POKHARAN-II,
“IT IS DIFFICULT FOR ME TO DESCRIBE THE MOMENT,” VAJPAYEE SAID, “BUT I FELT A SENSE OF FULFILMENT AND JOY”
1998, was a shining moment in Vajpayee’s career. He showed exemplary foresight, clarity and conviction in carrying out the nuclear tests. It enabled India to enhance its atomic weapons capability and laid the foundation for the civil-nuclear deal with the US which put an end to India’s nuclear apartheid
The Prime Minister’s Office in the extreme corner of Delhi’s South Block is among the most spartan in the country. Apart from a large desk, two nondescript sofa sets crowd the extremes of the room. A portrait of Mahatma Gandhi hangs on one of the walls. Atal Bihari Vajpayee had nothing changed when he moved into the office on March 19, 1998, the day he was sworn in as prime minister for the second time. The very next day, he summoned the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) chief, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and Atomic Energy Commission chairman R. Chidambaram to his office to brief them about the possibility of conducting a nuclear test.
Vajpayee’s decision to move on the nuclear issue so quickly after assuming office had caught many by surprise. But few knew that he had ordered for a test in his first term as prime minister in May 1996, but was forced to pull back when his government fell within 13 days. In 1998, the memory of the cancellation haunted him. He was aware that he headed a fragile coalition again and that the clock was ticking. So he moved fast.
When Kalam and Chidambaram were ushered into his office, Vajpayee was seated behind his desk. Chidambaram had come equipped with diagrams drawn on plastic sheets for the meeting and carried them awkwardly inside. Vajpayee had also summoned Brajesh Mishra, who had been appointed his principal secretary the previous afternoon. Chidambaram came straight to the point. He told Vajpayee that after his previous briefing to him as prime minister in 1996, the team had been able to master the technology to make a hydrogen bomb. Vajpayee looked delighted. Using illustrations, Chidambaram then explained the difference between an atom bomb and a hydrogen bomb. But when the atomic energy chief got too detailed in places, Vajpayee looked a bit fazed. He then turned to Kalam and asked him how many days it would take. Kalam replied, “Sir, T minus 30 days.” When Vajpayee looked askance, Kalam smiled and said it meant 30 days from the day he passed the order to do the tests. Vajpayee ended the meeting by telling them to start preparing for the tests and he’d let them know when he would clear it.
The prime minister, meanwhile, asked Mishra to assess the implications of the nuclear tests and chalk out a strategy to deal with any international fallout. Days later, Mishra briefed Vajpayee. He told him that the ground for the tests had already been prepared by the previous governments. The security situation around India had deteriorated. Now several countries, including Pakistan, were equipped with missiles, possibly even nucleartipped ones, that could threaten India. Moreover, with the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, India’s door for conducting a test was rapidly closing. The review of the treaty was due in September 1999 where the question of India signing it would come up.
When it came to the minuses, Mishra told him that while the foreign exchange reserves were high, economic growth had slowed down considerably and a recession was setting in. There was concern that the US would impose debilitating sanctions, including pressuring Gulf countries to deny India oil. But there were big pluses too for India’s security and its ambition to have a minimum nuclear deterrent. If India had to weather the storm that was certain to break out after the tests, it would need six clear months.
As Vajpayee sat listening quietly to Mishra, he felt the weight of the decision he was about to make. Over the years, Vajpayee had mastered the technique of getting to the core of a major issue without letting the mountains of arguments confound him. There was a simplicity and directness to his thinking that facilitated speedy decision-making. For him, if India had to regain its greatness, it had to be militarily powerful too. As he told one of his aides, “We have to be self-reliant in defence. We just can’t depend on others to come to our rescue.”
Vajpayee was a man of many contradictions. He also liked to be known as a messiah of peace. His poetry exhibited that desire in much measure. Many years ago before the tests, he had written a touching poem, titled ‘Jung na hone denge’, calling for peace between Pakistan and India: Pyar karein ya vaar karein... Khoon ek bahna hai// Jo hum par guzri hai/ Bachchon ke sang na hone denge (Whether we are friends or at war/ the same blood will flow// Whatever has befallen us/ We won’t let it happen to our children). Yet by conducting the 1998 tests, many felt that Vajpayee had pushed the region closer to the brink of a potentially devastating nuclear conflict.
After the tests, I requested for time to meet Vajpayee to quiz him for a book I was writing on the history of India’s atomic bomb. Among the questions I asked him was if he, like
Arjuna in the Mahabharata, felt conflicted by his decision to conduct the tests given that he cared as much about peace. He sat quietly for a while and then, with characteristic brevity, told me, “There was no need for much thought. We just had to do it.” Later, at a function to release an audio recording of his poems, he explained: “It may seem contradictory that a person who writes about peace has exploded nuclear bombs. But though there may have been inner conflicts, I can assure you there were no inner contradictions.”
There was also a grand alliance of circumstances that would make it only a win-win situation for Vajpayee if he tested. Given just how chauvinistic the RSS was about the bomb, it would immediately endear him to the hardliners and set at rest their fears about his diluting their agenda. Vajpayee was aware that nuclear weapons were symbolic of strength and power and would give India something to be proud of. Some of that halo was certain to stick on his person as well and quell any impression of him being an effete leader.
On May 11, 1998, the day of the tests, he summoned four of his colleagues to his official residence at Delhi’s Race Course Road—home minister L.K. Advani, defence minister George Fernandes, finance minister Yashwant Sinha and deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Jaswant Singh—as they waited for the results from the Pokharan range in Rajasthan. They all sat quietly on chairs around the prime minister’s dining table as the tests were delayed for a couple of hours.
When Kalam finally called from Pokharan to brief Mishra about the success of the tests, he broke the news to Vajpayee and the cabinet ministers seated around him. A delightful smile spread across the prime minister’s face. Later, Vajpayee told me: ‘It is difficult to describe the moment, but I felt a sense of fulfilment and joy.’ Fernandes and Advani had tears in their eyes when they heard the news. The ministers shook hands and left.
Vajpayee then walked out of his house where press reporters were hastily summoned. Minutes before, Pramod Mahajan, his trusted aide, had the sense to place an Indian flag prominently as a backdrop to the rostrum. Vajpayee then read out a brief statement stating that the tests were successful and congratulated the scientists and engineers on their feat. In a significant departure from Mrs Indira Gandhi’s statement after the 1974 blast, which Vajpayee himself pointed out later, he did not use the word ‘peaceful’ to describe the nuclear explosions.
Two days later, on May 13, the earth shook again at Pokharan but far less violently as India conducted two more tests. While shedding the coyness over India’s nuclear status, Vajpayee in an interview to india today explained: “We do not want to cover our action with a needless veil of ambiguity. India is now a nuclear weapon state. But our intentions were, are and will always be peaceful.”
When Pakistan retorted with six nuclear tests a fortnight after India’s 1998 explosions, Vajpayee was convinced that the tensions between the two countries would now reduce. He told an aide: “Now that we have demonstrated that we both have nuclear weapons, we can’t afford to go to war. We will come closer to each other and it will open the road to cooperation.”
Vajpayee would be both right and terribly wrong. Nine months later, on February 20, 1999, he made history by crossing over in a bus to Lahore in Pakistan for a summit meeting with Nawaz Sharif, his counterpart, to find ways to reduce tensions between the two countries and the chances of a nuclear conflict. It looked as if a breakthrough had been achieved. But within months, Pakistan would betray that trust when its army in May made a determined bid to occupy the key heights in Kargil on the Indian side of the Line of Control. And even indulged in a bit of sabre-rattling by threatening to use nuclear weapons if India dared to declare an all-out war.
Meanwhile, the US and several other European countries too had imposed sanctions against both India and Pakistan for conducting nuclear tests. Vajpayee had calculated for such an eventuality and said: “I had faith in the country’s inherent strength to withstand any difficulties that may arise out of the test. The fundamentals of the economy were strong and on such issues I believe our people are ready to make any sacrifice for the security of the country.” He was right. For, in 2000, in a sign of reconciliation, President Bill Clinton made his maiden visit to India—the first American head of state to do so in two decades.
Vajpayee’s clarity, conviction and foresight to conduct the tests would earn him a permanent place in India’s nuclear history and set the ball rolling for the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Agreement signed by his successor Dr Manmohan Singh in 2005 that would end the nuclear apartheid against India.
WHEN ASKED IF HE FELT CONFLICTED LIKE ARJUNA IN MAHABHARATA, VAJPAYEE SAID, ‘THERE WAS NO NEED FOR THOUGHT, WE HAD TO DO IT’