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The continued expansion of civilian nuclear programmes in India, Pakistan and now Bangladesh deserves careful democratic scrutiny — not because civilian reactors are equivalent to nuclear weapons, but because they enlarge the broader nuclear enterprise requiring stringent security, regulation and long-term stewardship.
By Soumya Dutta / Sapan News
In my three decades of experience as an environmental activist – including in the field of energy, covering nuclear issues for over 16 years, I have rarely seen our region as close to a nuclear flashpoint as it is today.
Southasia today stands at a critical crossroads. India and Pakistan possess growing nuclear arsenals, have fought multiple wars since independence, and continue to experience periodic military crises.
China, rapidly expanding its nuclear capabilities, has become an increasingly influential strategic partner of Pakistan, while India has steadily deepened its defence and strategic partnerships with the United States and its allies.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh is entering the nuclear age through the Russian-built Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, making three Southasian nations operators of commercial nuclear power reactors.
From a science-based anti-nuclear perspective, these developments cannot be viewed in isolation.
I have seen and done basic studies of the impacts of nuclear fuel cycle in some of India’s nuclear fuel chain operations — notably around the Uranium mines in Jadugoda in Jharkhand and Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh (the oldest and newest uranium mines in India), and the nuclear power plants at Tarapur and Rawatbhata.
These experiences of societal exposure to a “comparably much milder ” nuclear one sends shivers when imagining a feared massive scale-up in case of a nuclear confrontation in our region.
Civilian nuclear power and nuclear weapons are not exactly the same technology, and it would be inaccurate to claim that every civilian reactor contributes directly to weapons production. Nevertheless, they share large sections — important parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, scientific expertise, infrastructure and radioactive and fissile materials. As civilian nuclear programmes expand, so do the quantities of fissile and highly radioactive materials requiring secure handling for decades, sometimes even centuries.
In recent years, global scientific and security assessments have become increasingly alarmed by the cumulative direction of these trends. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has repeatedly moved the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight, reflecting the growing convergence of nuclear risks, geopolitical tensions, and climate instability.
In its most recent assessments, the Clock stands closer to midnight than at any point since its creation, underscoring that the probability of catastrophic nuclear escalation is no longer a distant theoretical concern but an intensifying present danger. Southasia, as one of the most densely populated nuclear flashpoints on Earth, sits directly within this tightening arc of global risk.
In a region already marked by geopolitical rivalry, climate stress and unresolved territorial disputes, this expanding nuclear landscape deserves far greater public scrutiny.
Under the shadow of nuclear war
India and Pakistan have fought four wars since 1947 and experienced numerous other military confrontations, despite both becoming declared nuclear weapon states in 1998. Crises such as Kargil in 1999, the 2001–02 military mobilisation, the 2019 Balakot episode and the 2025 confrontation following the Pahalgam attack illustrate how rapidly small conventional conflicts can escalate between nuclear-armed neighbours.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), both India and Pakistan continue to modernise their nuclear arsenals and delivery systems. Their relatively short missile flight times leave little room for political leaders to verify information or prevent accidental escalation during a crisis.
The danger extends well beyond Southasia itself. Studies led by atmospheric scientists and climate researchers Alan Robock, Owen Toon, Lili Xia and colleagues — while criticized as over projection — have shown that even a limited regional nuclear war involving a fraction of the existing arsenals could inject millions of tonnes of soot into the upper atmosphere.
The resulting reduction in sunlight could cool the planet slightly, disrupt rainfall, shorten growing seasons and threaten global food production for a few years. That will be very challenging to deal with in our heavily climate change-impacted region. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) has warned that hundreds of millions of people worldwide could face food insecurity following such a conflict.
In other words, there is no such thing as a purely regional nuclear war.
The Doomsday Clock’s movement closer to midnight reflects precisely this reality : that the combination of nuclear modernisation, geopolitical mistrust, and reduced diplomatic guardrails is steadily eroding the margin for error. In Southasia, where decision times in a crisis may be measured in minutes, this shrinking buffer becomes especially dangerous.
Civilian nuclear power
Supporters of nuclear (fission) energy argue that civilian nuclear power should not be linked with nuclear weapons. Technically, they are correct — commercial power reactors are designed to produce electricity, not bombs. Most civilian reactors operate using either non-enriched (PHWRs in India) or low-enriched uranium (LWRs) that cannot be directly used in nuclear weapons.
However, the broader nuclear fuel cycle contains technologies and materials that have dual-use characteristics. These include uranium mining, uranium conversion, enrichment technology, fuel fabrication, reactor operations, spent fuel management, plutonium-bearing spent fuel, reprocessing technologies and specialised nuclear engineering expertise.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) maintains extensive safeguards precisely because these technologies require rigorous international oversight. Reactor-grade plutonium produced in commercial reactors is generally not the preferred material for modern nuclear weapons because of its isotopic composition. Nevertheless, technical studies, including those cited by the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), recognise that reactor-grade plutonium is technically capable of being used in a nuclear explosive device, although doing so presents substantially greater engineering challenges than using weapons-grade plutonium.
The issue, therefore, is not that civilian reactors automatically become weapons programmes. Rather, expansion of civilian nuclear infrastructure inevitably increases the volume of sensitive nuclear materials, radioactive waste and specialised facilities that must remain securely protected throughout their operating lifetimes and long after reactor closure.
In a world where the Doomsday Clock is already positioned alarmingly close to midnight, even incremental increases in the global stockpile of fissile materials and high-consequence infrastructure add to the systemic risk burden that humanity collectively carries.
Bangladesh enters the fray
The near completion of Bangladesh’s Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant represents a significant strategic development for Southasia.
Constructed with Russian assistance and operating under IAEA safeguards, Rooppur is expected to provide ‘low-carbon electricity’ for Bangladesh; Russia has agreed to take back much of the spent nuclear fuel under existing arrangements.
Even so, Bangladesh will become responsible for operating complex nuclear installations, maintaining nuclear security, training specialised personnel and managing radioactive materials throughout the plant’s lifetime.
For environmental groups, Rooppur symbolises the continued expansion of the nuclear enterprise into one of the world’s most densely populated and climate-vulnerable regions. In a global context where the Doomsday Clock signals rising existential risk, adding new nuclear infrastructure in fragile geopolitical environments raises further questions about long-term cumulative safety and governance capacity.
The SHANTI Act
India’s recent amendments to its nuclear energy framework through the SHANTI (Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India) Act have generated significant debate among scientists, legal experts and environmental organisations.
Supporters argue that greater private-sector participation can accelerate reactor construction, attract investment, improve manufacturing capability and help India meet its clean-energy and energy-security objectives.
Opponents raise a different set of concerns: Expanding private participation could increase the number of companies (many private profit-centric) involved in manufacturing, transporting, constructing and servicing components within the nuclear sector. While nuclear materials would continue to remain subject to government control and regulatory oversight, a larger commercial ecosystem may complicate regulation, physical security, emergency preparedness and long-term accountability.
I am not claiming that the SHANTI Act itself will lead to nuclear weapons proliferation. Civilian facilities remain governed by India’s atomic energy legislation and applicable IAEA safeguards where relevant.
Nevertheless, enlarging the commercial nuclear industry inevitably increases the scale of sensitive infrastructure and radioactive materials requiring continuous oversight.
From this perspective, the principal concern is not immediate proliferation but the gradual expansion of long-term nuclear risk in pursuit of commercial profit, at a time when global risk indicators — including the Doomsday Clock — are already signalling heightened vulnerability.
Escalation risks
The suspension of cooperation under aspects of the Indus Waters Treaty following the 2025 Pahalgam attack introduced another potentially destabilising factor into India-Pakistan relations.
Pakistan depends overwhelmingly on the Indus river system for agriculture, drinking water and hydropower. Although India currently possesses limited infrastructure to significantly alter river flows on a large scale, the political symbolism surrounding water has heightened strategic mistrust.
Climate change further amplifies these risks. Himalayan glaciers are retreating, extreme rainfall events are becoming more frequent, devastating floods continue to affect both countries and prolonged droughts are increasing. Water insecurity is therefore becoming increasingly intertwined with national security.
When military rivalry, climate stress and water disputes converge, the risks of political miscalculation inevitably grow. In a world already judged by leading scientific institutions to be approaching unprecedented levels of existential risk, such regional stressors do not remain local; they compound global instability.
New strategic competition
Southasia’s nuclear future cannot be understood without recognising broader geopolitical competition.
China remains Pakistan’s principal strategic partner, providing military assistance, supporting civilian nuclear projects and maintaining close diplomatic coordination. India, meanwhile, has strengthened strategic cooperation with the United States, Japan, Australia and several European partners through Indo-Pacific security initiatives.
Each side interprets the other’s partnerships through the lens of national security, creating a classic security dilemma. Actions intended by one country to enhance deterrence are perceived by others as threats requiring further military modernisation.
This competitive dynamic fuels both conventional and nuclear arms races, reinforcing the very conditions that have contributed to the Doomsday Clock’s movement closer to midnight.
A different energy future
None of these concerns imply that nuclear power provides no benefits. Nuclear reactors generate electricity with ‘relatively low operational carbon emissions’ and can contribute to reducing fossil fuel dependence.
However, there are valid arguments that rapidly declining costs of solar energy, wind power, battery storage, modern electricity grids, energy efficiency and demand-side management now offer safer and cheaper pathways towards decarbonisation without continuously expanding inventories of fissile materials and highly radioactive waste.
Southasia possesses exceptional renewable energy resources. Investing more heavily in decentralised renewable systems could simultaneously improve energy access, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid many of the long-term environmental, security and waste-management challenges associated with nuclear expansion.
In a period when global scientific consensus is warning — through instruments like the Doomsday Clock — that humanity is edging closer to systemic catastrophe, energy choices cannot be separated from questions of existential risk management.
Southasia today combines nearly every ingredient associated with nuclear risk: historical conflicts, unresolved territorial disputes, expanding nuclear arsenals, climate change, water insecurity and intensifying geopolitical rivalry.
Against this backdrop, the continued expansion of civilian nuclear programmes in India, Pakistan and now Bangladesh deserves careful democratic scrutiny — not because civilian reactors are equivalent to nuclear weapons, but because they enlarge the broader nuclear enterprise requiring stringent security, regulation and long-term stewardship.
The scientific evidence assembled by organisations such as IPPNW, SIPRI, the IAEA and the IPFM demonstrates both the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war and the complexity of managing nuclear materials safely. The Doomsday Clock’s movement closer to midnight further reinforces the urgency of these warnings, highlighting that the world is operating with shrinking margins for error.
The most durable path to regional security lies not simply in stronger deterrence, but in renewed diplomacy, arms-control measures, confidence-building between neighbours and restoration of cooperative water governance.
We need accelerated investment in renewable energy and a long-term commitment to reducing the role of nuclear technologies in one of the world’s most densely populated and climate-vulnerable regions.
Soumya Dutta is a trustee of MAUSAM (Movement for Advancing Understanding of Sustainability And Mutuality), an executive member of Friends of the Earth India, a former advisory board member of the UN Climate Technology Centre and Network, and a member of the national working group of National Alliance of People’s Movements. He was the founding co-convener of South Asian People’s Action on Climate Crisis, former board chair of Green Peace Environment Trust, advisor to Indian Community Activists’ Network and National Platform for Small Scale Fish Workers, and founding organising secretary of Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha. He is also a founding member of India Climate Justice, and a former Ashoka Fellow.
This is a Sapan News syndicated feature available for republication with due credit https://www.sapannews.com.
08 August 2026: Corrected sentence: ‘These experiences of societal exposure to a “comparably much milder ” nuclear one sends shivers when imagining a feared massive scale-up in case of a nuclear confrontation in our region‘ (the word “confrontation” replacing “contribution”).
*Why ‘Southasia’ as one word? Because our histories entangle, our struggles intersect, and our futures are bound together.
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