For his part, Bhabha made no secret of his conviction that India could produce a nuclear bomb in 18 months at no more than Rs. 30 lakhs each. Nehru’s successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, and other political leaders were not yet prepared to go that far even though pressure within the Congress party to go nuclear was on the increase. K. C. Pant, later defence minister, and Krishan Kant, later vice-president, were principal advocates of nuclear weapons.

What Shastri did authorise, however, was a Subterranean Nuclear Exploration Project (SNEP). It did not make headway because of deaths in quick succession of both Shastri and Bhabha. Like Shastri, Indira Gandhi also wasted some time in the meaningless search for a “nuclear security umbrella” by the two superpowers.

Profound foreign policy and security developments during 1971 — Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to China and his subsequent warning that in case China became involved in the crisis in Bangladesh, India should not expect American support; the signing of the Indo-Soviet treaty Indira Gandhi wasn’t enthusiastic about until then; and above all, America’s dispatch of the Enterprise-led nuclear task force to the Bay of Bengal during the Bangladesh War — became the second and clinching reason for taking the plunge. Indira Gandhi’s numerous critics have roundly blamed her for conducting the test for purely political reasons. Nothing cam be farther from the truth. At the time of Pokhran-I she was doubtless beleaguered. But she had authorised the test in September 1972 when her popularity was at its peak.

... contd.