Indian public opinion appeared unfazed yesterday by international condemnation of its three underground nuclear tests, announced on Monday.
By executing its thermonuclear test, a fusion test and a low-yield test at the desert range at Pokharan, in the western state of Rajasthan, India believes it has formally become the world's sixth nuclear weapons state.
However the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday that despite the tests, India would continue to be considered a nuclear threshold state rather than one of the five confirmed nuclear powers.
India has previously refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) on grounds that it discriminated in favour of the five established nuclear weapons states - China, the United States, Russia, Britain, and France.
For years after its first nuclear explosion, at the same testing site in Rajasthan, India defied international opinion on the nuclear issue, convinced that no country or group of nations had the right to dictate terms to it. But after Monday's tests, which have provided sufficient data for subsequent computer and laboratory simulations, India can now announce that it will join the CTBT.
"India's behaviour confirms that it is a reluctant nuclear weapons state compelled to join the exclusive club because all its pleas to move towards nuclear disarmament were ignored," said Dr K. Subhramanyan, a leading security analyst and former Defence Ministry official.
Domestically, Monday's nuclear tests have been mostly received positively, with little or insignificant dissent. Nuclear capability is being interpreted as a sign of strength only a handful of developed nations can match - a kind of crude talisman for power.
Indian newspaper editorials have uniformly praised the "bold and courageous" step taken by the coalition government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In a front page editorial, the widely circulated Pioneer newspaper called the testing the "explosion of self-esteem".
The overriding sentiment across the country is that India will now be taken seriously in world affairs and listened to with the same respect accorded to neighbouring China. "India has effectively shown the world that it is indeed capable of adequately defending itself," said an analyst from the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi. Other commentators were proud that the entire exercise of building and testing the nuclear devices was achieved without outside help.
Politically, the tests have consolidated the position of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal B. Vajpayee, in the shaky coalition that assumed office two months ago.
AFP adds: The Indian Science and Technology Minister, Mr Murli Manohar Joshi, said the tests in the Rajasthan desert demonstrated the capability of Indian scientists, but said the country had no belligerent plans.
"Indian scientists will put a nuclear warhead on missiles as soon as the situation requires," he said. "India will not attack any state. The new capability will only deter an arms race."
The Finance Minister, Mr Yaswant Sinha, said his government was not afraid of sanctions. "India is not worried about anything at all. . .the US has not imposed any sanctions so why should we comment on speculation?"
The sanctions worry brought down Indian share prices almost 2 per cent yesterday. The tests also raised doubts on further foreign investment in the country's now-liberalised market.