ABSTRACT
The cosmic rise of Krishna in his multi-headed form was not exactly the sublime figure of death associated with an atomic explosion. Verses from the Bhagavad Gita have proven to be eminently pliable. Jawaharlal Nehru had described the Gita as ‘a poem of crisis, of political and social crisis and, even more so, of crisis in the spirit of man’. Nuclear weapons may still be a moot point amongst particular individuals, but the dominant view across the city and country is of their acceptance, albeit a reluctant one. A vast sector of the India’s urban population has been swayed with the need to develop ‘clean’ nuclear energy in order to receive uninterrupted power supply in their homes and places of work and leisure. The Indian state has embraced an international coterie of nuclear suppliers who now want to trade with India in nuclear technology and materials for its civilian sector.
