“When Buddha Smiled – 50th Anniversary of India’s Original Nuclear Sin of May 1974” - Flashbacks & Implications
India conducted its maiden underground nuclear test in May 1974, thereby, becoming the sixth nuclear weapons state in the world and in May 2024, India celebrates the 50th anniversary of it. However, the timing of that event, coming right after the NPT regime came into effect, was simply awful and India was duly punished by the West with economic sanctions & other punitive measures for it in an attempt to set an example for others. However, India's decision & actions to pursue a nuclear weapons capability, back then, are largely misunderstood and can not be fully understood & comprehended without putting it properly into the prevailing regional power dynamics as well as the larger geopolitical context. This essay is a humble attempt to put India's actions on the nuclear front into perspective, as well as their global implications for the NPT regime amid the return of the great power competition & rivalry among leading geopolitical powers driving an unprecedented surge in defense spending globally as well as regional political tensions & conflicts. It clearly is a déjà vu moment for the world as the spectre of nuclear warfare returns to haunt humanity once again with modernization of nuclear weapons and strategic delivery systems figuring very prominently on the agenda for most nuclear weapon states, thereby, making the world a very dangerous place indeed.
On May 18, 1974, on the occasion of Buddha’s birth anniversary, also celebrated as Buddha Jayanti; a huge underground explosion in the remote desert of India’s Northwestern state of Rajasthan sent Richter scales at seismic activity monitoring stations globally into a tizzy as India successfully detonated & tested its maiden nuclear device, much to the chagrin of the U.S. State Department, which had been anticipating it for almost a decade and had been trying to wean India away from it ever since China, India’s regional arch-rival, conducted its first nuclear test in 1964.
The roots of India’s nuclear program could be traced back to the British Colonial-era, starting almost at the fag-end of World War-II, when the nuclear research and infrastructure development activities were initiated with the establishment of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in 1945, helmed by India’s Oppenheimer and pre-eminent nuclear physicist, Dr. Homi Jahangir Bhabha, who ultimately became the architect of India’s nuclear weapons program as well...
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