Pokhran I: India Becomes 6th Nuclear Armed Nation
May 18, 1974: India Becomes 6th Nuclear Armed Nation - Pokhran I: India's first nuclear bomb test was carried out underground and code-named 'Smiling Buddha'.
With the Smiling Buddha, India became the world's sixth nuclear power after the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, France and China successfully tested out a nuclear bomb.
India surprised the world by conducting its first nuclear test at Pokhran, codenamed ‘Project Smiling Buddha’, on May 18, 1974. The project was so named as it was Buddha Purnima on the day. With this development, India became the sixth country in the world after the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to go public about its nuclear test. The test was held under the supervision of India's nuclear research institute Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) then director Raja Ramanna. “The Buddha has finally smiled,” BARC director Raja Ramanna had quipped to then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi after the successful test.
Earlier, the operation was initialised on September 7, 1972, when former PM Indira Gandhi authorised the scientists to detonate an indigenously designed nuclear device. After Operation Smiling Buddha, in 1998, the country also conducted five nuclear tests—of which three were conducted on May 11 and the other two were conducted on May 13.
After the operation was successful, India became the first nation outside the five permanent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members to hold the test.
Here is the history and aftermath of the nuclear test:
* India started its own nuclear program in 1944
* Physicist Raja Ramanna expanded and supervised scientific research on nuclear weapons and was the first directing officer of a small team of scientists that supervised and carried out the tests
* The name Pokhran came from the place it was tested which is a city of the same name located in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.
* A team of 75 scientists and engineers, led by Raja Ramanna, PK Iyengar, Rajagopala Chidambaram and others had worked on it from 1967 to 1974
* The test was a success but the aftermath of the nuclear test was not an encouraging one
After the 1974 tests, India conducted five tests - three on May 11 and two on May 13, 1998. The tests codenamed 'Operation Shakti' were carried out again at the Pokhran test range when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister.
Cut to May 11, 1998, and India conducted its second nuclear test codenamed Operation Shakti, once more at Pokhran. This time too, the government, scientists and military were able to hoodwink American satellites, hair-raising details of which were given by veteran journalist Raj Chengappa in his book, “Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be a Nuclear Power”.
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