India Detonates Its First Nuclear Device, Smiling Buddha

Date

1974

Category

Military & conflict

Region

South Asia (India)

Era

Contemporary

Significance

India joined the ranks of nuclear-armed states on 18 May 1974, detonating its first nuclear device—code-named Smiling Buddha—in an underground test at the Pokhran range in the Rajasthan desert.

Built by scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre with an estimated yield of several kilotons, it was the first confirmed nuclear test by a nation outside the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, making India the world's sixth nuclear-capable power. New Delhi called it a "peaceful nuclear explosion," but the test alarmed the world and drew condemnation, prompting Canada to cut off nuclear cooperation and spurring the creation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to police the spread of atomic technology. Smiling Buddha demonstrated that a developing nation could master the bomb using ostensibly civilian assistance, reshaping global non-proliferation policy for decades. It also intensified the strategic rivalry on the subcontinent, ultimately drawing Pakistan into its own weapons program and setting South Asia on a path toward a nuclear standoff that endures today.

Empires active in 1974

• Soviet Union
  1922 CE – 1991 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE
• Solomonic dynasty
  1270 CE – 1974 CE
• Dutch Empire
  1581 CE – 1975 CE

Related military & conflict events

• First Kashmir War
  1947–1948
• Fall of Saigon and reunification of Vietnam
  30 April 1975 (reunified 1976)
• Khmer Rouge Seize Cambodia and Declare Year Zero
  1975
• Cuban Missile Crisis
  16–28 October 1962
• The Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi
  7 April – 19 July 1994
• Korean War
  25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953

Also relevant

• Chilean coup against Salvador Allende
  11 September 1973
• Yom Kippur War and the Arab oil embargo
  6–25 October 1973 (war); embargo Oct 1973 – Mar 1974

Further reading

India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

The wider story

India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

Ramachandra Guha

Magisterial, readable history of the subcontinent since independence.

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