The Nuclear Giant

The father of the Indian nuclear weapons programme

In 1945, two years before India gained Independence, Homi Bhabha launched the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) with generous help from J.R.D. Tata and in 1948 became chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru tasked him with developing nuclear weapons soon after. From the very outset, just four months after Hiroshima, he was in command and remained so guiding India’s nuclear future. Representing India from 1950 at the conferences of the International Atomic Energy Agency—ostensibly to discuss the peaceful uses of nuclear energy—it enabled him to learn what other nations were doing and appreciate how India had a lot to do to catch up with them. He intensified the lobbying to develop nuclear weapons and after the India-China war, campaigned for it vigorously and openly.

At a time when sharing of information about atomic energy activities by different countries was scanty, he envisioned, with a broad perspective, a comprehensive nuclear programme relying on a three stage fusion-to-fission programme, tapping the available atomic mineral deposits in the country (considering India’s reserves of thorium is 10 times that of uranium). He reasoned that the aim of the atomic power programme must be to base the nuclear power generation on thorium rather than uranium which can, at best, be used only as a start-off. The plutonium produced by it can be used in a second generation of power stations that converts thorium into uranium which leads on to third generation breeder power stations which would produce more uranium than they burn in the course of producing power.