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Journalism of Courage
Denying he had backed off nuclear tests under pressure from the US in December 1995, former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao said today that the decision not to test was taken by him uninfluenced by others.
‘‘Whatever was done, it was our decision,’’ Rao told The Indian Express on the telephone from Kota where he was to deliver the annual Krishna Menon Memorial lecture. ‘‘It was not done under pressure.’’
Former US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott had disclosed in an interview to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta that Clinton called Rao urging him not to proceed with the tests. And that while Rao didn’t give any indication one way or another, the tests didn’t happen.
When asked about this call, Rao said: ‘‘As far as I can remember, there was no such call…There was no message (from Washington).’’
However, sources in the Rao establishment said that even though testing might have been an attractive proposition from the electoral point of view with general elections only six months away, the former prime minister decided to defer the decision.
He thought he would go in for it if he came back to power in May 1996. That however did not happen. The intent to test was there, it was a matter of choosing the timing, sources said.
When Atal Behari Vajpayee was sworn in as PM at the start of his 13-day government in May 1996, Rao reportedly sent him word that things were absolutely ready for a test and he could choose to go ahead if he so desired.
But the Vajpayee government could not rustle up a majority in the Lok Sabha and he had to step down. Rao had reportedly also sent a similar message to H D Deve Gowda when he became PM after Vajpayee. Having weighed the pros and cons of it, Gowda too decided against it.
This was also the case with I K Gujral, who succeeded Gowda in April 1997. ‘‘This file was on the table of every Prime Minister since Rajiv Gandhi and every PM had to take a decision on the basis of his judgement,’’ Gujral told The Indian Express. ‘‘Each of us were waiting for an appropriate opportunity to do it. In my time, I had to focus a great deal on the CTBT. There was enormous pressure and arm-twisting for us to sign it but India did not sign it. Had we signed the CTBT, there would have been no nuclear test in 1998. When I had congratulated Atal Behari Vajpayee for doing it in 1998, I had said in Parliament that this was a continuous policy of every PM.’’
