How the India-Canada nuclear pact exorcises the ghost of Trudeaus

India and Canada are moving to reset ties through a landmark civil nuclear agreement, decades after relations were ruptured by India's use of a Canadian reactor for the 1974 Pokhran nuclear test. The pact also closes a turbulent chapter shaped by Canadian PMs Pierre Trudeau and his son Justin.

India has finally exorcised the ghost of the Trudeaus, and how. Indo-Canada ties hit rock bottom with Justin Trudeau as the Canadian PM. Before this, the chill in bilateral ties was seen during the premiership of Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Trudeau, in the 1970s. The souring of ties was over India's nuclear programme. With India inking a deal with PM Mark Carney-led Canada on nuclear cooperation this week, the relationship has come full circle.

India and Canada on March 2 signed a landmark 10-year nuclear energy agreement, worth $2.6 billion, for the supply of Canadian uranium concentrate to Indian nuclear reactors. The deal, signed during Canadian PM Mark Carney's visit to India, marks a dramatic reset in relations between New Delhi and Ottawa, which had recently reached a nadir following accusations of political interference and assassinations made by his predecessor, Justin Trudeau.

However, this is not the first time the two countries have cooperated on nuclear energy. The 2026 deal operates under the 2010 India-Canada Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement signed by then PM Manmohan Singh and Stephen Harper, which enabled exports of Canadian nuclear technology and fuel to India. But more importantly, it was Canada that had an outsized role in nurturing India's nuclear energy ambitions.

Ottawa helped build India's second nuclear reactor, the Canada-India Reactor Utility Services (CIRUS), designed under the supervision of Homi Jehangir Bhabha, widely considered the father of India’s nuclear programme. Canada also assisted in developing Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactors, which generate energy using natural uranium fuel, an advantage for countries like India that lacked enrichment facilities.

The first such reactor was the 200 MWe Rajasthan Atomic Power Station unit 1 (RAPS-1), which began operations in 1973.

This early phase of cooperation, however, came to a halt in the 1970s. In 1974, India carried out its first nuclear test, Operation Smiling Buddha, which it described as a "peaceful nuclear explosion," using plutonium derived from the CIRUS reactor.