A few years ago, I summarised an International Security article by Gaurav Kampani that described India’s process of acquiring nuclear weapons. “The author’s interviews with several senior retired Indian air force officers at the highest levels”, concluded Kampani, “suggest that India achieved an air-deliverable capability sometime in 1995”.
In a new piece by Vipin Narang in the same journal, which looks at why different states pursue nuclear weapons in different ways, we find new details on this period of Indian history. The sentences in bold are attributed to interviews with Naresh Chandra, then the defense secretary (“secretary” refers to a senior civil servant, not a minister).
In March 1989, nine months after [Prime Minister] Rajiv [Gandhi]’s failed UN speech, Rajiv discreetly ordered Naresh Chandra, his newly appointed defense secretary, to take India’s nuclear program over the finish line; the result was “a dramatic change of pace in India’s nuclear weapons plans.”Cabinet Secretary Deshmukh…
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