Homi Bhabha, Jawaharlal Nehru and the Bomb

Indeed, the importance of nuclear weapons is that they enable a country possessing them in adequate measure to deter another country also possessing them from using them against it.

~Address on Nuclear Disarmament on All India Radio on United Nations Day, 24 October 1964

Bhabha and Nehru were adamant about protecting India’s atomic sovereignty from international efforts to control nuclear technology. They were equally emphatic in wanting to preserve international peace against the fallouts of an unmitigated nuclear arms race. While there was an element of moral repugnance towards nuclear weapons, Nehru’s enthusiasm for nuclear disarmament was also driven by pragmatic considerations. Emphasizing nuclear disarmament to both the US and the USSR helped position India as a genuinely non-aligned state and helped increase its stature among developing countries. It allowed India a more important role in global diplomacy than its material power warranted. 

Nehru’s disarmament diplomacy dictated that international bodies such as the United Nations Disarmament Commission must not exclude non-nuclear weapon states. Multilateralism in disarmament negotiations became one of the cornerstones of India’s policy. Even as India sought greater representation, it held that the primary responsibility for nuclear disarmament lay with the two power blocs. It also believed that radical solutions to disarmament were impractical, given that nuclear weapons had by then become an integral part of the security of nuclear weapon states.

The Soviet nuclear test in 1949 and the testing of a hydrogen bomb in 1952 fuelled an intense arms race. In April 1954, Nehru proposed a cessation of further nuclear tests by the US and the USSR, calling for a standstill agreement. While it was largely ignored by the superpowers, it earned considerable diplomatic clout in the UN and among the third-world countries and put the need for a nuclear test ban firmly on the global disarmament agenda. In 1958, the USSR announced a unilateral moratorium, and the first global disarmament treaty that came into effect in 1963 was the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Nehru was both the originator of the idea and its most public face—he was its symbol and essence, evocator and voice.

India’s engagement on nuclear disarmament came at a time when it had no major stakes in nuclear disarmament. Even though its nuclear capabilities were making good progress, it was still a non-nuclear weapons state. However, this rhetoric served it well in the future; it became the pretext under which India rejected participation in any arms control measures. ‘In later decades, disarmament helped India practice realism under the cloak of idealism.’ Nehru realized the need to not only harness the atom for generating electricity but also use it for the defence of the country. In 1948, he wrote to Defence Minister Baldev Singh that the future belonged to those who produced atomic energy and that it was going to be the chief national power of the future. He conceded that defence was intimately concerned with this and even the political consequences were worthwhile. By then, nuclear weapons had become objects of fetish—markers of national power. Access to nuclear weapons determined a nation’s place in the international pecking order.

Nehru’s ambivalence 

While Mahatma Gandhi was unambiguous about his opposition to the atom bomb, Nehru, while championing a nuclear-free world, exhibited a duality in thinking that puzzled many. P.N. Haksar, one of Indira Gandhi’s closest advisers, recalled Nehru telling him to save future generations from the scourge of nuclear war. At that time, Nehru was emerging as a leader of the non-aligned movement and genuinely believed he had an important role in ensuring world peace. B.K. Nehru, Nehru’s cousin and a former ambassador to the US, remembers asking Bhabha why he was not planning a bomb, in 1951. ‘The old man won’t let me’, Bhabha told him. ‘He has approved of my plans for atomic energy but said under no condition was I to manufacture a weapon.’

Nehru was generally taken at his word when he said that India would not make nuclear weapons. On 20 January 1957, while inaugurating AEET, he declared that India would never use atomic energy for evil purposes, whatever the circumstances. ‘There is no condition attached to circumstances because once we attach any condition, nobody knows what the condition might be and the value of such an assurance does not take us very far.’ Never mind that he had prefaced his announcement with, ‘No man can prophesy about the future’. 

Some months later, Nehru again made his pious intent clear when he reiterated in the Lok Sabha that India was not interested in making atom bombs even if it could do so, and that in no event would they use atomic energy for destructive purposes. However, the end of his speech showed his ambivalence. He said that the fact remained that if one had such resources, then one could make a bomb unless the world was wise enough to come to some decision to stop the production of such bombs. 

When it came to choosing between securing India’s strategic interests through a nuclear arsenal and securing his legacy as that of a ‘peacenik’ and ‘internationalist’, Nehru invariably chose the latter. But, his statements from late 1955 onwards betrayed not only ambivalence and vacillation but also a clear awareness of the importance of having an option of a nuclear weapon. Notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s rhetoric, Bhabha knew that a time would come when a bomb would have to be made and continued to quietly prepare for it. He regularly invited foreign scientists to lecture on the physics of chain reactions and was always on the lookout for recruiting bright young men who could help him in this quest. V.K. Iya, who was a member of the 1974 Pokhran team, first met Bhabha in Paris and was told to complete his PhD thesis before joining Trombay. Iya was, at the time, completing his thesis under Bertrand Goldschmidt and was advised by Bhabha to keep his eyes and ears open. 

There is enough evidence of Nehru’s dual intent. In 1958, he cleared Project Phoenix to recover bomb-grade plutonium from CIRUS. This reactor was India’s shortest route to developing a nuclear weapon since it generated plutonium as a by-product. There could have been no other reason to go in for plutonium production so urgently, apart from achieving Bhabha’s hidden goal. Bhabha also persuaded the Canadians not to have any formal agreement on safeguards for the reactor’s spent fuel rods which contained uranium merely assuring them that it would be used for peaceful purposes. To ensure that the Canadians had no claim over the plutonium produced, Bhabha, as noted before with Brahm Prakash’s help, ensured that Indians mastered the complex technology of making uranium fuel rods of the required quality. 

In January 1958, Nehru, while explaining how India would deal with the stationing of nuclear weapons in Pakistan or any other Asian nation, said that India had the technical know-how for manufacturing the atom bomb and could do it in three or four years. However, it would never do so since it had assured the world that it would never use nuclear science for war. Even as Nehru was delivering this warning, Bhabha was confiding in his friend, Patrick Blackett, that he hoped to develop nuclear weapons. By the end of 1955, both the US and the USSR had exploded fission and fusion bombs, and the UK had exploded a fission bomb. Bhabha and Blackett were of the opinion that these were unlikely to be used for war. They had also agreed on the fact that the bombing of Japan had been unnecessary, a view that was aired by Admiral William Leahy, who served as the chief of staff under both Roosevelt and Truman and whom Bhabha quoted approvingly in his letter to Blackett.

John Cockcroft stated that despite Bhabha’s public espousal of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, in discussions at small closed-door meetings, he appeared to be in favour of making bombs for a Plowshare programme. In late 1957, the US established a formal programme to conduct peaceful nuclear explosions (PNE), which it envisioned using for big excavation projects and releasing natural resources such as natural gas. However, Bhabha, at least at this time, was not particularly interested in such peaceful uses of nuclear explosives. George Perkovich and others have persuasively argued that Bhabha’s primary aim was to acquire weapons capability under the guise of a peaceful programme.6 As early as December 1959, Bhabha told the Parliamentary Committee on Atomic Affairs that India had progressed to such a stage where, if a political directive was received, a bomb could be made without external assistance. The time period, however, was not specified.

Perkovich narrates a conversation Nehru and Bhabha had with retired Major General Kenneth D. Nichols in 1960. Nichols was an American military engineer, who had worked on the Manhattan Project and had also served as the top military official in the US nuclear establishment. When Nichols visited India in 1960, at Bhabha’s request, he came as the chairman of Westinghouse International Atomic Power Company in Geneva. He managed to convince Bhabha that American light water reactors were more suitable than British gas-cooled reactors. 

In the sales pitch to Nehru, Nichols wanted India to open up competition to US suppliers. Nehru agreed and asked Bhabha to include US reactors. Then, Nehru, with extraordinary candidness, asked Bhabha, in Nichols’ presence, if he could develop a bomb. Bhabha responded that he could, and estimated that he would need a year to do so. Subsequently, Nehru asked Nichols if he thought Bhabha could do it. Nichols said that he saw no reason why Bhabha couldn’t. Nehru then turned to Bhabha and said, ‘Well, don’t do it until I tell you to.’ Nichols observed, ‘I was really astounded to be hearing these questions from the one I thought to be one of the world’s most peace-loving leaders.’ Perkovich notes that Bhabha’s claim was not based on facts. Even with the most optimistic assumptions, a bomb could not have been made before 1963.

It was widely believed that Nehru forbade Bhabha from building a nuclear weapon but S. Gopal, Nehru’s biographer, told the journalist Raj Chengappa, ‘It is not generally known that Nehru wrote to Bhabha that he was against outlawing of atomic weapons. His policy was never to use it but to have it because we can’t completely abjure from it.’ When Bhabha wanted to publicly reject nuclear weapons Nehru said, ‘No! No! Don’t go that far.’ Thus, even as Nehru advocated a nuclear bomb-free world and pushed for a nuclear test ban treaty, he sanctioned expensive plans for Bhabha to set up the giant infrastructure capable of both generating nuclear energy and building bombs.

Goldschmidt recalled Bhabha talking in 1955 about Nehru’s response when he had asked Nehru to announce publicly that India would never make a bomb. Nehru had asked Bhabha if they were ready. When Bhabha had said that they were not, Nehru had said, ‘But when you are ready, when you have everything, and you are ready to make a bomb, come and see me again, and we’ll discuss the matter then.’ So, according to Goldschmidt, Indians had always left the door open to produce a weapon if necessary. Bhabha felt that India should show the world that they could make a bomb if they wanted.

In 1953, Nehru refused to take up Eisenhower’s offer of helping non-nuclear nations to set up atomic power plants and set up a ‘bank’ from which they could draw fissile materials instead of producing their fuel. He thought that this was a ploy to prevent nascent nuclear powers from developing nuclear capability. When Bhabha put up the file to Nehru on the subject, he wrote: ‘This is a political decision not to be taken by nuclear scientists.’

A missed opportunity

In May 1961, when the Kennedy administration was preparing to boost loans and aid to India, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visited India and Pakistan. While the interaction with Nehru was positive, Johnson seems to have been more impressed with the military dictator of Pakistan, President Mohammad Ayub Khan. Nevertheless, this did not prevent President Kennedy from making an extraordinary gesture to India around that time. Former foreign secretary, M.K. Rasgotra, in his autobiography, wrote about this gesture in which Kennedy offered to help India conduct a nuclear test. It is said that Kennedy personally wrote a letter to Nehru, conveying the offer. Accompanying the letter was a technical note from the chairman of the US AEC, Glenn Seaborg, setting out the assistance the US would provide to detonate an American device atop a tower in the Thar desert.

Kennedy, who admired Nehru and India’s democracy, had been briefed by American intelligence about China’s progress. They believed China would be ready to conduct a nuclear test in 1963. Kennedy felt that India, a democracy, should have the distinction of becoming the first Asian country to detonate a nuclear device and not communist China. In his letter, while acknowledging Nehru’s strong views on nuclear tests and weapons, he stressed the political and military threat of China’s test to India’s security. ‘Nothing’, Kennedy said, ‘is more important than national security.’

Rasgotra’s source for this information was Ashok Parthasarathy, son of the diplomat G. Parthasarathy. According to Ashok, Nehru shared the letter only with Parthasarathy, who had just returned from China, and Bhabha. In fact, John Kenneth Galbraith, the US ambassador, handed over Kennedy’s letter to Nehru on the very day G. Parthasarathy returned from China. Nehru summoned Bhabha urgently to Delhi to discuss the letter. Ashok said that Bhabha recommended immediate acceptance of Kennedy’s offer. Bhabha told Nehru that on matters of atomic energy, the US was far more flexible and understanding than other western powers. ‘It seems clear to me that our approach to them should not be made through or with the help of the United Kingdom.’

Nehru did not dismiss Kennedy’s offer out of hand. He asked Bhabha to work out a plan in case they accepted the offer. G. Parthasarathy requested time to mull over the implications of the offer and discussed it with Galbraith and B.N. Mullick, the director of the Intelligence Bureau. Both of them advised G. Parthasarathy to ask Nehru to accept the offer. Strangely, in the end, G. Parthasarathy ignored their advice and told Nehru to turn down the offer. It was perhaps what Nehru wanted to hear.15 He was not keen on taking help from the US, mainly because he wanted to keep India non-aligned. It would also damage his efforts toward global disarmament, a subject on which he was arguably the world’s most emphatic public face. Nehru’s efforts did lead to the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which banned all atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Had Nehru accepted Kennedy’s offer, it would have perhaps prevented the 1962 Chinese attack on India and also served as a deterrent to Ayub Khan before the 1965 Indo–Pak conflict. 

Even before the offer from the US, Bhabha had sounded out the USSR to supply a power plant to India. India’s relationship with the USSR had grown slowly after Independence. Stalin held little regard for India, but, after his death, there was a distinct warming in relations. In June 1955, Nehru travelled to the USSR, and a joint declaration was signed between the two countries. As we have seen in late 1955, the Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin and the Communist Party First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev visited India. They also went to TIFR, where Bhabha showed them around.

On a visit to Canada in November 1960, Bhabha announced that the USSR had agreed to design natural uranium and fast breeder power plants for India. This never materialized, but it helped Bhabha leverage more American and Canadian assistance with less stringent safeguards. Bhabha had also been pressing the Russian metallurgist, V.S. Emelyanov, for a natural uranium reactor. He was told that it was premature for that kind of plant, as was his idea of using such a plant to produce plutonium for recycling in breeders. The Soviet scientist was well aware that Bhabha could use the plutonium to make nuclear weapons.

The above is an excerpt from Homi J. Bhabha: A Life, the first full-fledged biography of the theoretical physicist who founded India’s nuclear programme, by Bakhtiar K. Dadabhoy, Rupa and Co., 2023.

Bakhtiar K. Dadabhoy is the author of eight books including the bestselling Jeh: A Life of JRD Tata and Sugar in Milk: Lives of Eminent Parsis.