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No first use: let's deploy India's nuclear doctrine
Mint Kolkata
|June 11, 2026
SIPRI’s estimate of our nuclear arsenal is an occasion to use the high ground of our stance to restate our position. The world also needs to note South Asia’s own dynamics of deterrence
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“The Buddha has smiled” was the success code for India’s Pokhran nuclear test of 1974 that New Delhi described as “peaceful.”
Blasts in 1998 saw the country adopt an eminently sensible doctrine on nukes: ‘No first use.’ The extent to which that smile may have widened in 2025 is a matter of curiosity stoked by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s release of its SIPRI Yearbook 2026. By SIPRI's estimates, as of January, India had 12 ‘deployed’ nuclear warheads as part of its stockpile of 190; last year, we had 180 in stock, with none mounted on missiles or located at bases with operational armed forces. Since arsenals are subject to secrecy, we cannot expect the Centre to comment on deployments. But since we live in a heavily armed world, it should not surprise us either.
This story is from the June 11, 2026 edition of Mint Kolkata.
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