In the first episode of The Long Conversation, Dr. G. Madhavan Nair, the former Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), referred to a story of 1972 when Prof. Satish Dhawan, the then Director of Indian Institute of Science (IISc), while on a sabbatical at the California Institute of Technology, was approached by the Government of India to head the Space Commission, which was conceived following the death of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, who was then the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) with the space programme functioning as an adjunct under the DAE. 

On a closer look at the records in Indian archives, The Polity found that this story goes deeper and signified some profound as well as esoteric moments in India’s nation-building journey. The story of the establishment of the Space Commission and why it marked a significant milestone is reconstructed through archival accounts in this three-part narrative. 

Part - I

“Vikram’s sudden, tragic death deprived our space programme of leadership”

At the time of his death in December 1971, Vikram Sarabhai was probably the only space scientist who headed a nuclear programme, though, as a physicist, he had the credentials to do so. G. Madhavan Nair, the former ISRO Chairman, recalls Sarabhai working for over 18 hours every day in the week that he died. The strain of managing two distinct missions, which demanded equal attention, seemingly showed.  

Following Dr. Homi Bhabha’s mysterious death in an air crash over Mount Blanc on 24 January 1966, on the same day when the first Indira Gandhi ministry was sworn in, Sarabhai, with whom Bhabha was nurturing the space programme, ended up taking charge of the DAE as well as the AEC. 

Decades later, Prof M.G.K. Menon had confirmed that conversation Bhabha had with him, on the previous night before boarding that fateful flight, in which he indicated of a new role in New Delhi. Menon believed that role was possibly as a minister in the Indira Gandhi Cabinet, which, had it materialised, could have changed the fate of India's nuclear programme. 

For that matter, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had kept the portfolio of science and technology vacant after her government took charge. It was only in March 1967 that Mrs Gandhi appointed M.S. Gurupadaswamy as Minister of State (Atomic Energy) in her cabinet. 

While there have been many deeply-evocative explorations and analyses of Homi Bhabha’s years at the helm of the nuclear establishment, not many such discussions have happened around Sarabhai’s stint as DAE/AEC chief but for a few administrative documents that were in circulation, along with archival records of his conversations with American officials that occasionally surfaced from the United States repositories. 

Hard to ignore, however, was the perceptive, or symbolic, existence of the Sarabhai plan, which has been copiously described by K Subrahmanyam as the ‘nuclearisation’ plan. Yet, despite such coveted mentioning by the doyen of India's strategic community, the Sarabhai Plan finds nay presence in the official records, unless, of course, the document is still classified, and assuming it existed on paper. 

This being the backdrop and context in which the space programme was running in its initial nascent form, Sarabhai’s death left a huge void but also, at the same time, gave the government an opportunity to consider carving out the nuclear and the space programmes into separate and distinct entities.

Haksar prodded Mrs Gandhi to form the Space Commission  

The discussions at the highest level in the Government of India on the Space Commission started soon after the death of Vikram Sarabhai on 30 December 1971, and is collated in file - Prime Minister’s Office (Prime Minister’s Secretariat), File no: 17/39/72 PMS (Vol. I) - deposited at the National Archives of India (NAI). 

The correspondences started on 31 December 1971 itself, a day after Sarabhai’s death, with a Secret Note to the Prime Minister by P.N. Haksar, the Secretary to the PM. Haksar writes in this note that the PM "has to give urgent consideration to a number of problems arising out of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai’s death."

In the next note of 4 January 1972, Haksar writes thus: 

“Our Atomic Energy and Space Research Establishments represent very high investment in manpower and resources. It is a tremendous national asset built up through the genius of Dr. Homi Bhabha. Obviously, we must safeguard these assets with very great care and solicitude.”

It is apparent that it was on Haksar’s prodding that Mrs Gandhi decided to endow separate lives to the two programmes, or, rather, separate the space programme from the ambit of the AEC by forming a space commission. 

In the notes of 31 December 1971 and 4 January 1972, Haksar points out the need to “consider separation of Atomic Energy from Space Research,” and explore “whether we should continue our atomic energy and space programme under the same organisational framework as hitherto or whether any other framework is required, for instance, as in other countries we could have a separate Commission to deal with Space Programmes.” 

An important aspect in Haksar’s secret notes is about the organisational nature discussed for ISRO. In suggestions to the Prime Minister (with P.R. Pisharody, Director of Physical Research Laboratory’s name hand-written in the end of the note, implying as his note), it is noted that Nehru and Bhabha had decided that ISRO should be a non-governmental organisation, whose scientific administration should be with a scientific laboratory. 

The note further states: “They had entrusted that task to the Physical Research Laboratory, certainly because of Dr Sarabhai. It is recommended that ISRO’s administration should continue to be non-governmental, with the Government routing its funds through the DAE. For all the departments of the Government of India, DAE deals with the frontiers of scientific knowledge which is currently being extended all over the world. It is recommended that ISRO’s scientific administration is entrusted to the PRL of which the GoI is a Trustee. If for any reason the Director of this Laboratory cannot be appointed as Chairman, ISRO, the only other feasible solution is to appoint Prof. S. Dhawan as a whole-time paid Chairman of ISRO.” 

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi seems to have outrightly accepted these suggestions from Haksar. In her letter to Homi Sethna, dated 14 January 1972, inviting him to head the Atomic Energy Commission, Indira Gandhi talks about the decision to “separate Space Research from the purview of the Atomic Energy Commission.” 

She also mentions that: “In the meantime, I have requested Prof. M.G.K. Menon to be Chairman of ISRO. So that the period of transition does not hamper the work, the Department of Atomic Energy will as hitherto continue to service the space segment of the programme.” 

Inviting Satish Dhawan to head ISRO

The invitation to the Satish Dhawan to head the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) comes across as a fascinating episode. 

The letter from PM Gandhi to Dhawan was conveyed through a telegram dated 7 January 1972 to L.K. Jha, the then Indian Ambassador to Washington, who drove down to California to deliver the letter and its contents to Dhawan. 

In the letter, PM Gandhi invites Dhawan to take over the ISRO, though not clearly mentioning about the Space Commission. 

She writes: “Vikram’s sudden and tragic death has deprived our entire space research programme of leadership. You are aware of the heavy investment we have made in it. The Ten-year profile of the Development of Space shows the extent of our commitment. We cannot afford to allow the entire organisation to crumble. I should like you to accept the stewardship of our (entire, was removed) Space Organisation which I am proposing to separate from the Atomic Energy Commission.” 

Though not accounted for in the PMS file, it was known that Dhawan had put only one condition to accept the proposal – that he be allowed to head the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). As mentioned by G. Madhavan Nair in The Long Conversation, Dhawan was essentially a scientist and scholar who did not want to be completely disconnected from his academic eco-system even while practically putting to use his theoretical and scientific knowledge in the development of the country’s coveted space programme and its essential elements. 

The national missions and their strategic dimensions

Whereas Homi Sethna was serving as the director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) when offered with the AEC chairmanship, Dhawan was on a sabbatical as a Visiting Professor at the California Institute of Technology when the decision to appoint him as ISRO chief (stewardship was the term used in Indira Gandhi’s letter) was made. 

That Dhawan was also a member of the Atomic Energy Commission, a member of the Executive Committee of ISRO as well as of the Council of Management of the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), where Sarabhai laid the seeds of the space programme, also seems to have weighed in his favour as the first choice to head the space commission. Sarabhai had, in fact, taken Dhawan to the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, presided over by the then UN Secretary General, Kurt Waldheim. 

Incidentally, M.G.K. was then serving as Secretary of the Department of Electronics, another key national mission along with the atomic and space programmes, when given interim charge of ISRO. In fact, the letter from PM Gandhi to Menon, dated 14 January 1972, inviting him to be Chairman of ISRO, was also significant in some other respects. 

“Pending Dr Dhawan’s return from US,” PM Gandhi writes that “I think there should be some linage between our Space Programme and defence needs. Would you please discuss with Dr. B.D. Nag Chaudhuri in a preliminary way the best manner of achieving this?”

Though only a terse reference in this invitation letter to Menon, Mrs Gandhi had spelt out a pivotal and yet sensitive aspect of these three important national missions – nuclear, space and electronics – which is their linkage and overlap with the defence needs of the country. By instructing Menon to discuss with Nag Chaudhuri the possibility of linking the space programme with the defence needs of the country, the Prime Minister was merely confirming the prevailing notion that all these critical programmes had inherent strategic and national security characteristics and components. 

That Nag Chaudhuri, who was at that time the Chairman of the Cabinet Committee of Science and Technology, was brought into the matrix also confirms this lineage. Chaudhuri went on to play pivotal roles in India’s defence and strategic decision-making and implementation processes. Besides serving as Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Defence during this period, he was also a member of the Planning Commission, which indicated the significance these programmes had been endowed in the economic planning process. 

Nag Chaudhuri was also an integral part of the team that conducted the Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) in 1974. Subsequently, he was also credited with the transformation of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and was key figure in conceptualising the initial missile programmes during the period. 

It should be duly noted that all these significant events, including the creation of the space commission, the PNE and the Sarabhai plan for ‘nuclearisation’ all happened at a time when an intense debate on nuclearisation was happening in the country over the repeated nuclear and missile tests by China. That India rejected the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) during this period and decided to undertake a peaceful nuclear explosion could all be seen in a continuum that also contextualises PM Gandhi’s instruction to M.G.K. Menon.   

Dossier on ISRO (under DAE)

An insightful document annexed in the PMS file referred here is a letter from H.G.S. Murthy, Director of the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS), the cradle of the space programme. Along with a proposal for organisational structure for ISRO addressed to P.N. Haskar, dated 14 January 1972, the dossier included a resume of activities at TERLS, the collaborative programmes between ISRO and foreign countries, and activities of other centres.

It presented a profile that Sarabhai envisaged for the decade - 1970-80 - on space research along with atomic energy to the Government of India (probably alluding to the Sarabhai Plan). This included launching of an Indian satellite using indigenously developed vehicle system by 1974-75, development of more capable vehicles to enable India to put a communication satellite in space, a synchronous satellite to be put up over the Indian Ocean in 1973 in collaboration with the NASA, and to be used as an experimental measure. 

The dossier describes that “India entered the Space Age in 1963 when the first International Rocket Launching Station was established at Thumba, near Trivandrum, by the Department of Atomic Energy, under the direction of Dr H.J. Bhabha and Dr Vikram A. Sarabhai. The station was accorded sponsorship by the UN as an International facility for the use of the world scientific community, for peaceful uses of outer space.” 

What was originally started as a sounding rocket programme, it describes, was considered desirable to be increased to the level of our achieving satellite launch capability using indigenously developed system. This has necessitated the establishment of various establishments and facilities needed to achieve this programme with a span of 5-10 years. In order to meet this, ISRO has established its operations mainly in 3 centres, i.e., (Thumba), Ahmedabad and Sriharikota.

TERLS, the dossier explains, "was the first establishment of ISRO, which was commissioned on 21 November 1963, as an International Equatorial Rocket Launching Facility. It received assistance from France, USA and USSR, which contributed range equipment and afforded training facilities for the Indian engineers in their space stations. TERLS was dedicated to the UN by our PM, on 2 February 1968. Collaborative programmes included with space agencies of France, USSR, USA, FDR, UK and Japan for sounding rocket experiments using scientific payloads for investigations of the upper atmosphere."