Sarkar Publishes Journal Article on Cold War Nuclear History
Jayita Sarkar, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a research article on French-Indian nuclear cooperation in the latest issue of the journal Cold War History.
The article, titled, “From the dependable to the demanding partner: the renegotiation of French nuclear cooperation with India, 1974–80,” argues that the French foreign ministry and the French atomic energy commission (Commissariat à l’énergie atomique) feared being implicated in India’s 1974 nuclear explosion, leading to renegotiation of their past contracts with the Indian atomic energy commission (Department of Atomic Energy).
The abstract is below:
This article examines the shift in French nuclear export policy during 1974–80 leading to renegotiation of bilateral contracts between India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and France’s Commissariat à l’énergie atomique (CEA). This reassessment of French-Indian nuclear partnership by Giscard d’Estaing’s government initially resulted from its concerns that France might be implicated in India’s 1974 nuclear explosion. Neither country had signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the CEA and DAE were long-time technology partners, and both opposed multilateral safeguards. The French reassessment later received a major thrust from improved US-French bilateral relations, and French participation in the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
The full article can be read on Cold War History‘s website.
Jayita Sarkar is Assistant Professor at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, where she is also the founding director of the Global Decolonization Initiative. She teaches diplomatic and political history at graduate and undergraduate levels. Professor Sarkar’s areas of research expertise are 20th century South Asia, history of U.S. foreign relations, politics of nuclear technologies, and connected partitions. Her book, Ploughshares & Swords: India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War, (Forthcoming, Cornell University Press, 2022), examines the first forty years of India’s nuclear program through the prisms of geopolitics and technopolitics. Read more about Professor Sarkar on her faculty profile.