Less than an hour before meeting Xi Jinping, US President Trump ordered the US Department of Defence to resume nuclear testing after 33 years. En route to meet the Chinese president aboard his presidential helicopter in South Korea, Trump made the surprise announcement on Truth Social. In a subsequent statement from aboard Air Force One, Trump said, “With others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also,”  Questioned on his decision in a television interview, Trump said he decided to begin testing nuclear weapons because “Russia announced that they were gonna be doing a test. If you notice, North Korea’s testing constantly… And China’s testing ’em too. You just don’t know about it… Pakistan’s been testing.” Trump also said, “We’re the only country that doesn’t test, and I don’t wanna be the only country that doesn’t test.” But he was wrong, because there is one other country that has not been testing its nuclear weapons even as rivals build their arsenals: India.  In 2008, high drama played out on the parliament floor as the Manmohan Singh government fought a no-confidence motion. Singh’s minority government had lost the support of the communists and faced collapse when the NDA brought the motion. The Leftist parties had withdrawn support to Singh because of the latter’s intent to sign the Indo-US nuclear deal.  The deal, which was pursued with uncharacteristic tenacity by Singh, who made a personal campaign of it, was presented as India’s path to acceptance as a nuclear power by allowing it access to international technology and fuel markets, and for India to secure “20,000MW of nuclear power by 2020.” The major condition in the deal, and the real reason for American interest in signing it alongside potential contracts worth billions for American reactor-building companies, was that India must give up nuclear weapons testing. If at any point India should test nuclear weapons, the deal would be void. Uranium acquired from the Americans would be closely monitored and India could neither use it for its weapons program. Since the deal, as also before it, India has not set up fast-breeding thorium reactors save the experimental KAMINI reactor. Homi Bhabha devised a three-stage nuclear power program based on thorium, on account of the vast quantities of monazite sands present along Kerala beaches and elsewhere on the western peninsula from which the radioactive element can be extracted.  Vajpayee was the man who imposed the “voluntary moratorium” on nuclear testing in 2003 after the second round of tests in Pokhran, leaving India with an unproven thermonuclear device. But in the run-up to the deal, even he came out of retirement to issue a rare, strongly worded statement against it, saying “the Hyde Act will ensure that India loses forever its option of conducting a nuclear weapons test, even if any other country tests.” The Hyde Act is a US law that set down conditions for the deal to proceed. Most importantly, it required an Indian guarantee that transferred nuclear material, equipment, and technology will not have any role in nuclear weapons development or any other military purpose, except in the case of cooperation with nuclear-weapon states. It also made U.S. consent mandatory for any re-transfer of material or classified data, and that all nuclear material transferred or produced as a result of the agreement will be subject to adequate physical security. The 2008 deal allowed India to resume trade in nuclear materials with countries like the US, Canada, Australia after decades of sanctions following the use of Canadian uranium to produce plutonium for the first Pokhran tests in 1974. India also procures uranium from other countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Russia.  Prime Minister Vajpayee’s warning against the nuclear deal is worth quoting extensively in this context: “While India has long maintained a voluntary moratorium on conducting nuclear weapons tests, it has done so as all other nuclear weapons states as well as Pakistan are also observing a similar moratorium. We are, at present, free at any time to resume testing which may become necessary particularly in response to the actions of other countries. Once the nuclear deal comes into effect, the Hyde Act will ensure that India loses forever its option of conducting a nuclear weapons test, even if any other country tests. It not only makes Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation contingent upon India not testing but also envisages that the US would insist on the right of return of nuclear materials and equipment given to India. To add insult to injury the Hyde Act requires that in the event the US terminates nuclear transfers to India it will “seek to prevent” such transfers to India from all other sources also. Clearly, therefore, operationalisation of the nuclear deal within the framework of the Hyde Act will require a change of our policy on testing. It would be a grave mistake to do so as it will compromise our capability to keep abreast of other countries in nuclear weapons development.” Trumps comments on Pakistan and China testing nuclear weapons amply vindicate Vajpayee and the loud minority of opponents of the India-US nuclear deal and India’s halt on nuclear testing. Privy as he is to the full range of US HUMINT (human-intelligence) as well as satellite and seismic data, there is no reason to doubt the US President’s comments. Given the secrecy necessitated by the effect of nuclear weapons testing on diplomatic relations, it is also unsurprising that the nations named by Trump should deny these activities, which China and Pakistan did immediately.  In 2009, the field director of the DRDO during the Pokhran II tests, Dr K Santhanam, also issued a statement saying that the thermonuclear test had been a failure, pointing to the fact that pointed out that the shaft in which the device was detonated in Pokhran remained undisturbed and “totally intact” after the explosion. Santhanam also compared the crater of the thermonuclear device to the one left by the fission device tested the same day, saying, “The fission bomb left...