Abstract:

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.

Key words: India’s nuclear policy, China’s first nuclear test, India’s nuclear debate, Sino-Indian relation