Rita Manchanda

(Ed. note: Rita Manchanda is a member of National Committee of Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace & Democracy.)

Mass celebrations over the Indian nuclear tests were still ringing loud and raucously all over the country when a hastily cobbled together group, Parmanoo Bomb Virodhi Andolan (Anti-Nuclear Bomb Campaign) gave a call for the first public show of protest in New Delhi on 16 May. In the midst of the initial euphoria over India flexing its nuclear muscle, it seemed that there was none left to speak out against a minority Indian government covertly deciding to make India nuclear armed. All voices of dissent in Parliament and the media were silenced. In the collective frenzy over nuclear nationalism, who dared to stand out as an anti-national? Who dared denounce the collective madness that made light of the annihilating horror of nuclear weapons and gloried in their power? Who cared about the report that the people of the village of Khetolai, near Pokhran test site, were complaining about insomnia, nausea, nose bleeding and restlessness? It was not only Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who on a ceremonial visit to the test site refused to receive a delegation from the affected villagers, the media, too, turned its back on a story that did not fit the nation’s celebratory mood.

In this atmosphere, therefore, it was no mean achievement that on 16 May when several hundred people came out in the streets of Delhi carrying posters asserting "bread not bombs." The slogan itself was borrowed from a small demonstration taken out earlier that day by neo-Buddhist Dalit groups (outcastes in Hindu caste system) to protest against the Indian tests on Buddha Purnima Day and the establishment’s misuse of the Buddha Smiles in the code name for the Pokhran I (May 1974) and Pokhran II (May 1998) nuclear tests.

To Against its Own People?

But the anti-nuke protesters who turned out to march that day were the same faces seen regularly at rallies in support of ecology issues, workers’ and women’s rights, human rights, minority rights and Pak-India peace initiatives. It exposed the failure to build a broad-based peace movement in a country, which has one of the busiest peacetime armies in the world. In addition to three wars across international borders, the security forces have been fighting low intensity wars raging in Jammu and Kashmir and in the northeastern states of India. But in India, the Gandhians, the liberals, the left groups, the greens, the feminists and the human rights activists - the mainstay of the traditional international peace movements - have largely shied away from confronting issues of internal militarisation of the polity as it involves confronting issues of "national security." There have been very few efforts like that of the Committee for Initiative on Kashmir that took on the issue of internal militarisation in its report, "India’s Kashmir War."

For people living in the insurgency affected areas in the Northeast and Kashmir, the Indian nuclear test of a sub-kiloton device struck a different note of terror. There was fear that the Indian State could use tactical nuclear weapons against its own people. Within a fortnight of the nuclear tests, at a seminar on internal militarisation in Guwahati, the capital of the insurgency affected state of Assam, one of the speakers read out a headline in the daily newspaper, The Telegraph, which said, "Advani flexes nuclear muscle in Kashmir." The fine print referred to the Union Home Minister’s jingoistic warning to Pakistan not to meddle in Kashmir. But the message to many of the participants was clear - India’s real threat is internal, and nuclear weapons could be used against them.

In Srinagar in Kashmir, anti-nuclear demonstrators had even greater reason to dread a nuclear weapon State. Conspicuous was a banner raised by the Jammu Kashmir Revolutionary Front warning, "If bomb race will continue, subcontinent will be one more Hiroshima (sic)." But the reluctance, if not refusal, of the liberals and the left in the rest of India to penetrate the wall of national security and forge solidarity links in support of civil society in the insurgency affected areas has prevented a broad-based peace movement from emerging. However, the manner in which more and more people are getting drawn into the recent protests against the nuclear tests shows that the Indian and Pakistani explosions could turn out to be catalytic in fostering a real peace movement in the region.

As the dust settled in Pokhran and Chagai and the gloom of the mushroom cloud spread, discordant notes in the celebratory hype on the bomb began to be heard. Overnight, networks of anti-nuclear activists emerged, like MIND (Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament) in Delhi and Anooboma Virodhi Andolan (anti-atom bomb movement) in Bombay. Organisations like the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and the Gandhi Peace Foundation and the Peoples of Asia Society began to mobilise support. Public meetings were organised in Delhi, Bhopal and Bangalore to protest against the nuclear tests and urge restraint against weaponisation. Demonstrations were taken out in Calcutta and Bombay. Signature campaigns have been initiated in India and worldwide on the Internet.

Scientists at Dismay

With Pakistan abandoning nuclear restraint and matching India for nuclear test, the spectre of a nuclear arms race spurred many to join in the protests. The protest rallies taken out in different parts of the capital drew in many new people. Even when the numbers were small, a symbolic show of protest with posters at a busy roundabout during peak hour traffic saw many Delhi motorists raise the thumbs up sign in solidarity with anti-nuclear protesters.

Most importantly, many Indian scientists came forward to express their dismay at the nuclear tests and the Bharatiya Janta Party’s (BJP) appropriation of the achievements of Indian science in the name of the nuclear tests. The nuclear tests had been held aloft as the shining achievement of India’s scientific establishment. The ruling BJP and the opposition Congress and left parties competed with each other to pay fulsome tributes to Indian scientists and engineers. It was therefore all the more significant when 200 of the country’s leading scientists from 33 prestigious institutes signed a statement opposing the government’s decision to commit the country to an expensive weapon programme without a national debate. In particular the scientists emphasised that "a significant part of the aura of achievement in nuclear weapon technology stems from the secrecy that surrounds its acquisition and mastery." They pointed to the "sometimes greater technological challenges in designing, erecting and successful running of safe nuclear power plants." About 68 percent of State funding for science are spent on military, space and nuclear programmes. Percentage for funding spent on military research and development is 18 percent. Only the United States spends a higher fraction of its science and technology budget on defence.

Among the most outspoken of the scientists was Professor Amulya Reddy of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. At a meeting organised by the Centre for Education and Development and the PUCL in Bangalore on 19 May, Professor Reddy asserted that in reacting to the nuclear tests, the touchstone to be used should be poverty reduction. From 1950 to 1994, the population below the poverty line has declined by less than one percent. The tests will not reduce poverty but will worsen it as economic sanctions hit. "The thrust of Indian science and technology, which is already markedly elitist and militaristic, will be further skewed against the interests of the people," the professor said. The meeting was forcibly disrupted by the BJP supporters who were in no mood to listen to Professor Reddy. In Bombay, the Shiva Sena-BJP coalitions state government "lathi-charged" (beat with sticks) eminent filmmakers, intellectuals and activists who were part of a 200-member strong demonstration organised by the Anooboma Virodhi Andolan. Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code was imposed and assembly of more than four made illegal. Several activists were arrested. Opposition to the nuclear tests was denounced as unpatriotic. The media too closed ranks. Hindi language daily Jansatta stood out for the space it was ready to give to letters critical of the nuclear tests. In any case, with opposition to the bomb seemingly appropriated by the United States and the other nuclear powers, many who would otherwise have come forward to link arms against the bomb found themselves asking, "What moral right does the United States have to preach to us?" None whatsoever. And caught up in that reply, it was easy to object to a hypocritical United States keeping India out of the nuclear club of which it was a proud member. Somewhere in the process though, the more fundamental question got lost - which exclusive club should India want to be a member of, the club of the well developed or of the well armed?

Appeal of Hiroshima Survivor

While denouncing the hypocrisy of the practitioners of nuclear apartheid, the fledging Indian anti-nuclear groups sought to politically differentiate between the U.S. or French governments and the genuine commitment of peoples’ peace movements in these countries. However, Greenpeace International’s initiative in organising an anti-nuclear demonstration in Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal, was limited in its impact.

Much more effective in mobilising awareness was the visit of Hiroshima survivor Yashuiko Taketa who took his anti-atomic bomb campaign to Pokhran, the site of India’s underground test. He was 13 when the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Taketa survived because he was seven kilometres away from ground zero, but he watched his younger sister die of radiation poisoning two days after the bombing and another sister die slowly and painfully of blood cancer years later. Taketa came to tell the Indian people of the dreadful after-effects of radiation. "You must protect your own lives. The government will do nothing for you," he cried out to the villagers of Khetolai, a few kilometres from the test site in Rajasthan. In Japanese, Taketa urged the people to "stand up and raise your voice against all governments using nuclear weapons." And resounding cries of "Yes! Yes!" rang out in the desert air. Adults rushed up to sign a declaration calling on all countries to stop nuclear testing and destroy their nuclear arsenals. Children lined up to shake his hand. Taketa is a member of Gensukin, the Japan Congress Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. Another Japanese group, Peace-Boat, is collaborating with the Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy to mount exhibitions in India and Pakistan to spotlight the horror and immorality of nuclear bombs.

An important extension of the solidarity network for anti-nuclear campaigners in India is the linkage with the anti-bomb activities of the subcontinent diaspora coordinated by groups like the South Asians Against Nukes. What has been particularly influential is that people of Indian and Pakistani origin abroad campaign together against the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. It is all the more significant as Prime Minister Vajpayee in his first public statement on the nuclear tests in Parliament had singled out the "outpouring of support from Indians abroad." And in the immediate aftermath of the tests, the Internet sites set up by CNN and other global media corporations had been flooded with fulsome praise from non-resident Indians.

But at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, Abha Sur of the Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia along with the Pakistani Student Society jointly organised a talk by a leading Pakistani physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy. In his talk on "Say No to Indian and Pakistani Bombs," he warns of the danger of an Indo-Pak nuclear war by miscalculation or accident. Have the governments so quickly forgotten the lessons of the miscalculation as evinced in the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war and in 1987 when a war nearly broke out following the military manoeuvre, Operation Brasstacks? Turning the argument of the apologists for a nuclear India and Pakistan on its head, Dr Hoodbhoy argues that "India and Pakistan have even less ‘right’ than the five nuclear weapon States to possess these weapons because the chances of these weapons being used against each other is very significant."

In Montreal, Canada, expatriate Indians, Pakistanis and other pro-peace activists took out a demonstration in the downtown area. With every passing day after the tests, the list of signatures of Indian and Pakistani intellectuals and scientists on anti-nuclear petitions on the Internet lengthened. Apologists for the Indian and Pakistani bombs began to make urgent appeals on the Internet to bail out India and the bomb by voting against a winning China on the sites set up by Newsweek and CNN.

BJP Criticised

In the Indian Parliament, the enforced consensus in favour of India going nuclear began to come under strain. Political parties took courage and began to speak out. The left parties were the first to stand up and be counted. It seemed a throwback to the earlier days when the left had been the sheet anchor of the peace movement centred around, first, the Vietnam war and then "Star Wars," i.e. the madness of a winnable nuclear war. In seminars and public meetings top leaders of the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party Marxist denounced the BJP for having gone against the national consensus to retain the nuclear option but not to exercise it. Its corollary was and remains opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by the liberals and the left parties. With the BJP’s readiness to sign the CTBT once India is recognised as a member of the nuclear club, its moral stance further crumbled.

Politicians like the former Prime Minister I. K. Gujral, who initially got bullied into claiming that his government had also been planning to go in for a test, now claimed there was no security rationale that warranted India going nuclear.

As the full security implications of the BJP government’s decision to go nuclear began to be soberly assessed, many more voices were raised in criticism of the deteriorating impact on the Indo-Pakistan and Sino-Indian relations. The Indo-Pakistan dialogue had not only been seriously set back by the jingoistic sabre-rattling of a nuclear armed BJP government but there was the probability of a nuclear arms race and the threat of a nuclear war by miscalculation. Former Naval Chief Admiral Ramdas, addressing a Convention Against Nuclear Weapons, raised a cry of alarm over the dangers of an accidental nuclear war between the two neighbours. "How will they be sure that the tip of the missile is nuclear or it is stuffed with bouquets or whatever? And all that to be decided within less than a minute of warning," he said. Radioactive fallout will not respect national boundaries. Even more worrying is the admission that within the forces there is no real appreciation of the qualitative difference between conventional and nuclear weapons. The admiral, who is vice-chairman of the Pak-India Forum, candidly admitted that it was only in the last few weeks that he had come to appreciate the full horror of the evil of what a nuclear armed India and Pakistan meant.

Bread Not Bombs

As the impact of the economic sanctions came to be realised, the bravado faded even further. The left parties warned that the price of the bomb should not be concessions to the West, which would compromise India’s autonomy on trade and economic issues. The economic and developmental costs of a nuclear India became a major focus of the anti-nuclear campaigners. In a resolution agreed to by several hundred people at the 9 June Convention Against Nuclear Weapons in New Delhi, it was emphasised that "these developments (nuclearisation) have diverted attention from the grave problems facing the country - hunger, poverty, ill health, illiteracy and lack of basic infrastructure. It is deeply ironic that instead of making serious efforts to rise above the bottom 50 countries of the world in human development, India and Pakistan should want to join the club of the nuclear five." Left trade union activist Amarjit Kaur felt that the anti-nuclear movement could spread to the grassroots level as it stood for "rozi roti" (daily bread) and not bombs.

The anti-nuclear, pro-peace platform was further strengthened by the linkage perceived between the glorification of the bomb in the BJP’s ideological doctrine of India’s national greatness and the degrading of secular and democratic values. In the immediate aftermath of the tests, activists who have been struggling against the BJP’s anti-minority, fascist agenda were supportive but not necessarily in the forefront of the anti-nuke campaign. "No, we’re not planning any campaign against the bomb; we’re up to our ears in battling the thought police," said M. K. Raina, a well-known theatre personality as he hopped from one seminar to another organised in the capital on India and Pakistan going nuclear. Yet, a couple of days later, he decided to revive his decade-old production of the play "Oppenheimer." In India, the father of the atomic bomb is particularly remembered for what he said when he saw the first U. S. test explosion. "Brighter than a thousand suns," he said, quoting from the Bhagavad Gita, a book revered by Hindus. A colleague had to remind him that the following lines were, "I am become death, the destroyer of the worlds."

Nuclear Nationalism

The linkage between the communal nationalism associated with the BJP’s ideology and its nuclear nationalism became more apparent when there was an outbreak of anti-Muslim violence in Hyderabad city in the south. It was reportedly sparked off by the insidious circulation of a leaflet full of communal hate speech demanding that the Muslims should go where they belong, i.e. to Pakistan. It fitted in perfectly with the barrage of abusive e-mails and hate speeches which had flooded the special websites set up by CNN and other global media corps, inviting reactions to the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. It was the inevitable adverse fallout on the minority community of the India-Pakistan nuclear arms race.

Evidently, the decision by anti-communal activists, groups struggling for civil liberties and human rights, ecologists, feminists and labour activists to come together reflect a perception of a bigger more insidious agenda by the BJP. It goes much beyond the effort of a domestically beleaguered BJP deciding to transgress the consensus on stopping at "bombs in the basement" to divert political dissent. Ultimately, it came down to the ideology of the ruling BJP. Whether it was an eminent academic like Mira Sinha, an anti-nuke activist like Achin Vaniak, an advocate for Indo-Pak peace like Tapan Bose or a leading left politician like Comrade Bardhan, they were all one in their concern that Pokhran II was integral to the BJP’s vision of recasting Indian nationalism and defining its version of national interest and Indian greatness.

Comrade Bardhan recalled how in 1951, much before the Chinese bomb, the then Jana Sangh was committed to India acquiring the bomb. The Jana Sangh’s slogan was: "Half a roti we’ll eat, but the bomb we must make." According to Mira Sinha, the BJP’s decision to go nuclear was an extension of its populist "doer" image. The BJP’s formula for greatness via the bomb was particularly appealing to an increasingly insecure Indian elite, said Vaniak. Also, a nuclear weapon regime is by its nature secretive and elitist and thus profoundly anti-democratic. It further promotes and deepens the militarisation of everyday life and the thinking that is already taking place in India.

Building a Broad-Based Peace Movement

Pro-peace, anti-nuclear campaigns are being planned at the school, college and community levels to culminate on Hiroshima day of 9 August. Leaflets and pamphlets are being brought out exposing the myths surrounding nuclear nationalism and looking at the economic and social costs of nuclear deterrence. Also planned is a more long-term study of the impact on people and the habitat near the Pokhran test site, which will drive home the reality for Indians of the human costs of going nuclear.

While the anti-nuclear movement emphasises the immorality of nuclear bombs, organisations like the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy focus on the severe setback to the official and non-official efforts for peace. In a press statement the Forum deplored that the nuclear tests would push back Pakistan-India relations to the dark days of hostility and mistrust when the two countries fought three wars. Over the last four years, the mammoth joint conventions of the Forum brought together hundreds of Indian and Pakistani citizens to talk about the interconnections between tension in Kashmir, militarisation, the subversion of democracy and intolerance in civil society.

At a joint convention of the Forum in New Delhi in 1995, Indian and Pakistani delegates resolved that "both countries should restrain nuclear preparations and move towards regional disarmament independent of the control of other nuclear weapon States as well as participating in and promoting all efforts regarding the crucial issue of global nuclear disarmament." The delegates also called on the two governments "to commit themselves to cease production of additional fissile materials for weapons and other explosive purposes."

The common peoples of India and Pakistan were encouraged by these non-governmental initiatives to go against official hostility and advocate peace. The nuclear tests by India and Pakistan and the accompanying surge in jingoistic rhetoric have dealt a severe blow to the prospects for peace. The Forum scheduled to organise a public meeting in New Delhi on 4 July to discuss the continuing relevance of the Forum’s joint formulation on Kashmir and demilitarisation. It is felt that there is an urgent need to return to the process of strengthening confidence-building measures to reduce tension and build trust. Non-official people-to-people dialogue can not only pave the way for greater flexibility in official positions but also create new constituencies that can re-order national security priorities.

It will be a testing time for the building of an enduring broad-based peace movement. After the bombing of Hiroshima, Mahatma Gandhi had said, "The moral to be drawn from the supreme tragedy of the bomb is that it will not be destroyed by counter-bombs..." It is a lesson which the political leaders of India and Pakistan have chosen to deliberately ignore. Chasing the mirage of the "brilliance of a thousand suns" they have unleashed the "destroyer of the worlds" on 1.3 billion people of the subcontinent.

The slogan of "bread not bombs" could mobilise people at the grassroots level. But can a peace movement be built in India which turns its back on internal militarisation in the name of respecting national security when it comes to Kashmir, the Northeast and not so long ago Punjab?