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SHRI CHANDRA SHEKHAR (Ballia) : Mr. Speaker, Sir, with anguish and deep concern I am going to read a letter that was published on 30th May, 1974, just after the explosion of nuclear device in India. The letter was published in The New York Times and the letter was written by one of today’s officials of the Government of India. It is a matter of grave concern because it does not only put a question mark about the national policies but also ask the Super Powers to intervene in the affairs of this country. I do not know what prompted the present Government to appoint this officials in a very key position.

Mr. Speaker, I shall be failing in my national duty if I do not bring to your notice, to the notice of this House and to the people of this country about the gravity of the appointment of this official. I may be permitted to read. I know that I have a very short time. I shall just read the paper. I shall not make any speech on that.

The letter reads and I quote :

“After India’s ‘peaceful’ nuclear blast, the international community must wake up more vigorously to prevent India from embarking upon a nuclear weapons programme as well as to block further proliferation. It will probably not before the mid-eighties that India will have implemented, the Sarabhai programme for a ‘balanced nuclear infrastructure’, and be faced with the next crucial decision on whether or not it should go in for a weapons programme.

Mrs. Gandhi has muted the elite demand for a quick bomb. She is not unaware of the crippling costs of nuclear weapons and their worthlessness in war; nor is there much enthusiasm among the military for nuclear weaponry. On the other hand, the world community cannot accept New Delhi’s declaration that it will not make nuclear weapons as an adequate and credible guarantee that India, having acquired the capability, will forever remain a nuclear pacifist.”

“After all, the Rajasthan blast was not triggered off by any perceived threat to India’s security. It was ordered by Mrs. Gandhi at a singularly inappropriate time in the mistaken belief that the heralding of India’s nuclear capability would lift the country from its current despondency and gloom.

If the blast was a political mistake, it will be a worse folly on the part of the international community to try to “punish” India by cutting off or withholding developmental aid. In any case, such a strategy will not work, because whatever the Soviet Union may think about the Indian explosion, they are not going to deny India developmental assistance.

What the international community must ask of India now is a formal commitment to the U.N. Security Council that it will never undertake the manufacture of nuclear weapons, and that such a commitment be written into the Indian Constitution through an amendment sponsored by the Government. These two measures alone can reassure the world that India will not use its nucler capability for destructive purposes. If Mrs. Gandhi refuses to take them (a mere undertaking to the Security Council will not be enough simply because it is not enforceable), she will have betrayed, or confirmed, what many suspect to be India’s true nuclear ambition.

To prevent further proliferation, the Moscow test-ban treaty must now be extended to cover underground tests; the two superpowers must determinently move towards substantial, and not merely symbolic, nuclear arms control and disarmament, and the non- proliferation treaty should be revised to remove some of the clauses that the nuclear have not consider to be discriminatory against their vital interests. Bhabani Sen Gupta

The writer is a senior fellow at the Research Institute on Communist Affairs, Columbia University.

This gentleman, Shri Bhabani Sen Gupta, has been appointed as an Officer on Special Duty in the Prime Minister’s Office. I am told that he has got the rank of a Secretary. Since the day he is appointed, he has been making statements which is the concern of all thinking people in this country. Editorials have been written. There has been news that the Officers of the Ministry of External Affairs do not know whether they can give sensitive documents to this person.

I do not know whether the Prime Minister knew about the credentials of this gentleman. I have nothing against him. I have no rancour. But, Mr. Speaker, Sir, if this was the opinion of this Officer, I cannot even think of this Officer being in the Prime Minister’s Office even for a moment. I wrote to you, Mr. Speaker, when I came to know about it yesterday afternoon and I simultaneously wrote a letter to the Prime Minister that he should immediately ask him to relinquish his office.

I told that there is another letter written by the same gentleman which has also been published and in that it has been stated that it is not enough; India should be summoned before the Security Council and if they do not agree to this proposal to amend the Constitution as desired, then the whole superpower community should impose sanction on India.

This is his view and not only that. After becoming an Officer of a super nature, he has made a policy statement on Siachen. He has also made a policy statement on nuclear programme. I have never seen such an Officer in the whole annal of world history, what to talk of India.

I have nothing to say; I do not want to pass any comment about his faith. But I do not know what the Government will do. They will be pleased to retain this Officer. But I caution the country about the nefarious designs of such appointments. I do not know on whose behest it has been done. I caution the people; I caution the Officers of the Government of India that any paper of sensitive nature should not be given to this Officer.