Aug

28

Did Buddha smile or did he just smirk?

August 28, 2009 posted by indiatime |

There’s a feud going on amongst those who coordinated and participated in the 1998 Pokhran nuclear explosions. The principal scientists and the politicians involved have been maintaining that India’s claims about the May 1998 nuclear tests are not to be doubted. K. Santhanam, the test site director and one of the main participants representing the Defense Research establishment (DRDO), has been claiming that India exaggerated its claims about the kiloton yields almost by triple.

The then national security advisor Brajesh Mishra is disputing Santhanam’s argument, contending that Santhanam himself had earlier verified the higher yield figures. “Was Santhanam speaking the truth then or is he lying now?”, asks Mishra. Santhanam’s then boss Dr. Kalam himself is disputing his test director’s assertions as well. Kalam is basing his own assertions on the post-explosion seismic and drilling measurements.

If India’s nuclear tests weren’t successful back in 1998, it would mean a boatload of trouble for India’s national security. Only 2 weeks after India’s tests, Pakistan had conducted similar tests, claiming an almost equivalent yield from its own results. Assuming for a moment that Santhanam’s claims are true, and assuming for a moment that Pakistan’s claims are true as well, puts India in a position it just doesn’t want to be in. First of all, it negates the assurances from India’s politicians and defense chiefs about India being ready to take on its enemies. Secondly, India’s signing of the comprehensive nuclear test ban will halt any further testing, arresting India’s nuclear program to a level much below Pakistan’s program. If that proves to be true, that would be a gigaton yield explosion for some political parties, forever eroding the credibility of some big name individuals who have so far been considered above the fray.

One one hand, Santhanam’s whistleblowing on this issue, can appear immature, untimely and unnecessary. So what if the nuclear tests weren’t as huge as we made them out to be? After all, as long as the idea is to use the tests as a deterrent, does it really matter what the real yield was? Because in such a deterrence scenario, a claim is as good as a yield and perception as good as reality. Right? And isn’t Santhanam doing a disservice to the nation by bolstering the spirits of the enemy across the border?

But then again, hiding an untruth if that is what it really is, may actually be a much bigger disservice to the nation. No matter what the yield of that 1998 test, it certainly didn’t prevent 10 terrorist murderers from trespassing into India in 2008, and it certainly didn’t deter the then ruling regime of Pakistan from illegally claiming Indian land back in 1999. False pride is just as big a sin as false humility, after all.

Personally, I wish there were a time-bound moratorium on declassifying truths of such nature. Many other countries follow that simple rule of thumb and allow to declassify their secret documents several decades later. Santhanam could have done that on his own accord, but then again, every participant of such major operations is burdened with some balance of personal ego and a duty to the covert cause. It’s hard to say which of the participants have allowed that balance to be skewed.

More often than not, truth has a tendency to lie somewhere in the middle of the two ends of such disputes. “…Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge…”, said Buddha once. But he too, is said to have smiled mysteriously when the sands of Pokhran exploded first in 1974 and then in 1998.


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