M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India —
At precisely the moment that U.S. President Barack Obama is returning to the
road travelled by Bill Clinton – trying to "persuade" India that
nuclear weapons would make the country less, rather than more, secure – top
scientists within the country have stated publicly that India’s 1998 nuclear
test was a dud, and that the declared yields were false.
The assertion is
not surprising – it dates back to the day of the test – but what is surprising
is that this important question remains unresolved 11 years after the event.
The majority
view among India's nuclear scientists has always been that the 1998 nuclear
test was unsuccessful. Only a single scientist and his superiors in the Prime
Minister's Office believed then – and still do – that it was a "great
success." Understandably, the Manmohan Singh government is reluctant to
conduct a serious peer review, preferring instead to rely on the opinions of a
few in-house scientists on a matter critical to national security.
The
"success camp," led by that determined scientist, R. Chidambaram,
insists that the “yield” – or destructive capacity – was satisfactory. It
relies on statements published in journals by the Bhabha Atomic Research
Center, which made the bomb, to prove its point.
Its primary
source is the internal BARC newsletter, which has no peer review process, is
circulated only within the BARC/Department of Atomic Energy family, and has
been known to publish practically anything that carries any senior BARC
functionary’s name on it. In the case of the 1998 explosion results, the
"proof" is the printed view of Chidambaram himself, as then director
of BARC.
The catchall
excuse of “proliferation sensitivity” has been used to deny access to test data
to all save a handful of people led by R. Chidambaram. Till today, the numerous
arguments put forward to prove that the single thermonuclear test conducted in
1998 was successful have been unable to quell the doubts of the majority of
scientists, and – less openly – the military.
While the 1998
fission tests were indisputably a success, the majority of scientists believe
the fusion bomb was a dud. The debate resurfaced behind closed doors during
negotiations on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal.
In 2007 Placid
Rodrigues, the former director of the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research,
went on record to say that India should not “fool itself” into believing that
one thermonuclear test was sufficient.
R. Chidambaram
has refused to meet or discuss these and other questions with “dissenting”
scientists, however. He relied instead on press conferences and similar methods
to air his views, couched in impenetrable language.
At a recent
event in Bombay, journalists were confused by apparently high-sounding jargon
such as, “The tail of the fission spectrum extends to beyond the excitation
energy of these reactions”; and, “But the fusion neutrons are of 14 MeV.”
Eminent nuclear
physicist P.K. Iyengar, former head of the very group at BARC that designed the
fission device for India’s first nuclear weapon test in 1974, was among the
first to point out that the test was a dud. According to a senior scientist who
fears retribution if his views are discovered, the post-1998 decision not to
repeat the test was “based entirely on political convenience rather than
scientific principles.”
A historical
perspective on the lead-up to the current round of debate reveals some very
interesting and little-known facts, documented meticulously in the recent book
by Bharat Karnad, “India’s Nuclear Policy.” Prior to the tests in 1998, R.
Chidambaram held the view that due to a presumed high level of computational
and simulation skills available in India, "tests were not required."
In 1995 Prime
Minister Narasimha Rao decided to accept simulation over testing. Lurching as
he was toward an early signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, this decision
stirred up a hornet’s nest at BARC and prompted its director, A.N. Prasad, to
arrange for a “unanimous note” from the highest decision-making authority, the
Trombay Council, to be sent to his senior Chidambaram, challenging his view on
technical grounds and demanding new tests.
Prasad then went
on to brief Arundhati Ghose, who represented India at negotiations on the CTBT
at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in 1995, and requested her to convey
BARC’s vehement view in support of more tests. These protests by an institution
against the fixed idea of a single individual provided the backdrop for Prime
Minister Deve Gowda’s refusal to endorse the CTBT in1996. Soon afterward, the
Congress Party withdrew its support from him.
Interestingly,
following the second nuclear tests in 1998, when Prasad said that the “regional
and international situation is not static and weapons considered adequate today
may require to have their yield and other characteristics changed to suit new
threats and this would require more tests,” Chidambaram responded by
maintaining that no testing would be needed for about 10 years, after which
Indian weapons would require an upgrade, thus requiring a renewal of testing to
validate improved designs and keep up with other nations.
This likely need
to upgrade played an important role in the U.S. decision to keep the testing
option open, and cannot be overlooked in this debate. Unfortunately, at the
time, Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee made the premature commitment not to test.
On the basis of
Iyengar’s arguments that the test was a failure, army chief General Ved Malik
conveyed his misgivings to National Security Advisor Brijesh Mishra, who said
that the government had “no choice” but to believe Chidambaram. A similar “no
test” stand is being taken by the current Manmohan Singh government.
Quite apart from
validating and upgrading existing weaponry, which would require explosive
testing, India's scientists want new tests. However, the response of "no
tester" Chidambaram is that India can create weapons up to 200 kilotons,
and therefore no further tests are needed.
The fear voiced
over a decade ago by A.N. Prasad was that a ban on testing would mean that the
design of India's nuclear weapons would remain at the most basic level. A
closer look at Chidambaram’s magic figure of 200 kilotons is instructive.
U.S. nuclear
physicist Richard Garvin, commenting on the 1998 tests, said that a 40-kiloton
fission bomb could be scaled up to 200 kilotons without further explosive
testing. He said the very fact of a failed test was the reason for a test ban.
In fact, it is also the reason why more tests are required.
Chidambaram’s
dogged insistence on simulation rather than testing indicates that he is
advocating an arsenal of only fission weapons for India and is ruling out any
future opportunity of upgrading to thermonuclear weapons. In the current
scenario, this would mean that in the face of hostile megaton capabilities in
its neighborhood, India's nuclear capabilities would remain frozen at the sub-200-kiloton
level.
"It cannot
be stressed sufficiently that testing is also required for validating existing
arsenals. This is precisely one of the questions the U.S. is battling with,”
one senior scientist said.
In an uncertain
neighborhood, can India maintain its nuclear arsenal as a “minimum deterrent”
rather than a “credible minimum deterrent"? When even missile capacities
have been informally frozen, India's scientific establishment is asking a
single question: What if Manmohan Singh's implicit assumption of permanent
nuclear peace breaks down, and a nuclear power threatens India? At that stage,
would a low-yield bomb be enough to deter a potential aggressor? This is a
question only the future can answer.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced
Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and professor of geopolitics at Manipal
University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)
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