The Hindu : Defence expert confirms Congress version

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 03, 2004

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Defence expert confirms Congress version

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, APRIL 2. What exactly was the decision taken on restarting India's nuclear weaponisation programme in a top Cabinet Committee in 1979 when Morarji Desai was the Prime Minister and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the External Affairs Minister?

The issue was raised by the Congress today and the Bharatiya Janata Party reacted to it saying that the "story'' attributed to the defence analyst, K. Subrahmanyam — that the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was then External Affairs Minister, had opposed restarting and accelerating India's nuclear weaponisation programme — was "doubtful'' and "not credible''.

This is what Mr. Subrahmanyam told The Hindu :

"In 1979 the Joint Intelligence Committee [Mr. Subrahmanyam was then its chairman] produced a paper pointing out that Pakistan was on to a vigorous nuclear programme. The paper was placed before the five-member Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs — [Prime Minister] Morarji Desai, Vajpayee, Charan Singh, Jagjivan Ram and H.M. Patel were its members — and the question before the Committee was what action should be taken.''

"Morarji and Vajpayee did not want our nuclear weaponisation programme to be restarted or accelerated and the other three members were in favour of restarting the programme, which had come to a standstill after Pokhran-I in 1974. The Cabinet Committee was divided but it decided by a majority of 3 to 2 in favour of restarting the programme. However, nothing was in fact done till Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister [in 1980].''

"These facts have been mentioned in several books — Raj Chengappa and Bharat Karnad have written about it — and I mentioned this a few months ago at a function in Delhi.''

"Two things happened. In April 1998, Pakistan conducted tests for its North Korean Ghauri missile, and that was the time the Government decided to go ahead with Pokhran-II. It felt compelled to go ahead and test the bomb. More than 95 per cent of the bomb was readied by the Congress, the remaining 5 per cent by the V.P. Singh and other Governments. Before 1998, the shafts at Pokhran and other works had been completed. During the Narasimha Rao Government's time everything was ready for testing, but the Americans held him back.''

Mr. Subrahmanyam, who headed the Committee on Kargil appointed by the Vajpayee Government, was more than a bit puzzled that this had now became a hot political issue being debated by the Congress and the BJP.

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