How BJP sold out Indian independance and sovereignty after 1998 Pokhran nuclear blasts and Congress Party continues to finish the job of surrender : Indian ex-Navy Chief
Media Release
Jul. 9, 2006

Terming the 1998 Pokhran nuclear blasts as a push-button affair for the previous NDA government, then Navy Chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat has said the atomic tests led to a series of surrenders in every sector of the national polity, economy and science and technology.

Bhagwat, the first service Chief to be sacked from his post in late 1998, insists the Pokhran-II tests resulted in the "surrender of India's sovereignty" and a "culture and mindset of dependency" instead of adding to national strength and self-confidence and accelerating all-round national capability through self-reliance.

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 claims these were detrimental to India's interest.

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

"The much-trumpeted Pokhran-II ... Marks the u-turn to surrender India's sovereignty...It led to a series of surrenders in every sector of the national polity, economy and science and technology," Bhagwat says.

Bhagwat, who was sacked seven months after the May 1998 nuclear tests, says by conducting the explosions, the BJP-led government made claims that it had "proved its manhood (and) its nationalist credentials".

The Pokhran-II tests were "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.

Bhagwat maintains, "the spin doctors have used millions of clever buzz words, turn of phrases and foreign paeans to white-wash and camouflage the signing away of India's foreign and defence policies and the series of surrenders of sovereign space, over the last six years...At the cost of our impoverished millions whose livelihoods have simply vanished or are gravely endangered".

Reviewing foreign and defence policy decisions between 1998 and 2004, he 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, affecting the lives and livelihoods of millions of our people."

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

He insists 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".

How BJP sold out Indian independance and sovereignty after 1998 Pokhran nuclear blasts and Congress Party continues to finish the job of surrender : Indian ex-Navy Chief
Media Release
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 claims these were detrimental to India's interest.
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