Conversation with Shivshankar Menon on Indian Nuclear weapon program rt 1

 

'Pakistan Threatened India With Nuclear Weapons Three Times Before 1998'

– Conversation with Shivshankar Menon Part 1

By SHIVANAND KANAVI

March 27, 2026 

'We were in a heavily nuclearised environment. China had tested for Pakistan in the 1980s and helped their missile programme stay just one step behind us.'

Shivshankar Menon has had a distinguished career in the Indian Foreign Service -- as ambassador to Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Israel and China.

He was foreign secretary and later national security advisor to the government of India. He has had a long association with the Indian nuclear programme.

Shivanand Kanavi spoke to Ambassador Menon about the Indian nuclear weapons programme.

"After 1971 and Nixon's visit to China, the last thing the US-China tacit alliance wanted was a nuclear-armed India. That's why they reacted so violently to our 1974 test," Ambassador Menon tells Shivanand Kanavi in the first of a two-part interview:

 

After the first Chinese nuclear test at Lop Nor in 1964, why do you think India did not immediately pursue a nuclear weapons programme or at least a test?

I think there were people who wanted to pursue weapons, but the feeling was that the economic cost would be too high. Opinion was also very divided within the establishment.

Some still argued that India should set an example -- that we could build the capability but shouldn't.

This is why, under Prime Minister Shastri, we sought a nuclear umbrella from both the Soviet Union and the United States. We didn't get one.

Frankly, a nuclear umbrella is a fraud. Who is going to put their own citizenry at risk for your security, especially in the face of nuclear weapons? So, fundamentally, it doesn't make sense.

We were also in the middle of negotiating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and there was still some hope for a meaningful agreement. Once the superpowers came to an agreement amongst themselves in late 1966 or early 1967, that door closed.

There was no hope for any real, effective disarmament or control of nuclear weapons.

Most importantly, the Chinese test showed a capability, but it wasn't an operationalized weapon system. Given China's internal situation at the time, we felt we had a few years to make up our minds.

Clearly, nobody was willing to give up the capability. The CIRUS reactor went critical, and the plutonium plant started producing plutonium, etc.

Dr Homi Bhabha was quite clear: We should have the capability and should announce it and demonstrate it. But the political leadership was much less ready.

When Mrs Indira Gandhi came to power, she faced a terrible situation. The economy was a mess; we didn't have enough food. Devaluation made it even harder.

Many promises made by the Americans during her first visit to the US and (then US president) Lyndon B Johnson were not delivered by the US system.

Politically, the Congress lost a lot of states in the 1967 elections. The economy was under continuous stress. Even the victory of 1971 came with huge stress -- the refugees, the cost of the war, the mobilisation.

Immediately after that, we had the 1973 oil crisis. So, it took some courage to do the test in 1974.

It's also said that during the NPT negotiations, though India played a major role initially, we were taken aback when the 1967 cut-off was introduced.

Well, not just the cut-off. There was a real negotiation on the NPT and disarmament until the US and Soviets reached a private agreement. The Soviets' biggest fear was that the US would transfer control of nuclear weapons in Europe to its NATO allies, like Germany.

For the Americans, the NPT was a way to stop everyone else from acquiring nuclear weapons that is all.

To get Soviet agreement on an NPT that stopped horizontal proliferation (though it allowed vertical proliferation), the US had to give up the idea of a European nuclear force.

The promise was that command and control would always stay with the US, even for weapons stationed in Europe. The Soviets did the same with weapons in Belarus and Ukraine.

Once they made that agreement, the entire shape of the NPT changed. It was no longer about non-nuclear States giving up the option in return for nuclear States giving up their weapons.

Suddenly, nuclear weapons were off the table.

The nuclear States would only make 'good faith efforts' towards disarmament. That took the bottom out of the original idea.

Then, you had binding commitments and safeguards for everyone else. The only loophole entered was Article 4, on peaceful nuclear explosions.

As for the 1967 cut-off, most treaties have an effective date close to their signature or ratification. That was much later, in 1970 or 1971.

'Last thing US-China alliance wanted was a nuclear-armed India'

What's surprising is that some CIA or diplomatic correspondence suggests that after the 1962 War, the US might have been benign, even encouraging, towards an Indian nuclear programme, with promises of help. Is there any truth to that?

There are many stories, but there's no way to prove any of them. For an objective account of the NPT negotiations, I recommend Bertrand Goldschmidt, the French scientist.

France didn't sign the NPT for many years and had a fairly objective view of the superpowers dealing over everyone's heads.

If the Americans did have a benign attitude -- which I'm not sure they did -- and the Soviets had already split with China, even they were not benign towards an Indian programme.

The 1967 cut-off made sure India could not be part of the nuclear club.

The problem wasn't just India; if you allowed India, then Germany, Japan, and others would want the same. None of them signed the NPT immediately.

In any case, no established power wants another power to rise. The whole goal of US policy, as they say openly, is to prevent the emergence of a peer competitor. After 1967, the Soviets became the strongest defenders of the NPT system, even stronger than the Americans.

After 1971 and Nixon's visit to China, the last thing the US-China tacit alliance wanted was a nuclear-armed India.

That's why they reacted so violently to our 1974 test. The Zangger Committee was created after the 1974 Pokharan test, and from that, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) grew.

The Soviets were very vehement about it in private, though publicly it was (then US president) Jimmy Carter who was vocal.

Why did India eventually weaponise and declare itself a nuclear power in 1998?

Four things changed drastically in the 1990s:

1. The NPT was made permanent in 1995. This fixed that discrimination forever; there was no hope of it ever being made satisfactory to us.
2. Pakistan was a de facto nuclear weapon State. It had threatened us with nuclear weapons at least three times before 1998.
3. We were in a heavily nuclearised environment. China had tested for Pakistan in the 1980s and helped their missile programme stay just one step behind us.
4. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was an attempt to close down our future options. The French and Chinese tested just before it was announced to get their testing behind them. We would have been hugely disadvantaged.

So, we decided to test. I can understand the compulsions in 1998.

'There are theories about why Rao didn't test in 1996'

But why did we not make nuclear weapons right after 1974?

I'm not sure. I know many thought we should, right through the 1980s -- people like Dr Raja Ramanna, General K Sundarji, K Subramanyam. Politically, figures like Vajpayee had argued for it since the 1960s.

Mrs Gandhi herself didn't initiate a weaponisation programme immediately after 1974. It was much later, when she returned in the 1980s, that she started much of it, including the nuclear submarine programme.

Each leader took it a step forward: Rajiv Gandhi with the missile programme, Narasimha Rao, and then Vajpayee, who finally gave the go-ahead for the Pokharan 2 tests. Mr Vajpayee publicly acknowledged Narasimha Rao's work.

There are theories about why Rao didn't test in 1996. One is that he wanted to demonstrate capability without actually testing, sending a message to Pakistan, China, and the US, which helped his diplomacy.

The standard theory is that the US found out and pressured him, and he buckled. But with Narasimha Rao, nothing was that simple. He was a much more complicated person.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff

SHIVANAND KANAVI