India's Nuclear Journey: A Story of Isolation to Recognition

India's nuclear journey has been fraught with challenges, international isolation, and eventual recognition as a responsible nuclear power.

The inception of India's nuclear program can be traced back to the visionary physicist Homi Bhabha, who convinced Prime Minister Nehru to invest in nuclear technology despite international reservations.

This led to India's first Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) in Pokhran in 1974, a significant achievement that triggered international backlash. The IAEA, major world powers, and even some fuel suppliers distanced themselves from India due to concerns about nuclear proliferation.

By the late 1990s, growing security concerns pushed India to conduct further nuclear tests in 1998. This resulted in further isolation and exclusion from crucial nuclear groups like the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

However, India responded by formulating a distinct nuclear doctrine, which emphasized "No First Use," meaning it would only retaliate with nuclear weapons if another nuclear state initiated a strike.

This doctrine, rooted in the principles of necessity and proportionality, contrasts with Pakistan's "Full Spectrum Deterrence" policy, which allows for the potential first use of nuclear weapons under certain circumstances.

While estimates suggest India and Pakistan possess roughly the same number of warheads (around 150-160), Pakistan's arsenal is primarily focused on India, whereas India's nuclear capabilities consider both Pakistan and China, which has a significantly larger arsenal estimated at over 300 warheads.

India's strength lies in its sea-based nuclear deterrent, with the nuclear-powered submarine Arihant and a planned second platform. Additionally, its larger size provides a geographical advantage in dispersing its nuclear assets.

Over time, India's persistent diplomatic efforts have helped it emerge from isolation. It is now a recognized nuclear power, gets NSG waiver, and has bilateral nuclear agreements with several countries, including all major nuclear powers except China.

 

[Santosh1976]

Smiling Buddha: All You Need To Know About India's First Nuclear Test At Pokhran​

The test was conducted on May 18, 1974 under the supervision of Raja Ramanna, who was then the director of India's premier nuclear research institute Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).​

New Delhi:

India is observing the 46th anniversary of its first nuclear test in Rajasthan's Pokhran today. The peaceful test -- codenamed 'Smiling Buddha' -- conducted in 1974 helped India become the sixth country in the world to conduct a nuclear test.

The test was conducted on May 18, 1974 under the supervision of Raja Ramanna, who was then the director of India's premier nuclear research institute Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). 🍵

The test was named 'Smiling Buddha' because it was conducted on Budda Purnima that year. "The Buddha has smiled," Dr Ramanna is learnt to have told then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi after the test.

With this feat, India became the first country outside the five permanent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members to conduct the test. 🍵

In his tribute on twitter, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said that the test wrote a new chapter in India's nuclear energy.

Though the BARC never said anything about the yield of the device detonated at Pokhran, experts maintained that the actual yield was around 8-12 Kilotons of TNT. The key highlight of the test was that India managed to avoid detection by the United States and other intelligence agencies.

The US and other industialised nations, however, imposed certain tough sanctions on India after the tests claiming that these tests can lead to nuclear proliferation. 🍵

The plan was 'Smiling Buddha' was initialised on September 7, 1972 when then Indira Gandhi authorised the BARC scientists to detonate an indigenously designed nuclear device.

After the 1974 tests, India conducted five tests - three on May 11 and two on May 13, 1998. The tests codenamed 'Operation Shakti' were carried out again at the Pokhran test range when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/smiling-buddha-all-you-need-to-know-about-indias-first-nuclear-test-at-pokhran-2230645

 

[Santosh1976]

The power balance reflected in the post-World War II UN Security Council (UNSC) was based on the military and economic dominance of the war's victorious Allied powers: the United States, the Soviet Union (succeeded by Russia), the United Kingdom, France, and China. This structure gave these five nations permanent membership and veto power, a design that essentially "froze" the 1945 power dynamics into the global governance framework. 🍵

The Balance of Power (Post-WWII)
The end of WWII drastically shifted the global balance of power, resulting in a bipolar world order dominated by two "superpowers" and the decline of traditional European colonial powers like Great Britain and France. 🍵

• The Superpowers: The United States and the Soviet Union emerged from the war with unprecedented military and economic strength, quickly becoming the two primary poles of global influence.
• The Declining Powers: While victorious, the United Kingdom and France were economically devastated by the war and soon began the process of decolonization, significantly reducing their global reach. Their inclusion as permanent members was politically necessary at the time, helping maintain the "fiction" of their global power during the early Cold War period.

• China: Acknowledged as one of the "Four Powers" during the war, China was included as a permanent member, recognizing its central role in the conflict, though its relative power was less than the other major victors at the time.
• The Defeated Powers: Germany and Japan, the major aggressors of the war, were initially excluded from the UN and were not considered for Security Council seats. 🍵

The Role of the UNSC Structure
The structure of the UNSC was designed to reflect this immediate post-war reality and give the major powers a mechanism to maintain peace and security, primarily by preventing conflict among themselves.

• Permanent Members (P5): The five victorious powers were granted permanent seats and the power to veto any substantive resolution. This power allows any single permanent member to block action, a feature that reflects the raw power dynamics of the era, where the consensus of these major powers was deemed essential for any effective global action.
• 
  
• This arrangement ensured that the post-WWII international order was effectively managed by the victorious nations, a system that has remained largely unchanged despite significant geopolitical shifts in the decades since, such as decolonization, the rise of new economic powers like India and Germany, and the end of the Cold War. 🍵

Google Search

Google Search

 

[Pirthpall Sekhon]

6th Country With Nukes! How India Fooled The US, Bamboozled Russia To Conduct Its 1st Atomic Test​

In 1974, when India tested its first nuclear bomb under an operation deceptively coded named ‘Smiling Buddha,’ it was a signatory of the Moscow test-ban treaty of 1963. However, the Indian establishment flouted a loophole in international law, and the explosion became a legal act of defiance.

According to the Moscow test-ban treaty, India was forbidden to have explosions on land, in the air, or underwater in the seas. By exploding the nuclear device beneath the ground, India adhered to the treaty.

A brief statement by the Indian Government after the May 18, 1974 explosion said that India’s Atomic Energy Commission had created “a peaceful ‘nuclear explosion. experiment.” The underground blast took place “at a depth of more than 100 meters,” or about 330 feet, the statement said.

India had not signed the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on the principle that it divided the world into countries with nuclear weapons and those without such weapons, and the treaty imposed obligations on nonnuclear states without imposing similar obligations on nuclear states. 🍵

The 1974 test became the first confirmed nuclear test by a nation that was not a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 🍵

The Indian government at the time did not give many details about the test, but in the evening, Dr. H N Sethna, chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, said the device had been in the range of 10 to 15 kilotons, indicating that it was smaller than the Nagasaki bomb dropped by the US on Japan in the World War II. 🍵

The Atomic Energy Commission said that it had carried out its “peaceful nuclear explosion experiment using an implosion device.” One Indian scientific analyst said that the implosion technique implied that India had perfected a technology more sophisticated than that used by the US for the first atomic weapon dropped on Japan.

In an implosion-type nuclear weapon design, a sphere of plutonium, uranium, or other fissile material is imploded by a spherical arrangement of explosive charges. This decreases the material’s volume and thus increases its density by a factor of two to three, causing it to reach critical mass and create a nuclear explosion. The implosion method is a crucial technique for achieving efficient and powerful nuclear detonations.

Dr. Sethna said in a news conference: “It was a 100 percent Indian effort, and the plutonium required for the explosion was produced in India.” A Government statement emphasized India’s advancing nuclear power. The program was designed for “peaceful uses” such as mining and earth moving. India has “no intention of producing nuclear weapons and reiterated its strong opposition to military uses of nuclear devices,” the statement said.

The then Indira Gandhi government underscored that the test was designed for advancing nuclear programs for “peaceful uses” such as mining and earth moving, and the country had “no intention of producing nuclear weapons and reiterated its strong opposition to military uses of nuclear devices,” the government statement said. 🍵

Later in the day, Prime Minister Gandhi publicly congratulated the scientists at a news conference with Dr. Sethna. “It is a significant achievement for them and the whole country,” Mrs. Gandhi said of the scientists. “We are proud of them. They worked hard and have done a good, clean job.”

US Intelligence Caught Napping​

The US has been monitoring the development of India’s nuclear program since 1958; however, when the Buddha smiled in Pokhran, the US sleuths were caught off guard. The secrecy around the program was such that the US intelligence community, in the aftermath of the blast, was forced to run simulations to estimate the power of the nuclear bomb.

The de-classified CIA dispatches discussed how the intelligence community failed to warn US decision-makers that such a test was being planned.

“The failure denied the US Government the option of considering diplomatic or other initiatives to try to prevent this significant step in nuclear proliferation,” a ‘Post Mortem Report – An Examination of the Intelligence Community’s Performance before the Indian Nuclear test of May 1974” read.

The failure to predict the test left the US Intelligence Community red-faced as it was estimated as far back as 1965 that India, in the next few years, would detonate a nuclear device. The post-mortem report contributed to the inability to predict the actual event due to two factors: “inadequate communications” among the different agencies. 🍵

The secrecy of the Indian nuclear program was set in 1948. In 1946, Homi Bhabha became the chairman of the newly set up Atomic Energy Research Committee. In 1948, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru brought legislation to create the Atomic Energy Commission, imposing a veil of secrecy over atomic energy research and development, and established government ownership of uranium, thorium, and all other relevant materials. 🍵

The collective efforts of the organizations gathering intelligence on Indian nuclear activities – including the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, Defense Intelligence Agency, and State Department — did not result in US intelligence analysts warning US officials of India’s nuclear tests carried out in May 1974.

“The Buddha has finally smiled,” Raja Ramanna, the then director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), conveyed to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi after the test’s success. The test presented two questions: Does India have the capability to build a nuclear device, and what is the likelihood that it will do so?

For the next few years, the US intelligence community was on tenterhooks, expecting the second nuclear test to follow. They were lulled into complacency when India did a second nuclear test in 1998, and again, the US did not see it coming. In the last five decades, the Indian nuclear program – both civil and military has come a long way since the ‘Smiling Buddha.’

6th Country With Nukes! How India Fooled The US, Bamboozled Russia To Conduct Its 1st Atomic Test

In 1974, when India tested its first nuclear bomb under an operation deceptively coded named ‘Smiling Buddha,’ it was a signatory of the Moscow test-ban treaty of 1963. However, the Indian establishment flouted a loophole in international law, and the explosion became a legal act of defiance...

www.eurasiantimes.com

Thank you Sir for your informative research. I am proud of our Buddha.
Now I think we need to cash up our knowledge and experience and bring wealth to the country. We have get out there and create cheaper cleaner greener energy solutions by building smarter nuclear power generators. Simultaneously we have to think of ways of recycling nuclear waste materials.