Architects of nuclear India

Close collaboration between Dr Homi Bhbabha and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru helped to lay the foundations of nuclear India. Both of them can be considered as the architects of nuclear India
K.S.Parthasarathy

Daily Excelsior
November 27, 2007
(A PTI Feature)
Architects of Nuclear India
By K S Parthasarathy
We celebrated the 97th birth anniversary of Dr Homi Bhabha on October 30, 2007. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's 118th birth anniversary was on November 14, 2007. Nehru helped to translate Bhabha's dreams into reality. They were truly the architects of nuclear India.
On January 4, 1947, while laying the foundation stone of the National Physical Laboratory at New Delhi Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru spoke thus on the necessary of atomic research in India : ‘‘... I do not see how we can lag behind in this very important matter, because atomic energy is going to play a vast and dominant part, I suppose, in the future shape of things... it will make power mobile and this mobility of power can make industry develop anywhere. We will not be tied up by accidents of geography....’’
Dr Bhabha's note on the organisation of atomic research in India submitted to Nehru on April 26, 1948, showed amazingly similar views.
‘‘The report submitted to you, Mr Prime Minister, on my return from Europe and America collected evidence which made it reasonable to believe that within the next couple of decades atomic energy would play an important part in the economy and the industry of countries and that, if India did not wish to fall even further behind industrially advanced countries of the world, it would be necessary to take more energetic measures to develop this branch of science and appropriate larger sums for the purpose.’’
‘‘.. our immediate programme should include extensive and intense search for sources of uranium. These geological surveys would take at least two years if carried out in any careful and exhaustive way and it is possible that their result may be negative. In that case, India would either have to depend on an agreement with a foreign power for the purchase of her uranium... ‘‘Bhabha pleaded. The search continues !
On the first International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy at Vienna he wrote: ‘‘... What is so gratifying is the cordial atmosphere in which all the... discussions were carried out, entirely free from political bias or cold war hostility. Besides the regular sessions, a number of informal meetings were held among scientists including those from the so called iron curtain countries, at which scientific problems were discussed fully and freely’’. He knew that such ambience at the Geneva conference would be of special interest to his mentor.
By then, the Bandung Conference of Afro-Asian countries was over. Nehru was shortly destined to play the role of the leader of the Non Alignment Movement.
Occasionally, Bhabha led wars to defend his turf. He wanted to keep the construction of the Canada Indian Reactor, a highly technical project, exclusively with the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). As the project was started strictly outside the Colombo Plan, he argued that there is clearly no advantage in routing related correspondence through the Department of Economic Affairs. ‘‘Indeed it will slow down the entire process’’ he cautioned. Nehru concurred.
Bhabha obtained exemption from certain Government regulations by writing to Nehru who always endorsed his decisions. These include provision of cars at the disposal of scientists during the commissioning of Apsara reactor and supply lunch and dinner at the work site at Trombay.
Bhabha deftly drafted the resolution settting up the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He set up AEC, as an organisation ‘‘with full authority to plan and implement the various measures on sound technical and economic principles and free from all non-essential restrictions or needlessly inelastic rules’’.
‘‘The special requirements of atomic energy, the newness of the field, the strategic nature of its activities and its international and political significance have to be borne in mind in devising such an organization’’, the resolution stipulated. AEC has the powers of the Government of India in all its Ministries, in so far as the work of the Department of Atomic Energy is concerned.
Dr Bhabha managed to set up the Secretariat of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) at Bombay and not in Delhi. The Department secured exemption from all reference of its civil engineering and construction work to the Central Public Works Department and of its purchase from the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals. Similarly DAE follows its own procedures to recruit its staff and need not approach the Union Public Service Commission. Bhabha could secure the support of the highest echelons of the bureaucracy because of his rapport with Panditji.
Nehru's letter to ‘‘My Dear Homi’’ written on July 29, 1956 revealed that there was no barrier between these leaders. While discussing the composition of delegates of an International Conference at Vienna, Nehru cautioned, ‘‘I find that some of the other major countries are sending non-technical people as leaders of their delegations. It would probably be advisable for you and your scientific colleagues not to get mixed up too much with the political aspects.’’
While referring to the need to develop scientific temper, Nehru was brutally objective.
He did not spare even scientists. ‘‘--I do not mean that even now our big scientists are really scientific in mind, which I find often they are not. They are scientific in their laboratories; take them outside these and they appear to be frail human beings...’’
After staying in Cambridge for two days in June 1959 to receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Science, Bhabha wrote, ‘‘My dear Bhai, this was evidently a particularly good year for roses. I have never seen such profusion of beautiful roses as was to be found... at the back adjoining the river’’.....
....‘‘I hope some of the scientific laboratories and establishments we are building today will have the beauty of their own, which will have its due effect on those who work here.
I think both Trombay and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research will be architecturally, and botanically beautiful when they are completed..’’ He eloquently articulated his vision.
Nehru must have acknowledged Homi's sentiments by looking blissfully at the red rose on his jacket !
(PTI) .