This talk examines Pakistan’s early atomic energy programme as a project of development and nation-building, rather than merely as a prelude to later nuclear proliferation. Under the Ayub Khan regime, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) pursued two complementary paths: nuclear engineering, culminating in the construction of the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) with Canadian assistance, and the application of atomic energy to agriculture. Both required the creation of scientific institutions, the training of technical personnel, and the mobilisation of international cooperation and development aid within the wider framework of Cold War competition. The Karachi reactor embodied the ambition to use advanced nuclear science and technology as instruments of national modernisation, while building the technical capabilities required for Pakistan’s broader economic development. Agricultural research, meanwhile, sought to apply radiation techniques to plant breeding, pest control, food preservation, and soil science, linking the atomic programme to the country’s most important economic sector. Through centres in both East and West Pakistan, the PAEC also attempted to distribute scientific investment more evenly across the two wings of the country. The talk argues that nuclear power and atomic agriculture were distinct but interconnected expressions of a single modernising strategy, whose achievements and limits were ultimately exposed by the political crisis that led to the partition of Pakistan in 1971.

Mauro Elli is Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Milan. For more than twenty years, he has studied the history of the civil applications of nuclear energy from an international perspective. His research ranges from nuclear power to agricultural uses, exploring the interactions between science, technology, politics, and society. He was the principal investigator of The Long Transition: Techno-Political Challenges in the Development of Renewable Energy Sources in Italy within the European Context (RENEW), funded by the National Operational Programme “Research and Innovation” 2014–2020, and of the University of Milan unit in the 2022–25 PRIN project Nuclear Deindustrialization: Human Capital, Business Restructuring, and Environmental Change in Italy, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research.