A former scientific advisor to the Indian government writes on working with various prime ministers

As chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (1993-2000) and then as P[rincipal] S[cientific] A[dvisor] to the government (2001-18), I had the privilege of interacting with many P[rime] M[inister]s. When [Narendra] Modi took over as PM in 2014, I had requested for a meeting with him. I told him, “I am already 77. You may like to have a new PSA.”

“What has age got to do with science?” he asked me. Then I told him that I had worked with several PMs, the last one being Dr Manmohan Singh from the Congress party. To that, he asked me, “What has politics got to do with science?” So, I continued as the PSA to the government for the next five years.

In 2018, I received a message from the principal secretary to the PM, Nripendra Misra, stating that they were now ready for a change. I personally handed over a letter to PM Modi saying, as I had told him earlier, that he may like to have a younger man as the PSA, congratulated him on the progress of the country under his leadership, and also thanked him for his support to our office over the last five years. He, in turn, congratulated me for my contributions to India’s progress in the field of science and technology over the last four decades.

Prime Minister Modi has a strong interest in science, particularly the space programme. One of the suggestions made by the PMO was to enhance the scientific interactions between the national laboratories and the universities, which I had already been doing. I had requested the heads of national laboratories to interact more closely with proximate universities. The emphasis on “proximate” was because every scientist from a national laboratory enjoys visiting and interacting with the faculty and students (including as research co-guide), provided he can return home by night, and the visit does not involve long travel and overnight stay.

The other suggestion made by the PMO was to make available publicly funded research facilities to other institutions as well as industry. This is the highly successful ISTEM programme that I initiated from the PSA’s Office, which is headquartered in the Nanoelectronics Centre of the IISc. As can be seen from its website, over 1850 institutions have put nearly 25,000 facilities on the ISTEM website, which was inaugurated by PM Modi during the Indian Science Congress in Bengaluru on January 3, 2020. The major focus of our PM is, however, to take the fruits of science to society, particularly the economically weaker sections.

The first thing that strikes you about Dr [Manmohan] Singh, upon meeting him, is his erudition and humility. In my conversations with him, I found that he was very familiar with the nuclear programme, because he had been a member of the Atomic Energy Commission when he was the Finance Secretary in the Government of India. The Homi Bhabha Awards to young DAE scientists are given by PMs and they visit BARC for that purpose. So, this one time, owing to a certain change in protocol, Dr Singh gave the awards at his residence. I was sitting in the audience, but he made a special mention of my contributions to atomic energy over a long period.

As soon as PM [Atal Bihari] Vajpayee came to power in 1996, he had given us the authorisation to carry out the nuclear tests. Then came the no-confidence motion against him. I told Dr [Abdul] Kalam that it was not the right time to carry out the tests as the other political parties would ascribe a political motive to it, like they had said that the authorisation of the 1974 test by PM Indira Gandhi was to break the railway strike.

Dr Kalam and I met the PM and told him that we thought the tests should be done after knowing the result of the no-confidence motion. First, he smiled and said in Hindi, “I have already given you the permission.” Then he agreed to the postponement. We conveyed the message to our scientists who had already placed the main device in the chamber and sealed it.

They were deeply disappointed, and one of them, Mr Ramakumar, wondered why the telephone connection to Pokhran from Delhi had to work so well at that time, otherwise they could have taken it to a point of near no return by filling the shaft with sand, and the device would have to be detonated. In any case, we could have tested only two devices at that time; the extra time of two years gave us the opportunity to develop more sophisticated devices and also to test three sub-kiloton devices to understand thoroughly some additional physics principles. Prime Minister Vajpayee was very receptive to good ideas.

In July 2002, I had written to him that the recommendations of scientists and engineers for extension were considered by a committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary. The acceptance or otherwise of the recommendation was based on the note sent by the secretary of the concerned department. While
the procedure may be all right when the performance could be judged on the basis of papers published and/or on the basis of patents obtained, a written note would be inadequate for personnel working in projects, particularly in strategic fields.

I, therefore, suggested that when a recommendation for extension from mission-oriented agencies like the DAE or Department of Space were being considered by the committee, the Secretary of the concerned department be invited to be present so that the significance of the achievements, on the basis of which the recommendation were made, could be brought out. The directions on these lines from the PMO were issued soon thereafter.

The principal secretary to PM Vajpayee, Brajesh Mishra, was a powerful official in that government and also could take, and quickly that too, strong decisions, not only related to the Pokhran 1998 tests but also in other fields including, in the case of my interest, in atomic energy. For example, in the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), there were two excellent engineers at the top, Chairman and Managing Director YSR Prasad, and the second-in-command Ch Surinder. They had, with their colleagues, particularly VK Chaturvedi (in Rawatbhata, Rajasthan) and VK Sharma (in Kaiga, Karnataka), turned around the performance of NPCIL and raised the availability factors of nuclear power plants to near 90 per cent from a little above 50 per cent.

I used to consider Mr Prasad and Ch Surinder, the Commissar, the man of action, and the Yogi, the contemplative thinker, respectively, to use the terminology of Arthur Koestler. I had put up their case for extension, which came up together at the end of a month. By chance, I met Brajesh Mishra a day before that, and he told me that Mr Prasad’s extension had been approved, but not Ch Surinder’s. I told him they were most effective in tandem and that denying the extension to Ch Surinder would hurt the programme, which had picked up very well. Even though the file had already been signed by the PM, Mr Mishra got the decision revised. That is how powerful he was in the government and also helpful.

During the period of PM PV Narasimha Rao, funding for the nuclear power programme had been reduced. I remember making a presentation to PM Deve Gowda, at 7, Race Course Road, emphasising the need for increased funding. The finance secretary, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and secretary to the Planning Commission, Dr Bimal Jalan, had also been invited. When my presentation ended, Dr Ahluwalia and Dr Jalan said that there were cost overruns and time overruns in the nuclear power projects, and these must be discussed before more funds could be sanctioned. Deve Gowda, raising his finger in his characteristic style, said, “If no decision is taken, there will be time overruns and cost overruns.”

A profound statement indeed! The result of that was that both Dr Ahluwalia and Dr Jalan agreed that the nuclear power programme was being underfunded. That was the turning point, leading to increased funding for the nuclear power programme. Under the Vajpayee government, of course, funding for the nuclear programmes was not a problem.

Excerpted with permission from India Rising: Memoir of a Scientist, R Chidambaram and Suresh Gangotra, Penguin India.