Sir: During the 1950s, India showed strident opposition to nuclear weapons while stressing the need to harness atomic energy for peaceful purposes. During the 1960s, India’s attitude subtly mutated. The uncompromising opposition to nuclear weaponry caved in to accommodate nuclear weapons as an instrument of ‘high politics’. To sustain this posture, India maintained a large strategic establishment to produce fissile materials, design nuclear weaponry, and develop various delivery systems. India’s nuclear posture kept shifting over a continuum of five possibilities ranging from renunciation of the nuclear option to maintaining a ready nuclear arsenal and operational nuclear force. Between these two extreme options lay the following three choices: limited nuclear-arms control (regional nuclear-free zone), nuclear option (no operational nuclear force) and recessed deterrence (raising operational nuclear force in a few months). Its current policy is ready-arsenal `deterrence by punishment’ as advocated by Bharat Karnad. By developing short-range missiles, and deploying aircraft at bases near Pakistan’s border and in far-off Tajikistan (Aeinee and Farkhor), India is trying to encircle Pakistan. Karnad advised India to have a ready arsenal of 330 nuclear weapons by the year 2030. However Mian and Nayyar believe that India is actually attempting to build about 400 nuclear warheads), at least four times what Pakistan currently possesses (Zia Mian, AH Nayyar, R Rajaraman and MV Raman, “Fissile Materials in South Asia and the Implications of the US-India Nuclear Deal”). To sustain a ‘ready nuclear-arsenal policy’, India may divert fuel from the civil reactors, under the 123 agreement, to military reactors. It will no longer be committed to a no-first-use nuclear doctrine (nuclear strike only in response). A ratchet effect of India’s policy, Pakistan, also, is trying to increase its enrichment capacity. This does not augur well for nuclear peace in the region. AMJED JAAVED Rawalpindi Published in Daily Times, January 23rd 2018.