The article by Stuart Leslie and Indira Chowdhury on Homi Bhabha’s many accomplishments to advance science and technology in India (Physics Today, September 2018, page 48) made only a few oblique references to that country’s nuclear weapons program. India’s speed in achieving the successful detonation of a 12-kiloton device in 1974 was clearly due to the infrastructure that Bhabha initiated and guided.
Although the explosion, carried out by the Indian Army, was termed “Smiling Buddha,” then prime minister Indira Gandhi called it a “peaceful test.” Nonetheless, it initiated a nuclear arms race with Pakistan (see Stuart Leslie’s article “Pakistan’s nuclear Taj Mahal,” Physics Today, February 2015, page 40). Thus Bhabha could be called the father of Indian nuclear weaponry. One wonders whether nuclear weapons development was his main justification for establishing the Trombay complex.
