Sarkar in World Politics Review on India’s Anti-Satellite Test
Jayita Sarkar, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was interviewed for a recent article on India’s recent anti-satellite test, and its implications for space race and domestic politics.
Sarkar was a quoted in an April 11, 2019 in an article in World Politics Review, entitled, “India’s Anti-Satellite Missile Test Underscores the Need for a New Space Treaty.”
From the text of the article:
“The test is comparable to the 1974 underground nuclear explosion,” Sarkar says, referring to India’s first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon. “It is a demonstration of some technological capability that would not pass muster in an actual military confrontation with adversaries.”
The drivers of the test, Sarkar contends, had more to do with domestic politics than regional security issues. First, India’s general elections, which are being held in seven phases starting today, were a major factor for Modi and his governing Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP. The party seemed eager to use the missile test to distract from economic woes and the backlash in rural areas to the government’s economic policies.
Sarkar points out that even the test’s name, “Shakti,” which means “power” in Hindi, is a clear effort to stir up patriotism among the electorate. “Operation Shakti” was also the codename for a series of five nuclear weapon tests conducted in 1998 under another BJP government led by then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Whether last month’s missile test will give the BJP enough of a boost to stay in power in New Delhi remains to be seen. More concerning than the political implications, Sarkar points out, is the possibility that other countries will conduct anti-satellite missile tests of their own. “With the rise in nationalist governments across the world, especially in technologically advanced countries, there will likely be an increase in ‘demonstrations’ like Mission Shakti.”
Jayita Sarkar, an historian by training, is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. Her expertise is in the history of U.S. foreign policy, nuclear proliferation, the global Cold War, South Asia and Western Europe. Her research has appeared or is forthcoming in the Journal of Cold War Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Cold War History, International History Review, and elsewhere. Dr. Sarkar has held fellowships at MIT, Harvard, Columbia and Yale universities, and obtained a doctorate in International History from the Graduate Institute Geneva in Switzerland.