Opinion: The Desi 'Oppenheimers' And How They Were Treated In India

The Hollywood movie Oppenheimer is a biopic of the scientist who made the atom bomb for America, but who made India's atom bombs? On the 25th year of India becoming a nuclear weapons state, let us revisit the hard work and sacrifices of those Indian nuclear heroes.  

The Hollywood film Oppenheimer depicts the reality of how Dr J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who is credited with being the 'Father of the Atomic Bomb', made the nuclear bomb for the US as part of the Manhattan Project. Later, his own government classed him as a 'communist', which, to Americans, almost meant being a traitor. He was put through a wringer of a trial and his security clearances were withdrawn; from being an influential political voice in the US, he was reduced to being almost an outcaste.

After the 1945 Trinity atomic test, Oppenheimer, having read Sanskrit, quoted the Bhagavad Gita as saying, "Now I become Death destroyer of the worlds". His own country destroyed his reputation in his lifetime. Other countries like China and Pakistan have also heaped humiliation on their atomic bomb-makers. Pakistan jailed AQ Khan for five years for running what was described as the 'nuclear Walmart of the world'. Qian Sanqiang, a Chinese nuclear physicist, was deported to the Chinese countryside as part of the Cultural Revolution.