Jul

20

Top 10 interesting facts about India’s 1974 explosion

July 20, 2008 posted by indiatime |

The current hallabaloo in India’s parliament has its seeds in the Indo-US nuclear deal initiated about 3 years ago signalling an end to the 30-year US embargo/moratorium on any nuclear cooperation with India. That embargo resulted from the 1974 nuclear expolsion that India conducted in the desert sands of Pokhran in the northwest. Here are 10 interesting facts about that explosion that you may not have read before:

1. The initial authorization that allowed India’s nuclear scientists to begin work on their design for a nuclear bomb, was a verbal authorization that came about 2 years before the explosions, from India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi on her visit to the Bhabha Atomic Research Center near Mumbai. There was little documentation created throughout the 2-year initiative, a fact that helped keep the project a top secret.

2. A 29-year old mechanical engineer with expertise in experimental stress analysis, was part of the original team that built India’s first nuclear bomb. Today, Anil Kakodkar, is chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission and backs the Indo-US nuclear deal.

3. Only 3 people outside of the actual team of scientists working on the bomb, knew about the project. That made it 75 scientists, one politician (the prime minister herself), and two Indian administraive service officers (Haksar and Dhar). Haksar, One of those IAS officers, is also the person most often blamed for the 1969 split in the Indian National Congress, a previous version of today’s ruling party.

4. The scientists envisioned the bomb’s components as religious metaphors. The inner slow explosive component was said to be in the shape of a ’shivalingam’ - Shiva’s phallic symbol. The explosives were said to be placed around the plutonium sphere in the shape and form of lotus petals - the shape and form of Hinduism’s suprme deity Vishnu who sits on a lotus petal.

5. The Indian team solved many of the academic poblems on their own - just as the scientists that developed the original nuclear bomb had done a few decades earlier. The original ‘Manhattan Project’ employed about 130,000 people.

6. The initiator of the device, named ‘the flower’ was flown from Bombay to Pokhran (the actual test site) in a thermos flask, on a routine Indian Airlines flight.

7. The work was initially estimated to take 18 months, and amazingly, during the 18th month, the final assembly operation was tested near the actual site. The name of the final test - “tickling the dragon’s tail”!

8. Of the 3 outsiders who knew about the test (prime minister and two IAS advisers), both the IAS officers (Haksar and Dhar) opposed the explosion in a critical last minute meeting before the tests. Prime minister Gandhi, however, trusting the scientists and her own instincts, gave the go-ahead nonetheless. It is said the the defense minister and the external affairs minister got a few days advanced notice. (Mrs. Gandhi did not trust her defense minister Jagjivan Ram and the external affairs minister Swaran Singh almost until the very end of the project). Jagjivan Ram would never forget the insult and switched sides against Mrs Gandhi in 3 years, supporting an opposition-led government.

9. The 18th May in 1974, the day India exploded its first nuclear device, was a Buddha Purnima day, the day when Buddha was supposedly born over 2500 years ago.

10. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, quoted a verse from the Hindu scripture Gita, after witnessing the world’s first atomic bomb back in 1945 -

“…If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one…”

Remembering the first bomb 20 years later, Oppenheimer said this :

“…I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another…I suppose we all f***ed up…one way or another….”



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10 Comments so far

  1. ec on July 23, 2008 10:33 pm

    That’s fascinating-I wonder how many members of parliament know all (or any of)that.

  2. priyanka on August 27, 2008 8:19 pm

    thats great

  3. K.Ganesh Rao on October 11, 2008 5:39 pm

    if truth were to prevail at the time India
    could not have become a Nuclear PowerNow.

  4. For some, Indo-US nuclear deal raises concerns of regional arms race : It’s Indiatime on October 12, 2008 12:57 pm

    [...] Top 10 interesting facts about India’s 1974 explosion [...]

  5. Homi Bhabha (Oct 30, 1909 - Jan 24, 1966) : It’s Indiatime on October 30, 2008 11:38 am

    [...] Top 10 interesting facts about India’s 1974 explosion [...]

  6. brooklynn on January 21, 2009 4:40 am

    i think that explosive bombs are cool just make sure that your building them right. you know i think that if you are building bombs just for the fn of it . it can be a good hobby. but not for me im a cheerleader.

  7. RAMAN LAL RANIGA on March 10, 2009 10:11 pm

    Nuclear bombs experiment and test is purely destructive idea that originates from darkened mind that has destroyed the inner HEART OF OUR ONE MOTHER EARTH AND NOW WE ARE EXPERIENCING EVERY NOW AND THEN THE SLIDE OF FRACTURED TECTONIC PLATES THAT CREATES THE MAJOR EARTHQUAKES. Nuclear reactors may be producing energy but then the dangerous by- products that darkened mind human may use it for nuclear weapons for self annhilation.
    LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCE WIND POWER SUN ENERGY COOKERS SOLAR CELLS SEAWAVE POWER UTILISIZATION TO DRIVE TURBINES TO PRODUCE ELECTRICAL ENERGY AND RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES TO RUN MANY MODES OF TRANSPORT AS CLEAN ENERGY
    USE ELECTRICAL POWERED TRAINS AND CLEAN TRANSPORT.

  8. joseph on March 17, 2009 8:44 am

    good

  9. joseph on March 17, 2009 8:44 am

    goodgood

  10. joseph on March 17, 2009 8:44 am

    goodgoodlousy

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