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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2021
This article, which focuses on the political decision making around the leadership of India's Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), shows how this process both decentralized scientific authority in India and led to changes in India's nuclear programme. New evidence presented from the deliberations of the Prime Minister's Secretariat (PMS) shows that Vikram Sarabhai, appointed chairman of the AEC in 1966, following the sudden death of the previous leader, Homi Bhabha, was the favoured candidate from the start of the process. His view on India's nuclear programme contrasted sharply with that of his predecessor, but his authority was protected, in part, from external challenge by the jurisdictional decisions made by the PMS. This article argues that the ambiguity inherent in India's developing nuclear programme was not the result of the apprehension of external threat, but the result of internal tensions within the relevant institutions, which are both revealed and (partially) resolved by the appointment process for the new chair.
I would like to thank the participants of Wilson Center's NPIHP workshop in 2016 and three interviewers in India for their excellent comments. I would also like to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and Amada Rees, the editor of BJHS. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant, Government of the Republic Korea (NRF-2017S1A6A3A02079749).
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12 The existing literature that describes the bureaucratic process of selection for those posts largely considers Prof. S. Chandrasekhar to be the first introduced prominent candidate, as Bhabha had personally and persistently appealed to him to fill various positions at the TIFR since 1944: as head of the TIFR astrophysics department in 1946 and as a national-level professor in 1951 and 1961. Chandrasekhar had declined these offers. However, Dharma Vira's letter did not recommend Prof. Chandrasekhar for the chairmanship of the AEC or secretaryship of the DAE, but only for the chairmanship of the TIFR, as Bhabha had suggested earlier. See Chandrasekar's letter to Homi Bhabha on 9 August 1945, TIFR Archives, File D-2004-00002-5 (1 of 2). For the literature containing the prime minister's offer to S. Chandrasekhar see Anderson, op. cit. (4), 277–8; Perkovich, op. cit. (4), pp. 113–14; Ramanna, op. cit. (9), p. 75.
13 Each position entails that the leader in the department bears the crucial responsibility of managing strategic and economic planning and development, encompassing scientific, industrial and defence areas, in consultation with other government apparatus. Dharma Vira, cabinet secretary to the prime minister, 25 January 1966, letter, National Archives of India, File 84/1/CF-60.
14 Vira, op. cit. (13).
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19 Vira, op. cit. (13).
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29 H.R. Vohra, ‘Bid to deny India entry into N-Club: R. Kennedy suggests aid leverage: senator's move’, Times of India, 22 January 1966, p. 6.
30 After President Lyndon Johnson assumed office on 22 November 1963, the Johnson administration began to review its food aid policy to India in the broader context of Cold War policies. US food aid policy became focal point of US–India bilateral relations interrelated to the US's anti-communist containment policy, India's non-alignment policy and the Indo-Pakistan conflict. In 1965 the Johnson administration politicized its food aid policy to pressure India to end the Indo-Pakistan War, then subsequently asked India to reduce its dependency on the US's food aid by increasing grain production. Bhabha's question to PMS is related to whether India's developing nuclear programme would be under the same duress. B.M. Bhatia, Famines in India: A Study in Some Aspects of the Economic History of India, 1860–1965, Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1967; Nick Cullather, The Hungry World: America's Cold War Battle against Poverty in India, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010; Surjit Mansingh, India's Search for Power: Indira Gandhi's Foreign Policy, 1966–1982, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1984, pp. 105–12.
31 H.K. Kochar, secretary to the AEC, to Dharma Vira, cabinet secretary to prime minister, 27 January 1966, letter, National Archives of India, File 84/180/CF-66.
32 Vohra, op. cit. (29).
33 Vohra, op. cit. (29).
34 Vohra, op. cit. (29).
35 Kochar, op. cit. (31). However, the Indian Embassy seemed to misunderstand the US non-proliferation policy regarding the application of economic aid. The Johnson administration considered taming economic recipients, such as India, to gain diplomatic leverage. Sarkar, op. cit. (28), p. 939.
36 Sarabhai, op. cit. (27); Sreenivasan, op. cit. (27).
37 Sarabhai op. cit. (27).
38 United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Document on Disarmament 1966 (September 1967), Publication 43, at http://unoda-web.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/publications/documents_on_disarmament/1966/DoD_1966.pdf, accessed 13 June 2017, pp. 18, 20; India also rebutted the admission of categories for nuclear states, non-nuclear states in alliance with nuclear states, and non-nuclear non-aligned states. United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, op. cit., p. 19; Roy, Kaushik, The Nuclear Shadow over South Asia, 1947 to the Present, Oxford: Routledge, 2011Google Scholar.
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42 ‘Another nuclear blast by China soon’, Times of India, 29 April 1966, p. 1; ‘Indira clarifies basis of India's nuclear policy’, Times of India, 12 May 1966, p. 7.
43 Lok Sabha Debates, ‘Calling Attention to Matter of Urgent Public Importance: Thermo-nuclear Explosion by China’, New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat, 10 May 1966, pp. 15712–36.
44 Lok Sabha Debates, op. cit. (43).
45 Lok Sabha Debates, op. cit. (43), p. 15713; ‘India will make the bomb if forced to: Singh’, Times of India, 11 May 1966, p. 1.
46 Times of India, op. cit. (45).
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49 Lok Sabha Debates, op. cit. (43), p. 15733.; H.V. Kamat of the Praja Socialist Party also joined the condemnation of the government's ‘hackneyed declaration of its policy’. Lok Sabha Debates, op. cit. (43), p. 15713.
50 Two days after the news, US AEC announced that China conducted the test with a lithium-6-based thermonuclear device. Mirchandani, op. cit. (4), p. 44.
51 Indian media delivered the US expert's prediction ‘only by 1970 that Chinese could be in a position to explode the first H-bomb’. ‘Chinese bomb not thermo-nuclear, say U.S. experts’, Times of India, 15 May 1966, p. 7.
52 Chakma, Bhumitra, Strategic Dynamics and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation in South Asia: A Historical Analysis, Bern: Peter Lang, 2004, p. 185Google Scholar; Karsten Frey, India's Nuclear Bomb and National Security, London: Routledge, 2007, p. 112.
53 It is unknown how many preliminary reports on the Chinese nuclear weapons programme were produced and delivered to the cabinet, yet two concise reports, nos. 6 and 7, partially unveiled how the BARC lab directed the progress of estimates of Chinese nuclear tests. H.N. Sethna to Dharma Vira, cabinet secretary, 27 May 1966, letter, NAI File 84/180/CF-66. H.N. Sethna to Dharma Vira, cabinet secretary, 1 June 1966, letter, National Archives of India, File 84/180/CF-66.
54 The Martin RB-57D Canberra was a US Air Force-affiliated ‘high-altitude strategic reconnaissance aircraft’ designed to fly at up to 65,000 feet. During China's nuclear test it flew over the Himalayas to monitor the results.
55 Sethna, op. cit. (53), 27 May 1966.
56 Sethna, op. cit. (53), 1 June 1966. The data from the seismic array that detected a nuclear explosion at Gauribidanur was not included in Sethna's report. The purpose of the centre established in collaboration with the UK was to provide data to other countries. ‘India's atomic explosion detection centre’, Times of India, 20 April 1966, p. 1
57 Times of India, op. cit. (56).
58 Many scholars have produced contradictory figures for China's nuclear test in May 1966. Karsten Frey and Keshav Mishra stated that China conducted thermonuclear tests on 9 May 1966. Atish Sinha and others claimed that India believed China's test was a thermonuclear explosion, because China claimed that it was a thermonuclear test. Many others, such as Cordesman, Langford, Lewis and Xue, elucidated that China's first thermonuclear bomb was detonated on 14 June 1967. See Frey, op. cit. (52), p. 112; Mishra, op. cit. (47), p. 38. Also see Sinha, Atish and Mohta, Madhup, Indian Foreign Policy, New Delhi: Academic Foundation, 2007, p. 995Google Scholar; Cordesman, Anthony H., Chinese Strategy and Military Power 2014, Boulder: Centre for Strategic & International Studies and Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, p. 349Google Scholar; Langford, Roland E., Introduction to Weapons of Mass Destruction, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004, p. 69Google Scholar; Lewis, John Wilson and Xue, Litai, China's Strategic Seapower: The Politics of Force Modernization of the Nuclear Age, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996, p. 177Google Scholar. In tandem with scientific analyses, the Indian government also sought internal assessments from the military. Prior to discussion at the highest political level regarding China's nuclear test in May, the Indian government asked the chief of staff to review India's defence position vis-à-vis China's nuclear development, and to prepare an analysis for internal debate. Although the discussion was classified, the military perspectives on developing India's nuclear weapons did not generally appear to be optimistic due to budgetary constraints and the conventional military approach towards China and Pakistan. Chaughuri, J.N., Arms Aims & Aspects, Bombay: P.C. Manayktala and Sons Private Ltd, 1966, p. 257Google Scholar; Mirchandani, op. cit. (4), p. 55.
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65 Jha, op. cit. (64).
66 Jha, op. cit. (64).
67 M. Prasad to L.K. Jha, secretary to the prime minister, 20 May 1966, letter, National Archives of India, File 17(62)/66-PMS. The resolution, which came into force on 1 March 1958, dictated the constitution of the Atomic Energy Commission, as enumerated in paragraph 2: ‘After careful consideration, the Government of India decided to establish an Atomic Energy Commission with full executive and financial powers, which was modelled, more or less, on the lines of the Railway Board’. Resolution No.13/7/58-Adm., Department of Atomic Energy, government of India. The resolution was partly amended in 1962; however, the section regarding the authoritative position of the chairman of the AEC remained the same. Atomic Energy Commission, Resolution No. 13/7/58-Adm. of March 1958, government of India.
68 Prasad, op. cit. (67).
69 Prasad, op. cit. (67).
70 ‘Vikram Sarabhai appointed AEC chairman’, Times of India, 26 May 1966, p. 1.
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74 ‘Bomb without defence system a “paper tiger”’, Times of India, 2 June 1966, p. 1. See also ‘Excerpts from Dr. Vikram A. Sarabhai's press conference, 1 June 1966’, in Vikram A. Sarabhai, Nuclear Weapons: A Compilation Prepared by the Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Atomic Energy, November 1970, pp. 94–6; Priyanjali Malik, India's Nuclear Debate: Exceptionalism and the Bomb, New Delhi: Routledge, 2010, p. 59; ‘In perspective’, Times of India, 4 June 1966, p. 6.
75 Homi Bhabha pitched his idea on All India Radio on 24 October 1964. Peter R. Lavoy, ‘The costs of nuclear weapons in South Asia’, in D.R. Sardesai and Raju G.C. Thomas (eds.), Nuclear India in the Twenty-First Century, New York: Palgrave, 2002, pp. 259–76, 261; Perkovich, op. cit. (4), p. 122. In Raja Ramanna's memory, Sarabhai directly challenged Bhabha's low estimate for manufacturing a bomb, reportedly saying, ‘you can ask me the price of two yards of cloth, but two yards cannot be produced unless you have a loom or a mill or something behind it’. Anderson, op. cit. (4), p. 435; Sarabhai's study on PNE was reconducted in association with Narasimhiah Seshagiri at TIFR and became public in 1971. M.V. Ramana, The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India, New Delhi: Penguin, 2013; Chakma, op. cit. (52), p. 61.
76 Times of India, op. cit. (74), 4 June 1966, p. 6.
77 Perkovich, op. cit. (4), p. 124.
78 Mirchandani, op. cit. (4), p. 54.
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80 From the mid-1960s on, the Indian development strategy was modelled on the Soviet practice, centering on quantitative goals and stressing heavy industries and infrastructure. As the country began to face several agricultural failures in 1965 and 1966, and a supervening trade deficit, it began to import large quantities of food despite external aid. The average annual growth from 1961 to 1966 was 2.6 per cent. John E. Tilton, World Metal Demand: Trends and Prospects, Oxford: Routledge, 2015, p. 103; Jagdish N. Bhagwati and T.N. Srinivasan, Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development: India, New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1975, pp. 1–32.
81 Times of India, op. cit. (74), 2 June 1966, p. 1.
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84 SNEPP had been authorized by former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in coordination with Homi Bhabha in 1965. Anderson, op. cit. (4), p. 386; Chengappa, op. cit. (4), p. 104.
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87 A US internal investigation telegram sent from the Department of State to the US Embassy in New Delhi mentioned Sethna's intention to expand India's investment in nuclear facilities during the AEC chairman's selection process. Times of India, op. cit. (74), p. 1; A. G. Noorani, ‘The nuclear guarantee episode’, Frontline (9–22 June 2001), 18(12), at www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1812/18120940.htm, accessed 13 June 2017.
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89 Interview with anonymous scientist in Mumbai, 11 August 2015.
90 ‘Fourth nuclear explosion by China in offing’, Times of India, 19 October 1966, p. 9.
91 Bharat Karnad, India's Nuclear Policy, Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008, p. 53.
92 This conversation is recalled by Brajesh Mishra, the national security adviser to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the prime minister of India (1998–2004). Karnad, op. cit. (91), p. 178.
93 Anderson, op. cit. (4), p. 435.
94 Sarabhai's determination to elevate India's space programme to make it equivalent to the nuclear programme met with resistance from Indira Gandhi and P.N. Haksar, principal private secretary to the prime minister. Karnad, op. cit. (91), pp. 53, 178.
95 Bhatia, op. cit. (4), pp. 130, 135.
96 Trivedi refuted the idea of controlling fusion techniques, arguing, ‘Is it seriously suggested that a country should be prohibited from developing its own technology, through its own endeavours, so as to achieve economic development? I submit that no developing country can accept a proposition of that kind.’ United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, op. cit. (38), p. 704.
97 For the first spent-fuel reprocessing plant, M.G.K. Menon, appointed director of TIFR in 1966, clarified that the purpose of this plant was ‘reprocessing fuel rods not for the bomb’ at his commemoration lecture on Homi Bhabha, Royal Institution of Great Britain, in 1967. Jayita Sarkar, ‘Sino-Indian nuclear rivalry: glacially declassified’, The Diplomat, 2 June 2017, at https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/sino-indian-nuclear-rivalry-glacially-declassified, accessed 2 July 2017.
98 ‘A.E.E. plans 2nd plutonium plant Rs. 5-crore project’, Times of India, 19 December 1966, p. 5.
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103 Chaudhuri, op. cit. (99), p. 536.
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