India has said that it acquired nuclear weapons to prevent other strong nations from blackmail and coercion.
National security advisor Shivshankar Menon disclosed that after India became a declared nuclear weapons state in 1998, it has not faced such threats.
Menon made the remarks during a national outreach conference on global nuclear disarmament.
He underlined that until the world arrived at “this happy state” it will continue to maintain atomic weapons as they have helped deter others from attempting nuclear coercion or blackmail.
On at least three occasions before 1998, other powers used the explicit or implicit threat of nuclear weapons to try and change India’s behaviour,” he revealed.
“So the possession of nuclear weapons has, empirically speaking, deterred others from attempting nuclear blackmail against India,” he added.
The day-long conference, organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs and supported by the external affairs ministry, saw the participation of nearly 1500 students from around 37 universities.
Menon said,”Unlike certain other nuclear weapon states, India’s weapons were not meant to redress a military imbalance, or to compensate for some perceived inferiority in conventional military terms, or to serve some tactical or operational military need on the battlefield,” he added.
Menon underlined that said the acquisition of nuclear weapons has imparted an added authority to India’s moral authority for universal disarmament on the global fora.
“We spent 24 years after our first peaceful nuclear explosion in 1974 urging and working for universal nuclear disarmament and a nuclear free world,” he said.
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