Pokhran revisited

India's nuclear scientists have been ready and waiting for a long time for this big, defining event.

TWENTY-FOUR years after the nuclear tests at Pokhran on May 18, 1974, India has revisited Pokhran. Five underground nuclear explosions have been conducted. The first official statement from the Prime Minister briefly mentioned that of the three explosions conducted on May 11, one was of low yield, the second was a normal fission device, and the third was a thermonuclear device. The second official statement said that the two tests conducted on May 13 were low-yield (sub-kiloton) devices. The estimated yields were as expected from the design. As in 1974, there was no radioactive fallout. The entire operation was again carried out in complete secrecy, and foreign intelligence agencies were clueless. In a sense, this was a repeat of the first test at Pokhran, but with more advanced technology. I warmly congratulate my former colleagues who, under the able leadership of Dr. R. Chidambaram, successfully conducted these tests.

It has taken 24 years after 1974 for a government, and a Prime Minister, to take a decision to go ahead with exercising the nuclear option. The almost simultaneous testing of five different devices is very significant from the strategic point of view. The low-yield weapons in the range of up to one kiloton of TNT will be field or tactical weapons. It could also be a test to measure the yield if 'dirty' plutonium from nuclear power reactors is used in the device. This low-yield test is significant because there is a shift towards designing low-yield weapons that can be deployed in the battlefield.

The second device was described as a normal fission device. This could be based on plutonium or enriched uranium. If uranium was used, then India has demonstrated its centrifuging capability in producing weapons-grade enriched uranium.

The third device was described as a thermonuclear device, which means isotopes of hydrogen, namely deuterium and tritium, were used to produce energy from fusion reactions. Information on the actual yield of this device will reveal what type of fusion device it was. An early assessment of the yield from seismic data placed it at around 30 kilotons, which would categorise the weapon as a 'boosted' weapon. Whatever the details, it is clear that India has graduated from the fission club to the fusion club; it has demonstrated that it can make a fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb.

A number of points need to be emphasised. A significant feature of this series of tests is the complete secrecy that was maintained. The Pokhran site must be under ceaseless surveillance from spy satellites, yet no one had an inkling about these tests. This suggests that the entire operation was carried out efficiently and with minimum infrastructure. The fact that the explosions were fully contained indicates that the yield was very close to the predicted value. (The depth at which the test needs to be carried out depends sensitively on the yield. Had the actual yield been even slightly above the design value, there would have been a radioactive fallout.) The fact that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) played an important role in the entire operation indicates that its logistics are now much better than they were in 1974. More modern command and control systems would have been used, consistent with the participation of the DRDO. It is likely that compatibility with missile-carrying capability would have been built into the designs. This implies that weaponisation has already been achieved.

ALTHOUGH 24 years separate Pokhran-I and Pokhran-II, they should be seen as two visible links in a single, invisible, chain. The chain began with the efforts of Homi Bhabha who started the atomic energy programme in 1948, soon after India gained Independence. Through a series of projects from the reactor Apsara to project Phoenix, along with basic research in diverse areas, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has acquired and trained a large core of scientists and engineers. Two hundred young scientists and engineers have been recruited to the BARC's Training School every year since 1957 and trained on the job; a few of them were trained abroad in specialised areas. These formed the technical workforce which had a dream to reach the frontiers of technology in a very sensitive and critical area. After the successful commissioning of many laboratories to deal with radioactive isotopes and exotic materials like uranium, zirconium and plutonium, making the reactors Cirus and Purnima, and engaging in other areas of specialisation, India was poised to undertake the making of the "forbidden cake" - a nuclear device in which 50 grams of material burnt would produce a heat equivalent to that from 1,000 tons of TNT.

The Indian scientists took up the task of breaking the barrier by a carefully planned research and development effort, never conspicuously exhibiting the importance of the effort. By carefully selecting the team and apportioning the task, BARC got ready to test the device in 1973. With the cooperation of the DRDO under Prof. Nag Chaudhari and its explosives development and test laboratories, the design of a nuclear device was frozen. A six-month field effort resulted in identifying a place for the tests, and a 107-metre hole was dug with the help of an engineering regiment. In less than seven days, all the field work was completed and the device was detonated at 8-10 a.m. on May 18, 1974. It was greeted with jubilation by all Indians irrespective of political affiliation. Unfortunately, Bhabha did not live to see the effort; to see how the seed he had sown had grown and bloomed.

TODAY there is again jubilation that the country has reconfirmed its nuclear capability. Those who have been involved with these events know that the capability has existed for 10 to 15 years now, but previous governments have been reluctant to test. After the 1974 test, for one reason or another, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi became more conservative and less ready to do anything that could invite reprisal. Even though progress had been made in designing and theorising on new devices, no test was authorised. At one time in 1982, India came very close to a test, but Indira Gandhi's advisers dissuaded her from going ahead with it. Other opportunities arose, especially when the NPT came up for ratification, but the governments of the day chose not to test. It is interesting to speculate on where India would have stood today if it had carried out additional tests in the 1980s or the early 1990s. The present Government, especially the Prime Minister, must be congratulated for having given support and erased any doubts that may have lingered in the years after 1974 about the competence of Indian scientists. These tests show that India's capability has been steadily growing since the first Pokhran test.

The global reaction to these tests has largely been adverse, but none of this is new. After Pokhran-I, the political fallout from the West was very similar to what it is today. Sanctions were imposed, supply of critical goods was banned, access to information was denied... various hurdles were placed so as to curb India's efforts to make progress in the peaceful applications of nuclear energy. Canada, France and the U.S. went back on their commitments and international agreements. India went through a period of "apartheid". Critics started doubting if it was a good thing at all to have gate-crashed into the nuclear club. National governments and international cartels made rules to banish the offender by enforcing discriminatory laws like the NPT. It was a struggle, but by the 1980s, India came out successful, even though bruised, in its effort to expand its nuclear power programme. Today, the hardening of postures on the part of the established weapons powers and economically advanced nations is only to be expected. If anything, the reactions this time have been softer than last time, especially the responses of France and Britain. This is an indicator of how India's stock has risen in the world since then and as a consequence of the latest tests.

THE ability to test five very different kinds of nuclear devices, both fission and fusion, unequivocally confers on India the status of a nuclear weapon state, irrespective of whether or not it chooses to maintain a stockpile of these weapons. As a result, the political implications go much beyond the mere dropping of ambivalence as a consequence of these tests. These tests will certainly have an effect on how India is perceived, and can demand to be perceived, in various treaties. It can now negotiate from a position of strength. It is clear that a new chapter has been opened for debate on the NPT, the CTBT, the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and so on, and on the demand for an assurance on the part of the established weapon powers to set a time-frame for nuclear disarmament.

Now that India has decided to end its ambivalence, it must formulate a coherent long-term nuclear policy for the future, as well as respond quickly and firmly to the adverse reactions from around the world. This will require a clear directive from the Government, as well as close collaboration between scientists, diplomats and the military. India's offer to agree to adhere to certain provisions of the CTBT on its own terms could be a starting point for negotiations. In addition, it must push strongly its position that it favours total, global elimination of nuclear weapons, arsenals and materials. In this matter, it should move quickly to put specific proposals before the world. In particular, it needs to suggest mechanisms for the destruction of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, and for their use in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy: a return to the "atoms for peace" ideal. The onus will then be on the established nuclear weapon powers to respond to these proposals in a manner that shows that they are serious about complete nuclear disarmament and global cooperation on nuclear energy for development. (Saurabh Kumar and I, in a monograph written for the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, have discussed some of these issues, and put forward some concrete proposals.)

India must also look to the future. Pursuit of more sophisticated nuclear devices for weapons is a part of the continuing research in national weapons laboratories. One avenue is the development of fusion devices that are not triggered by the fission reaction. Nuclear reactions in the sun and the stars do not use plutonium or uranium, and people are working on duplicating that in the laboratory. Another possibility is the use of nuclear isomers and superheavy elements for the release of nuclear energy. Laboratories around the world are working on these and other paths towards producing fourth-generation nuclear weapons. One important feature of these fourth-generation weapons will be that they will not use uranium or plutonium, and therefore will not come under the purview of the NPT or the CTBT. This is a matter of enormous political significance, and India should seriously pursue research in these areas. These researches could lead to new concepts in the controlled release of fusion energy.

After the detonation of the first hydrogen bomb, in which a can of liquid hydrogen could produce megatons of explosive power, Dr. Homi Bhabha ventured to predict in 1955 that a way would be found to release fusion energy even from ordinary water. This seems one direction in which nuclear science is headed today. While India should justifiably be proud of its achievements, it should continue to keep abreast of the latest advances in the field and innovate. A new generation of scientists can work to turn Bhabha's dream to reality.

P. K. Iyengar, physicist, is a former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He was closely associated with the May 1974 Peaceful Nuclear Explosion in Pokhran.