

A: Well, he knows only as much as has been published and nothing more.

Q: Let’s pursue the credibility and the doubts surrounding India’s thermo-nuclear deterrent in a somewhat different way. Dr Santhanam says that these doubts were formally raised by the DRDO with the tovernment as far back as 1998 itself. And in a meeting arranged by the then National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra, they were brushed aside in a manner which Dr Santhanam compares to a sort of frivolous voice vote.

A: Immediately after the tests, we carried out a review with both teams present —- BARC team as well as the DRDO team. We looked at the measurements done by the BARC team and we looked at the measurements done by the DRDO team and I told you the conclusions and on the basis of that review it was clear what instruments we could go by and what conclusions we could draw. Now, the question is that if the instruments didn’t work, where is the question of going by any assertions, which are based on (that). What is the basis of any assertions?

Q: In an article that Dr Santhanam has written recently (on November 15, 2009) for The Tribune, he says: The Department of Atomic Energy —- the department to which you were ex-officio secretary —- has, in fact, been hiding facts from successive Indian governments, from Parliament and from Indian people. How do you respond to that accusation?

A: Well, as I said earlier, we are perhaps unique in giving out the maximum information and that too very promptly —- immediately after the tests.

Q: There is no hiding?

A: There is no hiding.

Q: Let me put to you two or three critical issues. Given the fact that although you have concluded several reviews —- including one recently after the doubts were raised —- the doubts continue. And given that these are doubts about India’s one and only thermo-nuclear test, do we need more tests?

A: Well, I would say no because the important point to note is that the thermo-nuclear test, the fission test and the sub-kilotonne test all worked as designed.

Q: You are saying that India doesn’t need more thermo-nuclear tests but the truth is that all the established thermo-nuclear powers needed more than one test. Can India be the exception?

A: Well, if you go by "Dil Maange More", that’s another story.

Q: I want to pick up on that last point that you have just made. Given that doubts continue and given that there are going to be no further tests and you are not saying that there is any need for further tests, can you say India has a credible thermo-nuclear bomb?

A: Of course.

Q: We have a credible thermo-nuclear bomb?

A: Why are you using singular? Make that plural.