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Tenth anniversary of Pokhran II goes off uncelebrated |
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May 13 was the 10th anniversary of the Pokhran II, codenamed Operation Shakti when under the then NDA Government of Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee, two nuclear tests were conducted, adding to the earlier three in Pokhran on May 18, 1974 when Indira Gandhi was in power. However, but for a small function at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the Defence Research and Development Organisation [DRDO] which played a key role in conducting the explosions, the occasion largely went uncelebrated. Chiding the Government for ignoring this achievement, BJP leader L.K. Advani described the non-celebration of the Pokhran-II as reflective of the “slave mindset”. Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju remarked that while the country has every reason to be proud and the tests demonstrated the capability India had, they also had their “detrimental effect” in terms of inviting sanctions that affected our strategic programmes. The Left leaders were also not ready to praise the Pokhran tests. “What is there to celebrate?. It is a fact we detonated the bomb”, they said. D. Raja said all Left parties had been critical of the tests and did not approve the explosions even then.
However, former President Abdul Kalam, who had supervised the Pokhran II explosions as chief of the DRDO and was camping in the Thar desert for over a fortnight, praised the courage of Prime Minister Vajpayee in deciding to go in for Pokhran tests within weeks of assuming office in March 1998. Speaking at a function held at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre to commemorate the anniversary of the “Shakti” series of tests at Pokhran in Rajasthan, Kalam said, the testing was a “defining moment” in the country’s history next only to adopting the path of economic liberalization.
India conducted the nuclear tests in two phases. The first under Indira Gandhi’s leadership on May 18, 1974 which was termed a “peaceful” explosion, and the second on May11, 1998 and the last two days later. The May 1998 tests were organized into two groups that were fired separately. The first group consisted of the thermo-nuclear device, the fission bomb, and a sub-kiloton device which were detonated on May 11, 1998. Two more sub-kiloton devices made up the second group, on May 13.India detonated two more sub-kiloton nuclear devices underground before declaring that the test series was completed. The nuclear devices were transported to Mumbai airport and flown down in AN-32 planes. The Regiment 58 Engineers who dug the shafts ensured that they were not detected by US spy satellites. Heavy equipment was always returned to the same parking spot at dawn so that image analysts would conclude that they had never moved.
K. Santhanam, a senior operative of RAW who was in charge of the test site as Col. Srinivas, is widely credited with erecting the smokescreens that so embarrassed US intelligence agencies. All the officers on duty wore army uniforms, says Santhanam in their fool-the-American operation to avoid attraction.
Santhanam recalled that on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the tests, India had been ready to test its weaponised nuclear armoury since 1995, having been sent down this path by Rajiv Gandhi and then enthusiastically kept on course by P.V. Narasimha Rao. In fact, India actually had devices ready for testing in the Pokhran shafts for five or six months before they were dismantled and shipped off to their respective parking bays in Trombay and Chandigarh.
After t6he Pokhran tests on May 11, 1998, Pakistan retaliated with its own nuclear tests in Baluchistan 17 days later, sending Western powers tizzy. The US had made hectic efforts to ensure that Pakistan did not retaliate but Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott could not prevent it. All this while, a campaign went against India and Pakistan. International reaction led by the United States was immediate and severe. President Clinton imposed economic, military and technological sanctions and went out of his way to make China an ally against India’s nuclear weapons requirements and aspirations. The Indo-US cooperation slate was wiped clean. After the US many other countries also imposed similar sanctions.
However, the US subsequently realized that it had to engage the two – India and Pakistan – in separate talks by Strobe Talbott with the then External Affairs Minister of India, Jaswant Singh and Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed of Pakistan. The Western goal was to ensure that there was no marriage between delivery systems and warheads, hence, no hair-trigger situation between the two. In February 1999, India and Pakistan agreed to “engage in bilateral consultations on security concepts and nuclear doctrines”. “The two sides undertake to provide each other with advance notification in respect of ballistic missile flight tests and shall coincide a bilateral agreement in this regard,” they agreed. A formal agreement has been signed.
India for its part prepared its draft nuclear doctrine – an extremely fine job - in 2001. But the Cabinet Committee on Security did not give it the official clearance for two years. As a result, there was no clarity on its operational mechanism. Operationalisation of the nuclear doctrine was reviewed officially in January 2003. The nuclear doctrine calls for multiple agencies involved with storage, movement and assembly of devices. It restated important contents of the doctrine. It also made public the formation of the National Command Authority, the Political and Executive Councils. The CCS approved the appointment of C-in-C, Strategic Force Command, and the arrangements for an alternate chain of command.
Incidentally, the BJP which was instrumental in conducting the Pokhran II nuclear tests in 1998, is now distancing itself from the Indo-US nuclear agreement. It is determined to prevent the Congress from gaining credit for the nuclear deal. It is prepared to abandon the political inheritance of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who ordered Pokhran II and laid the foundation for India’s integration into the global order as a full-fledged nuclear weapon power. There is no way of explaining the BJP’s decision to dismiss the arguments of two figures who helped Vajpayee put India on a bold nuclear path: Brajesh Mishra, Vajpayee’s National Aecurity Adviser, who planned Pokhran II and managed its consequences, and former President APJ Abdul Kalam, who as head of the DRDO organized the nuclear tests along with the Department of Atomic Energy. As remarked by strategic affairs analyst C. Raja Mohan, a true celebration of the 10th anniversary of Pokhran II would have involved the demonstration of national unity on implementing the remaining steps of the Indo-US nuclear initiative. But, while CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat’s threat to pull the plug on the Government is the proximate cause for the current nuclear stalemate, it is Advani’s opposition to the nuclear deal that takes one’s breath away. That the CPM might want to dismantle India’s civil and military nuclear programmes does not surprise anyone familiar with the tragic history of the Indian Communist movement. Having never been part of India’s mainstream national security thinking, the CPM is free to take outrageous positions. After all Karat had attacked Pokhran II as a sellout to the United States at a time when the Clinton Administration was imposing sanctions on India and mobilising the rest of the world to punish Vajpayee’s defiance of the international system. But, the current nuclear positions of the BJP –which ruled India for six years, made it a full-fledged nuclear weapon power and took the diplomatic initiative to end its long atomic isolation – must necessarily be judged by a different yardstick. Instead of building on its record of nuclear bipartisanship between Vajpayee and Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, Advani, safely, has allowed the BJP to reject the nuclear deal. In refusing to rise to the occasion, political observers say, the BJP has tailed an anti-nuclear CPM and forsaken its claim as a consistent champion of India’s national security interests.
CPI threat to withdraw support
As the Left continues to oppose the Indo-US nuclear deal, the CPI has renewed its threat to withdraw support if the Government moves on the issue. “They will have to do without us”, said party General Secretary A.B. Bardhan on May 15when asked what the Left would do if the Government ignored their objections and went ahead on the deal. The veteran Communist leader said this in an interview on Karan Thapar’s “India tonight” programme on CNBC TV18.
The CPI[N] General Secretary, Prakash Karat, has also said the prospects of operationalising the deal have faded away. He denied that the Left blocked the deal at the behest of China.
On record, the Bush Administration has so far maintained that the Indo-US civil nuclear deal is still doable and ruled out any intent to pronounce it dead despite the continuing stonewalling by the UPA Government’s Left allies. But, unnamed State Department officials have now indicated that completion of the landmark deal is unlikely before President Bush leaves office next January. Officials said the deal should be duly cleared by the Indian political system by June in order for the US Congress to deliberate upon and put its final seal of approval in a timely fashion before the exit of the present administration.
Nuke plant gets under way amidst N-deal fiasco
The Government has meanwhile quietly asked the Nuclear Power Corporation of India to begin work on the country’s biggest nuclear power plant even if it is engaged in verbal duels with the Left over the signing of the nuclear deal. The jumbo nuclear plant, which will generate 10,000 MW of power, will come up at Madban village in Rajapur in Ratnagiri.
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