The Flight of the Phoenix: Buddha Smiles

Debanjan Nath

The Flight of the Phoenix: Buddha Smiles

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear race was in full swing. As nations clamored to secure weapons technologies, the secret of the atom became unreachable. In 1974, India became part of the elite group of nations who successfully detonated an indigenous atomic device. The operation was code-named “Smiling Buddha”.

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On 18th May 1974, India tested her first atomic weapon at the Pokhran test range in Rajasthan. This test was designated as Pokhran-1 or Operation Smiling Buddha in reference to Buddha Purnima of that year, which celebrated the birthday of Lord Gautam Buddha. The test made India the first non-permanent member of the United Nations to become nuclear-capable and also the sixth country in the world to have developed atomic weapons. However, it had not been an easy achievement.

In 1954, on the persuasion of Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay (AEET) was setup and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) came into being. Even though Dr. Bhabha claimed that India could develop an atomic weapon, throughout the 1950s up until the mid-60s, India’s attitude towards nuclear weapons was rather Janus-faced. This was partly due to the Gandhian belief of non-violence and because of the repulsion towards the destructive weapons. However, nuclear reactors were being setup to harness the power of the atom for the greater good. But soon, the events of 1965 and 1971 forced India to go down the rabbit hole.

India faced a devastating defeat in the Sino-India war of 1965. Now that we had a hostile neighbor with nuclear capability mutated the attitude of New Delhi towards the development of atomic weapons. But the event that brought us to the brink was the Indo-Pak was of 1971. In this war, turning a blind eye to the horrors perpetrated on the Bengali population, both U.S.A. and U.K. had sided with Pakistan. The situation escalated to the point that both the superpowers had deployed warships against India that had sailed deep in the Bay of Bengal. Had it not been for the Russian intervention, the war would have had a different outcome. Russia came to India’s aid and deployed their nuclear-enabled submarines in the region that created deterrence against the superpowers. This incident forced the Indian government to reconsider their position on the development of atomic weapons.

On 7th Sptember 1972, while on a tour of the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC), the then Prime minister of India Mrs. Indira Gandhi instructed scientists to develop and manufacture an atomic bomb. This responsibility fell onto Dr. Raja Ramanna, then director of BARC. A team from the Defense Research Development Organization (DRDO) headed by Dr. B.D. Nag Chaudhuri, developed the detonation system for the device. The developmental work was done by Dr. P.K. Iyengar and the design team was led by R. Chidambaram. The development of the high explosive implosion device was directed by Dr. N. S. Venkatesan of the Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory (TBRL) in Chandigarh.

Procurement of plutonium presented a problem as the Phoenix plutonium plant, the only plutonium producing plant in the country at the time, was shut down due to a leak. In order to obtain plutonium in a short time, Dr. Ramanna ordered the shutting down of Purnima reactor. This reactor held around 18 kg of plutonium while the device required 6 kg. So it was postulated that India could manufacture 3 of these devices. The implosion device used a RDX-TNT mixture for fast explosion and barium nitrate-TNT mixture for the slow explosion. In his book ‘Weapons of Peace’, Mr. Raj Chengappa described the inner slow explosive component’s shape as that of a ‘Shiva lingam’ that used 12 lenses to divert the explosion inwards to the core.

“The way the explosives were placed around the plutonium sphere resembled the petals of the lotus.” Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace

On 19 February 1974, the "tickling the dragon's tail" experiment was conducted successfully. Meanwhile, the 61 Engineering Regiment stationed in Jodhpur was instructed to dig the shaft into which the device would be lowered. The army was informed that it was for a well. Under the command of Lt. Col. Subherwal, the army commenced the operation only to hit an aquifer. The shaft being flooded with water was unusable so a new shaft was dug at the abandoned village of Malki. Soon after, all the components of the device were transported to a hut just 40 m away from the shaft. The assembling of the device began. One of the lenses, weighing around 100 kg, fell during assembly and was chipped. Only one spare lens remained that was installed. The device was lowered into the shaft on 15th May and sealed with cement and concrete.

“The neutron initiator, christened the Flower, was only completed on 4th May. Dr. Murthy, who was on the initiator development team, along with Dr. Iyengar actually boarded a commercial flight to Rajasthan. They carried the initiator in a thermos.”

At 8:05 am, 18th May, the device was exploded. The Peaceful Nuclear Explosive had an estimated yield of 8 to 12 kilotons. The test was conducted in absolute secrecy. Not even the Defense Minister had been informed. Apart from the development team, comprising of around 75 scientists, the only people who knew about the test were Mrs. Gandhi, former principal secretary Mr. P.N. Haksar, and the current principal secretary Mr. D.P. Dhar. After the test, it is rumored that Dr. Homi Sethna had called up Mr. Dhar and informed him in a code, “Buddha is smiling.”

In the aftermath of the test, India was criticized by many nations. The test was the reason for the establishment of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to monitor and prevent nuclear proliferation. On the flip side many people were skeptical and did not believe that India could have developed such an advanced weapon. Canada, who had provided the plutonium for the CIRIUS reactor that was used in the test, reacted sharply by stopping all nuclear related assistance. U.S. also reacted negatively but kept supplying uranium for the Tarapur reactor. As expected, the harshest response came from our neighboring country that vowed not to be intimidated.

India built her own nuclear device on her own without any assistance from any other country. India would conduct nuclear test again 24 years later but with this tests all doubts had been cleared. The Smiling Buddha test showed the world what Indian scientists and engineers were capable of.