It was January 23, 1966 when Homi Bhabha worked continuously throughout the day on the fourth floor of his office at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).
Homi Bhabha’s aide MGK Menon recalled that day, saying,
Bhabha spoke to me for about two hours that day. He told me that he had received a call from Indira Gandhi, who had become Prime Minister only four days earlier. She said to Bhabha that I want you to help me in every matter of science and technology. If he had accepted this responsibility, he would have had to move from Mumbai to Delhi. Bhabha told me that he had accepted Indira Gandhi’s offer, and that he would recommend to the Council after his return from Vienna that I be made Director of TIFR.
Bhabha’s brother Jamshed, mother Meherbai, JRD Tata, friend Pipsi Wadia and his dentist Fali Mehta also knew about Indira Gandhi’s offer.
Bakhtiar’s grandfather, author of Homi Bhabha A Life, a recently published biography of Homi Bhabha, writes, ‘Bhabha clearly did not tell Menon what Indira Gandhi had offered him, but Menon believed it. that Indira Gandhi had offered him a ministerial post in her cabinet.’
The moments when Bhabha’s plane crashed into the mountain
On January 24, 1966, Bhabha boarded Air India Flight 101 to Vienna. There were no direct flights from Bombay to Vienna in those days and people had to change flights at Geneva to get to Vienna.
Bhabha had booked a flight to Geneva a day before but due to some reasons he had to postpone his trip by a day.
Air India’s Boeing 707 plane ‘Kanchen Junga’ crashed at 7:20 AM on January 24th at a height of 4,870 meters after hitting the hills of Moblan.
This plane was going to London via Delhi, Beirut and Geneva. All 106 passengers and 11 crew members died in the crash. Kanchanjunga crashed almost at the same place where another Air India plane ‘Malabar Princess’ crashed earlier in November 1950. The wreckage and bodies of both the Malabar Prize and Kanjan Janga planes of India have never been found, nor has the plane’s black box been found. Due to bad weather, the search for the wreckage of the plane had to be stopped.
The French Committee of Inquiry resumed its investigation in September 1966 and in its report submitted in March 1967 wrote that ‘heavy snowfall on the mountain, misunderstanding between the pilot and the air traffic controller caused the accident. The commander had misjudged his distance. Not even one of the receivers on Moblin’s plane was working.
The Indian government accepted this French investigation report.
Founder of Indian nuclear program
Homi Bhabha was just 56 years old when he left this world. Bhabha is best remembered for his work on cosmic rays, for which he was nominated for the Nobel Prize, but Bhabha’s real achievements were India’s nuclear energy program and the establishment of the Tata Institute.
Bhabha’s sudden death shook the whole of India. It was a double loss for JRD Tata, the largest manufacturer at the time. His brother-in-law Ganesh Bertoli, Air India’s regional director for Europe, was traveling on the same plane.
Two days before boarding the plane, Bhabha had presided over a condolence meeting in honor of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. Lal Bahadur Shastri is said to have even proposed to include Bhabha in his cabinet, but then Bhabha decided to pursue scientific work instead of political office.
Questions on CIA’s role in Bhabha’s death
It was the year 2017 when Swiss mountaineer Daniel Roche found a plane wreckage in the Alps mountains, which is said to be the wreckage of the same plane in which Homi Bhabha was travelling.
There are some speculations related to this accident that the American secret agency CIA may also have a hand in this conspiracy.
In the year 2008, a book ‘Conversations with the Crow’ (Conversations with the Crow) published an alleged conversation between former CIA officer Robert Crowley and journalist Gregory Douglas, which gave people the impression that the accident The CIA may be involved.
At the CIA, Crowley was known as ‘Crow’ and spent his entire career in the CIA’s Directorate of Planning, also known as the ‘Department of Dirty Tricks’.
Crowley had several conversations with Douglas before his death in October 2000. He sent Douglas two boxes full of documents and instructed him to open them after his death.
In a July 5, 1996 conversation, Douglas quoted Crowley as saying, “We had problems with India in the sixties when they started working on the atomic bomb and became a major world power.” Another thing was that they were getting very close to the Soviet Union.
In the same book, Crowe had said about Bhabha, “He is the father of India’s nuclear program and he was fully capable of making an atomic bomb.” Bhabha was warned about this several times but he did not heed it. Bhabha made it.
Crowe has made it clear that no power in the world could stop him and India from coming at par with other nuclear powers. They became a threat to us. He was killed in an air crash when a bomb placed in the cargo hold of his Boeing 707 exploded.
Killing 117 people to kill one person is beyond comprehension.
According to the book, Crowley boasted that he wanted to blow up an airplane over Vienna. But it was determined that an explosion on high mountains would cause less damage. According to Crowley, he believed that a plane crash on mountains would cause less damage than a large plane crash on a big city.
Crowley was considered an expert on the Soviet intelligence agency KGB within Cowan’s agency.
According to one of his passages in the book, ‘Actually Shastri wanted to start India’s nuclear programme, so we got rid of him too. Bhabha was a brilliant scientist who was capable of making an atomic bomb, so we got rid of both of them.’
Bhabha’s biographer Bakhtiar’s grandfather writes. Bhabha’s death was like that of Enrico Matti, an Italian oil merchant. He built Italy’s first nuclear reactor and was allegedly killed by the CIA when his private plane was sabotaged.
According to Dadabhai, these shocking claims could never be verified.
The truth may never come out. Gregory Douglas can be considered an unreliable source at best. The Americans may not want India to build an atomic bomb, but killing 117 people to kill one person is beyond comprehension.
Differences between Bhabha and Shastri over atomic bomb issue
On October 24, 1964, Homi Bhabha, speaking on All India Radio about disarmament, said that it would cost only 10 crore rupees to build a stockpile of fifty atomic bombs. If the military budget of different countries of the world is considered, this expenditure is very small.
Nehru’s successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was considered a stickler for Gandhi’s principles and his opposition to nuclear weapons was well-known. Until then Bhabha’s nuclear policy was being followed due to his closeness to Nehru, but the situation changed with Shastri’s arrival.
Bakhtiar Dadabhai writes, “Bhabha was very upset that he could no longer enter the Prime Minister’s office without permission to meet. Shastri was finding it difficult to understand what Bhabha was trying to explain to him. Before China’s nuclear tests, on October 8, 1964, Bhabha had announced in London that India could test an atomic bomb within 18 months of taking the decision.
Commenting on Bhabha’s statement, Lal Bahadur Shastri said, “The nuclear administration has been strictly ordered not to use anything that is against the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”
“Do not conduct any experiment without approval of the Cabinet”
Within days of this, Bhabha had convinced Shastri for the peaceful use of nuclear power.
Renowned nuclear scientist Raja Ramana admitted in an interview with Indira Chaudhary, “We did not discuss whether we should make a bomb or not, it was more important for us how to make it?” For us it was a matter of our ego and self-respect. The question of deterrence came much later. As Indian scientists, we wanted to show our Western counterparts that we can do it too.
Sensing America’s intention not to help in this matter, in April 1965 Bhabha formed a small group for ‘nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes’, headed by Raja Ramana.
Bakhtiar Dadabhai writes ‘In December 1965, Lal Bahadur Shastri asked Bhabha to speed up the work of nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes. Homi Sethna even says that during the 1965 war with Pakistan, Shastri asked Bhabha to do something special. Bhabha said that work is being done in this direction, to which Shastri said that you should continue your work but do not do any experiment without the approval of the Cabinet.
Decisions about the atomic bomb were not made on file
Lal Bahadur Shastri died suddenly on January 11, 1966 in Tashkent. His successor, Indira Gandhi, did not get much chance to use Bhabha’s services as Bhabha died in an air crash on 24 January, shortly after his inauguration.
Within a fortnight both Shastri and Bhabha died. No one else in the government was privy to the issues discussed between Shastri and Bhabha because the atomic bomb decisions were not on file.
Bhabha’s death created a huge void in the formulation of India’s nuclear policy.
Homi Bhabha’s brother Jamshed Bhabha told Indira Chaudhary in an interview that his mother could never digest the fact that Bhabha did not travel by the plane he was supposed to take.
Dadabhai writes ‘Bhabha’s mother Meherbai felt so bad that she never forgave Pipsi Wadia for the rest of her life. A Scientist Dies to Precede Prime Minister’s Swearing-in Ceremony, But Same Happens with Bhabha On the day Indira Gandhi was sworn in as Prime Minister, Bhabha died in an air crash. The next day all the newspapers made it their headline story.
“Homi Bhabha is the only person who can be called a complete man.”
A condolence meeting was held in Bhabha’s honor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research on 25 August. Bhabha banned the practice of giving leave on the death of an elder while he was still alive because he believed that the greatest tribute to a person’s death was not by stopping work but by working more. .
Upon Bhabha’s death, his pet dog Cupid was the first to stop eating and after a few days he died due to separation from his master.
MGK Menon believed that Bhabha died at the peak of his career and that he was one of the few people who became a legend during his lifetime.
In her condolence message, Indira Gandhi said, “The loss of Homi Bhabha at an important stage of our nuclear program is a great blow to our country.” His multifaceted mind, his interest in many aspects of life and his determination to promote science in the country will never be forgotten.
JRD Tata paid tribute to him and said, ‘Homi Bhabha is one of the three great personalities I have had the privilege of knowing in this world. One is Jawaharlal Nehru, second is Mahatma Gandhi and third is Homi Bhabha. Homi was not only a great mathematician and scientist but also a great engineer and builder. He was also a painter. Homi Bhabha is the only person who can be called a complete man.’
The moment when Bhabha’s dream came true
After Bhabha’s death, Vikram Sarabhai was made the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. But he was not the first person to be offered this position.
S. Chandrasekhar’s biography says, ‘After Bhabha’s death, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi offered the post to the famous scientist S. Chandrasekhar, but she had no idea that Chandrasekhar was an American. are citizens. When Chandrasekhar became the second Nehru in November 1968, he came.
He expressed his desire to meet the Prime Minister to deliver a memorial speech, in which he made it clear to Indira Gandhi that he does not have Indian citizenship. Then this position was given to Vikram Sarabhai.
Vikram Sarabhai was against nuclear weapons and peaceful nuclear testing program. Sarabhai questioned the morality and efficacy of developing a nuclear program and called for the reversal of the entire project, whose chief advocate was Bhabha.
Sarabhai also faced opposition from Homi Sethna who, being a nuclear scientist, saw himself as Bhabha’s natural successor and worked hard to get the position.
Vikram Sarabhai also died at a very young age. Finally, Homi Bhabha’s dream of nuclear explosion was realized in May 1974 by Raja Ramana and Homi Sethna.
Sarabhai had told the then Cabinet Secretary Dharamveera, ‘It is not so easy to succeed Bhabha. This means not only taking over his position but also fully adopting his ideology.
Sarabhai also faced opposition from Homi Sethna who, being a nuclear scientist, saw himself as Bhabha’s natural successor and worked hard to get the position.
Vikram Sarabhai also died at a very young age. Finally, Homi Bhabha’s dream of nuclear explosion was realized in May 1974 by Raja Ramana and Homi Sethna.