Indian Nuclear Policy

by Harsh V Pant

  It is absolutely in the interests of India to have a vigorous school for research in fundamental physics ... [for] … when nuclear energy has been successfully applied for power production, in say a couple of decades from now, India will not have to look abroad for experts but will find them ready at home. (Andersen 1975: 33)

  This was the beginning of India’s engagement with atomic science. Bhabha’s views on the role of science and technology were similar to Prime Minister Nehru and both accepted that the ‘energy potential of the atomic nucleus was the apogee of science’ (Perkovich 1999: 17).

  Bhabha’s scientific credentials, his leadership of atomic energy research in India, his influential background, his belief in the promise of the atomic age, and his personal friendship with Nehru provided him immense influence in shaping the course of India’s nuclear future. By 1947, Bhabha had started lobbying Nehru for institutionalization of atomic research in India. This led to the enactment of the Atomic Energy Act of 1948. Through the Act, Nehru and Bhabha aimed at creating an Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to oversee all aspects of nuclear science and technology research in the country and to provide a legal framework under which the commission can operate. The Act bestowed upon the AEC the sole authority for nuclear research in India. It also labelled atomic research as a state secret, providing unmitigated authority to the AEC over matters concerning atomic R&D. On 10 August 1948, the AEC was established and was directly answerable to Prime Minister Nehru, providing Bhabha unfettered access to the most important political decision-maker of modern India. Even though the political control rested with the prime minister, owing to Bhabha’s expertise and his equation with Nehru, functional command lay completely with the chairman of the AEC. This made it one of the most autonomous bureaucratic institutions in Nehru’s India. With little political oversight and immense politico-scientific interest in atomic energy, the research in this field grew exponentially, at least in terms of the financial allocation it received from the state.

  Yet, till 1954, as the official history of atomic energy in India suggests, no tangible progress was made (Sundaram et al. 1998). The intervening years were largely used for building the resource base for atomic energy research, especially the training of scientists and identification of radioactive material in the country. On the one hand, India had known sources of monazite sands, rich in thorium, but it was not a natural fissile material. On the other hand, India was deficient in the most commonly used source of fissile material, uranium. Whatever sources were found were also of poor quality, with very little content of the fissile isotope, U-235. This resource deficiency, coupled with theoretical possibility of producing artificial fissile materials such as plutonium (Pl-239) and U-233, led Bhabha to conjure a unique nuclear path for India called the three-stage atomic energy programme.3 The three-stage programme involved a development trajectory which, in the first phase, used natural uranium (U-238) as the primary fuel for India’s nuclear reactors. Irradiation of this natural uranium produced plutonium as spent fuel which, upon reprocessing, could generate a highly fissile isotope called Pl-239. The second stage intended to use Pl-239 as fuel in breeder reactors alongside natural uranium and thorium. Irradiation of thorium in breeder reactors resulted in U-233, which was as good a fissile material as was naturally occurring U-235. Therefore, for the third and the last stage, Bhabha envisioned nuclear reactors based on U-233 as the primary fuel. This three-stage process provided a way out of India’s deficient resource base. This was Bhabha’s ‘grand vision’ for atomic energy in India (Deshmukh 2003: 56). By default, it also provided India the necessary wherewithal for a nuclear weapons programme; Pl-239 could also be used for making atomic weapons. Whether the choice of this unique path for atomic energy programme was a camouflage for development of nuclear weapons continues to be debated by historians of India’s nuclear programme.

  The year 1954 was also a landmark year for Bhabha insofar he further consolidated his grip on the management of atomic energy in India with the establishment of the DAE. The AEC, formed in 1948, was only an advisory body to the Government of India and worked under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Scientific Research. In the intervening years, however, the AEC’s activities had expanded dramatically. In 1954, Bhabha convinced Nehru to establish a separate department in the central government to look over matters concerning the atomic energy establishment. The DAE came directly under the PMO and was manned exclusively by nuclear scientists, as was the case with the AEC. This ensured a central role for the DAE and the PMO in India’s nuclear decision-making.

  In Nehru and Bhabha, India found what the famous Pakistani physicist and Noble Prize winner, Abdus Salam, had once cited as a prerequisite for scientific progress in the developing world: ‘the supply of towering individuals, tribal leaders around which great institutions are built’ (Salam 1966: 462). Between 1947 and 1954, Nehru and Bhabha had laid the foundations of atomic energy development in India. Their common views on science and technology and the potential of atomic energy in leapfrogging India towards modernity made nuclear research a well-funded scientific enterprise in the country. They had created a unique institutional and bureaucratic arrangement for management of atomic energy in the form of the DAE and the AEC. The Indian state had thus imposed its absolute control over all aspects of atomic research. Yet, till 1954, no tangible progress had been made on producing power out of the atom. India was yet to operate even a research reactor, leave alone the question of producing electricity from nuclear reactors. Being a parliamentary democracy, this slow pace of progress also invited severe criticisms. Therefore, over the next decade or so, the DAE and Bhabha excessively focused on producing tangible results in the field of atomic energy, most importantly in establishing nuclear reactors. This nuclear infrastructure could not have been produced indigenously. For all of Bhabha’s insistence on self-reliance, India’s initial major breakthroughs in atomic energy came with foreign assistance. This is explained in the next section.

  International Cooperation and the Growth of Atomic Energy

  In March 1955, India decided to build its first research reactor, APSARA. This 1 megawatt thermal (MWT) swimming pool-type reactor was to be built with the assistance of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEC). Though constructed and designed by Indian scientists and engineers, the UKAEC provided the entire load of enriched uranium fuel. The generosity of the UKAEC is explained by two factors. First, in December 1953, President Eisenhower had announced the Atoms for Peace programme.4 Under the programme, the US offered to assist other states in peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Being the leader of the Western bloc, this also inspired other technologically advanced states such as the UK and Canada to share their technological progress in nuclear sciences with other countries.5 The second factor was much more personal. Sir John Cockcroft, the head of the UKAEC, was friends with Homi Bhabha since their Cambridge days in the UK. The construction of the reactor was completed within a year and the reactor was commissioned in August 1956. At that time, India was the first Asian nation to have a nuclear reactor. For Nehru and the AEC, this was a moment of great pride. India had taken a significant lead in nuclear research, which had to be maintained at all costs. International prestige notwithstanding, commissioning of APSARA had a major impact on the research infrastructure which Nehru and Bhabha had so adroitly built since 1947. For the first time, Indian nuclear scientists could study and experiment the splitting of the atom in reality; until then, atomic energy research in India had largely been a theoretical enterprise.

  APSARA, however, was just the beginning and it did not fit strictly into Bhabha’s three-stage nuclear energy programme as it was based on enriched uranium. Even when Bhabha’s strategy was to take all possible help from all possible sources, his gaze was fixed on natural uranium–plutonium–thorium fuel cycle he had envisioned in 1954. The specific requirements of the three-stage nuclear programme mandated a reactor design which ran on natural uranium as fuel. In 1950, Canada had initiated a cooper
ative economic development plan for Commonwealth countries called the Colombo Plan (Oakman 2010). After the Atoms for Peace programme of the US, Canada included assistance in nuclear energy research under the Colombo Plan. For Bhabha, this was a great opportunity because the only two countries that had based their nuclear energy programme on natural uranium were Canada and France.6 Canada had developed a natural uranium, heavy water-moderated National Research Experimental (NRX) reactor in the late 1940s. In 1955, when Canada offered India the design and construction of an NRX nuclear reactor with full technical and financial assistance under the Colombo Plan, the offer was ‘too good to be ignored’ (Sundaram et al. 1998: 21).7 Again, Bhabha’s personal friendship with W.B. Lewis, the head of the Canadian Atomic Energy Agency, was instrumental in the smooth negotiations of the deal. In 1956, India and Canada signed an agreement for construction of an NRX type of reactor at Trombay. Subsequently, India entered into an agreement with the United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) for purchase of heavy water to be used as the moderator in this reactor (Wit and Cubock 1958). Canada also offered to supply the entire load of natural uranium fuel, but Bhabha decided that the DAE will build half of the initial fuel load. A number of Indian scientists and engineers were also trained at the Canadian nuclear facility at Chalk River. The Canada–India Reactor (CIR) project was completed in early 1960 and the reactor, christened CIRUS (Canada India Reactor Utility Service), achieved criticality on 10 July 1960. It represented a giant leap for the Indian atomic energy establishment: at 40 MWT, it was the most powerful reactor in Asia at the time. Most importantly, CIRUS was the foundation of India’s three-stage nuclear programme. It was a prototype of India’s most successful nuclear power reactor design, the Canada Deutarium Uranium (CANDU) type of reactors. It was also India’s first source of plutonium.

  The DAE began work on a purely indigenous research reactor soon after the construction of the CIRUS. This zero-energy critical reactor was called ZERLINA and attained criticality in January 1961. Its most important contribution was in the investigation of fuel assembly behaviour under nuclear reactions. This indigenous moment in nuclear energy development took a great leap forward with India’s first plutonium reprocessing plant. Even though CIRUS had provided India its first major breakthrough in implementing the three-stage nuclear programme, central to Bhabha’s grand vision was plutonium reprocessing. The spent fuel from the natural uranium-based reactors required further chemical treatment before highly fissile Pl-239 could be extracted out of it. Known as reprocessing, this was a very sophisticated and technologically challenging scientific process. Bhabha, therefore, paid special attention to plutonium reprocessing. As work on CIRUS was progressing, India decided to build a plutonium reprocessing plant at Trombay in July 1958. Called Project Phoenix, it was entirely a handiwork of Indian scientists and engineers and was led by Homi Sethna, who later became the chairman of the AEC. Designed to reprocess around 20 tonnes of spent fuel a year, it had a capacity to produce 10 kilogram (kg) of Pl-239 annually (Sundaram et al. 1998: 90–1). When it was completed in mid-1964, India was the fifth country after the US, the UK, France, and the Soviet Union to have such a capability.

  Within a decade of laying down his grand vision for atomic energy, Bhabha was able to put in place some of the most critical components of India’s atomic energy programme. Yet, even with APSARA, CIRUS, ZERLINA, and Phoenix, India had not produced an iota of nuclear energy. This was indeed the most damning side of India’s atomic programme as nuclear energy, both in Nehru and Bhabha’s articulation, was the principle reason behind their pursuance of atomic science. Foreign assistance was therefore sought. In 1962, General Electric (GE) Company of the US was chosen to build two power reactors at a place called Tarapur. The GE reactors were light water moderated and fuelled by enriched uranium and did not fit the three-stage atomic energy programme. Construction work on Tarapur nuclear power plants began in October 1964 and was finished in 1968. On 28 November 1969, the Tarapur Atomic Power Stations (TAPS) started producing electricity.

  Between 1955 and 1965, Nehru and Bhabha’s vision of an atomic future for India made major strides. By the time of Nehru’s death in May 1964, India was considered one of the most advanced nuclear technology states in the Third World. India’s capabilities in nuclear science and technology also brought her closer to mastering not only the peaceful uses of nuclear energy but also its destructive potential. As we will see in the next chapter, by 1964, India was considered to be on the threshold of acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. However, the most distinctive feature of this period of growth in atomic energy in India was its international dimension. For all the focus on self-reliance, India’s first major achievements in atomic energy were a result of international cooperation and assistance. Henceforth, technical cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy remained a fundamental aspect of India’s nuclear policy. It also translated into India’s aversion to strict control of nuclear technology and material by the advanced nuclear technology states.

  International Control over Nuclear Technology

  From the very beginning, Nehru and Bhabha’s atomic vision for India collided with the urge of advanced nuclear states to establish some kind of control over nuclear technology and material.8 The battle was between two principles. On the one hand, Third World countries like India saw in nuclear energy a means to make rapid advancement towards economic development, and therefore sought assistance from the advanced technology states. On the other hand, nuclear powers like the US saw in dispersal of nuclear know-how a venue for proliferation of nuclear weapons (Haskins 1946). This not only threatened international peace but in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War when the US was the sole nuclear power in the world, it also posed a challenge to its nuclear dominance. Therefore, in 1946, the US government proposed a plan to create an International Atomic Development Authority (IADA), also called the Baruch Plan. Under the plan, the IADA was to be given the authority to control, own, and operate all nuclear technologies and materials, including those which can have potential weapons uses. The Baruch Plan was originally targeted at Soviet Union’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb, at least so was the Soviet perception (Goldsmith 1986). If implemented, it would have had implications for India as well. Its thorium and uranium deposits would have come under international control. For a country which had recently gained independence, maintaining its sovereignty was a major concern (Bhatia 1979: 43–4). India, therefore, resisted the US plans for international control of nuclear technology and materials. Resistance from other states was equally fierce and with the Soviet Union going nuclear in 1949, the plan suffered a quiet burial.9

  A much-diluted version of the plan was, however, announced by President Eisenhower in December 1953 during his Atoms for Peace speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The Atoms for Peace Plan envisaged sharing nuclear material and technology for peaceful purposes, but to restrict proliferation of nuclear weapons by mandated oversight over other’s nuclear programmes through an international agency. India could visualize several problems regarding this plan. First, not all states were members of the UN and in some cases, such as China, would not agree to any controls over their nuclear programmes. Second, international control was synonymous with colonialism and given the asymmetry in nuclear knowledge between countries with advanced technological know-how and the Third World, the recipient states would always be dominated by the major nuclear powers. Supplier states, therefore, would write the rules of the game.

  By 1955, however, there emerged a general agreement among major nuclear powers to establish the IAEA. During the First Geneva Conference on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy in 1955, Homi Bhabha was unanimously chosen as its chairman. As India was one of the most advanced countries in nuclear science and technology in the developing world, its participation in the negotiations was vital for the effectiveness and legitimacy of the agency. It also provided India a chance to shape the IAEA in a way that best suited its own requiremen
ts. The most important agenda for India in the IAEA negotiations was the issue of safeguards.10 If for the advanced nuclear states the bargain had to be between sharing their nuclear technology and materials and the willingness of the recipient states to give up the option of developing nuclear weapons, it was the IAEA which had to oversee that this bargain was followed in letter and spirit. The IAEA must, therefore, have the power to maintain safeguards over technology and materials provided by advanced technology states. The problem for Bhabha was whether the plutonium produced using foreign reactors such as CIRUS would come under the control of the IAEA. Even though CIRUS was negotiated before the IAEA came into being and only bilateral safeguards were applicable to it, future negotiations over foreign assistance would have come under the purview of the IAEA (Perkovich 1999: 27–8). This would have severely curtailed India’s three-stage nuclear energy programme. India, therefore, vociferously opposed the strict safeguards regime as envisioned during the IAEA draft statute negotiations in 1955 and 1956. In the end, the final statute of the IAEA declared a much-relaxed safeguards regime where recipient countries could hold onto the plutonium extracted through spent fuel generated in foreign-supplied nuclear reactors and use it for peaceful purposes.