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Book Name:Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India's Quest to be a Nuclear Power Publisher: Harper Collins India Year: 2000 Pages: 489 Price: Rs. 395 ISBN: 81-7223-330-2

God was in the process of creating the universe. And he was explaining to his angels ... "Look, everything should be proportionate. For every 10 deer there should be one lion. Look here my fellow angels, here is the United States. I have blessed them with prosperity and money. But at the same time I have given them insecurity and tension.... And here is Africa. I have given them natural beauty. But at the same time, I have given them climatic extremes.... And here is South America. I have given them lots of forests. But at the same time, I have given them less farmland so that they would have to cut down the forests... so you see, everything should be in balance. "

One of the angels asked... "Lord, what is this beautiful country here?" God said "That is the crown jewel. India. My most precious creation. They have understanding and friendly people. Sparkling streams, majestic mountains. A culture which reflects their great tradition. Technologically brilliant and with hearts of gold." The angel was quite surprised "But Lord you said everything should be in balance."

God replied "Look at the neighbours I gave them"

India's whole problem has been the issue of neighbours. Jokes circulate the realms of cyberspace every time there's a war on or some sabre rattling takes place on the frontiers, or a stealth plane flies secretly over a district in West Bengal. "Pakistan must be involved!" Everyone is busy looking over their shoulders at Pakistan , or trying to make a new peace. China, the other neighbour, is regarded with a wary respect. India has bought some of China's political theories and has followed Nehru's, "Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai" philosophy since the war in 1963. No one makes any jokes about China. It's Pakistan that they mind.

The strange thing is that India is such a garrulous kind of country, it's surprising that it manages to keep any secrets, political or otherwise. Everyone knows everything that happens, secrets are leaked in the press or someone sees someone else in a place they shouldn't be. Watergate would not have been at all possible in India. However, India's quest for nuclear power is a very closely guarded secret. One that has been kept for over 50 years, every since the country became independent and a land known as Hindustan was divided into India and Pakistan.

The Prime Minister is the only one with the power to pull the nuclear trigger. Otherwise full knowledge of the nuclear programme is restricted to a chosen few and the trigger travels with the Prime Minister in a briefcase. One leather briefcase among all those other briefcases carrying bumph and the paraphenalia of power. No one actually knew about it until the summer of 99 when five underground nuclear explosions were carried out at Pokhran under the orders of Atul Bihari Vajpayee. The date was 12th May.

No one believed that any such thing had happened until they read it in the papers or heard it on TV. And after that for a while, it was the hot topic of conversation on the verandahs of the Clubs until it was overtaken by the Kargil crisis - though you might say that that was an extension of the same subject. India and her neighbour. Everything was blamed on the nuclear blast. From the rising price of potatoes - "Oh, don't you know, they used sacks of potatoes as sandbags in Pokhran?" - to the unusually high summer temperatures.

Many said it was an instance of a politically unstable party flexing its muscles in an effect to gain a larger following - after all, fresh elections were due in the country in the winter of that year.

Even the CIA was caught with its pants down. Cost cutting had apparently affected its fabled sleuthing activities. One of their satellites had taken a tell tale picture the night before the test, but no one had studied the surveillance film till it was far too late. And in any case, what would they have done? Imposed sanctions against India earlier?

The first nuclear shaft was dug in Pokhran in 1974. Five thousand acres of empty space were needed to carry out the tests in and Pokran in the Rajasthan desert was elected.

The only problem was that the shaft the army dug had water in it and nuclear tests can only be carried out in bone dry well shafts. So the nuclear physicists went roving through the villages and dug out a 96-year-old man from an opium den. He was the only person living who remembered that the local water diviner had pointed out dry wells in a deserted spot called Malki.

No one has however talked about nuclear or Pokhran or even written books since 1999. Possibly it was the five blasts that did and the fact that the Government welcomed the publicity, unlike their predecessors who preferred to keep it quiet. Possibly because it was an explosive way of welcoming the new millennium.

Now, on the eve of the Pokran blasts, India is faced with another kind of explosion. From 12th May the population of the country reached the one million mark and is continuing to escalate steadily. This is not a fact guaranteed to make any liberal government proud of its policies. After all, what is a nuclear explosion in the face of a population explosion in a country where most people live well below the poverty line?

A lot of people in the clubs wondered whether India could afford those nuclear blasts. Was that where the taxpayers' money was going? A lot more, the unclubby masses, stood up and cheered because the events were followed by the Kargil issue. INDIA HAS TAKEN HER RIGHTFUL PLACE AMONG THE SUPERPOWERS! And it was the unclubby masses that were heard.

Pre-millennium India was, after all, a strange place. There was the murder of the missionary Graham Staines, the nuclear blasts, the Kargil conflict - no, you could not call it a war - the Orissa cyclone and the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane. People jumped around waving flags and declaring that they were glad to be Hindus, something that no one in 1945 would ever have predicted.

The Foreign Minister Jaswant Sinha was asked to comment on what he felt about the nuclear issue. He answered that though one might morally disapprove of such potential mass destruction, when issues of rule were concerned 'nuclear deterrence is the currency of power and India must have it.' He called it Raj Dharma, an obligation to the state.

Raj Chengappa is deputy editor of India Today, the subcontinent's largest circulated and most respected weekly newsmagazine. He specialises in matters of national security/ Weapons of Peace is an exhaustively researched book based on 200 revealing interviews with former prime ministers, bureaucrats, generals and scientists. The book is full of human, scientific, military and political details which make it interesting reading.

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