One of India’s foremost missile and strategic affairs experts has said last Wednesday’s missile accident has raised disturbing questions and dented India’s image as a responsible nuclear power and the government must take urgent steps to address this.
Dr Rajeshwari Rajagopalan spoke both about questions to do with how the accident happened and wasn’t averted by self-destructing the missile and also about India’s protocols, which could either be inadequate or weren’t followed.
In an Karan Thapar for The Wire, Dr Rajagopalan, who is Director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation, said the accident was “a very serious matter” and the government should have immediately admitted it had happened. The government, she added, “always tries to cover up” and “become defensive.”
She said the Defence Ministry statement that the accident happened in the course of routine maintenance “raises very disturbing questions about India’s protocols.” Are they good enough? Or were they not followed? These, she added, are “quite embarrassing”.
Although we don’t have details of what happened, Dr Rajagopalan said its impossible to believe the missile did not have a self-destruct mechanism. She said we need to know if it was activated but failed? Whether the protocols requires high-level clearance for activation which either wasn’t forthcoming or not obtained in the limited time? Or whether the people concerned did not know how to activate the mechanism?
Dr Rajagopalan agreed that the issues the questions raise range from poor training, to incompetence, to failure.
Dr Rajagopalan said this accident has “dented” India’s international image adding “it needs to be addressed pointedly and in a direct manner”.
Whether India can redeem its image “will depend on how India handles this” adding “in the first instance we have not done very well”.
Stating that communication in security matters is an Indian weakness, Dr Rajagopalan said India should reveal in public as much as it can about the steps it is taking because the world must be re-assured such an accident won’t happen again.
However, she added, more must be shared in private with our partners and the IAEA. This, she said, includes details of what happened, how, what actions were taken and what new protocols have been put in place.
This is not a precis of the interview but only a high-lighting of some of the key points made by Dr Rajagopalan. Please see the interview for a full understanding of her position and her views.