In November 2016, then-defense minister Manohar Parrikar stated, albeit clarified later that it was only in his “personal capacity,” that India should not have a public policy on first use. In his Friday remarks, Singh becomes the most recent senior Indian official to question the wisdom, and erode the sanctity, of no first use, and did so in a clearly scripted statement that one has to assume was carefully formulated and sanctioned by the Cabinet Committee on Security. During the 2014 campaign, following speculation that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might revise no first use, the then-candidate for Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, settled the matter by seemingly reaffirming the declaration, calling it a “reflection of our cultural inheritance.” This time, however, the BJP has, instead, openly thrown into question India’s commitment to adhere to what is now a crumbling pillar of India’s nuclear doctrine. In so doing, Rajnath Singh was in fact saying that a commitment that originated with Vajpayee wasn’t much of a commitment at all. Rajnath Singh was telling the world that while India intended no first use today, nothing binds it to doing so tomorrow.

Nuclear use is not something considered on any normal day, so a policy of no first use is a commitment that even in the deepest crisis or war, even if a country had reason to fear an adversary might use nuclear weapons imminently, even if a country might benefit from nuclear first use, that the country commits to forgo that option. That doctrine, Singh assured his listeners, had been “strictly adhered to” up until now, but he then ominously emphasized, “What happens in future depends on the circumstances.” This was not a formal change in doctrine or policy, yet, but it is an unmistakable and remarkable policy statement.Ī policy of no first use is, in fact, a promise not to do something in the future: not to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict. He not only went to Pokhran, the site of each of India’s nuclear tests, to visit “the area which witnessed Atal ji’s firm resolve to make India a nuclear power”, but also to remind everyone of Vajpayee’s commitment to the doctrine of nuclear no first use.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh decided to mark the one year anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s death by making some news.

Rise of nations nuke