India's N-test in 1998 led to series of "surrenders": Ex-Navy chief
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
New Delhi, July 10, IRNA
India-Nuclear test
Terming India's 1998 Pokhran nuclear blasts as a "push-button" affair for the previous National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, then Navy chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat says the atomic tests led to a "series of surrenders in every sector of the national polity, economy and science and technology." Bhagwat, the first service chief to be sacked from his post in late 1998, insists the Pokhran-II tests resulted in the "surrender of India's sovereignty" and a "culture and mindset of dependency" instead of adding to national strength and self-confidence and accelerating all-round national capability through self-reliance, PTI reports said here quoting Bhagwat's new book "The Eye Opening: As I saw It".
Bhagwat lists a number of policies and developments like the declaration of a unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests and holding of summit-level talks with Pakistan in Lahore in February 1999, and claims these were detrimental to India's interest.
"Pokhran-II was a push-button affair for the BJP-led NDA government which took office six weeks earlier (to the May 1998 explosions)," he says, while noting that the tests represented efforts of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).
"The much-trumpeted Pokhran-II marks the U-turn to surrender India's sovereignty. It led to a series of surrenders in every sector of the national polity, economy and science and technology," Bhagwat says.
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