Scientist urges India to test its H-bombs

Shaikh Azizur Rahman, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: September 23. 2009 10:37PM UAE / September 23. 2009 6:37PM GMT

The nuclear scientist K Santhanam at a press conference in Delhi where he said that the India did not have a credible nuclear deterrence against China. Asiapics

NEW DELHI // A leading Indian nuclear scientist who contradicted offical claims last month when he said one of the nuclear devices India tested in 1998 had actually “fizzled”, urged officials this week to conduct a “series of thermonuclear bomb tests to protect the nation’s security” from China.

“We are totally naked vis-à-vis China, which has an inventory of 200 nuclear bombs, the vast majority of which are giant H-bombs of power equal to three million tonnes of TNT,” said Kasturiranga Santhanam, the co-ordinator of the 1998 nuclear tests, at a press conference in New Delhi this week.

Noting that he firmly stood by his claim that the 1998 thermonuclear test in Pokhran had been a failure, the scientist said the device was “totally incapable of weaponisation” and urged the government to revoke the unilateral voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing, not to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and to conduct at least two more tests of hydrogen bombs in order to possess a credible nuclear deterrent.

Although some Indian scientists, including his former colleagues, have thrown their weight behind Mr Santhanam’s claims, others argue that even if the 1998 test had fizzled, no further tests are necessary as India has a minimum nuclear deterrent to stave off threats from neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and China.

On May 11 and 13, 1998, ignoring pressure from the West, India tested five Shakti [“strength” in Sanskrit] nuclear bombs, including Shakti I, the only thermonuclear bomb of the five, which, according to the then Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, yielded energy equal to 45 kilo tonnes of TNT, and were declared a monumental success.

Soon after, western experts reported that the yield could not have been more than 20 kilotonnes.

Mr Santhanam, who was then a senior scientist with the governmental Defence Research Development Organisation, said last month the yield of the thermonuclear device was far less than what the BJP government had claimed – only 20 to 25 kilotonnes – triggering an uproar in Indian nuclear and defence circles and causing a flurry of debate in the media regarding a fresh series of tests.

‘‘So India has only a 20 KT fission weapon arsenal to bank upon. This may be enough to tackle a minor nuclear weapon state like Pakistan, but against China it will find itself grossly inadequate and overmatched,” said Bharat Karnad, a security expert at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.

“In a strategic crisis which may materialise sooner than anybody expects, India will be compelled to throw in the towel and kowtow to Beijing.”

A Gopalakrishnan, a well-known nuclear scientist and former chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, said that some in the upper echelons of government and military were trying to “hush up the facts” and were misleading the country on key security issues by claiming the tests were successful.

Mr Gopalakrishnan claimed that despite knowing that the test was less than successful, R Chidambaram – who was the chairman of the Department of Atomic Energy [DAE] and project co-ordinator of the 1998 tests – “encouraged” the BJP-led government to publicise that Shakti I had lived up to expectations.

“He might have several compulsions that made him say this while he knew the facts. He must have been motivated partly by personal glory,” Mr Gopalakrishnan, speaking to reporters, said about Mr Chidambaram, who received Padma Vibhushan, a national achievement award, for his contribution to the “success” of the tests and is now the principal scientific adviser to the government.

“He is obviously indulging in a total misrepresentation of facts … All this shows that the DAE has been misleading the public and lying on the issues. In matters of nuclear safety and independence of safety regulations, too, the DAE and PMO [have taken] misleading stances.”

Although India is not a signatory to the CTBT, the Congress-led government is against any more tests and maintains that those of 1998 were successful and sufficient.

The country’s national security adviser, M K Narayanan, said last week that he was “absolutely sure” that India had thermonuclear capabilities.

“Even if we are hit, we will have enough to be able to deliver something,” Mr Narayanan said in a televised interview, calling Mr Santhanam’s claim “horrific”.

“The tests were perfect and the yield was 45 kilotonnes. Several papers have also been published by Barc [Bhaba Atomic Research Centre] scientists in reputed scientific journals [to support this view]. There is nothing more to say … Santhanam has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.”

Mr Santhanam, however, said he “firmly stood by” his remarks last month and added that he had communicated to the government about his misgivings in a 50-page classified report submitted a few months after the 1998 tests.

“There are many inaccuracies in the NSA’s statement [against what I said] ... He [Mr Narayan] is barking up the wrong tree,” said Mr Santhanam, of the government’s dismissal of his allegations.

Mr Santhanam said this week that there was a “strong and clear” need to form a panel of independent and eminent scientists to analyse the 1998 test data and prepare a confidential report.

“Only then will the credibility [about the assessment of the tests] be increased … AEC and Barc cannot be judge and jury, [and even] more so when the issue relates to their claims of the thermonuclear yield.”

Pointing to China’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, Mr Santhanam said that for India, it would be “farcical” to use a 3,500-km range Agni-3 missile with a 20 or 25 kilotonne of warhead “as the core” of a credible minimum deterrence strategy.

“Only a 150-350 kilotonne, if not megaton, [thermonuclear] bomb can do so, which we do not have,” Mr Santhanam said, warning that the creation of nuclear power could not be “based on myths”.

“The decision to declare the hydrogen bomb a success was more of a political fatwa than a considered, scientific-technical determination.”

srahman@thenational.ae