Author: Raj Chengappa
Publication: India Today
Date: February 11, 2002
It may go by the handle of India's
most famous nuclear missile. But Agni I tested for the first time last
week bears no resemblance to its cousins and heralds an entirely new genre
of strike rockets for India. Just how different can be garnered from the
fact that ever since the first Agni was successfully launched in 1989 with
a range of 1,200 km the thrust was to build much longer range versions
of it. The target is China whose key southern cities lie in the range of
3,000 km and 5,000 km from India.
For Pakistan, however, India had
since the late 1980s secretly prepared its Mirage 2000 aircraft to carry
atomic bombs. The short range Prithvi missile that flies just 150 km was
also readied. So last week defence experts were stunned to see a short,
smart version of the Agni with a range of just 700 km. The target was clear:
Pakistan. "It provides India with the much-needed strategic depth with
respect to its western neighbour," says K. Santhanam, director, Institute
for Defence Studies and Analyses.
The circumstances surrounding the
decision to field such a missile are revealing. It happened in the midst
of the Kargil war in June 1999 where India worked out its nuclear options
as part of the readiness planning. While both the Prithvi and the Mirage
aircraft were considered as warhead delivery systems, the longer range
version or Agni II was also prepared. But since it is a two-stage rocket
that sheds its booster in mid-flight its flight path was tricky. To avoid
dropping its expended first stage booster on Indian land surface, the missile
had to be fired towards the Arabian Sea before doing what is known as a
"dog's leg bend" to hit targets in Pakistan. To avoid such a complex trajectory
the Agni I was born.
There were other reasons. Using
the long range Agni II to strike Pakistan would be, as a scientist put
it, "using a jewelled scimitar to cut vegetables". It just was not cost
effective. Also, as Lt-General (retd) Vinay Shanker points out, the Prithvi
with its range of 150 km was "vulnerable to retaliatory fire" as it had
to be positioned close to the border to hit meaningful targets. "There
was a gap in our missile capability and Agni fills this," says Shanker,
who as director-general of artillery oversaw the use of Prithvi.
Agni I, as it was christened, has
major differences from its longer range cousin. Apart from being shorter
by 5 m-its current height is 12 M-Agni I is powered by a single-stage solid
fuel rocket. This launches the missile at a speed of 2.5 km per second,
enabling it to cover the distance of 700 km in just 10 minutes. In comparison,
a Boeing 737 would take 50 minutes to cover the same distance. "Its shorter
distance and the high rate of acceleration meant we had to redesign its
guidance control system," says R.N. Agarwal, programme director, Agni.
To the credit of the scientists, they built it within 15 months of the
project being sanctioned-which is far less than the usual five-year gestation
period for such missiles. They have also made the missile road mobile,
which makes concealing and deploying it much easier.
Coming at a time when tensions between
India and Pakistan are at an all-time high, the news of the test did raise
an international storm. Pakistan which had tested Ghauri, its 1,000 km-range
missile, in 1998, may decide to go on a show of strength by launching a
slightly longer range missile called Shaheen II. But India has already
proved its point-it now has a range of options to chose from to strike
at its hostile neighbour in case the unthinkable happens.
