The nuclear devices tested by India on Monday 11 May 1998 were at least 15 years old. Indian nuclear scientists had been twiddling their thumbs and tinkering with all kinds of ideas since that time. Fact is that the political leadership of that time had completely lost its self confidence. This was not known to everybody but was evident to those who wanted decisions on several things, including the festering Sikh "problem", which had been turned into a problem because of inaction. This was to cost the country dearly, especially in terms of the subsequent hurt to a community that had been born out of the necessity to defend the quam. At any rate, the slide begun in the early 1980s continued despite Rajiv Gandhi, who while attempting to strengthening the conventional warfare infrastructure could never muster the guts to cross the strategic Rubicon. Those who came after him were even worse. In short, while the politicians drifted into inconsequence, the country`s nuclear scientists kept themselves busy in their own fashion, toying with ideas and devices that had the potential of shaking the world.

Meanwhile, a tremendous amount was happening in the world of nuclear weapons design. It was a select world but not an entirely secret world. The basic principles of fission and fusion, the nature of radioactive material etc. were common knowledge. But new challenges were being thrown up everyday - most from the labs of the United States where brilliant scientists were dreaming up new ideas. These people weren`t exactly the disciples of any Dr. Strangelove but ordinary scientists propelled by their instinctive desire to arrive at breakthroughs in their own field. The motivations were no different in the forgotten, dusty nuclear labs in India. Scientists are driven by their own adrenalin, and not from write-ups in newspapers or television interviews. They set about solving several potentially difficult problems, including the problem of creating very small nuclear devices which require powerful and complicated detonating systems because the fissile material involved is relatively small and have to be imploded into a very small mass. It had been discovered that other materials and elements could facilitate an explosive chain reaction and so forth. Mastering these became the obsession of a whole generation of Indian nuclear scientists. Their experiments resulted in the five tests conducted on 11 and 13 of May 1998 in the deserts of Rajasthan.

What had changed? Nothing except that they had an excellent team leader in the form of Dr. A.P.J.Kalam and a government that wanted to get on with the business of nation formation without having the security threat dangling like a sword of Damocles over the nation`s head. A sensible leadership and political will were the two ingredients missing from India`s highly advanced nuclear programme - because it was advanced only in the labs and therefore had no utility whatsoever in the real world of hard geo-politics. The new government was different in that it somehow realised that nuclear weapons were essentially political weapons and therefore gave the nation great leverage in many areas. The most significant perhaps of all these are the alliances that are destined to be shaped in the medium term.

The geo-political implications of the recent tests are evident to the game players of the world and will be evident to those who don`t play in the months to come. But for the scientists, geo-politics is another realm. Theirs` is a completely different ball game. They are the top guns in their own field and this basic dynamic creates its own ethos and creations. The bottom line, shorn of philosophy, was the need to invent means to create a very small explosion and the controlled explosion. The thermo-nuclear or H-Bomb type stuff was old hat. The tiny boys and the clean guys were the difficult ones, both in terms of the detonating device and the materials to be used. There was also the need to feel comfortable about confirming hypothesis even if all grey areas could not be eliminated. The more the data, the better. The total success of the tests was extremely re-assuring, and therefore, the Government could say that this was it and no further tests were required. This might surprise some but they will be a lot more surprised if they knew all that is going on in scores of little labs spread across the country.

Today, scientists are less concerned about physical testing than the validity of their basic constructs, assumptions, co-efficients and algorithms. The details can always be filled in. But some basic details are required otherwise, scientists will have to work in a vacuum not knowing whether their even most basic assumptions are correct. Hence the two further tests.

The implications of all this in practical terms are something that do bother scientists in India. The idea that a semi-literate artillery seargent could fire off a shell that would obliterate an entire division or so of men and material, is a cold, sobering thought. As is the notion of a hapless Air Force pilot letting fly a guided bomb that would hit a city 100 km away, leaving nothing but semi-intact buildings and charred bodies. These are horrendous matters but they need to be publicised in a nation which knows little about the terrible consequences of nuclear warfare. At the same time, India now has too much at stake to ever re-trace the path back to the non-nuclear wilderness. Today, more than ever, it is global will and the willingness to hold India`s hand in the difficult period of transition that will count. Every country like a modern day Faust must, having taken the decision, learn to live with terrible knowledge and vow to return to the light in the heart of darkness.