Julius Robert Oppenheimer, who is famously known as the father of the atomic bomb, was offered Indian citizenship by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954 after the famed American physicist was shunned by his own country.
The role of the famous American scientist has again become the subject of great interest in light of the highly-anticipated movie “Oppenheimer.” Directed by British-American filmmaker Christopher Edward Nolan, the film is based on a book co-authored by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, titled American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer.
After playing a pivotal role in the “Manhattan Project” that developed the world’s first atomic bomb, which was dropped in Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Oppenheimer vociferously advocated for anti-war policies and nuclear curtailment.
He believed that fundamental assumptions of the United States defence policy at the time were laced with “ignorance and follies.” Due to public rhetoric against nuclear weapons, he came at odds with the US establishment of the time during the Cold War era.
In 1954, India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Nehru offered Oppenheimer Indian citizenship. But, as per the “American Prometheus” writer Kai Bird, the patriotic American scientist did not consider the offer.
“After he [Oppenheimer] was humiliated in 1954…Nehru offered him to come to India and become a citizen…But I do not think Oppenheimer considered it [the offer] seriously because he was a deeply patriotic American,” Bird told Hindustan Times (HT) in an interview.
Robert Oppenheimer, once celebrated as America’s greatest scientist, faced a controversial downfall in what he called a “terrible kangaroo court,” in which the head judge accepted the prosecutor’s lead.
At the start of the Cold War in the late 1940s, as US-Soviet ties deteriorated, Oppenheimer’s constant desire to raise tough questions about nuclear weapons greatly troubled Washington’s national security policy.
During the second world war, Oppenheimer feared the rise of fascism and believed the atomic bomb was necessary to prevent Hitler from gaining such power. After Germany’s defeat, he had mixed emotions about the bombings in Japan that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
In India, he is also famously known for reciting the scriptures from Bhagavad-Gita on the day the main nuclear test was conducted on July 16, 1945. Soon after the top secret test was conducted, he recited: “Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of the Worlds.”
After the United States won the second world war, Oppenheimer tried to publically warn his countrymen of the dangers to constrain America’s reliance on nuclear weapons. However, the US government questioned his loyalty and put him on trial, an incident that defined his life and inspired the Hollywood blockbuster by Nolan.
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