Uncle Sam Sees Technological Challenge By India

Commentary

RAJENDRA PRABHU

An Indian nuclear scientist was having tea with his American counterpart at an international meeting in Chicago. The US scientist was trying to bring home to the Indian that the White House was quite convinced that India was making The Bomb and therefore the President would block exports of computers to India that could be used in nuclear projects. The US scientist was obviously mocking at the Indian capability.

The Indian scientist asked the American: "When you did the Manhattan Project, did you have computers?" "No," admitted the American scientist. "Then how did you make the bomb," asked the Indian.

"We made the calculations on the back of an envelop," said the American with obvious pride. "What makes you think we also cannot do it on the back of the envelop," Retorted the Indian scientist.

This is not an apocryphal story. The Indian scientist who put his American counterpart in his place was none other than Dr PK Iyengar, one of the members of the team that designed the Pokhran nuclear implosion.

Whenever there are US press reports sourcing them to the US intelligence, saying that India is about to detonate another nuclear weapon or it is about to deploy a missile or that cryogenic engines technology would be diverted from civilian space use to military, I am reminded of the conversation I had with the Science Adviser to the US President back in 1988 in Washington.

At that time the hot issue was whether the White House would allow India to buy a Cray Super Computer for meteorological research.

The objection put up by the State Department was that the complex number crunching capabilities of the Cray machine could be used for the more deadly hydrogen bomb which India was supposed to be planning to make, having already cracked the code to the ordinary - plutonium bomb in 1974.

When the discussion turned around the Cray computer, I asked the American scientist: "Do you honestly think that by denying the Cray machine you can stop Indian scientists from designing the nuclear device if they want to do it?" He admitted to me that he did not.

"Then why are you denying the machine?" I asked. His reply was that the US non-proliferation policy demanded it.

Recently the US Government banned the exports to some highly advanced Indian establishments such as Bharat Electronics and others on the pretext that these companies make sensitive material for nuclear weapons or missile. The real reason is something else.

As for the reliability of US intelligence sources quoted by the US press, recall all the scare stories about India exploding another nuclear device that periodically appeared in the 80s.

One such report was planted in an Atlanta paper and carried as a scare story in several Indian newspapers. Another such story appeared when some Indian scientists camped at Pokhran to do some follow up measurements of the 1974 nuclear test. Three times during the 80s these scare stories appeared and all three times they were found untrue.

There is a sequel to it which is also very instructive.

The Cray machine came to India after a long negotiation. India agreed to some humiliating terms which insulated the machine at its site from being used for any purpose other than medium range weather forecasting.

The US President used his special powers to push the deal through against the State Department’s objections. He also authorized further purchases of the Cray machine for which India had put in a request.

But by the early 1990s, the Indian scientists no longer needed the Cray machine. In C-DAC, the Pune based technology institution sponsored by the Department of Electronics, Dr Bhatkar and his team had developed their parallel processors which were more powerful than the Cray machines, though the two are not fully comparable.

Indian scientists working independently of C-DAC developments, had designed powerful processors at National Aeronautical Laboratory at Bangalore and at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Bombay.

Several highly complex problems of missile in-flight control which were thought to be insoluble with our equipment, were solved by brainy young Indian scientists at Defense Research and Development Organization of the Ministry of Defense, Government of India.

On the cryogenic engine also, India would not have had to buy the engine from Russia, had the Indian Space Research Organization listened to the report of a committee of experts in the early 80s to develop this capability.

ISRO itself has had the distinction of developing several space related technologies and in each case, the Indian equivalent proved to be far superior in performance to the foreign one which was denied to us by the US. The liquid fuel used in the second stage of the PSLV rocked is an outstanding example of the Indian capability.

Contrast this American concern at Indian developments in what are termed as dual purpose technologies with the lack of it when Pakistan deploys the same technologies.

For years, Dr AQ Khan was sending the uranium enrichment technology documents from his perch at the Belgian enrichment facility to his home country for the specific purpose of developing the uranium route to the nuclear bomb. Are we to believe that the US intelligence agencies never knew such theft going on from a very sensitive European facility?

If finally the US imposed sanctions in the form of denying foreign aid to Pakistan, that was more due to the outcry in the Congress against the Pakistani clandestine nuclear operations than any concern.

From day one when Dr Abdul Kalam was taken out of the ISRO and appointed to design and develop the Indian missile back in early 80s the US has been crying foul.

Even after its own scientists told the Administration that Indian civilian and defense space developments are proceeding separately, this dual technology-use weapon was used to curb imports of ‘sensitive items’ to India but nothing much was heard of Pakistani missile acquisition from other countries, the latest from China.

No sanctions were applied against Pakistan for acquiring Missiles and against China for selling them but the US effectively persuaded Russians from selling us the cryogenic technology as distinct from cryogenic engines, though it did try to prevent the sale of these engines as well.

Why is the US Administration crying foul about India developing these dual use technologies while not making the same protest when Pakistan acquires these by stealth or purchase?

Well informed sources say that this is due to the fear that given half the chance, India is going to emerge as the challenger, more than China, to the US supremacy in basic and applied sciences.

The Indian achievement in developing complete nuclear cycle and the breaking of the barrier in generating power from U-233 in a test reactor, the effective deployment of Indian built three-in-one geostationary satellites and orbiting remote sensor satellites, the range of indigenous missiles coming out of DRDO, are all telltale signs of concern for the commercial interests in America.

The National Science Foundation in Washington maintains updated list of Indian scientific talent, in various fields. As its data bank gets filled with names of Indian scientists, some of them working in obscure little places, the mercury of concern rises in the US establishment.

Without the Indians themselves knowing about it, the basic capabilities for India to become a leading edge power in technology are being built right now. But the Americans know about it and are concerned.

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