by K. Subrahmanyam I was a Consulting Editor of The Times of India on the day when the "Shakti' tests were conducted. A long-time friend of mine, who had been associated with me in campaigning for India exercising its nuclear option for over three decades, holding a high-level position, rang me up and informed me about the tests at 4.30 p.m. Straightaway I went back to the office as the official announcement was to be made by the Prime Minister at 5.30 p.m. I contacted my editorial colleagues and offered to write the editorial. My colleagues, including the editor in charge of the editorial page, declined my offer. They told me that they were anti-nuclear and, therefore, the editorial would disapprove of the test. They knew I was in favour of India acquiring nuclear weapons and, therefore, I could not write the edit. I was amused at the irony of the situation. The same paper had provided me a powerful platform in the eighties to campaign for the nuclear option and in the nineties against India acceding to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Now when India conducted the tests and finally brought about the fulfilment of my three-decade-old campaign, I could not write the edit about the subject. Fortunately, at that stage I had a call from H. K. Dua, who was functioning as the Editor of the paper. He not only asked me to write an article but also offered to feature it on the front page of the paper. Months later my colleagues in the editorial group came to understand that I was as much against the use and threat of nuclear weapons as they were but my understanding of the international strategic situation, the role of nuclear weapons in it and the optimum strategy for India was different from theirs. They made up for their misunderstanding with their warmth and friendship and affectionately christened me "Bomb Mama'. I am recalling this incident because the nuclear issue is a cause for national misunderstanding today as much as it was on the day of the test. Just as it was difficult for people to understand that a person could be anti-nuclear and for a nuclear-weapon free world but still in favour of acquiring the weapons in order to have an effective say in the present nuclearised world and to ensure that other nuclear powers would not take advantage of an asymmetric situation, for most men and women of goodwill, the issue was and is a black and white one. Either you are in favour of nuclear weapons or you are against it. It is like the argument that every country having an armed force should be thinking of using it for aggression. Even today many in our country cannot explain how Gandhiji, the apostle of non-violence, approved of the use of the Indian Army to defend Kashmir against the Pakistani invasion. While Gandhiji demonstrated the use of non-violence in offence