印度独立以后，尼赫鲁政府较早地启动了民用核能项目，并确立了和平利用核能、不发展核武器的基本政策。但是1962年中印边界冲突后，印度国内开始出现一些将核能用于国防的初步讨论。1964年5月尼赫鲁去世，10月中国成功进行首次核试验，引发印度国内各界关于核政策的大辩论，要求发展核武器的意见日益增多。面对国内政治压力和国际社会无法阻止中国发展核武器的现实，夏斯特里政府默默转向“有条件无核”政策，在技术上积极为将来有一天能够制造核武器做准备，为1974年印度“和平核爆炸”奠定了技术与政策基础。

After India’s independence, the Nehru government quickly launched civil programs of nuclear energy, and established the basic policy of the peaceful use of nuclear energy without developing nuclear weapons. After the Sino-Indian border war in 1962, discussions on the use of nuclear energy for national defense emerged in India. The death of Nehru in May and China’s first nuclear test in October 1964 triggered a great debate on nuclear policy in India, and caused more and more calls for the development of nuclear weapons. In the face of domestic political pressure and the fact that the international community failed to stop China from developing nuclear weapons, the Shastri government silently turned to the policy of “conditional nuclear-free”. In addition, they started to make technical preparations actively for the development of nuclear weapons in the future, which created the technology and policy conditions for the “peaceful nuclear explosion” in 1974.