They are hostile neighbours widely seen by many as competing to have a bigger nuclear arsenal. However, after its first nuclear test in 1974, India offered to share nuclear technology with Pakistan. In her statement to Indian parliament after the tests on July 22, then prime minister Indira Gandhi said she had told her Pakistani counterpart, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, that New Delhi would be ready to share the relevant technology with Islamabad.
Quoting her statement the US embassy reported, as revealed by Wikileaks, “I have explained in my letter to Prime Minister Bhutto the peaceful nature and the economic purposes of this experiment and have also stated that India is willing to share her nuclear technology with Pakistan in the same way she is willing to share it with other countries, provided proper conditions for understanding and trust are created. I once again repeat this assurance.”
The offer was extraordinary in its audacity, but equally in its foresight. The Indian offer came as Bhutto termed as insufficient Gandhi’s assurance that tests were not meant to harm Pakistan. In his response to Gandhi, Bhutto said, many past assurances from India “regrettably remain unhonored”. Testing of nuclear device is no different from detonation of a nuclear weapon, he wrote.
Pakistan tested a nuclear weapon for the first time in May, 1998 — a fortnight after India conducted its second nuclear test.
But Gandhi’s offer to share nuclear technology with Pakistan was not the move of a potential nuclear proliferator. Instead, it showed the confidence of a leader who probably believed that India, after the test, could seamlessly become part of the international nuclear system, where New Delhi could become a legitimate nuclear supplier. Gandhi’s confidence, as it turned out, was misplaced. India was immediately placed under a tough technology denial regime. In fact, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was created as a result of the 1974 test precisely to keep countries like India beyond the pale. It took a hard-fought nuclear deal with the US to open that door for India in 2008.
But on July 22, 1974, Gandhi was looking ahead, and wanted to ensure that the craters formed by nuclear explosions could be used for strategic storage of oil and gas or even shale oil extraction. In her statement to parliament, she seemed bemused by the international reaction to the first Pokharan test. “It was emphasised that activities in the field of peaceful nuclear explosion are essentially research and development programmes. Against this background, the government of India fails to understand why India is being criticised on the ground that the technology necessary for the peaceful nuclear explosion is no different from that necessary for weapons programme. No technology is evil in itself: it is the use that nations make of technology which determines its character. India does not accept the principle of apartheid in any matter and technology is no exception.”
Referring to Bhutto’s letter, she scoffed at his suggestion that there was radioactivity leakage as a result of the test. “This was impossible as there was no venting of radioactivity to the atmosphere and no formation of a radioactive cloud. Moreover, the wind was blowing in the opposite direction as it normally does at this time of the year and even in theory, any hypothetical radioactivity could never have gone to Pakistan. The wind pattern on May 18, 1974 was from, repeat from, the south-west.”
However, Gandhi remained ambiguous about weaponisation of India’s nuclear capability. In an interview to CBC, Canada, she had ducked the question. “If our scientists have the basic know-how, without which they couldn’t have done this, then any government could have directed them to make a bomb if they had so desired,” she had explained.
