Unveiling the causes of the lack of antinuclear movementes in India during the Cold War

Abstract

This article aims to explain the lack of robust antinuclear movements in India during a period that ranges from the 1950s to the 1970s. Such movements arose throughout the world. During the 1960s, people rallied for this agenda in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and even in New Zealand. India, conversely, tested a nuclear device in 1974, at the known Pokhran-I test (or “Smiling Buddha”), but did not face such grassroots uprisings. In this sense, this research design applied a deductive congruence analysis built on a bibliographical review. A case study on the Indian context tested previously elaborated the main hypotheses. It was inferred that this phenomenon was caused by four elements: (a) few possibilities to public participation; (b) scant available information on nuclear policy; (c) lack of a political schism between national elites and civil society on this topic; and at last (d) geopolitical dynamics.

Keywords

• india
• social movements
• nuclear proliferation