Vikram Sarabhai did not favour nuclear test: book

"There is a suggestion that Vikram was very concerned about the potential fallout of these factors on his beloved space programme," the book written by Amrita Shah claims.

Vikram Sarabhai, the doyen of Indian science who led the country's nuclear research, might not have been in favour of conducting an atomic test, a book has claimed.

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As word about India planning a nuclear test spread in 1970, the United States had sent a diplomatic note warning to New Delhi that the use of plutonium from the CIRUS reactor, built with Canadian aid, would violate the US-India nuclear cooperation agreement.

"There is a suggestion that Vikram was deeply concerned about the potential fallout of these factors on his beloved space programme," says the book Vikram Sarabhai: A Life written by noted journalist Amrita Shah.

In 1970, a view of expression of India's might through a nuclear test or developing a long-range ballistic missile was fast gaining ground.

Then prime minister Indira Gandhi had expressed her reservations about a weapons programme but was veering towards conducting a nuclear explosion and had asked Sarabhai, who was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), to prepare for it in the mid-1970s.

"What the politicians, bureaucrats and senior scientists at the AEC wanted was a show of India's might. And there was no question of Vikram's stand on that," says the book.

"At the very outset Vikram had made his views on a demonstration clear, going so far as to call it a paper tiger. Those who knew Vikram well maintain that he would not have disobeyed a direct order from the prime minister," it adds.