Pokhran II : A Voice for Humanity
(This article was written around a couple of hours before India conducted
its second round of nuclear tests)
The Buddha has smiled. In the arid north-western state of Rajasthan in
India, Lord Buddha chose his birthday after a long break of 24 years to
crack into a wide grin that were the three nuclear blasts at Pokhran at
1543 hours on May the 15th 1998. And for all we know, may choose to smile
yet again if the esteemed scientists of India dont find his attempt
measuring up to their expectations this time round.
A momentous occasion this, for Indians the world over. Like a friend
exclaimed yesterday "For the first few hours, there were only patriotic,
no-nonsense thoughts in my head"...but what after the initial exhilaration?
Where do we stand now and where do we go from here? Modern India has
never ever found itself in the enviable position that it is in today.
Leaders the world around have sat up and taken notice of this nation with
roughly one - sixth of the worlds population and which now becomes the
sixth country in the world to declare its nuclear capability. Will its
voice for global disarmament be heeded at least now?
Now, coming to the nuclear tests conducted. Whats the big ado about?
Didn't the world see it coming? Right from its first explosion back in
1974, through the years of tacit progress in research with the connivance
of Russia and its refusal to sign the "meaningless" nuclear test ban
treaty in 1996 unless accompanied by negotiations for global nuclear
disarmament.
The last piece in the buildup to the inevitable tests was the election of
a government at the Centre which got only one of the issues in its
election manifesto onto the national agenda - and that was to go nuclear.
This was all that was needed by, as stated by a shell-shocked official in
the most powerful nation in the world, "the decision making process in
India which we hardly know about"!!
The real crux of the issue is that this act on the part of India has
brought into sharp focus the term "nuclear deterrent" and the pressing
need for global disarmament. Who needs these deterrents and who is
qualified to use them and how are such decisions taken? All the nuclear
powers have agreed not to make first use of these weapons. Taken to its
logical conclusion, this means that these tools of devastation will never
be used by anyone on planet earth again. So, what's stopping global
disarmament and who is the "nuclear deterrent" for? Can we speak for our
children two or three generations down the line and say they would not be
tempted to target each other with these weaponery and technology that we
pass on to them? And can we decide whose children are going to make the
monumental mistake of starting it? Bear in mind that none of them would
have had a first hand experience/knowledge of the devastation caused by
the atomic bombs in 1945.
The time has come to cast aside this shadow of an impending nuclear war
over our heads. Referendums have been initiated and peple are voting on
whether India has done right in testing its nuclear bombs. A thirteen
year old in Pokhran has stated (and this has been reported by the world
media) that he is happy that India can now defeat its neighbour!! Please
note this "immature" kid will grow up feeding on hatred and ill-feeling in
the narrow confines of his head and may eventually be involved in the
decision-making process of his country which the world might still be
unaware of.
History has taught us that periodically, the world sees the rise of a
Hitler, Pol Pot or an Idi Amin, to name a few from the 20th century, and
practically every generation of humanity has seen a major war during its
lifetime. Human instinct for power and expansion have not abated.
However, one crucial difference lies in the future. A Mussolini or a
Saddam did not have a stock of nuclear weaponery at their disposal. Not
the current crop of politicians, but succeeding generations will be the
most probable perpetrators of the holocaust that would follow. And the
next such perpetrator(s) could very well come from any of the nuclear
powers and the victims are going to be any of the 180 nations who have
placed their faith in the "Big Five" or is it six now? And eventually
this would lead to the annihilation of entire humanity as has been
predicted by the seers and saints of yore.
Its time to say enough! Nuclear weapons should go and no child of ours
ought to be given the option of exercising this capability as a deterrent
or any such.
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