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Mahesh

19/05/24 04:07 AM IST

50 years of Pokhran-I

In News
  • In 1974,India conducted its landmark first nuclear tests in Pokhran, Rajasthan, as part of the ‘Smiling Buddha’ operation.
Background
  • Following the end of World War II in 1945, which led to the deaths of millions and unprecedented destruction, new global alliances and alignments emerged.
  • The US and the USSR continued engaging in proxy wars in other countries, for ideological and economic superiority, in what was dubbed the Cold War.
  • With the US dropping two nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the end of the war in August 1945, and the Soviet Union carrying out its own nuclear test in 1949, it was decided that certain regulations were required to prevent massive devastation at the hands of nuclear weapons.
  • To maintain a kind of minimal peace, one such treaty was signed in 1968, called the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
  • Nuclear-weapon States parties under the NPT are defined as those that manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive devices before January 1, 1967, effectively meaning the P-5 countries.
Objectives of NPT
  • Firstly, its signatories agreed not to transfer either nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons technology to any other state.
  • Second, the non-nuclear states agreed that they would not receive, develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons.
  • All of the signatories agreed to submit to the safeguards against proliferation established by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
  • Parties to the treaty also agreed to help end the nuclear arms race and limit the spread of the technology.
Pokhran- I
  • Indian scientists Homi J Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai had laid the groundwork earlier for nuclear energy to be tested in India.
  • In 1954, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was founded, with Bhabha as director.
  • Unlike Nehru, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did not hold a negative view of nuclear tests.
  • But given the treaties that the P-5 had in place, India decided to conduct its tests without any prior information being released to the world.
  • A nuclear device was detonated, with a yield of 12-13 kiloton of TNT, on May 18, 1974. Pokhran, an army test range located in the desert of western Rajasthan, was chosen.
  • A team of around 75 researchers and scientists were involved. Its code name came from the test’s date being on the same day as Buddha Jayanti, the birth date of Gautam Buddha.
  • India demonstrated to the world that it could defend itself in an extreme situation and chose not to immediately weaponise the nuclear device it tested at Pokhran.
  • This was to happen only after 1998’s Pokhran-II tests.
Criticism
  • In 1978, US President Jimmy Carter signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, following which the US ceased exporting nuclear assistance to India.
  • The US view on India testing such technologies would only shift on July 18, 2005, when US President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh first announced their intention to enter into a nuclear agreement in Washington.
  • The US also pushed for setting up a club of nuclear equipment and fissile material suppliers.
  • The 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) would go on to implement agreed rules for exporting nuclear equipment, with a view to controlling the spread of nuclear weapons and where members would be admitted only by consensus.
  • India has been trying, since 2008, to join the group, which would give it a place at the high table where the rules of nuclear commerce are decided — and, eventually, the ability to sell equipment.
  • Many countries that initially opposed its entry, like Australia, have changed stance; Mexico and Switzerland are the latest to voice support. India’s effort has been to chip away at the resistance, leaving only one holdout — China.
Source- Indian Express

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