India needs to take out terror targets in Pakistan

[Yusuf]

I am dang sure Kargil happened during his regime ...
True first nuke was done during gandhi indira's time, and no one is saying see is spineless, she was pretty awesome infact... it needs balls to split an enemy state in two. She achieved it. I have seen a couple of her interviews, and congress now isn't even 1% of her or when she was in charge.

Now, regarding bjp, realize that they conducted a nuke test under tremendous pressure from all foreign states to not pursue that as it could spark a arms race in south asia and in general asia... they still went ahead with an underground version with elaborate deceptions in place to fool us spy satellite uplinks ... this needs will and planning...

I am yet to see that from congress.

Who told you pv ns rao did all ground work ? THats gibberish.... I know for a fact that congress blamed bjp for 5-6 years after that test ....

My objective sense is better than most present here... but its also adjusted and affected by muslim fanaticism.

It says a lot about your knowledge when you call "gibberish" about what PVN did. It's the only shining example of bipartisan effort on an issue of national security.


Here read this

LIKE some other stray remarks that can sometimes be more crucial than formal policy pronouncements at august forums, former Prime Minister and most respected BJP leader, Atal Behari Vajpayee's sudden disclosure — that the "real architect" of the 1998 nuclear tests was P.V. Narasimha Rao — has created a sensation across the country.

Understandably, for Mr Vajpayee said at a literary meeting at Gwalior that while Rao was demitting office in May 1996, he had handed him a "piece of paper that contained brief information about preparations for nuclear explosion at Pokhran (and) suggested continuing with these preparations, as neighbours (China and Pakistan) already possessed nuclear weapons". The note, the BJP leader added, had brought him "joy" and also "stunned me".

This should hopefully go some way to clear up the confusion about the evolution of the country's nuclear policy and programme which has been caused partly by astonishing and surprisingly widespread ignorance even in decision-making circles and partly by the polity's endless discord that has made the nuclear issue a plaything of partisan politics.

Ironically, the first point to be made in the present context is that what Atalji has revealed is not so great a secret as it might appear. For, it has been well known to the cognoscenti both here and abroad. Indeed, foreigners know more than do most Indians. However, it is important that the country has heard about what had actually transpired from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

What Mr Vajpayee has not cared to mention is that the Shakti series of nuclear tests would have been conducted two years before they actually were had not his first government turned out to be a 13-day wonder. Consequently, Rao confidentially repeated to Mr Deve Gowda the advice he had earlier given Atalji. The backdrop to these events is crystal clear but it has either not sunk in public consciousness or is being wilfully ignored.

Jawaharlal Nehru, who once said that "every pore" of his body "abhorred" nuclear weapons, was equally adamant that he could not "bind" future Parliaments and future generations to using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes only while other countries obstinately persisted in making military use of this technology. On a famous occasion in 1957 when the great nuclear scientist and first Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Homi Bhaba, suggested to the Prime Minister that India should forswear nuclear weapons and thus occupy the "moral high ground", Nehru had replied, "Homi, come to me with this idea when we are close to being able to make the Bomb". Incidentally, this also underscores how spurious is the general belief that Bhaba was a hawk about building the Bomb and Nehru was "restraining" him.

Lal Bahadur Shastri, in whose time China became a nuclear weapon power just two years after the traumatic border war in the high Himalayas, did not confine himself to looking for a nuclear umbrella. During his short-lived tenure he also sanctioned SNEP (Subterranean Nuclear Explosion Project). But because of his sudden death, followed almost immediately by that of Bhaba, the project did not take off.

It was Indira Gandhi who conducted the 1974 PNE (peaceful nuclear experiment). What was detonated was not a "nuclear device" but a "nuclear bomb", as Raja Ramanna, the architect of that experiment confirmed years later. For various reasons, including international pressure and U.S. sanctions, she could not, or rather did not, take the necessary follow-up measures. Even in 1983 she again had to abandon renewed preparations for a second test — as Mr R. Venkataraman, her Defence Minister then and later President, has testified. The development of technology for the production of nuclear weapons continued, however.

In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi authorised the weaponisation of the Indian nuclear programme. To his dismay, the international community had totally disregarded his three-phase plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons he had presented to the UN Special Conference on Disarmament. Worse, he had also discovered around that time that Pakistan had already produced a nuclear weapon, thanks to China's help and America's acquiescence. Thus, there was a period of at least a year during which Pakistan had the Bomb but this country didn't. Mr Vajpayee discreetly acknowledged this in the course of his remarks at Gwalior.

That is where the irony of the Narasimha Rao years comes in. He was scrupulously following the policies of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and pursuing their nuclear and missile programmes. But he was doing it in his own way and even let the impression grow that he had put these ventures in "cold storage" under American pressure.

The sad story of the last-minute cancellation of the December 1995 nuclear test is too well known to need recounting, though Rao has carried his version of what happened to his funeral pyre, as he had always said he would. The material fact is that one of the six weapons tested on May 11, 1998, was placed in the Pokhran shaft in 1995.

Under these circumstances, what could have been more incomprehensible than that the Congress, especially some of its leaders, should have criticised the nuclear tests not only at that time but also much later? However, if the Congress side has been remiss on this score, the lapse of Mr Vajpayee and the BJP is much the greater.

Mr Vajpayee, who now acknowledges that not only was Mr Rao, as Prime Minister, consulting him but also it was he who encouraged him to go ahead with a fresh blast at Pokhran, surely had a duty on the day the earth shook at Pokhran a second time. He should have taken Congress leaders, including Rao, into confidence at least after the tests had taken place. More, he should have invited not only PV and all other former Prime Ministers but also the Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, to be with him while announcing what was, and will always remain, a grand, national achievement. Instead, he staged a solo performance that the BJP mindlessly converted into crassly partisan and jingoistic extravaganza.

Only such a climate can give rise to the absurd notion that South Asia was nuclearised only in May 1998. The reality is that this had happened eight years earlier when both countries had developed nuclear weapons of their own. Innocent souls pretending that untested weapons don't mean anything need to be reminded that the bomb that decimated Hiroshima was totally untested. Only the one dropped at Nagasaki later was.

 

[Yusuf]

And more

The late P V Narasimha Rao (1921-2004) will probably be best remembered for the unleashing India's economic potential when India's license-raj was jettisoned under his watch. In the early 1990s, he provided the much needed political cover to Dr Manmohan Singh and the reform team as they tore down the contortions that passed off as economic policy.

But, as former prime minister Vajpayee revealed, Rao's national security legacy was no less important.
Participating at a writers’ meet in Gwalior, a somewhat emotional Vajpayee said that when he took over as prime minister in 1996 (the 13-day stint), Rao gave him a small piece of paper. When he unfolded it, he was surprised to read “bomb is ready you can go ahead.”
“Rao had asked me not to make it public, but today when he is dead and gone, I wish to place the record straight.”

He added: “Rao told me that the bomb is ready. I exploded it. I did not miss the opportunity.”

Vajpayee said he never blamed the Congress on this count. “They too wanted a strong India to counter Pakistan and China. In foreign policy matters, they never lacked commitment,” he said. “But they might be having some problems.”[Daily Times (emphasis mine)]


The decision to go nuclear in 1988 was secret. The question after Rajiv Gandhi was when and how India would come out of the nuclear closet. Every nuclear programme faces its most dangerous moments in its initial phases. That precisely is what Rao confronted in 1991. The end of the Cold War and the international concerns on non-proliferation resulted in relentless pressures from the US to cap India’s nuclear programme.
Rao’s mandate to his foreign secretary J.N. Dixit (1991-94) was to buy time and space for India’s bomb programme.

Together Rao and Dixit, now the national security adviser, devised a variety of diplomatic strategems to resist international pressures without confronting the US head-on and thus gained valuable time for Indian scientists to come up with a credible programme of nuclear tests, including the Hydrogen bomb.

The appointed day arrived in mid-December 1995. The nuclear devices were already put into the L-shaped hole dug for the purpose in Pokhran desert. The Ministries of External Affairs and Finance had estimated of the costs of US sanctions that would have followed. The officer in the MEA specialising in the nuclear issue had a prepared statement in his drawer justifying India’s decision.

As US satellite pictures began to show Indian preparations for the test, the New York Times broke the story about India’s plans to test on December 15. After two days, India finally declared it had no intention to test.Had Rao tested in 1995, India’s political history might have been different. With elections due in mid-1996, the nuclear card could have possibly returned Rao to power. Yet, inexplicably Rao chose not to. Some say he succumbed to US pressure. Others say he was concerned about Pakistan’s reaction and the economic consequences.[C Raja Mohan/IE]

PV Narasimha Rao and the Bomb | The Acorn

 

[Yusuf]

In the background of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's obituary tribute to P.V. Narasimha Rao acknowledging the latter as the true father of Shakti nuclear test of May 11, 1998, let me recall Rao's role in the development of the Indian nuclear deterrent as narrated by him. This is important in order to understand the correct historical perspective about very important decisions of the past; in this case, Rao's account of the evolution of the nuclear policy during his term of office.

When the Kargil Committee wrote to Rao that they would like to meet him, he asked me to meet him alone. He was President of IDSA from 1980 to 1987 when I was its Director. We had, therefore, known each other over a period of years. In the meeting, taking advantage of Rao's offer to discuss on the nuclear issue on a one-to-one basis, I asked him why he called off the nuclear test of December 1995. He said there was no consensus on the test. There were divisions not only among the economists and administrators but also among the scientists themselves. He felt that he would conduct the test if he came back to office.

I asked him whether he did not owe it to the country and future generations to give his account of the evolution of the nuclear policy during his term of office. I also reminded him while I was not at the centre of decision-making on the nuclear issue I had been on the periphery of it. He said he was aware of it and would be prepared to talk to me in my individual capacity but not to the Kargil Committee. When I pressed him further on his obligations to future generations, he said he had an obligation only to one person and he had discharged it to the full. When I asked him who that person was, he replied "Atalji who succeeded me. I have briefed him fully." It is obvious from his statement that he had told Atalji all he had to know.

The Kargil Committee (George Verghese) also asked him why the defence budget was cut during his time. Rao replied that was because the nuclear deterrent was under development and that had priority. Then he proceeded to tell us on his own, how the nuclear arsenal was operationalised only during his premiership. Subsequently, a record of discussion, including what he told us on the progress of the nuclear programme during his tenure, was sent to him, as was done in all other cases. I was wondering whether on second thoughts, he would cut out the portion on the nuclear issue. He did not, but signed the record as it was and returned it. One could understand why the NDA had an interest in not publishing the annexures of the Kargil report since the Rao account would have appropriated most of the credit for nuclear weapon development to the Congress. The publication of the annexures at this stage would be to the advantage of the UPA.

Perhaps it was fortunate that the tests got postponed by two years. That gave enough time for Dr Chidambaram to finalise his design of the thermo-nuclear device that was tested in May 1998. Some people have attributed Vajpayee's determination to conduct the test to Brajesh Mishra's urging. That raises the question how Vajpayee attempted to conduct the test during his 13-day tenure of office when Mishra was not around. Vajpayee's present disclosure would tend to support the view that he was egged on at that time by Rao.

Rao would not have acted without cold calculation. In 1994 concerned with the apparent lack of progress on the weapons programme, I gave Brajesh Mishra a draft resolution for the BJP to move in Parliament that the Government of India would continue with its preparations for nuclear weapon capability and would never sign the NPT. A little later, Mishra informed me that when Vajpayee showed the resolution to Rao the latter assured him that the programme was on track and there was no need for such a resolution.

In 1985, Dr Ramanna, as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and myself as Director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, both members of Rajiv Gandhi's interdisciplinary group drafted two proposals to be presented to Pakistan – one on no-first-use of nuclear weapons and two, a mutual pledge not to attack each other's nuclear installations. Rajiv Gandhi favoured both proposals. At that stage, Rao was the Defence Minister. He summoned Dr Ramanna, Dr Arunachalam and me and discussed the proposals. That was the first time I came to realise that Rao was among the few in the decision-making loop on nuclear weapons. He told us that while he was in favour of our proposals in principle, he was against initiating the no-first-use proposal at that stage. His reason: the Prime Minister had done so much of talking on Pakistani nuclear weapons that our offers would lead the Pakistanis to conclude that India was initiating them out of a sense of weakness and fear. Rajiv accepted this logic. So while the proposal on mutual non-attack on each other's nuclear installations was pursued by Rajiv Gandhi, the no-first-use proposal was dropped for the time being.

In 1994, January, J.N. Dixit was laying down office as Foreign Secretary. He called me up on telephone and told me that he had come back from Pakistan where he presented to the Pakistanis six non-papers. One of them was on an agreement on no-first-use of nuclear capabilities. He said he had carried out what I had been urging for years.

In 1985 I proposed to Rao, then Defence Minister, that our armed forces needed to be educated further on nuclear strategy. My own knowledge of nuclear strategy and my visits to the National Defence College and Wellington Staff College led me to believe that the expertise of our armed forces on nuclear strategy and doctrines should be advanced further. So I suggested that Lt. General Sundarji, then Vice Chief of Army Staff should be requested to prepare an instruction programme on the subject. Again Rao told me 'not yet'. Sundarji and myself attributed this reluctance to Rao's then widely believed tendency to avoid decisions. But during my private conversation with Rao during the Kargil hearings, I realised, as a cautious man he was not perhaps willing to launch any step which would tell the world that India had weapons till they were fully ready. His complaint was that till he took over as PM, the Indian weapon effort was not at optimum speed; a complaint that I am in no position to confirm or deny. According to Rao, he bought time till the country was ready and then attempted to go for testing.

I am recording the last two conversations Rao had with me during the Kargil enquiry because of their relevance to history.

Though the credit for the order to assemble the weapon goes to Rajiv Gandhi and the credit for restarting the development programme of the weapon after Morarji Desai halted it belongs to Indira Gandhi, it was Narasimha Rao who operationalised it. In other words, there has been a consistent continuity in the Indian nuclear policy under Congress governments. Even while working hard for nuclear disarmament, Congress prime ministers were hardheaded people who did not put all their eggs only in the basket of nuclear disarmament. During the time when Rao was Prime Minister, when India was under considerable pressure from the US to roll back its nuclear programme, he appears to have kept Vajpayee informed of the progress in the nuclear programme.

The evidence of this is that there was no pressure from the BJP in Parliament on the nuclear issue though there was a widespread impression in the country that the programmes had been slowed down under US pressure. Unfortunately, Rao's statesmanship in treating the nuclear issue as a nonpartisan national issue did not appear to have been reciprocated by the NDA leadership on the day of the Shakti tests.

The present UPA government in which the Congress party plays the dominant role must prepare a white paper on the evolution of India's nuclear policy so that there will be necessary continuity in the documentation of the country's security and foreign policy. This has been advocated by the Kargil Committee.

Narasimha Rao and the Bomb | Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses

 

[VatsaOfBhrigus]

In the background of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's obituary tribute to P.V. Narasimha Rao acknowledging the latter as the true father of Shakti nuclear test of May 11, 1998, let me recall Rao's role in the development of the Indian nuclear deterrent as narrated by him. This is important in order to understand the correct historical perspective about very important decisions of the past; in this case, Rao's account of the evolution of the nuclear policy during his term of office.

When the Kargil Committee wrote to Rao that they would like to meet him, he asked me to meet him alone. He was President of IDSA from 1980 to 1987 when I was its Director. We had, therefore, known each other over a period of years. In the meeting, taking advantage of Rao's offer to discuss on the nuclear issue on a one-to-one basis, I asked him why he called off the nuclear test of December 1995. He said there was no consensus on the test. There were divisions not only among the economists and administrators but also among the scientists themselves. He felt that he would conduct the test if he came back to office.

I asked him whether he did not owe it to the country and future generations to give his account of the evolution of the nuclear policy during his term of office. I also reminded him while I was not at the centre of decision-making on the nuclear issue I had been on the periphery of it. He said he was aware of it and would be prepared to talk to me in my individual capacity but not to the Kargil Committee. When I pressed him further on his obligations to future generations, he said he had an obligation only to one person and he had discharged it to the full. When I asked him who that person was, he replied "Atalji who succeeded me. I have briefed him fully." It is obvious from his statement that he had told Atalji all he had to know.

The Kargil Committee (George Verghese) also asked him why the defence budget was cut during his time. Rao replied that was because the nuclear deterrent was under development and that had priority. Then he proceeded to tell us on his own, how the nuclear arsenal was operationalised only during his premiership. Subsequently, a record of discussion, including what he told us on the progress of the nuclear programme during his tenure, was sent to him, as was done in all other cases. I was wondering whether on second thoughts, he would cut out the portion on the nuclear issue. He did not, but signed the record as it was and returned it. One could understand why the NDA had an interest in not publishing the annexures of the Kargil report since the Rao account would have appropriated most of the credit for nuclear weapon development to the Congress. The publication of the annexures at this stage would be to the advantage of the UPA.

Perhaps it was fortunate that the tests got postponed by two years. That gave enough time for Dr Chidambaram to finalise his design of the thermo-nuclear device that was tested in May 1998. Some people have attributed Vajpayee's determination to conduct the test to Brajesh Mishra's urging. That raises the question how Vajpayee attempted to conduct the test during his 13-day tenure of office when Mishra was not around. Vajpayee's present disclosure would tend to support the view that he was egged on at that time by Rao.

Rao would not have acted without cold calculation. In 1994 concerned with the apparent lack of progress on the weapons programme, I gave Brajesh Mishra a draft resolution for the BJP to move in Parliament that the Government of India would continue with its preparations for nuclear weapon capability and would never sign the NPT. A little later, Mishra informed me that when Vajpayee showed the resolution to Rao the latter assured him that the programme was on track and there was no need for such a resolution.

In 1985, Dr Ramanna, as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and myself as Director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, both members of Rajiv Gandhi's interdisciplinary group drafted two proposals to be presented to Pakistan – one on no-first-use of nuclear weapons and two, a mutual pledge not to attack each other's nuclear installations. Rajiv Gandhi favoured both proposals. At that stage, Rao was the Defence Minister. He summoned Dr Ramanna, Dr Arunachalam and me and discussed the proposals. That was the first time I came to realise that Rao was among the few in the decision-making loop on nuclear weapons. He told us that while he was in favour of our proposals in principle, he was against initiating the no-first-use proposal at that stage. His reason: the Prime Minister had done so much of talking on Pakistani nuclear weapons that our offers would lead the Pakistanis to conclude that India was initiating them out of a sense of weakness and fear. Rajiv accepted this logic. So while the proposal on mutual non-attack on each other's nuclear installations was pursued by Rajiv Gandhi, the no-first-use proposal was dropped for the time being.

In 1994, January, J.N. Dixit was laying down office as Foreign Secretary. He called me up on telephone and told me that he had come back from Pakistan where he presented to the Pakistanis six non-papers. One of them was on an agreement on no-first-use of nuclear capabilities. He said he had carried out what I had been urging for years.

In 1985 I proposed to Rao, then Defence Minister, that our armed forces needed to be educated further on nuclear strategy. My own knowledge of nuclear strategy and my visits to the National Defence College and Wellington Staff College led me to believe that the expertise of our armed forces on nuclear strategy and doctrines should be advanced further. So I suggested that Lt. General Sundarji, then Vice Chief of Army Staff should be requested to prepare an instruction programme on the subject. Again Rao told me 'not yet'. Sundarji and myself attributed this reluctance to Rao's then widely believed tendency to avoid decisions. But during my private conversation with Rao during the Kargil hearings, I realised, as a cautious man he was not perhaps willing to launch any step which would tell the world that India had weapons till they were fully ready. His complaint was that till he took over as PM, the Indian weapon effort was not at optimum speed; a complaint that I am in no position to confirm or deny. According to Rao, he bought time till the country was ready and then attempted to go for testing.

I am recording the last two conversations Rao had with me during the Kargil enquiry because of their relevance to history.

Though the credit for the order to assemble the weapon goes to Rajiv Gandhi and the credit for restarting the development programme of the weapon after Morarji Desai halted it belongs to Indira Gandhi, it was Narasimha Rao who operationalised it. In other words, there has been a consistent continuity in the Indian nuclear policy under Congress governments. Even while working hard for nuclear disarmament, Congress prime ministers were hardheaded people who did not put all their eggs only in the basket of nuclear disarmament. During the time when Rao was Prime Minister, when India was under considerable pressure from the US to roll back its nuclear programme, he appears to have kept Vajpayee informed of the progress in the nuclear programme.

The evidence of this is that there was no pressure from the BJP in Parliament on the nuclear issue though there was a widespread impression in the country that the programmes had been slowed down under US pressure. Unfortunately, Rao's statesmanship in treating the nuclear issue as a nonpartisan national issue did not appear to have been reciprocated by the NDA leadership on the day of the Shakti tests.

The present UPA government in which the Congress party plays the dominant role must prepare a white paper on the evolution of India's nuclear policy so that there will be necessary continuity in the documentation of the country's security and foreign policy. This has been advocated by the Kargil Committee.

Narasimha Rao and the Bomb | Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses

I dont think it works this way.

it is about who breaks the bomb not who makes the bomb. If we go by that logic, people will say yes we had indian army forever, bjp just went to war.

Its the "act" of exploding the bomb that requires balls...

 

[Yusuf]

I dont think it works this way.

it is about who breaks the bomb not who makes the bomb. If we go by that logic, people will say yes we had indian army forever, bjp just went to war.

Its the "act" of exploding the bomb that requires balls...

I cannot argue with idiots. You win

 

[spikey360]

Both PV Rao and AB Vajpayee played their parts in making and 'breaking' the bomb. If one has to credit Vajpayee, surely he has to acknowledge PV Rao's contribution too. He would have gone ahead and exploded the bomb if the Americans had not detected it.
Atalji had the advantage of learning from that failure and elaborate preparations were taken just to avoid detection. How much sweat and blood and toil went into the dressing up of the Pokhran range alone is a matter best discussed in some other threads, cause that stuff is pure genius and very inspiring.
Anyway, let us not debate who we have to credit more for Shakti tests, because Shakti was possible because of Smiling Buddha and again, Smiling Buddha was possible because Neheru did not block India's nuclear progress. Therefore, on the nuclear issue, both Congress and BJP played their part in national history. We are one nation, at the end of the day. However polar opposite ideologies we might actually have, the Congressis were at one point in time as nationalistic as one can get and in any case, both the parties have same stance on the Nuclear bomb issue. Because it is not only their stance, but a stance of the free people of Bharatvarsh.

 

[VatsaOfBhrigus]

I cannot argue with idiots. You win

Yes yes.... employ some half-clever language constructs to hide your loss...