Tag: Atal Behari Vajpayee

Poem By Atal Bihari Vajpayee

भारत ज़मीन का टुकड़ा नहीं, जीटा जागता राष्ट्रपुरुष है…
यह वंदन की भूमि है, अभिनंदन की भूमि है.

यह तर्पण की भूमि है, यह अर्पण की भूमि है.
इसका कंकर-कंकर शंकर है, इसका बिंदु-बिंदु गंगा-जल है.

हम जीएँगे तो इसके लिए, हम मरेंगे तो इसके लिए – अटल जी

#OperationShakti #JaiHo #Vajpayee

The Announcement

On Monday, 11 May 1998, at 10:13:44.2 UCT (+/-0.32 sec; 6:13:44.2 a.m. EDT; 3:43:44.2 p.m. local) as measured by international seismic monitors, India declared itself a full fledged nuclear armed state. This was accomplished by the detonation of a thermonuclear weapon design, one of three nuclear devices with kiloton-range yields detonated simultaneously under the surface of the Thar desert of Rajasthan near the Indo-Pakistani border. This de facto declaration was followed shortly thereafter by an official one. In a hurriedly convened press conference Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said:

“I have an announcement to make: today at 3:45 p.m., India conducted three underground nuclear tests in the Pokhran range (in Rajasthan state).

These were contained explosions like the experiment conducted in May 1974,”

Vajpayee said Monday in a brief statement, referring to the 1974 underground 12 kiloton test known as Smiling Buddha also conducted at Pokhran. Vaypayee further stated that like the 1974 test, none of the three tests resulted in venting into the atmosphere (which was not entirely true – some venting had occurred).
He went on to say that the devices tested were a thermonuclear device, a fission device, and a low-yield device.

“I warmly congratulate the scientists and engineers who have carried out these successful tests,” Vajpayee added.

In contrast to the 1974 explosion no claims that these were ‘peaceful tests’ were made. Indeed, government officials quickly emphasized the military nature of the explosions. “These tests have established that India has a proven capability for a weaponized nuclear program,” Brajesh Mishra, Principal Secretary to PM Vajpayee, told reporters.

Just two days later on 13 May, at 6:51 UCT (2:51 a.m. EST, 12.21 p.m. local Indian time) India detonated two more sub-kiloton nuclear devices underground before declaring that the test series was completed.

The test series was dubbed Operation Shakti-98 (Power-98) and the five tests are designated Shakti I through V. Like the 1974 test’s moniker “Smiling Buddha”, this name seems to have been stuck on the test series after the fact. The test operation itself apparently did not have a formal name. More recently it has been common to refer to the five shot test series as Pokhran II, the 1974 shot being Pokhran I.

#OperationShakti

The 1998 Election

The 1998 BJP campaign was marked by some very unfortunate grandstanding – like Prime Minister candidate Vajpayee’s declaration on 25 February that a BJP government would “take back that part of Kashmir that is under Pakistan’s occupation.” An important part of the BJP platform was its declared intention to “exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons” – that is, to open deploy a nuclear arsenal. This was in keeping with the position that the BJP, its predecessor the Jana Sangh, and Vajpayee himself had held for 35 years that India should become an openly nuclear power to garner the respect on the world stage that India deserved. The BJP’s declarations on the subject were toned down a bit from earlier years, a move that can be understood as an effort to make their program palatable to as large a segment of India’s voting population as possible. The BJP had formed a 13 day government two years earlier, and needed all the support it could get to form a stable government.

Atal Behari Vajpayee
On 10 March 1998 it was announced that the BJP had won 26 percent of the popular vote, and gained 250 seats in the Lok Sabha, 22 short of an outright majority. President Raman Narayanan gave Vajpayee the first opportunity to form a government, and after several days of negotiations he finally succeeded in putting together a governing coalition of 13 (later 20) parties. The BJP wasted no time in making clear its intention to deploy nuclear weapons. On 18 March 1998, the day before he was sworn in as Prime Minister, PM-designate Vajpayee declared “There is no compromise on national security. We will exercise all options including nuclear options to protect security and sovereignty,”. An official planning report reiterated the campaign position that the new BJP government intended to “re-evaluate the nuclear policy and exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons”.

Prime Minister-Elect Vajpayee consulted with Abdul Kalam the day before he was sworn in to office and asked him to join the cabinet. Kalam declined, indicating that he was needed at his current post to support the nuclear program. It is possible that at this meeting Vajpayee indicated his intention to prepare for and conduct nuclear tests. Certainly Kalam, keenly aware of Vajpayee’s previous near brush with testing anticipated that tests would be imminent, and would likely have brought the subject up. Vajpayee consulted again with both Kalam and AEC Chairman R. Chidambaram on 20 March. Chidambaram had declared in an interview only days before that nuclear tests were needed. Chidambaram briefed Vajpayee extensively on the nuclear program, and the devices that had been prepared; Kalam presented the status of the missile program. At the conclusion of the meeting Vajpayee told them to be ready to test, but made no committment to conduct tests. Accordingly, the test preparations began immediately after the meeting even though the tests had not yet been approved.

On 28 March the BJP-led coalition passed a vote of confidence, 275 to 260. This was the milestone that had prevented tests from being conducted by the BJP in 1996. The way was now clear to go forward. On 9 April Vajpayee met again with Kalam and Chidambaram and asked how long it would take to conduct tests, Kalam indicated that tests could be conducted 30 days from the decision to go ahead, Vajpayee told them to fix a date and coordinate it with Brajesh Mishra, Principal Secretary to PM Vajpayee (and an ardent advocate of nuclear armament for India). The next day, the scientists reviewed preparations at Pokhran. Thirty days from 10 April was 10 May, but President Narayanan was scheduled to be touring Latin America from 26 April and 10 May. Narayanan was not in the loop on nuclear tests, and it would have been diplomatically awkward to have him surprised by the tests, and the inevitable controversy while abroad. Further, attempting to accelerate the tests by testing before 26 April would not work since Chidambaram’s daughter was getting married on 27 April. Chidambaram’s absence at his own daughter’s wedding and preparations would have been a red flag that something was afoot. Kalam and Chidambaram provided Mishra with the date 11 May as the earliest practical date. Mishra checked the date with Vajpayee who then gave the authorization for the tests.

The atmosphere was tense in the following few weeks leading up to Operation Shakti (Operation Power, the May 1998 nuclear test series). Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub (also referred to as Gohar Ayub Khan) had offered a “carrot” of soothing rhetoric on the day of Vajpayee’s swearing in, saying at a Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that Pakistan would offer India “an agreement with India for an equal and mutual restraint in conventional, missile and nuclear fields.”

The “stick” side of the Pakistani equation was reemphasized on 6 April when Pakistan tested a new missile, named Ghauri, with a range of 1500 km (900 miles) and a payload of 700 kg (though it flew only 800 km in this test). This missile program had been known since 1997, and Pakistan had hinted about the imminent test on 23 March, but the test came as a shock to India which had felt itself far ahead of Pakistan with the Agni program although this program had been dormant for four years now. This escalation of the strategic challenge fro Pakistan could only have strengthened Vajpayee’s to conduct the tests.

In an inauspiciously timed visit, Bill Richardson, leading a high level U.S. delegation that visited New Delhi on 14 August, chose to take that opportunity to reassert the existence of a special relationship with Pakistan.

The next day, the Richardson delegation visited Pakistan. During the visit Dr. Abdul Qader Khan, the self-proclaimed father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, always ready to take the spotlight with inflammatory rhetoric, told the Urdu daily Ausaf on 15 April “We are ready to carry out nuclear explosion anytime and the day this political decision will be made, we will show the world,” during an informal chat with journalists. “We have achieved uranium enrichment capability way back in 1978 and after that several times we asked different governments to grant us permission to carry out a nuclear test. But we did not get the permission,” the daily quoted him as saying. Asked when Pakistan would carry out a nuclear test, Dr. Khan was quoted as having said, “Get permission from the government.” Khan was not a spokesman for the government at the time, but he remained extremely influential and was still closely connected with the corridors of power in Pakistan.

And throughout the 52 day period between Vajpayees swearing-in and the tests, occasional artillery and small arms fire was exchanged between the two nations, as it has been for years, on the Siachen glacier, the world’s highest and coldest battlefield.

On 4 May the colorful and controversial Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes reemphasized his views on nuclear arms, saying that “"My views have not changed after I became defense minister, … I agree with our decision not to sign the CTBT or NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). We should not only keep the nuclear option open, but also think about exercising this option to make nuclear weapons”. Only two days later Fernandes set off an international tiff with China when he declared China to be India’s “potential enemy number one” and claimed that many tactical nuclear weapons were stationed on the Indian border. In retrospect these remarks by Fernandes seemed part of a deliberate strategy to prepare the ground for India’s tests – illustrating that India regards itself as acting on the world stage and facing threats from a recognized world power, rather than needing defenses against a regional state like Pakistan. In fact Fernandes, like the Defense Minister’s who preceded him, was not in the loop regarding nuclear decisions. He was not on the very short list of government leaders who knew what was up.

AB Vajpayee and Namo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X7M8ED08Uk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Since the SC appointed SIT has acquitted Modi of all charges,self styled seculars..political adveseries and #PaidMedia have again started a malicious campaign against the Guj CM…and their point of attack is this statement by ABV.

Go thru this video…and if u go thru it properly and u dont have a selectively permeable eardrums(hearing what it wants too),then u will get the full notion of the statement and u will stop making fool out of yourself.(even #PaidMedia dont rectify them and their false allegations).

In this video we see,ABV has been asked to give message to Guj CM…so he says…he should follow Raj Dharma…*Pause*…Raj Dharma….*Pause*…which should be done irresective of caste creed religion etc and Narendra Bhai has been doing it rightly.

Most of Fiberals and Media Divas and esteemed politicians forget the last part.

Spread this message..know more lies!