Lineages of the Present: Ideology and Politics in Contemporary South Asia

In March 1998, India broke 25 years silence when it detonated a series of nuclear devices in the Rajasthan desert. Having announced it possessed the requisite credentials for membership in the nuclear club in 1974, India quickly disavowed any desire to join, pledging not to develop its capability further. The Pokhran explosions revealed that promise to have been broken. The principal beneficiary of its breaking was a right-wing government seeking to shore up its shaky base with committment to the Hindu bomb.