You can read below a chapter from the book, which talks about how India assessed the nuclear threat from Pakistan and responded to it. The chapter discusses among other things the role of then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in dealing with the threat, and how he took steps to strengthen India's nuclear deterrent.
Pakistan's Nuclear Programme
Narasimha Rao took interest in Pakistan’s nuclear programme. On different occasions, we discussed both its commencement and ongoing developments. Pakistan took the decision to go nuclear in January 1972, at a meeting convened by Bhutto, of officials and nuclear scientists, in Multan. Mobilization of resources started thereafter. Negotiations with France for a plutonium reprocessing plant in 1973 ended in an agreement in March 1976. In May 1972, the Pakistani Metallurgist, Dr A.Q. Khan, joined Physics Dynamics Research Laboratory (in Dutch FDO), a subsidiary of Almelo Enrichment Consortium, a Dutch company, and returned to Pakistan in 1975 after obtaining details of the gas centrifuge enrichment process and a list of supplier firms in Europe for various assemblies.
In 1975, the ‘Special Works Organization’ was established in Islamabad under then Brig. Anees Ali Saeed, which began ordering items required for the nuclear programme through Pakistani embassies in Paris and Brussels, as also through various fictitious firms established for this purpose in West Germany and elsewhere in Europe. This was later confirmed in a BBC documentary. The pace and scope of both overt and covert activities of Pakistan from 1972 onwards made amply clear the hollowness of western propaganda that India’s peaceful explosion in 1974 instigated Pakistan to go nuclear.
The Nuclear Programme not only continued unabated under President Ziaul Haq but later assumed a new priority. Pakistan’s secret purchases since 1977, though denied by President Zia and his government, were well known. In addition to acquisition of nuclear technology information from Almelo in Holland, Pakistan obtained equipment and raw materials for a huge gas centrifuge at Kahuta (near Islamabad), a uranium fuel fabrication plant near Karachi and two pilot plants outside Rawalpindi. These plants produced plutonium 239 and uranium 235—essential ingredients for nuclear weapons or explosive devices. In 1981, the Canadian government intercepted supplies from a Canadian supplier of Pakistani origin. The supplies had reached Canada from the USA and were detected when they were being sent to Pakistan through a Middle Eastern country. In October 1981, the American customs detected a supply of zirconium, used to provide outer covering for fuel rods, used in the Karachi reactor. In 1982, there were credible reports of a Pakistan test in a Chinese location.
I told PM Narasimha Rao that I had written in my handover report as deputy chief of mission in Islamabad in September 1982 that Pakistan conceives its nuclear programme to subserve its strategic military interests, which would necessitate an explosion. It would, however, take time for it to suit both its internal and external compulsions. Pakistan preferred to wait until acquisition of military equipment from the USA, particularly the F-16 planes. He inquired whether this assessment had been shared with others. When I responded that I doubted it had been read by more than two people, he smiled and asked me to continue.
On New Year’s Day in 1983, President Ziaul Haq said, ‘Pakistan is not making a bomb,’ and later on 6 September, he reiterated, ‘Pakistan will not conduct such a test even for peaceful purposes.’ On 27 February 1985, he declared that Pakistan’s nuclear project was for meeting its energy shortage. Around the same time, A.Q. Khan made his disclosures to Kuldip Nayar. A change was indicated in President Zia’s public statement on 27 November 1987, ‘Pakistan does possess the requisite technology to make an atom bomb but would not do so nor has it already made one.’ On 22 May 1989, the civilian government under PM Benazir Bhutto approved a twenty-year plan for developing nuclear power generation. On 5 June 1989, Benazir Bhutto announced, ‘Pakistan will not allow anyone to inspect its nuclear installations.’ This was repeated by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan on 25 August 1991 when he declared, ‘We will not accept any conditions about our nuclear programmes.’
India had always been carefully monitoring reports about China’s assistance to Pakistan in the nuclear field. Rao, when he was minister of external affairs, as early as 30 March 1984, made a statement in the Lok Sabha expressing concern on Sino–Pakistan nuclear collaboration. He extensively quoted from statements of senior U.S. functionaries, who had testified that China had transferred sensitive nuclear weapon design information to Pakistan.
As it emerged later, Narasimha Rao, who I found always wanted me to inform him of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, had been paying close attention to India’s nuclear programme. Arunachalam, the head of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) had separately informed him in 1991 that Pakistan had the capability to produce ten atomic bombs. There had been reports about India conducting nuclear tests during Prime Minister Rao’s tenure. It is mentioned in Rao’s biography, that ‘two days after Narasimha Rao’s body was cremated in 2004, an emotional Atal Bihari Vajpayee, paying his old friend a startling tribute, stated that Rao was the “true father” of India’s nuclear program. Vajpayee said that in May 1996, a few days after he had succeeded Rao as prime minister, Rao told him, “Samagri tayyar hai”, (the ingredients are ready). “You can go ahead, Rao told me that the bomb was ready. I only exploded it.”’
Sitapati, an Indian journalist and author, later writes,
The BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee took over as prime minister on 16 May 1996. Narasimha Rao, Abdul Kalam and R. Chidambaram went to meet the new prime minister ‘so that’, in Kalam’s telling, ‘the smooth takeover of such a very important programme can take place’. Vajpayee’s revelations of 2004 make clear what was discussed. Immediately afterwards, Vajpayee ordered nuclear tests, but rescinded that order when it was clear that his government would not last. In 1998, back as prime minister for the second time, Vajpayee was able to finally ‘go ahead’ and explode.
This excerpt is part of the book, ‘In Pursuit Of Peace’, by Satinder Kumar Lambah, and has been published with permission from Penguin.