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Unfriendly guardians: India's first nuclear leadership change in 1966

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2021

Ji Yeon-Jung
Ji Yeon-Jung*
Affiliation:
Institute of Indian Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea
*
*Corresponding author: Ji Yeon-Jung, Email: yjji@hufs.ac.kr.
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Abstract

This article, which focuses on the political decision making around the leadership of India's Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), shows how this process both decentralized scientific authority in India and led to changes in India's nuclear programme. New evidence presented from the deliberations of the Prime Minister's Secretariat (PMS) shows that Vikram Sarabhai, appointed chairman of the AEC in 1966, following the sudden death of the previous leader, Homi Bhabha, was the favoured candidate from the start of the process. His view on India's nuclear programme contrasted sharply with that of his predecessor, but his authority was protected, in part, from external challenge by the jurisdictional decisions made by the PMS. This article argues that the ambiguity inherent in India's developing nuclear programme was not the result of the apprehension of external threat, but the result of internal tensions within the relevant institutions, which are both revealed and (partially) resolved by the appointment process for the new chair.

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Type
Research Article
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The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 1 - 17
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of British Society for the History of Science

The year 1966 brought sudden changes in the offices of both the prime minister and the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in India. The unexpected death of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri from a heart attack on 11 January 1966 led to a bitter leadership battle in the Indian National Congress (INC), culminating in Indira Gandhi, the daughter of the first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, being chosen as the new prime minister, in the face of strong intra-party resistance.Footnote 1 The political inconsonance in the INC during the transition rendered the party decentralized, with disaffiliated members. India's nuclear programme initially remained intact under the leadership of Homi Bhabha, who continued the chairmanship which he had assumed with India's independence in 1947.Footnote 2 However, Bhabha's own unexpected death only thirteen days later on 24 January 1966 – the same day the country's new prime minister, Indira Gandhi, assumed office – meant that a new leader for India's nuclear ambitions would be needed.

From inception, Bhabha's vision for India's nuclear programme was unambiguous and solid. He believed that expanding the nuclear programme would accommodate India's economic and social development.Footnote 3 With his strong vision, India continued extensive investment in nuclear establishments, which served the dual purpose of nuclear energy production and nuclear latency. Bhabha's skilful management was a key factor in streamlining India's nuclear policy despite changes in the political leadership, such as the transition from Nehru (1947–64) to Shastri (1964–6). His authority, which garnered support from both political and scientific communities, was unchallenged during this tenure. However, Bhabha's accidental death forced a change in India's nuclear leadership.

This serious turning point in India's nuclear history has drawn many scholars to investigate the transition of leadership and its repercussions in 1966.Footnote 4 Scholarship sheds light on changes in India's scientific leadership within the changing political climate. It is widely held that Vikram Sarabhai, who directed India's space programme under Bhabha's guidance at the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), was not the first choice to be Bhabha's successor. However, this paper will present evidence from new documents that reveal contrasting accounts of the immediate bureaucratic intervention that took place in the selection of the second chairman of the AEC/secretary of the DAE. In contrast to previous claims, the Prime Minister's Secretariat (PMS) studied decentralizing scientific authority and considered Sarabhai a suitable candidate for the position from the beginning. To defend Sarabhai's appointment, the PMS internally explored legal grounds on which to base the authority of the AEC chairman to quash challenging opinions.

Exploring the selection process and its repercussion in the year of first change of AEC leadership is significant in understanding the discourse of India's nuclear development for two reasons. First, the process involved three actors – the prime minister, bureaucrats in the PMS and scientists – with different priorities. The process of selection shows how the decentralization of scientific authority restyled the scientists’ decision-making hierarchy. Second, this led to discrepancies in the development and procurement of nuclear explosive technology and materials by nuclear scientists that appeared to redesign India's nuclear policy under a new leader in 1966. During this year, India's nuclear research began to focus on its delivery system. This study explores India's first leadership change in the AEC/DAE, providing a new interpretation of the selection process with new documents collected from the National Archives of India, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Archives in India, and National Archives at College Park in the United States.

Urgency of the selection process

Bhabha's accidental death in a plane crash on Mont Blanc on 24 January 1966, while en route to Vienna for an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, forced changes in India's scientific leadership. Moreover, because of the important leadership roles he held, the need to replace him was immediate and urgent. Under Bhabha's leadership, India had expanded nuclear establishments at Trombay (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)), and built India's first light-water swimming pool research reactor –APSARA – with the help of the US and the UK and the Canada-assisted heavy-water reactor, named CIRUS.Footnote 5 During his tenure, BARC also commissioned the first spent-fuel reprocessing plant and opened a training school for nuclear physics and engineering that reflected Bhabha's idea of Indian self-reliance. India's long-term energy policy based on the three stages of nuclear power development as well as holding a position of nuclear latency were also key products that emerged under Bhabha.Footnote 6

In India's nuclear decision-making system, Bhabha held the three highest positions of scientific authority and headed the two highest-level committees that are pillars of India's nuclear policy: chairman of the AEC, secretary of the DAE, director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Cabinet (SACC) and chairman of the Electronics Committee.Footnote 7 Because of his multiple roles, Bhabha's death rippled across India's political and scientific communities as a vacuum was created by the loss of the charismatic leader. As Prime Minister Indira Gandhi noted, Bhabha's sudden death was a ‘terrible blow’ to India's nuclear programme at a crucial moment of its development.Footnote 8 Given the personal amicability between her father and Bhabha, it was also a personal loss for her to realize that Nehru's and Bhabha's shared atomic vision had been abruptly fragmented by Bhabha's death. The urgency of the issue led to an immediate bureaucratic process to identify a candidate for the next leader of India's nuclear programme.

Previous descriptions and evidence from new sources

Previous analyses of India's nuclear history have largely relied on the accounts of three eminent scientists, who revealed the controversies in the selection process of Sarabhai: S. Chandrasekhar, the University of Chicago Nobel laureate and astrophysicist; Homi N. Sethna, the director of BARC who succeeded Sarabhai as the third chairman of the AEC (1972–83); and Raja Ramanna, the chief directing officer at BARC who later became the fourth chairman of the AEC (1983–7). Previous studies constructed arguments based on the three sources; the first two were interviewed by scholars, while Ramanna's version was taken from his autobiography.Footnote 9

These sources provide shreds of evidence but do not give the full picture. They indicate that the selection process underwent three stages. First, Dharma Vira, cabinet secretary of the PMS, secretary to the Union Council of Ministers, and a member of the AEC, was in charge of managing the process while serving as the interim chairman of the AEC. Second, Chandrasekhar was the prime candidate who received the first offer from the PMS.Footnote 10 After he refused the offer, the PMS offered the position to Sarabhai with Chandrasekhar's recommendation. Third, according to Ramanna, the majority of committee members were somewhat unsatisfied with Vira's handling of the issue and believed that the committee's approach was ‘biased’.Footnote 11 These witnesses offer an account of internal disputes over the selection process, intimating that Sarabhai was the alternative candidate. However, this account of the dispute is missing several aspects; none of the sources explain the origin of the dispute over Bhabha's successor or the depth of the disagreement among scientists, the bureaucrats and the prime minister. There is more to reveal about the process by which political and bureaucratic interests clashed with scientists’ expectations for restructuring scientific authority in the post-Bhabha era.

On 25 January 1966, the day after the plane crash, Dharma Vira sent a letter to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to discuss the four vacant posts that Bhabha had held.Footnote 12 Vira quickly suggested several lists of scientists as candidates for the respective positions that Bhabha had held at the AEC, DAE, TIFR and SACC.Footnote 13 Unlike the case of the previous government system that had allowed centralized control under Bhabha, Vira's suggestion involved the decentralization of scientific authority among the different positions: one scientist to chair the AEC/DAE, another to direct the TIFR and a third to chair the SACC.

The first list of candidates for the chairmanship of the AEC/DAE named seven scientists, including Homi Sethna, Raja Ramanna, M.G.K. Menon of the TIFR, Braham Prakash and Vikram Sarabhai.Footnote 14 In Vira's opinion, the first four scientists were ‘yet big enough to be elevated to the post of Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission & Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy’.Footnote 15 Two others, Singhvi, a professor at the University of Argonne, USA,Footnote 16 and A.K. Saha, a professor of nuclear physics at the University of Calcutta, were introduced separately as eminent scientists in India. As prospective scientific candidates to lead India's nuclear programme, these six scientists appeared to be good, albeit second-best, choices. Vira revealed his real intention in recommending a new AEC chairman in the last section. He recommended Vikram Sarabhai, chairman of the Indian National Committee for Space Research and director of the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad, as ‘the best choice’ because he was ‘not only a scientist, but also an administrator’.Footnote 17

For director of the TIFR, Vira separately proposed Harish Chandra, a professor at Princeton University, and S. Chandrasekhar, a professor at the University of Chicago, advising that the final decision regarding the directorship required consultation with J.R.D. Tata, who had played an essential role in establishing the TIFR and supported Bhabha's nuclear projects under the Sir Dorab Tata Trust.Footnote 18 The plan to decentralize the authority that Bhabha had held was conducted further with the naming of other scientists to head high-level scientific committees. D.S. Kothari, chairman of the University Grants Commission, was recommended for chairman of the SACC. Vira suggested other options for the SACC, for example, that the cabinet secretary (Vira himself) could become the chairman of the SACC, according to tradition, if Kothari was not available.Footnote 19

To draw up the shortlist, Vira proposed a four-member interim committee to consider the aforementioned appointments: D.S. Kothari; S.H. Zaheer, director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and ex officio secretary to the government of India, Ministry of Education; S. Bhagavantam, scientific adviser to the minister of defence; and Vira himself. Vira's proposal for the selection committee consisted of scientists who held government positions apart from India's nuclear establishments. This appeared to provoke scientists at BARC, as Ramanna revealed that the committee approaches were perceived as lopsided, undermining nuclear scientists’ demands.Footnote 20

During the interim process, Prime Minister Gandhi placed Dharma Vira, as cabinet secretary and a member of the AEC, in charge of the interim committee to fill three posts: chairman of the AEC, secretary of the DAE and chairman of the SACC.Footnote 21 For the next three months, Vira acted as a liaison between scientists and the prime minister while the selection process was under way.

It appears that the prime minister turned down Vira's initial recommendation to name Vikram Sarabhai as AEC chairman, and Chandrasekhar received the first call to head the AEC/DAE.Footnote 22 However, Chandrasekhar declined the offer, explaining that ‘it was clear that to be in a position like that required familiarity with Indian politics and required administrative capacities’.Footnote 23 He reportedly endorsed Vikram Sarabhai, who was in charge of India's space programme and whom Dharma Vira had initially recommended in his letter.Footnote 24 Chandrasekhar received the impression from the communication with the PMS that the entire process had been unprepared and impromptu, leaving open the possibility that AEC members’ opposition to Vira's approach might change the course of the selection.Footnote 25 The scientific community was both concerned and vigilant about the entire process. They grew more worried with Chandrasekhar's refusal and the increasing uncertainty of the appointment.

Nuclear policy during the selection process

During the process of selecting the new chairman of the AEC, India was highly attentive to two external challenges: the development of the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee (ENDC) negotiation for a nuclear non-proliferation treaty and China's developing nuclear weapons programme. Under Bhabha's leadership, the AEC chairman had played a crucial role in forging India's diplomatic stance on nuclear non-proliferation in a discussion with cabinet secretaries. Because of the political leadership change and the absence of the AEC chairman, India temporarily adhered to the nuclear policy inherited from the previous government. The official policy presented was a continuation of Bhabha's idea of peaceful uses of atomic energy, including the acquisition of explosive devices and technology, and Shastri's notion of acquiring a security guarantee from the nuclear powers.Footnote 26 Sarabhai briefly served as the ad hoc replacement for Bhabha in the AEC, consulting the PMS, while Sethna took temporary charge of the study of nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes (SNEPP) as the director of BARC, which Bhabha persuaded Shastri to approve.Footnote 27

Prior to the ENDC conference in Geneva scheduled from 27 January to 10 May, India reviewed two points before finalizing its diplomatic stance: the peaceful nuclear explosion (PNE) project and nuclear security guarantees. For the former, Bhabha had in January directed communication with the US to obtain nuclear explosive devices and technology, namely the ploughshare device.Footnote 28 The Indian government was particularly wary of Washington's diplomatic strategy given US interest in nuclear explosive devices and technology after India operationalized a plutonium reprocessing plant in 1965.Footnote 29 As India had received a large amount of economic aid from the US in the midst of drought-ridden economic hardship, New Delhi was concerned about the repercussions of India's acquisition of nuclear explosive devices and technology.Footnote 30

Before his death, Bhabha had requested that the PMS investigate whether India's pursuit of nuclear devices would have a negative impact, in reference to the Indian media report.Footnote 31 In the 22 January edition of the Times of India, H.R. Vohra analysed the discussions led by US Senators Robert F. Kennedy and John O. Pastore. According to Vohra, the US Senate appeared unfavourably inclined towards India's nuclear programme but was ‘reconciled to China's full membership of the [nuclear] club’.Footnote 32 He claimed that India must consider two specific points. First, the Senators’ support for admitting China into the UN for discussions of peace and disarmament held implications for India's position in international relations. Pastore had said, ‘Whenever there is a disarmament conference, wherever peace is the topic, let China be invited to come’.Footnote 33 Second, Vohra warned that the US might place diplomatic pressure on India's nuclear programme through the ‘leverage of foreign aid to reinforce the denial’, which would ultimately hamper India's independent nuclear policy making.Footnote 34

Bhabha's interest in seeking a ploughshare device was particularly related to Vohra's second point, the link between obtaining nuclear explosive devices and foreign aid. In response to Bhabha, the PMS launched internal studies in consultation with the embassy in Washington, DC. On 27 January, three days after Bhabha's death, H.K. Kochar, the secretary of the AEC, reported to interim AEC chairman Vira that the probable negative impact of India's acquisition of nuclear explosive devices appeared to be minimal. According to Kochar, the Indian Embassy in Washington was confident that ‘the [US] State Department do[es] not think it's practicable to link aid with the question of penalising states embarking on a nuclear device venture’.Footnote 35

PMS subsequently held an ad hoc meeting prior to the ENDC conference in Geneva. On 8 and 9 February 1966, Sarabhai sent a telex message to Vira and N.K. Sreenivasan, the deputy secretary, to arrange meetings with Foreign Secretary C.S. Jha and the secretary to the prime minister, L.K. Jha.Footnote 36 The meeting was categorized as an emergency subcommittee meeting of the SACC to discuss issues related to nuclear proliferation and disarmament negotiations.Footnote 37 This ad hoc meeting appeared to finalize India's argument on ENDC negotiations: the promotion of peaceful uses of atomic energy and global nuclear disarmament.

On 15 February, V.C. Trivedi, the joint secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs and Indian representative to ENDC, presented India's backing for complete and universal nuclear disarmament at the Geneva ENDC conference. He called for a broad collaboration between the nuclear haves and have-nots to ‘prohibit all aspects of proliferation, direct or indirect, through military alliances or otherwise and in any form or shape’, including the technological development of delivery vehicles.Footnote 38 India's stance on nuclear non-proliferation indicated that New Delhi had recalibrated its policy objectives in three ways. First, in lieu of seeking a separate security guarantee from major nuclear-weapons states, such as the US and the Soviet Union, as it had in the past, India expanded its policy to ‘hunt nuclear guarantees from [the] UN’.Footnote 39 Second, India called for a broad participation of nuclear-weapons states to prevent China from developing a delivery system for a nuclear warhead and from admitting China into the nuclear club.Footnote 40 Third, India continued to claim the right to pursue the peaceful uses of atomic energy in relation to the ploughshare device and SNEPP. Trivedi, who shared Bhabha's belief that ‘India should acquire nuclear explosives’, affirmed India's stance of upholding non-discriminatory, peaceful uses of nuclear energy.Footnote 41

Following India's pitch at Geneva, India's other concern, China's position in the global nuclear order and what India's options would be vis-à-vis China, was soon heightened by China's expanding nuclear weapons programme. Since the end of April, the Indian media had warned of a series of nuclear tests in China scheduled for May, October and December of 1966. The more worrisome issue was that China was on the verge of developing a ‘medium-range ballistic missile programme’.Footnote 42 India's threat perception reached a peak when China conducted its third nuclear test at Lop Nur on 9 May, following two earlier tests in October 1964 and May 1965. The public mood compelled politicians to engage in an intensive debate in the parliament (Lok Sabha) on India's nuclear policy options vis-à-vis China. The day after China's third nuclear test, the Lok Sabha held an emergency discussion titled ‘Thermonuclear Test by China’.Footnote 43 The lengthy discussion canvassed various questions from members of parliament, mainly regarding whether India was monitoring the threat from China and what contingency preparations the government envisioned. Cabinet ministers and Prime Minister Gandhi explained the government policy and position on these matters.

Minister of external affairs Swaran Singh assured the parliament during the discussion that the government was fully aware of China's nuclear tests and that the cabinet was conducting ‘a careful assessment’ in consultation with the ‘service chief and atomic energy experts’.Footnote 44 Underscoring that ‘the policy is kept under constant review’, including discussions of nuclear disarmament with respect to participation in the Partial Test Ban Treaty and the ‘matter of peaceful development of atomic energy’, he stressed that India was capable of utilizing technical knowledge for defence purposes ‘if forced’.Footnote 45 The Times of India reported the following of the minister's engagement with the parliament:

Though this assurance did not, in any way, imply an immediate change in the government's basic policy of developing nuclear power only for peaceful purposes, it indicated, in no uncertain terms, India's readiness to reconsider this policy and make the bomb if the country was faced with the threat of a nuclear attack.Footnote 46

Prime Minister Gandhi also assured the members of parliament that there had been no revision, in principle, to India's pursuit of a peaceful nuclear energy programme. However, she pointed out India's expanding technological knowledge and ‘other competence’.Footnote 47

Nevertheless, the demand for nuclear weaponization gained momentum in the Lok Sabha. Bhagwat Jha Azad of Bihar strongly condemned the government, saying, ‘Have they got any alternative or is “Ahimsa Paramo Dharma [non-violence is the absolute moral virtue]” the only slogan they can offer?’Footnote 48 Harish Chandra Mathur, a member of the ruling INC party, joined many opposition parties by asking ‘if the government is contemplating speeding up the technological preparations that are going on in this country towards acquiring knowledge of how to make [a] nuclear bomb?’Footnote 49 Public anxiety was intensified further with the allegation that China had tested its first hydrogen bomb.Footnote 50 Four days after this claim was reported in the media, on 15 May 1966, the media toned down the accusations and admitted that they might be untrue.Footnote 51 However, these updates had little effect in alleviating political concern in India.

As the Lok Sabha debates indicate, the general mood in India with respect to the perceived threat of China was highly inflammable, regardless of China's actual technological achievements. Sporadic border clashes were another reason the public felt indignant at the decade-long slogan ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’ (‘India and China are brothers’) that had been promoted under Nehru's leadership.Footnote 52 While avoiding immediate confirmation that China's third nuclear test might be a thermonuclear test, the government sought an internal assessment of China's nuclear testing by the end of May.

In the absence of a chairman of the AEC, Homi Sethna, director of BARC, submitted detailed reports to the cabinet secretary for the internal study of China's nuclear tests on 23 and 30 May.Footnote 53 The first report stated that a sample of China's atmospheric nuclear tests collected by an ‘air sampler with a filtered paper, mounted on a Canberra’, confirmed a low level of radioactivity leaked by the tests.Footnote 54 It promised that ‘ground-level monitoring stations may be able to detect the activity in the next two or three days’.Footnote 55 The second report, which was prepared on 30 May, provided updates from ten air-sampling stations in Bangalore, Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Gangtok, Nagpur, Nainital, Ootacamund, Srinagar and Gulmarg in India.Footnote 56 Daily monitoring of the ‘concentration of fission product activity’ provided data on radioactivity levels. On the basis of the samples, Sethna confirmed that China's nuclear test had not been a thermonuclear test.Footnote 57 However, many believed for several months that a thermonuclear device had been tested as the internal assessment was not released to the public during this period.Footnote 58 Thus India's threat perception held political clout.

Selection process in dispute

Facing two major external pressures, India was at a crossroads with the changes in its scientific leadership. Gandhi's government gave the nuclear programme top priority.Footnote 59 However, New Delhi needed new scientific leaders to direct the nuclear programme as well as to address other immediate problems such as negotiations with the US on the Tarapur project; an extended agreement with Canada to design and construct a second power reactor at Rajasthan, RAPS II; and the continuation of SNEPP.Footnote 60 Given Bhabha's case, it was at the discretion of the AEC chairman whether or not to redirect the previous policy line in the direction of the political leadership. To give fresh impetus to impending issues, the selection process required closure. The scientific community paid the greatest attention, in particular, to BARC. The process under Vira's interim chairmanship entered the second phase after Chandrasekhar's refusal brought the discussion back to Sarabhai's candidacy.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi appeared to favour Sarabhai, with his Gujarati family background that could ward off her key rival, Morarji Desai, in Gujarat.Footnote 61 However, J.R.D. Tata, a member of the AEC, supported Homi Sethna, claiming that he was ‘Bhabha's man’ given his work on the nuclear programme.Footnote 62 Some continued to speculate that Tata's support for Sethna was related to their common Parsi family background.Footnote 63 Contending with the opposition, Gandhi was about to finalize her choice as her political strategy converged with Vira's bureaucratic recommendation in favour of Sarabhai. This provisional decision appeared to be leaked to the AEC members and to induce apprehensiveness from the opposition. Knowing that Indira Gandhi's decision would be irreversible, Sethna led strong opposition, demanding that the AEC members be autonomous from the chairman's authority.

On 19 May 1966, just six days before the final decision was made about the chairmanship of the AEC, L.K. Jha, secretary to the prime minister, submitted a note to Indira Gandhi containing Sethna's thoughts on the AEC chairmanship. The sudden message from Sethna was intended to minimize the chairman's authority in the hierarchical decision-making system for India's nuclear policy. Emphasizing that ‘there was no true replacement for Bhabha’ and hoping to keep Bhabha's input into India's nuclear programme intact, Sethna requested that the prime minister consider two points before she reach her final decision. First, each member of the AEC should be required to obtain ‘wide powers within his sphere and function in respect of them’ and ‘the Chairman should not have over-riding powers’ over the members.Footnote 64 Second, the chairman's authority might benefit from further decentralization: ‘perhaps, the Chairman need not be the Secretary to Government [DAE]’. Sethna's letter clearly challenged the existing structure of the nuclear decision-making system with the emergence of a new chairmanship.Footnote 65

In response to Sethna's demands, L.K. Jha and Vira, the two key bureaucrats, immediately forged a consensus to establish grounds to safeguard the PMS's decision as well as the AEC chairman's authority against conflicting opinion. Conveying his opinion to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Jha indicated his agreement with Vira. Both secretaries in the PMS argued that Bhabha's successor should hold the same power as his predecessor.Footnote 66

Furthermore, the PMS initiated an internal study to demarcate the ambit of the AEC chairman/DAE secretary's power with regard to both the customary aspects and legal grounds. On 20 May 1966, M. Prasad of the PMS delivered the conclusion of the research to secretary Jha. First, according to the legal and customary aspects of power granted the secretary of the DAE, that person should also be the ex officio chairman of the AEC. Second, under the government's AEC resolution in 1958, the secretary of the DAE/chairman of the AEC holds the position on par with that of the chairman of the Railway Board.Footnote 67 The chairman of the Railway Board is able to extend his power to board members to obtain the status of principal secretary to the government.Footnote 68 Equally, the chairman of the AEC is immune to committee members’ opposition, leaving final decisions at his or her discretion where the chairman of the Railway Board is concerned. In conclusion, Prasad summarized that the chairman's authority is invincible in the decision-making hierarchy as written in Sections 3-B and 6 of the government resolution. These sections ultimately bestowed on the chairman the right to ‘overrule the other members of the Commission’.Footnote 69 The PMS concluded that the AEC chairman's legal position and authority were the same as before, when Bhabha had exercised them. Therefore Sethna's request to restrict the chairman's reach appeared to have been declined by the PMS.

After bureaucratic examination, Gandhi made her decision. On 26 May, Vikram Sarabhai obtained investiture as the chairman of the AEC and secretary of the DAE, as Dharma Vira had initially recommended.Footnote 70 Sarabhai's elevation to the scientific leadership was not what the nuclear scientists at BARC had favoured. However, the AEC members officially and unanimously approved his appointment.Footnote 71 Subsequent to the prime minister's authorization, it was theoretically impossible for anyone in the AEC, DAE or affiliated government laboratories to overrule the chairman's decision in any area that lay within his ambit. Those who advocated that India prepare for PNEs, however, viewed Sarabhai's powerful position as a disruptive factor.Footnote 72 Sarabhai's career as a non-nuclear scientist had caused a mixture of criticism and commendation from the inception. At the beginning of his chairmanship, Sarabhai confessed to Vira that his journey to succeed Bhabha would not be easy, given the emerging suspicions of his ability and his background in India's space programmeFootnote 73

Policy inconsonance under Sarabhai's leadership

Attention focused on the new AEC chairman's stance and vision for the continuity of India's nuclear programme at a crucial stage both for the programme and for Indian diplomacy. On 1 June 1966, Vikram Sarabhai, who was assuming his position as chairman of the AEC and secretary of the DAE, described his vision at the first press conference:

I would like to suggest that if it is security we are after, and we choose to adopt arms control through nuclear deterrents, we need not just one atom bomb, but a total defence system. This involves atomic warheads, long-range missiles for delivery and radar early warning systems … Unless one establishes a defence system[,] one is only creating a paper tiger … The necessary industrial base does not exist in these [basic] areas at the present time in India.Footnote 74

The chairman's priorities for India's nuclear programme were seemingly different from those of his predecessor Homi Bhabha, who had noted the affordability of producing a ten-kiloton nuclear bomb at a cost of US$350,000.Footnote 75 Sarabhai reiterated his view in another interview three days later, saying that nuclear weaponization was not an economically feasible idea for India:

If a country has the bomb it must also have the bombers and the missiles to deliver it. One step inevitably leads to the other. Such a commitment has proved to be an immense burden, even from Britain and France, either of whom, despite their vast resources, is [not] yet a full-fledged nuclear power. India just does not have the means to make this total commitment. It cannot take the risk of gravely undermining its economic defences in the illusory hope of developing a nuclear deterrent.Footnote 76

Sarabhai doubted whether India could achieve military superiority by obtaining nuclear weapons and whether ‘India should take this course given its other priorities’.Footnote 77 In his thinking, India's pursuit of nuclear weapons lacked in-depth political, economic and scientific analyses and the ‘grass root technology’ necessary for the industrial and economic groundwork.Footnote 78 Without the background work, any efforts appeared to be a ‘bluff’, in the new chairman's perspective.Footnote 79 Sarabhai's strategy was to forestall the heavy political and economic costs of a weaponization programme in the context of the serious economic hardship of the late 1960s.Footnote 80 He construed the diversion of limited resources to weaponization as an ineffective approach since India could use the resources in other sectors.Footnote 81 In the same vein, he expressed the belief that a nuclear weapons programme would be premature because of the absence of coherent policy making for the nuclear deterrence strategy.Footnote 82 His unambiguous perspective led domestic and international audiences to anticipate changes in India's nuclear programme.Footnote 83

In June 1966, after his press conference and interview, Sarabhai instructed Raja Ramanna, who was in charge of the explosive research programme at BARC, to halt SNEPP and dissolve the group, which had been initiated under Bhabha's guidance.Footnote 84 Amid the shock with which China's nuclear tests were greeted in India, Sarabhai all too soon confirmed that India did not have a programme to explode a nuclear device. The impactful change to India's nuclear programme disrupted the scientific community and prompted nuclear scientists to engage in strong resistance to the new chairman's decision.Footnote 85 Many speculated that his intention was to nullify the project. For instance, Sethna described Sarabhai as a ‘vociferously anti-bomb physicist of the pacifist Jain faith’.Footnote 86

Sethna strongly contested Sarabhai's strategy to downsize the nuclear programme in the wake of China's developing nuclear weapons programme. Sethna argued for the expansion of the PNE project, saying, ‘India cannot just detonate one or two devices and stop. A small nuclear bomb program [would be] worse than no program at all because [it] would invite pre-emptive Chinese attack’.Footnote 87 His point of view contrasted with Sarabhai's understanding of China's nuclear test as Sarabhai stressed the other aspects: ‘China had “the most important electronic industry [to build the explosive device]” by the time they exploded a nuclear device’.Footnote 88 Some BARC members understood this dispute: ‘Sarabhai was in fact neither against nor in favour; rather, the choice between PNEs or other programmes, such as rockets, was a matter of priority given the limited available resources.’Footnote 89

This opinion appeared to be convincing as Sarabhai limited India's nuclear programme to power generation but scaled up the space programme. His visit to the US on 20 October showed the subtle changes of the chairman's directives in the nuclear programme. His delegation discussed ‘medium- and long-range weather forecasting and scientific rockets of approximately 500-kilometre range’ with the US AEC on par with two other issues: developing a study on the utility of thorium, part of a three-stage nuclear programme, and high-energy accelerators for nuclear research.Footnote 90 Furthermore, India's space programme had begun to gain parity with the nuclear programme since the commencement of his tenure. However, his approach of ‘preferring rockets to bomb[s]’ exasperated the top policy makers in the PMS sometime during his tenure.Footnote 91 P.N. Haksar, the principal private secretary to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, rebuked Sarabhai later ‘for favouring rockets/missiles at the expense of the bomb’ and mocked him by asking, ‘what are you going to put atop the rocket – diwali [festival] sparkler?’Footnote 92 Thus the new AEC chairman set different priorities in the context of China's nuclear tests.

Consequently, the nuclear scientists began to be insubordinate towards Sarabhai's leadership. Sethna rekindled the PNE project under his own guidance, disobeying Sarabhai, which was later revealed in an interview:

Sarabhai said right from the beginning that he didn't want it. But it made no impression on BARC and we went right on studying the process. Don't forget you don't need a letter to do all these things. BARC itself has the freedom to initiate these things.Footnote 93

Sethna's support for the PNE project was inherited by his successor, Ramanna, who later sought an ‘end-run around Sarabhai to get approval for testing [PNE] directly from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’.Footnote 94

Despite the internal dispute in the AEC, the Indian government became more favourable towards PNEs in late 1966. On 7 November, at the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, the Indian delegation first mentioned ‘the desirability of conducting PNEs for economic purposes’.Footnote 95 Trivedi argued that a treaty for nuclear weapons non-proliferation should not prevent developing countries from acquiring the benefits of science and technology.Footnote 96 This move probably encouraged BARC scientists to continue the project.

On 19 December 1966, Sethna, the director of BARC, gave an unusual interview in the Times of India on a tentatively approved proposal to build a medium-sized plutonium plant in addition to one that had been in operation since 1965.Footnote 97 The proposal involved ‘treating irradiated uranium from the reactors being constructed at Tarapur’ at an expected cost of Rs. 45 million to 50 million.Footnote 98 Sethna steadily pursued procurement of nuclear explosive technology as Bhabha had done, saying, ‘the proposed plant would utilise thorium and breed more fissile material than it would consume for use in the future reactors producing power’.Footnote 99 During this period, BARC completed ‘some calculations on the criticality factor and how much plutonium would be needed’ for a PNE.Footnote 100 Some speculated that ‘India had the fissile material to begin testing by 1966–67’.Footnote 101 Sarabhai clearly limited BARC to theoretical work for PNEs. However, BARC scientists began to test fissile material produced from the spent-fuel reprocessing plant operationalized in 1965.Footnote 102

Overall, the decentralized nature of scientific authority between the AEC and BARC made for an unintended two-tier nuclear policy in India. On the one hand, Sarabhai conceded conducting theoretical work for PNEs; however, he directed attention towards India's space programme and limited India's nuclear programme to energy production. Sarabhai adhered to the theme of peaceful uses of atomic energy conducive to cooperation with the US, which initiated a nuclear power project with three bilateral agreements signed between 1963 and 1966.Footnote 103 The series of agreements were to supply two light-water reactors and enriched uranium fuel at Tarapur in a concession to the agreement mandated by the US in 1966.

On the other hand, nuclear scientists at BARC under Sethna's leadership attempted to make an independent move towards PNEs, defying Sarabhai. Sethna's determination engendered a confrontation with his boss during Sethna's directorship of BARC.Footnote 104 Sarabhai may not have been fully aware of how independently BARC scientists continued to pursue the PNE project as BARC would initiate all processes bypassing paperwork at Sethna's discretion.Footnote 105 The selection process for the AEC chairman offered a portent of this confrontation. As Ashok Parthasarathi acknowledged, Sarabhai's pathway to managing Bhabha's legacy on his own terms was often contested by Homi Sethna, Raja Ramanna and other senior scientists at BARC in various ways.Footnote 106 Their nuclear vision failed to merge into a single construct in 1966, deepening their disagreement over the hiatus in PNE preparation and the separation of space research from the DAE.

Conclusion

The history of leadership changes in the AEC and the immediate effect of the choice made in 1966 capture the dynamics of India's nuclear programme. This study has revealed how the political decision to reconfigure the scientific leadership decentralized scientific authority, which had an immediate effect on India's nuclear programme.

The documents excavated in this research fill the gaps in the literature by providing further details of internal discussions before Vikram Sarabhai's appointment to the chairmanship. First, descriptions of the course of appointing the chairman of the AEC/secretary of the DAE can be reshaped based on new archival evidence. The PMS decided in favour of decentralizing the scientific decision-making apparatus. Among many nominees for the vacant posts, Sarabhai was the front runner from the beginning. The selection process for the chairman of the AEC/secretary of the DAE appeared to be independent of external factors; it was a decision-making process falling to the cabinet secretary, with final approval by the prime minister. In the process, evaluations of the candidates included reviews of their performance, background and availability for vacant posts. Additionally, the power bestowed on the chairman was examined in the PMS in response to a challenging opinion from outside. The chairman's power and discretion were safeguarded by consensus in the PMS and the legal framework grounded by the parliament in the resolution of the AEC; however, in reality, this legal ground did not guarantee authoritative practice.

Second, several sources disclosed that the scientific leadership change appeared to reprioritize items in the development of India's nuclear programme. Differing opinions between the chairman of the AEC and the director of BARC were noticeable, yet their discord was based on the timing of the PNE and the approach to time-consuming preparation because of their different understandings of the situation that India faced. India's journey towards a PNE appeared to encounter interference from the policy priorities of not only politicians but also scientists. Evidence from the year-long period covered in this paper shows that the transition of leadership triggered a reconsideration of India's nuclear programme that had been designed by Homi Bhabha.

In brief, a set of different priorities regarding the selection process for the Indian AEC chairman presents the domestic reason for India's nuclear ambiguity. The ambiguous nature of India's nuclear programme during this period is accounted for by the domestic discord over the leadership change, and the consequent tensions between the nuclear decision-making body, the AEC, and the policy-implementation organizations, such as BARC. This led to discrepancies between interpretations of external threats following China's nuclear tests and the development and procurement of nuclear technology and materials. The events of 1966 marked the beginning of a new generation, with recalibrated positions, visions and activities regarding India's nuclear programme.

Footnotes

I would like to thank the participants of Wilson Center's NPIHP workshop in 2016 and three interviewers in India for their excellent comments. I would also like to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and Amada Rees, the editor of BJHS. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant, Government of the Republic Korea (NRF-2017S1A6A3A02079749).

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51 Indian media delivered the US expert's prediction ‘only by 1970 that Chinese could be in a position to explode the first H-bomb’. ‘Chinese bomb not thermo-nuclear, say U.S. experts’, Times of India, 15 May 1966, p. 7.

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54 The Martin RB-57D Canberra was a US Air Force-affiliated ‘high-altitude strategic reconnaissance aircraft’ designed to fly at up to 65,000 feet. During China's nuclear test it flew over the Himalayas to monitor the results.

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56 Sethna, op. cit. (53), 1 June 1966. The data from the seismic array that detected a nuclear explosion at Gauribidanur was not included in Sethna's report. The purpose of the centre established in collaboration with the UK was to provide data to other countries. ‘India's atomic explosion detection centre’, Times of India, 20 April 1966, p. 1

57 Times of India, op. cit. (56).

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65 Jha, op. cit. (64).

66 Jha, op. cit. (64).

67 M. Prasad to L.K. Jha, secretary to the prime minister, 20 May 1966, letter, National Archives of India, File 17(62)/66-PMS. The resolution, which came into force on 1 March 1958, dictated the constitution of the Atomic Energy Commission, as enumerated in paragraph 2: ‘After careful consideration, the Government of India decided to establish an Atomic Energy Commission with full executive and financial powers, which was modelled, more or less, on the lines of the Railway Board’. Resolution No.13/7/58-Adm., Department of Atomic Energy, government of India. The resolution was partly amended in 1962; however, the section regarding the authoritative position of the chairman of the AEC remained the same. Atomic Energy Commission, Resolution No. 13/7/58-Adm. of March 1958, government of India.

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70 ‘Vikram Sarabhai appointed AEC chairman’, Times of India, 26 May 1966, p. 1.

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74 ‘Bomb without defence system a “paper tiger”’, Times of India, 2 June 1966, p. 1. See also ‘Excerpts from Dr. Vikram A. Sarabhai's press conference, 1 June 1966’, in Vikram A. Sarabhai, Nuclear Weapons: A Compilation Prepared by the Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Atomic Energy, November 1970, pp. 94–6; Priyanjali Malik, India's Nuclear Debate: Exceptionalism and the Bomb, New Delhi: Routledge, 2010, p. 59; ‘In perspective’, Times of India, 4 June 1966, p. 6.

75 Homi Bhabha pitched his idea on All India Radio on 24 October 1964. Peter R. Lavoy, ‘The costs of nuclear weapons in South Asia’, in D.R. Sardesai and Raju G.C. Thomas (eds.), Nuclear India in the Twenty-First Century, New York: Palgrave, 2002, pp. 259–76, 261; Perkovich, op. cit. (4), p. 122. In Raja Ramanna's memory, Sarabhai directly challenged Bhabha's low estimate for manufacturing a bomb, reportedly saying, ‘you can ask me the price of two yards of cloth, but two yards cannot be produced unless you have a loom or a mill or something behind it’. Anderson, op. cit. (4), p. 435; Sarabhai's study on PNE was reconducted in association with Narasimhiah Seshagiri at TIFR and became public in 1971. M.V. Ramana, The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India, New Delhi: Penguin, 2013; Chakma, op. cit. (52), p. 61.

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80 From the mid-1960s on, the Indian development strategy was modelled on the Soviet practice, centering on quantitative goals and stressing heavy industries and infrastructure. As the country began to face several agricultural failures in 1965 and 1966, and a supervening trade deficit, it began to import large quantities of food despite external aid. The average annual growth from 1961 to 1966 was 2.6 per cent. John E. Tilton, World Metal Demand: Trends and Prospects, Oxford: Routledge, 2015, p. 103; Jagdish N. Bhagwati and T.N. Srinivasan, Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development: India, New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1975, pp. 1–32.

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84 SNEPP had been authorized by former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in coordination with Homi Bhabha in 1965. Anderson, op. cit. (4), p. 386; Chengappa, op. cit. (4), p. 104.

85 Perkovich, op. cit. (4), p. 123; Cooke, op. cit. (72), p. 248; Ramanna, op. cit. (9).

86 Jacques E.C. Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 179.

87 A US internal investigation telegram sent from the Department of State to the US Embassy in New Delhi mentioned Sethna's intention to expand India's investment in nuclear facilities during the AEC chairman's selection process. Times of India, op. cit. (74), p. 1; A. G. Noorani, ‘The nuclear guarantee episode’, Frontline (9–22 June 2001), 18(12), at www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1812/18120940.htm, accessed 13 June 2017.

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89 Interview with anonymous scientist in Mumbai, 11 August 2015.

90 ‘Fourth nuclear explosion by China in offing’, Times of India, 19 October 1966, p. 9.

91 Bharat Karnad, India's Nuclear Policy, Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008, p. 53.

92 This conversation is recalled by Brajesh Mishra, the national security adviser to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the prime minister of India (1998–2004). Karnad, op. cit. (91), p. 178.

93 Anderson, op. cit. (4), p. 435.

94 Sarabhai's determination to elevate India's space programme to make it equivalent to the nuclear programme met with resistance from Indira Gandhi and P.N. Haksar, principal private secretary to the prime minister. Karnad, op. cit. (91), pp. 53, 178.

95 Bhatia, op. cit. (4), pp. 130, 135.

96 Trivedi refuted the idea of controlling fusion techniques, arguing, ‘Is it seriously suggested that a country should be prohibited from developing its own technology, through its own endeavours, so as to achieve economic development? I submit that no developing country can accept a proposition of that kind.’ United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, op. cit. (38), p. 704.

97 For the first spent-fuel reprocessing plant, M.G.K. Menon, appointed director of TIFR in 1966, clarified that the purpose of this plant was ‘reprocessing fuel rods not for the bomb’ at his commemoration lecture on Homi Bhabha, Royal Institution of Great Britain, in 1967. Jayita Sarkar, ‘Sino-Indian nuclear rivalry: glacially declassified’, The Diplomat, 2 June 2017, at https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/sino-indian-nuclear-rivalry-glacially-declassified, accessed 2 July 2017.

98 ‘A.E.E. plans 2nd plutonium plant Rs. 5-crore project’, Times of India, 19 December 1966, p. 5.

99 Times of India, op. cit. (98); Homi Bhabha spoke on ‘Economics of atomic power development in India’ at Dublin on 6 September 1957, ‘As far as India is concerned … the best way of obtaining fissionable material appears to be to produce plutonium as a by-product in atomic power stations working on natural uranium’. Chaudhuri, Dipak B.R., ‘Tarapur's troubles’, Economic and Political Weekly (1972) 7(10), pp. 535–6, 535Google Scholar.

100 Chengappa, op. cit. (4), p. 105.

101 Bharat Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security, Delhi: Macmillan, 2002, p. 302.

102 Anderson, op. cit. (4), p. 435; Karnad, op. cit. (101), p. 302.

103 Chaudhuri, op. cit. (99), p. 536.

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106 Parthasarathi, op. cit. (3).