Blast from the past: When Vajpayee told the world about Pokhran tests and cemented India’s position as nuclear power

Nearly 24 years after its first nuclear explosion (Mission Smiling Buddha)  India conducted five nuclear tests at Pokhran, Rajasthan between May 11 and 13.

Co-incidentally, or perhaps not, the recent anti-satellite mission which launched India into a unique space club – with Russia, US and China - was called Mission Shakti. Roughly 21 years ago, it was Operation Shakti which helped India renegotiate its relationship with the world.

Pic: Twitter @DefencePROTvm

After the tests, he said: “Today, at 15:45 hours, India conducted three underground nuclear tests in the Pokhran range. These tests conducted today were with a fission device, a low-yield device and a thermonuclear device. The measured yields are in line with expected values. Measurements have also confirmed that there was no release of radioactivity into the atmosphere. These were contained explosions like the experiment conducted in May 1974. I warmly congratulate the scientists and engineers who have carried out these successful tests."

The tests were to check for various warheads for India’s missile program for a host of weapons that could hit targets as close as Pak and as far as China.

The tests according to former diplomat Rakesh Sood, who was part of the global outreach post the tests, told Economic Times that the tests had three prime objectives.

The first was to validate new designs to ensure deterrence. The second was tell the world that India was nuclear state and the third was to tell the world that India was responsible nuclear state with an impeccable non-proliferation record.

The outcry was universal with dozens of states condemning India for breaking the unofficial moratorium on nuclear testing. The Clinton administration said it was ‘deeply disappointed’. Britain and Germany also expressed disapproval and Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, issued a statement expressing ‘deep regret’.

It also reset the relationship with China, with President Jiang Zemin calling it an effort to 'upset the region's peace and stability'.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ayub Khan said it would be conducting nuclear tests of its own and blame the West, particularly the US, for not ‘taking the cautionary signals Islamabad were flashing at them’.

He told BBC: “I think they could have restrained India. Now India has thumbed its nose to the Western world and the entire international community.''

Former NSA Shivshanar Menon had said that the tests ‘shook loose our relations with all major powers including US and China’. He said: “The world had got used to a certain kind of India. That was challenged, successfully."

As expected, the tests followed sanctions and condemnation, but it also helped cement India’s new seat at the global table. With the US, India started a conversation with US. Erstwhile foreign minister Jaswant Sinha and US Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott began a discussion which led to a new relationship between the two democracies. In fact, first the Clinton and then the Bush administration started viewing India as a counterweight to China

And it did change. While the 1998 tests saw sanctions, a decade later New Delhi would sign the Indo-US Nuclear deal in 2008, which would cause its own political fissures back home.

But whatever happened politically, the entire world knew that India was a force to be reckoned with. If the 1974 tests suggested Buddha could smile, the 1998 tests was a reminder the smile could turn into a frown if the situation called for it.