After 11 years of India’s greatest achievement of nuclear tests which boosted the self respect and self confidence of the Indian masses, the recent comments by Dr Santhanam, former director of DRDO, casting doubts on it’s success, will only undermine himself and the nation. The twin stalwarts in this field like Dr. R. Chidambaram and Dr. Anil Kakodkar, have already come forward with more and authentic data on the success of Pokhran-II, which again shatters the hypothesis by Dr. Santhanam.
On behalf of Indian scientific community, Vijnana Bharati is declaring its solidarity and commitment to our great scientists Dr. R Chidambaram and Dr. Anil Kakodkar and a large number of scientists who toiled their life for building a strong nation. The timing of Dr. Santhanam’s arguments is suspect, it’s argumments hollow and methodology disgusting. We feel that the call for a probe into the results of the thermo nuclear test of Pokhran-II is not only necessary, but highly deplorable, as it amounts to a statement of no confidence on the greatest scientific and technological instittuions of our country.
As a renowned scientist who lead DRDO once, Dr. Santhanam should not be so immature in making public statements and I request you to stop spitting on nation’s face with untruths and half truths, that lacks credibility and support from science community.
At the same time Vijnana Bharati also requests the Government of India not to take any hasty step in signing the CTBT and NPT which we have held to be unequal in its treatment to member countries since the the time of Mrs Gandhi through former Prime Minister Shri Vajpayee. Any move on this front should happen only after a consensus is arrived at among the political spectrum and scientific community of india.
(Jayakumar is general secretary of Vijnana Bharati.)
