“Jawaharlal Nehru offered Oppenheimer Indian citizenship,” reveals Biographer Kai Bird

In a recent interview, writer Kai Bird, who co-authored the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, said that the physicist was offered Indian citizenship by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954. Kai explained that after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer fell into a ‘deep depression’ as he was haunted by the knowledge that the atomic bomb he helped to create has the potential to destroy the world.

For the unversed, Oppenheimer was the director of the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb during World War II.

In a chat with Hindustan Times, Bird said, “After he was humiliated in 1954… Nehru offered him to come to India and become a citizen… But I do not think Oppenheimer considered it seriously because he was a deeply patriotic American.”

He further explained, “[After 1945, Oppenheimer]… read the accounts of what had happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and understood that tens of thousands of people had been instantly burned to death. And he actually plunged into a deep depression right after the two bombings. Then he recovers, but almost immediately, begins to speak out.”

Bird also stated that after Germany lost World War 2 by conventional weapons, the nuclear physicists who worked on the project wondered why they were continuing to build the weapon against “an essentially already defeated enemy.

Speaking of the film, Oppenheimer has been a critical and commercial success. It has made over Rs 50 crore in India, and more than $180 million worldwide after just four days. In the film, Oppenheimer is shown to be a complex and conflicted figure. He is a brilliant scientist who is dedicated to his work, but he is also deeply troubled by the implications of his work.

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