New Delhi:
“The Buddha is smiling,” was the code message flashed to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi when India successfully detonated its first nuclear bomb at the Pokhran Test Range in Rajasthan on May 18, 1974. The date was Buddha Purnima, the festival marking the birth of Gautama Buddha. Hence, the codename. The test prompted Pakistan to accelerate its nuclear programme, culminating in tests in 1998.
Fifty-one years later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose the same Buddhist festival day to deliver a strong message to Pakistan: “India will not tolerate any nuclear blackmail. India will strike precisely and decisively at the terrorist hideouts developing under the cover of nuclear blackmail”.
The Indira Gandhi government’s announcement half a century ago described the nuclear test as a “peaceful” explosion.
PM Modi used the word “peace” with a sine qua non: “If Pakistan wants to survive, it will have to destroy its terror infrastructure. There is no other way to peace”.
‘Buddha Smiles Again’
The Prime Minister’s statement was analogous to the one made by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former Prime Minister and a BJP stalwart, after India conducted three underground nuclear tests on May 11, 1998, in the same Rajasthan testing range, 24 years after Pokhran-1. Two days later, India conducted two more tests.
He kept his announcement straight, avoiding the word “peaceful”.
Incidentally, the Vajpayee government also chose Buddha’s birthday for the nuclear tests, codenamed ‘Operation Shakti, but widely known as ‘Buddha Smiles Again’.
‘Path Of Peace Goes Through Power’
PM Modi’s Monday address was his first since India’s 100-hour military conflict with its nuclear-armed neighbour following New Delhi’s ‘Operation Sindoor’, which was a response to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, in which 26 civilians were killed in cold blood. In the 25-minute operation, India struck nine terror bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the early hours of May 7.
“Instead of supporting India’s strike against terrorism, Pakistan started attacking India itself,” PM Modi said, adding, “If there is a terrorist attack on India, a fitting reply will be given… a befitting response on our terms only.”
PM Modi ended his speech with a “peace” message of Buddha – “Today is Buddha Purnima. Lord Buddha has shown us the path of peace”. But, there was a significant subscript, “The path of peace also goes through power.”