Pokhran-II resulted in mindset of dependency, says former Navy Chief

In his new book The Eye Opening: As I Saw It, Bhagwat lists a number of policies and developments like the declaration of a unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests and holding of summit-level talks with Pakistan in Lahore in February 1999, and says that these were detrimental to India’s interests.

‘‘Pokhran-II was a push-button affair for the BJP-led NDA government which took office six weeks earlier (to the May 1998 explosions),’’ Bhagwat says while noting that the nuclear tests represented the efforts of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

‘‘The much-trumpeted Pokhran-II… marks a U-turn surrendering India’s sovereignty…,’’ Bhagwat says.

Pokhran-II was ‘‘claimed to be a great success for the new government, internationally, and with the superpowers…(but) we had created quite a mess for ourselves,’’ he writes in his book.

Reviewing foreign and defence policy decisions between 1998 and 2004, the former Navy Chief says, ‘‘we need specially to focus on those that adversely affected our national interest and specially the ones that have impacted negatively on the country’s political-military-economic and social security.’’

Referring to the June 1998 declaration of a unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests after Pokhran-II ‘‘without completing the minimum tests as per international norms’’, Bhagwat alleges this was done to ‘‘appease those powers who had imposed ‘technology export’ sanctions on us’’, apparently pointing to the US.

The former Navy Chief insists that the public policy announcement in October 1998 to sign the Fissile Material Control Treaty (FMCT) virtually compromised India’s ‘nuclear weapons status in the future’’.