In what could be one of the most damning allegations against the Congress party’s legacy, BJP Member of Parliament Nishikant Dubey has accused former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of betraying the nation by collaborating with the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to allow the installation of a nuclear-powered surveillance device in the sacred Himalayas. This, Dubey alleges, was not only a shocking compromise of Indian sovereignty but also a potential health catastrophe whose consequences are still unfolding in vast swathes of India.
On July 14 and 15, Dubey took to social media platform X to share a set of declassified documents from the U.S. State Department and explosive excerpts from investigative journalist Howard Kohn’s book The Nanda Devi Caper, claiming that the lost CIA nuclear device is behind the alarming rise of diseases such as cancer, asthma, tuberculosis (TB), and diabetes across Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Sikkim, and Assam.
The Congress-CIA nexus: What Dubey exposed
In his post dated July 14, Dubey shared a document labelled “STATE 094511,” declassified by the U.S. Department of State in 2014. The document details a covert CIA mission in the 1960s where a Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) device, containing radioactive plutonium-238, was clandestinely planted on Mount Nanda Devi, a sacred peak revered by Hindus and the source of the Ganges River.
Dubey minced no words. “Die in shame, Congressis. This is a confidential document of the American government that came to light in 2013-14,” he wrote, directly blaming the Nehru-led Congress government for allowing foreign intervention into India’s strategic and spiritual landscape.
डूब मरो कॉंग्रेसी यह अमेरिका की सरकार का गोपनीय दस्तावेज है जो 2013-14 में जनता के सामने आया
1. उत्तराखंड,उत्तरप्रदेश,बिहार,झारखंड,बंगाल,सिक्किम,असम में कैंसर,दमा,टीबी,डायबिटीज़ का ज़िम्मेदार नेहरु जी अमेरिका का समझौता है
2. 1962 में नेहरु जी के साथ हिमालय पर न्यूक्लियर… pic.twitter.com/7Ljx2dfENJ— Dr Nishikant Dubey (@nishikant_dubey) July 14, 2025
His key revelations included:
1) Nehru’s Secret Pact with the U.S.: Allegedly in 1962, Nehru permitted the CIA to install the nuclear device under the guise of spying on China.
2) Health Time-Bomb: Dubey directly linked the radiation from the still-missing nuclear generator to widespread disease across India’s northern and eastern belts.
3) CBI’s First Mission with CIA: The newly established CBI, in a shocking twist, reportedly cooperated with the CIA to execute this covert operation.
4) Ongoing Risk: The nuclear generator was never retrieved, and Dubey ominously warned that it continues to pose an environmental and health threat to millions.
The document’s shocking details
The declassified memo gives a chilling narrative of the mission: an American climber nearly lost his life, the nuclear device was swept away in an avalanche, and CIA officials like Bill McNeff panicked at the prospect of the plutonium contaminating the Ganges River, a scenario that could lead to mass fatalities.
The CIA, recognising the spiritual and diplomatic magnitude of the disaster, chose to keep it hidden from Indian authorities, including then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, fearing public outrage and collapse of Indo-American cooperation.
This was more than espionage, it was, if true, a covert biological assault with Congress’s tacit approval.
Escalation on July 15: The Charbatia Concession
Dubey did not stop there. On July 15, he posted another explosive document, C00190094, approved for declassification in 2013. It revealed how Nehru permitted the U.S. to use the Charbatia airbase in Odisha for U-2 surveillance missions along the Sino-Indian border.
“Rahul Gandhi ji and the Congress family’s surrender to America… This is slavery, placing us before America like Pakistan,” Dubey wrote.
राहुल गांधी जी और कांग्रेस के परिवार का अमेरिका के आगे सरेंडर
नेहरु जी ने 1963 में हमारे उड़ीसा का चरबटिया एयरपोर्ट अमेरिका को दे दिया
ग़ुलामी और देश बेचने ,तोड़ने की मानसिकता ने हमें पाकिस्तान की तरह अमेरिका के सामने खड़ा कर दिया
यह काला अध्याय मन विचलित भी है,व्यथित भी pic.twitter.com/05e4Tf2ZRL— Dr Nishikant Dubey (@nishikant_dubey) July 15, 2025
The document outlines how despite poor conditions, U.S. reconnaissance aircraft operated from Indian soil, gathering intelligence over Tibet, and that Nehru even briefed the Indian Cabinet with CIA imagery, a gesture that Dubey calls “kowtowing” to the West at the cost of national dignity.
A pattern of compromise: Congress’s colonial mindset?
This is not the first time Congress has been accused of foreign dependency. But Dubey’s exposé paints a clearer and more damning picture: that Nehru’s so-called ‘non-alignment’ policy was a myth, masking a pattern of dependence and submission to global powers.
Even more egregiously, this alleged pact with the CIA involved sacrificing India’s environmental and public health interests, in return for dubious Cold War-era intelligence.
What Dubey suggests is not just a diplomatic blunder but a betrayal of the nation’s trust, an environmental crime, and a continued health disaster left unattended for decades.
The untold health crisis
Dubey’s most powerful charge is the long-term health fallout from the lost nuclear generator. Plutonium-238, the material inside the SNAP device, remains radioactive for up to 500 years and could, if exposed to water systems like the Ganga, wreak havoc on millions.
While direct scientific studies are lacking due to the operation’s secrecy, Dubey has pointed to the rising incidence of cancer and respiratory illnesses in the Ganga basin states as circumstantial evidence of contamination.
Is it a coincidence, he asks, that these regions Bihar, UP, Bengal, Assam, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, and Jharkhand, consistently report high levels of chronic illnesses?
The Nanda Devi Caper: A book the Congress can’t ignore
Howard Kohn’s 1978 article, later turned into The Nanda Devi Caper, describes the internal panic at the CIA following the loss of the nuclear device. The book quotes CIA mountaineers grappling with the morality of the mission and their horror upon realizing the potential consequences of plutonium poisoning in the Himalayas.
Kohn’s narrative has been known in niche academic circles, but Congress never responded to the allegations. It was, in many ways, another whitewashed chapter in the party’s long history of avoiding accountability.
The deafening silence from Congress
As of July 15, the Congress party has not issued any official response to Dubey’s charges. Instead, its defenders on social media have resorted to technicalities claiming the operation occurred after Nehru’s death in 1964 or disputing the health link due to lack of direct evidence.
However, these rebuttals fail to address the core of Dubey’s accusations:
Why did Nehru allow a nuclear device on Indian soil?
Why was the Indian public never informed?
Why has Congress failed to push for environmental retrieval or study?
Why did the Charbatia airbase get offered to a foreign intelligence agency?
Political and legal ramifications ahead?
The timing of Dubey’s revelation is politically strategic, coming just before the monsoon session of Parliament. It’s likely to dominate upcoming debates, with BJP MPs now armed with evidence to question the Congress’s foreign policy legacy and raise demands for a formal investigation.
The government could even initiate a truth commission or environmental probe, although such efforts would face bureaucratic and diplomatic hurdles given the CIA’s involvement.
A legacy under radioactive shadow
Nishikant Dubey’s revelations do not merely reopen a Cold War chapter, they question the very ethos of the Nehruvian model of governance. What Congress sold as “strategic cooperation” now stands exposed as submission, and what was framed as Cold War realism now reeks of recklessness and betrayal.
While the full scientific verdict is still out, the political and moral verdict is damning. The Congress, long shielded by its own narrative machinery, must finally answer why it chose to gamble with India’s geography, health, and sovereignty.
Dubey has done what many historians and politicians failed to do, he’s brought the dark secrets of the Himalayas back into the public consciousness. And this time, the questions won’t disappear in an avalanche.
