Portrait of Rao as N-architect

Nor has there been much debate on why Rao chose to hold back in December 1995 after so painstakingly preparing the ground for the nuclear tests. Had Vajpayee acknowledged Rao’s contribution on May 11, 1998 when the first round of Pokhran-II took place, the ensuing domestic political division could have been avoided.

Nor would there be reason today to discuss which government was responsible for pushing Indian nukes ‘‘out of the tube’’. The reality is that the Indian bomb was as much a project of the Congress as it was of the BJP.

Jawaharlal Nehru for all his commitment to peace and disarmament refused to give up India’s right to make nuclear weapons. After the first Chinese test in October 1964, barely months after Nehru died, the Congress demanded the bomb in a resolution at the AICC session in Durgapur in 1965.

Indira Gandhi conducted the first nuclear test in May 1974 but chose to call it a ‘‘peaceful nuclear explosion’’. It was Rajiv Gandhi who finally decided to make India a nuclear power in 1988.His successors, V.P. Singh and Chandrasekhar, are in a position to confirm Rajiv Gandhi’s decision having each received a paper on the state of India’s nuclear programme at the beginning of their tenures.

The decision to go nuclear in 1988 was secret. The question after Rajiv Gandhi was when and how India would come out of the nuclear closet. Every nuclear programme faces its most dangerous moments in its initial phases. That precisely is what Rao confronted in 1991. The end of the Cold War and the international concerns on non-proliferation resulted in relentless pressures from the US to cap India’s nuclear programme.

Rao’s mandate to his foreign secretary J.N. Dixit (1991-94) was to buy time and space for India’s bomb programme.

Together Rao and Dixit, now the national security adviser, devised a variety of diplomatic strategems to resist international pressures without confronting the US head-on and thus gained valuable time for Indian scientists to come up with a credible programme of nuclear tests, including the Hydrogen bomb.

The appointed day arrived in mid-December 1995. The nuclear devices were already put into the L-shaped hole dug for the purpose in Pokhran desert. The Ministries of External Affairs and Finance had estimated of the costs of US sanctions that would have followed. The officer in the MEA specialising in the nuclear issue had a prepared statement in his drawer justifying India’s decision.

As US satellite pictures began to show Indian preparations for the test, the New York Times broke the story about India’s plans to test on December 15. After two days, India finally declared it had no intention to test.Had Rao tested in 1995, India’s political history might have been different. With elections due in mid-1996, the nuclear card could have possibly returned Rao to power. Yet, inexplicably Rao chose not to. Some say he succumbed to US pressure. Others say he was concerned about Pakistan’s reaction and the economic consequences.

Nuclear ambivalence summed the man that Rao was — laying foundations for the transformation of India’s security, foreign and economic policies, but holding back at key moments.

The eulogies to Rao might have missed his nuclear role. But when the history of India’s nuclear programme is written, Rao will figure prominently. It was just as well that Vajpayee has underlined Rao’s contribution.