Why did India go nuclear?

Bombs for India,Pakistan

19 September 2007

THIS is with reference to the letter, 'Carter, Desai' (KT, September 16). I can't understand why the reader blames Pakistan for India going nuclear.

As he himself admits, India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, long before Pakistan made the bomb. What did Pakistan do at that time to provoke India into exploding its first device? And to know why the BJP conducted the second series of tests, we must remember what Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray said at the time: "We had to prove to the world that we are not eunuchs."

In fact, Pakistan started its own nuclear programme to protect itself from Indian hegemony. Having been dismembered in 1971, Pakistan had no alternative but to strengthen its defences, and the best of way of doing it was to develop its own bomb.

— Shakir Lakhani,
Karachi