Shock and awe

India’s comprehensive capability in the nuclear domain is the result of its autonomous pursuit of the atomic programme against all odds

- ANIL KAKODKAR

World War II stopped Dr Homi J. Bhabha, the father of India’s nuclear programme, from returning to the UK and continuing his research there. So he stayed back in India and that became a turning point for Indian science, especially atomic energy. Though perhaps it was a golden era of Indian science, going by the pathbreaking contributions by the likes of C.V. Raman, S.N. Bose, Meghnad Saha, J.C. Bose and others, it was Bhabha, a cosmic ray physicist, who ushered in an era of mission mode programmes. He used his proximity with the Tata family and prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to create an India-specific vision in atomic energy, space and electronics.

That was also the time when the development of nuclear weapons and a new geopolitics seemed to emerge. Bhabha ensured that the political leadership appreciated the ramifications of this emerging development from an Indian perspective, fully cognisant of the potential strengths of Indian scientific community. He did not want them to simply drift with the rest of the world.

While developments in China at that time did spark a debate on policy options for India, it was really the Bangladesh war that triggered the peaceful nuclear explosion experiment in May 1974. Underground nuclear explosions for peaceful applications were being pursued by some countries and discussed in conferences at the International Atomic Energy Agency. After India’s Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE), however, the term and the related programmes disappeared from the scene. India came under an intense technology denial regime. The Americans discontinued the contracted fuel supplies to Tarapur, while the Canadians withdrew from the collaborative programme to build two PHWR (pressurised heavy-water reactor) units in Rajasthan.