Saturday, January 28, 2006
What is a Peaceful Nuclear Explosion?
I was reading an interview with Homi Sethna about Homi Bhabha's legacy when I came across this oft-repeated nugget:
PS: To the Vajpayee govt's great credit, they did not feel the need for a sad cover-up when they tested the bombs in 1998.
On May 18, 1974, India conducted its first nuclear explosion for peaceful purposes, at Pokhran in Rajasthan to emerge the world's sixth nuclear power.Anyone who spent any time in India has heard this line at least a 100 times in the past, except noone seems to be sure what it really means. What on earth is a nuclear explosion for peaceful purposes? How exactly does exploding a nuclear bomb contribute to peace, unless you're using the long-range logic of strategic balance etc. Somehow, I doubt that's what it is; it's more likely that Mrs Gandhi's government was using a pathetic fig-leaf (since the nuclear fuel was diverted etc), and like a lot of things in India, this BS too entered the popular vocabulary with noone bothering to question it.
PS: To the Vajpayee govt's great credit, they did not feel the need for a sad cover-up when they tested the bombs in 1998.
