India stands committed to No-First Use policy of nuclear weapon; Know what is the NFU policy at first
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New Delhi, March 05: "There has been no change in India's nuclear doctrine", noted the Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday while in the lower house of parliament. MoS MEA V Muraleedharan said that India is committed to maintaining credible minimum deterrence and the policy of no-first use of nuclear weapons.
India has a declared nuclear no-first-use policy under which a country cannot use nuclear weapons as a means of warfare unless first attacked by nuclear weapons. Earlier, the concept had also been applied to chemical and biological warfare.
China declared its NFU policy in 1964, and has since maintained this policy. India first adopted a no first use policy after its second nuclear tests, Pokhran-II, in 1998. In August 1999, the Indian government released a draft of the doctrine which asserts that nuclear weapons are solely for deterrence and that India will pursue a policy of retaliation only.
The document also maintains that India will not be the first to initiate a nuclear first strike, but will respond with punitive retaliation should deterrence fail and that decisions to authorise the use of nuclear weapons would be made by the prime minister or his designated successor. According to the National Research Development Corporation, despite the escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan in 2001–2002, India remained committed to its nuclear no-first-use policy.
PM Modi has also, before the recent general elections, reiterated commitment to a no first use policy. In April 2013, Shyam Saran, convener of the National Security Advisory Board, affirmed that regardless of the size of a nuclear attack against India, be it a tactical nuclear weapon or a strategic nuclear weapon, India will retaliate massively. That was in response to reports that Pakistan had developed a tactical battlefield nuclear weapon in an attempt to supposedly nullify an Indian no first use retaliatory doctrine.