How Indian PMs reacted to nuclear ambitions

[Capt.Popeye]

Mr.Shastri did not even repay his car loan-True Fact.
Mr.Vajapayee was responsible for the Golden Quadrilateral(love this!!!)

The "ABSOLUTE TRUTH" is that Lal Bahadur Shastri died an untimely death, therefore his repayment on his car loan (a Fiat, BTW) remained incomplete. His family completed the repayment EMIs after his death. The loan was not waived.
Correct your alleged "True Fact", mister.

Addendum (in view of Post#29 by Bharadwaj)
Appreciate the clarification by Bharadwaj on the matter.
However, I need to add that the information about Nehru's shirts etc being ironed in Europe or wherever is also in the realm of "mythology". I don't admire Nehru, but that will be no excuse for me to propagate any unsubstantiated stories.

 

[President Camacho]

Lets see, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were instrumental in starting and later restarting the nuclear weapons program while Vajpayee opposed nuclear testing until push came to shove in 1998 and was basically forces to do so.

So who should get the credit for building up the nuke program?

So right EjazR, even Vajpayee himself said (after Rao's death) that while giving up the office, Rao quietly handed him a piece of paper that read, "Bomb is ready. You can go ahead." (referring to a nuclear device) and asked that it should not be made public. It was so ripe and ready by the late 90's itself and it took the coalition and JD and BJP over 10 years to explode it.

 

[rajusri]

'Morarji Desai did not like that we had conducted a nuclear explosion'

Desai was the worst PM India ever had. He liked to oppose everything good for India.

When the Janata Party government came in (in 1977), Morarji Desai did not like that we had conducted a nuclear explosion and did not like Ramanna (since he had led the test).

He (Desai) even denied that there was any nuclear test. He continued to hold that tonnes of explosives were buried and exploded!

Is it because he thought Mrs Gandhi did it merely to overawe the domestic Opposition and not for any strategic reasons?

Yes. At that time the US was trying to persuade us to adopt full-scope safeguards -- that is everything should come under safeguards.

V Shankar, who was Morarji Desai's secretary, was in favour of it. So he told the Americans that we will examine it. The Americans were confident that India would accept it. Sethna was opposed to full-scope safeguards.

Morarji had said in Parliament that the Americans are proposing it and there is nothing wrong in examining it. Actually I discovered through Sethna that the proposal was originated by Shankar and not the Americans.

So I got a copy of the note from the Americans to Sethna which called it 'Mr Shankar's proposal.'

I got a photocopy of it and brought it to the notice of Cabinet Secretary Nirmal Mukherjee that Morarji Desai could be cited for contempt of Parliament since he had told Parliament that it was an American proposal whereas it was actually Shankar's proposal. So the Cabinet secretary took it to Morarji.

Was Shankar's proposal meant for the Cabinet?

No. It was for the Indians to discuss with the Americans. Thus it was buried. Then Morarji went and made a speech in the UN General Assembly saying we will not conduct any more explosions.

After he had read out that portion of his speech in the Cabinet, a message was sent through then President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy to drop it from his speech.

In spite of that Morarji said it in the UN and he faced a lot of opposition when he came back. He tried to wriggle out, saying I said an explosion and not test etc.

 

[rajusri]

However, I am told that research went on and Rajiv did not stop it and then in 1988 he came out with his disarmament plan and put it before the UN and then to his horror he discovered that no one took any notice of it.

He came back a disillusioned man and on the day of the air force demo at Tilpat outside Delhi, he said 'Let us go ahead.'

Thus in March 1989 or so he sanctioned the weapons programme.

Indians learn everything late.

Rajiv knew all that, but he still tried very hard (not to sanction the nuclear programme). Finally in 1989 the same man sanctioned the weapons programme. By 1990 we had not assembled many weapons, but the Americans came to us and said that Pakistan is threatening to use nuclear weapons against India.

 

[jha]

Desai was the worst PM India ever had. He liked to oppose everything good for India.

You will be horrified to know how he treated the indian spies who were freed from Pakistani cells in his tenure.. I had a chance to meet one and when he narrated the story, i could not believe why this person was tolerated in PMO..
His famous phone call to Pakistani counterpart led to the capture of only mole RAW had in Pakistani nuclear program..If he had not done this and everything would have gone as planned, we would have been living in much safer environment..

 

[Swati Shukla]

Lets see, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were instrumental in starting and later restarting the nuclear weapons program while Vajpayee opposed nuclear testing until push came to shove in 1998 and was basically forces to do so.

So who should get the credit for building up the nuke program? Vajpayee has many achivements to his name but national security espicially external security was not his strong point. Kargil War - the intelligence failure and its response, the hijacking and its response and later the terrorist bombings in J&K asembly and the parliament and its response are all examples of such.

However, his Kashmir reconciliation policy is admited even by sepratists Kashmiris as being the best. And infact, credit him for running the first credible elections since 1987 in Kashmir.

credit for our nuclear weapon goes to vajpayee ji... if he had not been our pm that time, believe me, the govt. still would have been thinking to test them someday. btw, kashmir was an intelligence failure and parliament attack followed operation parakram which gives us cold start and a better army.

 

[Skull and Bones]

India can't build a H-Bomb because you don't have honest hard working scientists/engineers, you just have a groups big mouths keep talking.

Eat this troll

Tritium from Power Plants gives India an H-bomb capability

India's Nuclear Weapons Program - Operation Shakti: 1998

 

[Firemaster]

Great article for the troll buddy I have read these articles earlier also

 

[shaktiman2010]

Vajpayee was best for India. Agreed.

 

[peaceful]

Forgot about the Soviet Help.Please thank them.
You can confirm this in the net.
Also who are you to comment on India's H-Bomb Mr.Armchair General.Are the Head of SIPRI?

yes, you are right, everything we got are from the ussr.

now you happier?

 

[KS]

So right EjazR, even Vajpayee himself said (after Rao's death) that while giving up the office, Rao quietly handed him a piece of paper that read, "Bomb is ready. You can go ahead." (referring to a nuclear device) and asked that it should not be made public. It was so ripe and ready by the late 90's itself and it took the coalition and JD and BJP over 10 years to explode it.

It was actually - " I could not do it, you do it" referring to conducting the tests in the context of fooling American spy satellites.

 

[hembo]

credit for our nuclear weapon goes to vajpayee ji... if he had not been our pm that time, believe me, the govt. still would have been thinking to test them someday. btw, kashmir was an intelligence failure and parliament attack followed operation parakram which gives us cold start and a better army.

Vajpayee was one of the greatest orator, poet and clean politician of India. He may have done a lot of great things for India, but he can never be be given the credit for the nuclear tests, just because it was done when he was in power. That is where we go wrong and forget to give due credit to those who had initiated, sustained and vehemently pursued the program in spite of tremendous international pressure. Let's not get blind by our love for a particular political group and hail all those who had made it possible for India, regardless of their political affiliation.

In fact Vajpayeeji had originally opposed the program.

I was not present, but Nirmal Mukherjee told me that the decision to resume the (nuclear) programme was taken, but it was not unanimous. Three (Cabinet ministers) had voted for it and two had opposed it. He asked me to guess who were the two that had opposed the programme.

I said one was Morarji and that was correct, but I could not figure out who was the second. It was Atal Bihari Vajpayee!

BTW, a great find by the OP!! Keep it up bro!

 

[Swati Shukla]

Vajpayee was one of the greatest orator, poet and clean politician of India. He may have done a lot of great things for India, but he can never be be given the credit for the nuclear tests, just because it was done when he was in power. That is where we go wrong and forget to give due credit to those who had initiated, sustained and vehemently pursued the program in spite of tremendous international pressure. Let's not get blind by our love for a particular political group and hail all those who had made it possible for India, regardless of their political affiliation.

In fact Vajpayeeji had originally opposed the program.



BTW, a great find by the OP!! Keep it up bro!

The credit for the nuclear test goes to him sir. no one is taking away credit from previous pms, but there lies a big, big diff. between making it and testing it. and i damn sure that if it was mms govt. we still would have been thinking of testing them someday. no other leader has strength to do it, other than indira gandhi.

 

[Ajaxpaul]

The PM's dont make any decisions..Credit should go to the people who advices and influence his decisions.

 

[desioptimist]

Vajpayee had to do because the window to do so was closing.

The timing of Pokhran-II was probably dictated by the US-fashioned global coalition in favour of the indefinite and unconditional extension of the NPT (on 12 May 1995) and the passage of CTBT in September 1996. CTBT sought to place legal restrictions on the horizontal spread of nuclear weapons but placed no limits on vertical proliferation. The EIF (Entry Into Force) clause of CTBT would require all 44 countries with ongoing nuclear programs to accede to the Treaty before it went into force. If India wanted to carry out nuclear tests and proceed toward overt weaponisation, it had to do so without much delay. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh clarified in May 2000, "The NPT community needs to understand that India cannot join the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state. India is a nuclear weapon state. Though not a party to the NPT, India's policies have been consistent with the key provisions of the NPT that apply to nuclear weapons states."

POKHRAN-II : Five Years later