Know what they did that summer

There had been a pattern to this. The Pakistani establishment has a chronic compulsion to test the waters whenever they think Indian politics is passing through a phase of confusion and weakness. They chose the summer of 1965 to start the war because they thought India8217;s armed forces were still punch-drunk from their defeat by China and Shastri had not yet had the time to fill the vacuum left by Nehru. Internally, they were also enthused, as so much of the subsequent literature by key Pakistani players in that war shows, by delusions that the Naga insurgency, the Dravida movement and even the vocal opposition of sections of the Left to India8217;s cause in the China war had all weakened India sufficiently for them to risk an assault on Kashmir. It is possible that they saw the fall of Rajiv Gandhi, and the arrival of a very weak V.P. Singh coalition as a similar opportunity. They tested the waters first with the kidnapping of the then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Saeed8217;s daughter and India buckled under faster than its batsmen would on a green wicket.

IT was during this period that this so far unresolved mystery was enacted. Many experts, including Seymour Hersh, believe that the then Pakistani foreign minister, Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, came to India to 8216;defuse8217; tension but actually unveiled a nuclear blackmail for the first time. In conversations with Indian leaders he threatened that they should not count on their conventional superiority if war broke out because Pakistan had the nukes and intended to use them in the very beginning. Seymour Hersh wrote about this in detail and later two NBC investigative reporters, William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, described that phase in much greater detail in Critical Mass: The Dangerous Spread of Superweapons in the Fragmenting World Simon and Schuster, 1994. Of course, both India and Pakistan denied this vehemently. So did the US administration. But enough evidence has surfaced subsequently to convince us that the Pakistanis had confronted India with a nuclear threat that summer.

It is unlikely that V.P. Singh and Gujral will tell you more on this. But Gujral will probably not deny that one conversation went something like this: Sahibzada told him that if there was a war now, it won8217;t be an ordinary one, that there will be flames rising from the mountains, the valleys, the plains and the rivers. And Gujral, gathering his nerves 8212; and wits 8212; quickly, replied, 8220;I hope not, but please do remember, we have also been drinking the waters of the same rivers as you.8221;

The exchange sounds stirring, but why tell the story now, you might ask? Or, to use an Americanism, what does it have to do with the price of eggs?

The story is relevant because this was the first nuclear threat in our history. The Pakistanis probably bluffed, wanting to merely check if we lost our nerve and thereby even confirm if we actually had the bomb or not. The Singh-Gujral establishment, which did keep a brave front, had already realised they did not have a counter, or a deterrent. The only key player at that point who ever spoke to me at any length on this was the then Air Chief Marshall S.K. 8216;Polly8217; Mehra. He swore me not to mention it in his lifetime, or without his clearance anyway, but now that he is unfortunately no longer with us, I think I will be forgiven this liberty. He said the leadership was shocked and nervous and asked him if he could guarantee a Pakistani bomber will not be able to reach an Indian target with the bomb. He said not even the chief of US Air Force could guarantee such a thing.

The answer, he said, was an Indian counter that he would be privileged to deliver. But, before that, could he please see what 8216;it8217; looked like? How big, or heavy was it? What were its aerodynamics? Or whether one of his strike aircraft types even had the hard points to sling it? He said he was told, don8217;t worry, 8216;it8217; will be shown to him when the need arises. The conclusion that he and the other chiefs drew then was that India did not have a nuclear deterrent ready yet. Nothing had been shown/shared within the politico-military system. But this threat had shaken them all up.

WE still do not know if Pakistan thought we blinked or if Gujral8217;s counter-bluff had worked adequately. But this was a moment of truth, a kick in the pants the Indian establishment had needed, and deserved. Mehra also remembered asking his bosses if they would authorise him to carry out a run by his super-snooper MiG-25s over Kahuta. The aircraft had sideways-looking infra red SLIR cameras and, flying at altitudes of 80-90,000 feet, could bring pictures of Kahuta even while flying safely this side of the LoC. But he wanted to risk a deeper flight for a closer examination. At three times the speed of sound and at an altitude that put it beyond the reach of any Pakistani missiles or fighters he believed the MiG-25 incursion was a reasonable risk, and justified by the threat at that point.

The political establishment baulked. Perhaps the memories of an incident three decades earlier, when a spying IAF Canberra then considered out of the reach of PAF interceptors was shot down, and its pilot taken prisoner, leading to a first-rate diplomatic incident, were still fresh. In any case, what happened subsequently in that summer, is still too early for me to tell you unless one of the participants decides to speak out or write a tell-all book. But watching this confusion and panic closely, though from the sidelines, was another small, secretive, close-knit group of Indian scientists, led, surprise of surprises, by a seasoned bureaucrat. They knew better than anybody else the sad reality of India8217;s nuclear vulnerability then, because, since March 1989 8212; actually, you can put a date to it, since March 18, 1989 8212; it8217;d been their responsibility to fix it. Or, in simpler English, build a real, full-fledged, no-hypocrisy, no-euphemism nuclear arsenal.