HVK Archives: Why the Buddha smiled
Why the Buddha smiled - The Indian Express
T.V.R. Shenoy
()
May 20, 1998
Title: Why the Buddha smiled
Author: T.V.R. Shenoy
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 20, 1998
Five centuries before the Christian era the powerful and
ambitious Ajatasatru attacked the Licchavi confederacy led by
Vaisali. Hearing of this conflict between his Magadhan disciples
and his Sakya kinsmen, the Buddha sighed that perfect peace would
never come until all the nations of the earth were equally
mighty.
Someone - probably Dr Raja Ramanna -remembered the tale twenty-
five centuries later, in 1974. The famous coded message, 'The
Buddha is smiling, wasn chosen at random. It referred to the
fact that Sakyamuni's motherland had reached a parity of sorts
with the mightiest nations.
I recall the story today since some thought it ironic that the
Enlightened One's name was linked to weaponry. He himself, being
a supreme realist, never preached unilateral disarmament.
Incidentally, it is relevant to note that much the same point was
made in the wake of Pokharan II by the representatives of two
leading Buddhist -nations - the Dalai Lama and the Foreign
Minister of Sri Lanka...
It is no less relevant to recall the Buddha's advice to the
licchavis. He prophesied that even the mightiest king could not
bend Vaisali to his will if the traditions of "holding frequent
and free assemblies", of maintaining concord in administration,
and of "honouring the wise" were kept up.
Are we any wiser than our Licchavi ancestors? Depressingly, party
politics seems to take precedence over national unity. Look at
Mulayam Singh Yadav's reaction. He offered cursory
congratulations to the scientists followed by ferocious attacks
on the BJP. Yadav also told anyone willing to listen that he
himself had proposed such tests, and was prevented only by
untimely polls.
Surely elections weren't looming in the entire period Yadav spent
in the Defence Ministry. If a decision could be enforced by the
current ministry in just forty days, why couldn't Yadav push his
through in his eighteen-month tenure?
Well, perhaps the Samajwadi Party chief was an early victim of
the same torpor that descended upon Congress headquarters in the
wake of the tests. It took three days before we heard the
official views of India's oldest party. Predictably, it reacted
by damning with faint praise.
In the interim there was a confused medley of comments. To my
mind, the most interesting reaction was Natwar Singh's. "Why
now?" he queried belligerently.
Precisely, why is it that India had to wait so long before
entering the nuclear club? The constant harping of some foreign
powers on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) isn't made sweeter by
knowing it could have been avoided altogether.
The Indo-American tussles over nuclear policy began in Nehru's
day. India could have made an atomic bomb as far back as 1956, an
option disowned by the then Congress government. This sacrifice
didn't, however, assuage the suspicions of the US. The first
American sanctions on India were in place by 1957.
Unfortunately, even the Indo-Chinese War and the border conflict
with Pakistan in 1965 didn't change the Congress mindset. The
whole mess over the NPT needn't have come up had the Congress
listened to the pleas of the scientific community and the defence
establishment. Because the NPT uses a cut-off date of 1968 to
establish who is or isn't a nuclear weapons state.
True, Indira Gandhi took the plunge in 1974. But it was a
decision made in a vacuum, an empty gesture without any reference
to India's ultimate security needs. All it achieved was to halt
Canadian supplies of heavy water.
Given such a history of ignoring professional advice, it was
amusing to listen to Sharad Pawar's off-the-cuff remarks when he
was informed of Pokharan II. He generously gave the credit in its
entirety to Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
While taking nothing away from the latest winner of the Bharat
Ratna, it should be pointed out that his field of expertise is
missile development. Pawar, a former Defence Minister, should
have known of Dr Chidambaram and his team.
Speaking of the Bharat Ratna, a more accurate picture of the
Congress attitude to the scientific community comes from Dr Raja
Ramanna. He recalls that Indira Gandhi's ministry refused
outright to confer the nation's supreme civilian honour upon Dr
Homi Bhabha. The insulting rebuff was that the father of India's
atomic energy programme wasn't "big enough".
Such snubs were fairly common through the 1980s and early 1990s.
Every prime minister informed the world that Pakistan was ready
to beg, borrow, or steal nuclear weapons technology. But not one
bothered to take decisive action. In 1995, when the Narasimha Rao
ministry was in power, the merest hint of American disapproval
was enough to stop all talk of a second test.
Having missed the bus on the NPT deadline, India was all set to
repeat its laggardly effort on the CTBT issue when the first
Vajpayee ministry took over in 1996. But when the Prime Minister
wanted to go ahead and arm, the scientists warned him that they
required at least four weeks to prepare themselves.
This time wasn't available. So Vajpayee did the next best thing.
He asked his successors in the United Front to conduct a test and
then sign the CTBT. Instead, we went through the ritual of not
signing the treaty but not moving to weaponise either.
This proved to be as empty a gesture as the first Pokharan blast.
It annoyed everybody abroad, without doing a whit to answer
India's security concerns.
There may never be a definite answer as to why the UF shrank from
the nuclear option. But the attitude of the Left to Pokharan II
offers a clue. The CPI and the CPI(M) seemed shell-shocked for a
while before acidly demanding that the government explain the
reasons for conducting the blasts. Pakistan's boast of
conducting tests within the week should provide the answer.
The Forward Bloc, less reticent, came up with the supremely
ungenerous reaction, "It was a waste intended to divert the
country's attention!"
Perhaps the Forward Bloc should have listened to Pawar and
Mulayam Singh Yadav. Both were claiming credit for stockpiling
the raw material, ensuring India was the proverbial screwdriver's
turn away from assembling a weapon. All that was lacking was
political courage - which the Vajpayee ministry provided.
The Congress holds Pokharan II to be the result of forty years of
nurturing Indian science. Then it is equally true that forty
years no political party had the guts to take the process to its
logical conclusion. So give the scientists their due, but spare a
crumb of credit for the current ministry too.
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