Kakodkar, Anil & Gangotra, Suresh (2019), Fire and Fury: Transforming India’s Strategic, New Delhi: Rupa Publications.
Dr. Debashish Mitra
During the 2006 celebrated civil Nuclear deal with the USA, which churned a new political upheaval in the internal political affairs, India ultimately got what it wanted, although the negotiations went to the wire, notes Shivanand Kanavi, George W Bush reacted to Anil Kakodkar. “So you are that Kakodkar. Are you happy?”. (For details see https://www.deccanherald.com/national/so-you-are-that-kakodkar-are-you-happy-775298.html). How he dealt the American subtleness with firm logic and determination is a sign of not only bravery but of conviction and a definite resolve that has outlined the outstanding life and times of Anil Kakodkar, one amongst India’s most revered nuclear scientists.
The book may be a memory of his reflective journey—from modest beginnings in Madhya Pradesh to the very best work of the Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission there remained in the course of entirely different incidents and defining moments within the country’s energy programme over the past forty-five years. His recollections of his childhood and therefore the laborious life the family long-faced once his revolutionist father was in Portuguese jail in Lisbon for several years and, therefore, the appendices by his spouse and sister within the book bring out Dr. Kakodkar’s character and add any price to the current memoir. It chronicles the various inflexion points of the programme as seen through the eyes of one of the chief architects of that journey. Naturally, it would invoke a large quantity of interest in anyone following the evolution of India’s environment compatible nuclear programme for clean energy and security.
The book is divided into fifteen chapters where the chapters detail out the background of the Man, with a basic objective that lies inherent into the lifestyle characterised by grit, determination and penchant for knowledge and quest for success. The study conformed by mostly, primary empirical data and lastly a prescriptive enumeration of various assumptions as concluding remarks. In brief, the author demonstrates in the book, that if necessary the smallest of the hurdles can be easily removed if zeal for accomplishment remains in an individual. The political heads of India with their different ideologue and coterie of knowledge developed a sense of security upon this man whose realization is obviated by the logic of numerous interdependent relationships between the nation’s major players, the degree of unpredictability inherent in these and the corresponding compartmentalization of various power structures and their uncertainty to share a penchant for a common interest and time tested alliance which naturalized into the strategic identity of the nation.
The authors warns us at the concluding part about some of the problems inherent to India, which can act as a catalyst for the volcano to explode upon which the region is sitting at this moment when he pointed out “ The absence of the right ecosystem for addressing issue leads to several opportunities. The case of the Guar bean (cluster bean) is an interesting example.” (p.151). As a responsible citizen, we need to understand the opinionated sermon coming from the man who had preached and practised not only what he learnt from the textbooks but also from the pages of his life.
Kakodkar may be a next-generation nuclear engineer, following the pioneers Dr. Homi Bhabha, Dr. Homi Sethna, Dr. Raja Ramanna, Dr. P K Iyengar and Dr. R Chidambaram. He joined the department of energy within the early sixties as a freshly minted bright engineer from Mumbai’s VJTI and topped his batch at the energy coaching faculty, but his confidence in active downside determination and ‘can do’ angle thespian the seniors’ attention quite early. Shortly after he was given the primary major freelance project to create and build the analysis reactor Dhruva within the eighties. Dhruva has been a workhorse since then for the DAE (Department of Atomic Energy) not solely in analysis however conjointly as a gentle provider of the bomb-grade element. He has participated in troubleshooting and ultimately fixing many issues within the power reactors that were caused intentionally deficiencies within the Canadian natural uranium-based 220 MW, PHWRs (Pressurised moderator Reactors). There have been issues with the droopy fluid channels, cracks within the calandria and even the distribution manifold of Madras, (Kalpakkam) reactors that had folded. These were advanced engineering and scientific discipline issues.
Having been denied any facilitate from the sulking Canadians once the ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ of 18 May 1974, at Pokharan, Indian engineers fastidiously analysed and solved the issues a lot of to the surprise of the Canadians and in truth, have clothed to be international specialists in fluid channel replacement for natural metal reactors. However, in his tasteful approach, he recounts within the book several incidents that happened throughout, take a look at 1974, because of the weapon tests in 1998. He conjointly lays to rest the doubter about the dissipation that erupted regarding whether or not the Asian nation so tested a fusion bomb in 1998.
During the India-US nuclear negotiations, he was continuously the ‘go-to man’ for the Ministry of External Affairs, thanks to the implicit religion that then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh placed in him to safeguard the long-run strategic interests of Asian nation and not be pressured by the acute metal shortage that the country long-faced then. Dr. Kakodkar appeared at just one occasion as a stubborn obstacle not solely to the USA, however conjointly to the eager approach within the Ministry of External Affairs who thought the Asian nation is wanting obdurately with the present situation like horse within the mouth. It is as a result of India was on the eve of obtaining recognition as a de facto nuclear weapon power while not having signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation pact, paving the approach for lifting all sanctions and restrictions on nuclear trade and every one sophisticated trade, a serious milestone to be crossed was the ‘separation plan’ that demarcated what reactors and analysis facilities would be underneath UN agency safeguards and that others would be restricted to UN agency inspectors, thereby implying an affiliation to the strategic weapons programme. This strategic stubbornness ultimately got India what it wished although the negotiations visited the wire.
So far, Dr. Raja Ramanna, Dr. P K Iyengar and Dr. M R Srinivasan are among those people who headed the DAE who have written their memoirs. But, written with an easy narrative which is not in vogue in the scientific community with lucid language, tidy by knowledge, Dr. Kakodkar and Gangotra’s Fire and Fury is price reading by all those inquisitive about India’s nuclear programme in its quest for clean and abundant electricity and strategic weapons. The book is almost flawless except for the fact that being a man of such precision and worked at such degree of Indian deep state, he could have avoided mentioning Hindi as one of the national languages (p.6) to which this reviewer thinks that it was the intention to label the language as the official language as mentioned in the Constitution of India, but not as the national language of India. Apart from that, the book leaves its authoritative imprint on the reader’s mind, hence not only important for security pundits and policy-makers but also non-governmental agencies and students researching on regionalism and regional security, generally at the global level and specifically concerning South Asian nation nuclear programme at least for civil purposes.
