How India Allowed Pakistan to become a Nuclear Power…

I have always maintained that the problem we are facing today from Pakistan is more a creation of our “inactions” of last 68 years, than the “actions” of Pakistan.  A misconception has been fed into the minds of millions of Indians over the years by our spineless, cowardice, power hungry, corrupt and incompetent politicians backed by equally unfit and corrupt bureaucracy that a “strong & stable” Pakistan is in India’s interest. This artificially created state out of our own body with full of hatred for us and with an antithetical self-definition can never ever be either friendly or beneficial for India. Pakistan has formulated it’s nationalism around it’s hatred for India and its national goal is to destroy India culturally, economically and if possible militarily. The Pakistani establishment has a very clear India policy - bleed India by a thousand cuts and to achieve this objective has transformed its education & information into indoctrination of its masses. The greatest mistake ever committed by India was allowing Pakistan to become a Nuclear Power.  Today Pakistan is blackmailing India as well as the whole world due to its nuclear arsenal and has become the nursery and exporter of Islamic Jihadi terrorism all over the world. India is the greatest sufferer being the only non-Islamic neighbouring country. There are two threats emanating from Pakistani nuclear arsenal – 1. Being a military dominated state, whenever its military see any danger to its control on power or loss of credibility - may use this arsenal irresponsibly and in all probability against India to assure the Jihadist-Fundamentalist majority population of Pakistan & 2. There is a clear nexus between the indoctrinated Pakistani army and the various groups of Jihadi terrorists affiliated to Al Qaeda within and outside Pakistan. These terror groups may someday get hold of this nuclear arsenal and its delivery system jeopardising not only India but the entire civilized world.  India’s lack of cohesive and sustained action to scuttle the Pakistani nuclear program is costing India dearly as today Pakistan keeps wielding the nuclear threat and continues to sponsor and carry out terrorist activities while the risk averse politicians of our country keep coming up with knee jerk reactions. But the question remains, was it a combined failure of Indian intelligence, diplomacy and political leadership or was it just the political leadership that failed us?

After the defeat in the 1971 war, the Pakistani political and military establishments were convinced that they could never defeat India in a conventional war or with conventional weapons. Therefore, they initiated their nuclear weapon acquisition program.  The then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto declared that Pakistanis would eat grass but make a nuclear bomb.  Pakistan’s nuclear weapon program was a combination of theft, smuggling and deliberate foreign assistance.  The head of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program was Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the German-educated metallurgist. Previously, Dr. Khan was employed at the uranium enrichment facility, Urenco, in Almelo, Netherlands. It is here that he stole design of uranium centrifuge blueprints from this facility in 1975, one year after India exploded its nuclear device in Pokhran. Armed with these blueprints and a list of Urenco's key suppliers of components, he returned to Pakistan and shortly thereafter was appointed as the head of Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) at Kahuta.  Kahuta was the site of Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons laboratory as well as an emerging centre for long-range missile development program. The primary Pakistani fissile-material production facility is located at Kahuta, employing gas centrifuge enrichment technology to produce Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). While French assistance to Pakistan for a plutonium reprocessing plant was well known, the uranium enrichment plant at Kahuta was a secret. After the French stopped helping Islamabad under pressure from the then US President Jimmy Carter’s administration, Pakistan was determined to keep the Kahuta plant a secret.  RAW (Research & Analysis Wing,  India’s external intelligence agency) first confirmed Pakistan’s nuclear programs by analysing the hair samples snatched from the floor of barber shops near KRL, which showed that Pakistan had developed the ability to enrich uranium to weapons-grade quality. RAW agents knew of Kahuta Research Laboratories since at least early 1978. Pakistan established an extensive international network of suppliers in order to acquire the technology and specialized equipment needed in its nuclear program. Much of this material came from the West, to include Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, and the United States. In this effort, Pakistan successfully established a number of dummy companies, trans-shipped dual-use materials through multiple countries  or outright stole or smuggled needed components. RAW had established a clandestine relationship with Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad and Israeli Defence Forces as both had common interest and enemy in Pakistan. Back in 1979, the Israelis, according to a senior intelligence source in Israel, had been shown a classified US memo by their counterparts in RAW.  Intercepted on its way from the US embassy in New Delhi to the secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, it confirmed that the US privately believed Pakistan would be able to explode a bomb within “two or three years”—most likely by 1981. So shocked had the Israelis been by the massive advances made by Khan that they had begun planning a pre-emptive strike on Kahuta.  Hereafter, both Israel and India picked up more worrying indicators, including signs that test tunnels were being dug in Pakistan’s Ras Koh mountains. So certain were the Indian Army of Pakistan’s intent that Lt. General Krishnaswami Sundarji, a future Indian chief of army staff, took the unprecedented step of publishing a war-gaming manual on the basis that Pakistan would imminently have a deployable bomb. But the Janata Party Govt under Prime Minister Morarji Desai, who came to power in 1977 tried to cut the wings of RAW due to its vision less diplomatic and defence-intelligence policy.  In 1979, RAW brought the blue prints of Kahuta nuclear reactor to the then Prime Minister  Morarji Desai and wanted more fund and other resources to thwart the nuclear ambitions of Pakistan.  However, our great  Prime Minister rejected the plans.  But the most audacious crime he committed was something which has no parallel in the history of any self-respecting nation conscious of its integrity and security.  Morarji Desai by this action not only proved that he was incompetent and unfit to be the Prime Minister of India but also an enemy of our nation.

General Zia-ul-Haq, who overthrew Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a military coup in 1977 and arrested him, was anxious to avoid any fresh tensions in Pakistan’s relations with India till he was able to get rid of Bhutto and consolidate his power. So he kept in touch with Morarji Desai over phone in order to befriend him. Like many senior military officers of the Pakistan Army, Zia was a past master in the art of flattery. Often, he would ring up Morarji Desai under the pretext of consulting him on native medicine and urine therapy. Yes, urine therapy - Desai was famous for his championing of Urine Therapy. Nothing flattered Morarji more than advising General Zia on such petty issues but was foolish enough not to understand or suspect Zia’s intentions.  In a disarmed and unguarded moment one day, Morarji told General Zia that he was aware that Pakistan was clandestinely trying to develop a military nuclear capability – “General, I know what you are up to in Kahuta, RAW has got me all the details ” were the words. The Prime Minister's indiscretion exposed RAW and this “tip-off” made Pakistan aware that India knew what they were doing thus the mole inside Pakistan who passed the blue print to RAW was exposed & killed by Pakistani agencies.   Thus Morarji Desai, the indiscreet and incompetent Prime Minister proved to be the unavoidable occupational hazard for India’s this premier intelligence agency and its profession. But this was not the only blunder committed by Prime Minister Desai. Almost immediately after the above fiasco Foreign Minister of Israel, General Moshe Dayan, hero of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, was secretly visiting Kathmandu for a meeting with Indian representatives with a proposal of a joint operation by Indian and Israeli intelligence agencies to end Pakistan's nuclear programme. The plan put forward by General Dayan was that Israeli bombers would fly in, enter Pakistan beneath the radars and bomb Kahuta Nuclear facilities. But  wanted an Indian Airforce base in northern India to refuel as Israeli bombers could fly in and bomb Kahuta but needed refuelling to go back.  But the then Indian political leadership under Prime Minister Morarji Desai refused to provide Israel any Indian base for refuelling to stage the attack. The reason was to not provoke Pakistan and start another war. Hardly becoming of a major power which had more to lose from a nuclear armed rogue neighbour than a short war if it did happen. Thus India lost another opportunity to keep this rogue country under control by demolishing its “weapon of blackmail” in future.

For the above treacherous act of betrayal of his own country, Prime Minister Morarji Desai, was awarded the highest civilian award of Pakistan “Nishan-e-Pakistan” (equivalent to Bharat Ratna) given by the Government of Pakistan for the highest degree of service to the country and nation of Pakistan.  The Nishan-e-Pakistan, unlike other honours, is a highly restricted and most prestigious award and is only conferred for the merit and distinguished services to the country. Desai has the distinction of being the only Indian national to be conferred with this Pakistan's highest civilian award.

Thus, it was a clear case of failure of Indian political decision making and the result of shoddy & visionless strategic planning of certain unfit and incompetent politicians and their foreign policy/security advisers that India allowed Pakistan to go nuclear. The consequence of this colossal failure is that India’s cowardliness has endangered the whole world peace today. Why India failed to understand the threats around her is a mystery despite having intelligence information on Pakistan’s plan, activity and progress. But, the only thing that is evident is that most politicians in India enter politics not because they want to serve people, but to build an empire of power, unaccounted wealth and a dynasty. When such unscrupulous and incompetent politicians occupy critical positions of power in the Govt., they endanger the life and future of a nation with their lack of vision, courage and decision making capability.