[sacw] S A A N Post | 14 Aug. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

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South Asians Against Nukes Post
14 August 2000
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#1. A Nuclear Meltdown ( Dr. Hamza Alvi)
#2. 'Are nuclear weapons going to help us counter low-level insurgency in
Kashmir?' (an interview with Praful Bidwai)
#3. Anti Nuclear Leaflet by Maitree (a Calcutta based Womens platform)

_____________________

#1.

The News International / News on Sunday
13 August 2000
Political Economy

A NUCLEAR MELTDOWN

Because of our ignorance of the reality of the nuclear confrontation in
South Asia, our people seem to have accepted at face value the dishonest
rhetoric of our rulers. Political Economy sifts fact from fiction and
finds that the danger of miscalculation or sheer mischief is much too
great to contemplate

by Dr Hamza Alvi

Zamin Ka Nauha, edited and compiled by Zamir Niazi, is an excellent and
very timely book on a very serious subject that demands our urgent
attention. It is an issue that we, the people of Pakistan, have not yet
taken up with all the seriousness that it calls for. The threat posed by
the arrival of nuclear arms in South Asia is far more serious and its
risks for all the people of South Asia are enormously greater than was
the case in the nuclear confrontation between the former Soviet Union
and the Western powers. In our case, because of our geographical
proximity, there is no warning time that the US and the USSR had because
they were separated by thousands of miles so that there was a warning
time that helped to avoid miscalculation and unintended nuclear attacks,
as indeed did happen in a number of cases. In the case of India and
Pakistan the warning time is zero.
The bankruptcy and, indeed the total recklessness of our ruling elites,
in this matter is demonstrated by the fact that they see this as a
matter of celebration rather than a lamentation. Our people have been
misled by false rhetoric and have been misled. They deserve to be given
the facts. There are large issues that have come to the fore in this
area that we need to know about and to ponder over. We do have a few
intellectuals who have done pioneering work in exposing the risks and
dangers to our very existence that our nuclear capability poses. And we
need to banish this curse from our soil.

Our people know little about the true reality of nuclear war and the
ever present danger of accidental and miscalculation which, for us, is
far more likely than it was between the US and the USSR. Because of our
ignorance of the reality of the nuclear confrontation in South Asia, our
people seem to have accepted at face value the dishonest rhetoric of our
rulers.

The 'nuclear option', as it is politely referred to, is a dreadful
euphemism for what it really means. It means holocausts on both sides of
the border. In plain language it means that our military strategy is
premised on threats of reciprocal mass killings of millions of
Pakistanis by Indians and millions of Indians by ourselves. There is now
a very real threat a nuclear holocaust in South Asia. That threat, it is
argued by advocates of the bomb will stop either side from crossing a
critical threshold in their mutual conflicts. Our possession of nuclear
arms, it is claimed, is our only defence. The opposite is true.

The facile assumption of the nuclear deterrent needs to be examined
carefully. Far too much is at stake and far to much is taken for
granted. People on both sides of the border need to examine reality and
the dangers that underlie this so-called 'nuclear option', carefully. We
must all see where this policy is leading both our countries. We need to
know the dangers inherent in this misguided and dangerous policy.

The bulk of our people take arguments about the nuclear option at face
value. If they hit us, we will hit them, they say. Anyone who opposes
this is taken as a misguided utopian or a crank or, may be, even an
Indian agent or, in India, or a Pakistani agent in India. The fact is
that our people know nothing about what is really involved here. All
they have been offered in this field is Nawaz Sharif's rhetoric that our
bankrupt country has become a nuclear world power! Our people do not
know the reality that lies behind that empty boast.

According to a survey of the views of educated Pakistanis about nuclear
arms, that was conducted by the Kroc Institute, only 6 per cent of
educated Pakistanis favour a renunciation of the nuclear option. But, if
they are told all the facts underlying that, they will think very
differently. They need to be informed about the facts and think
carefully about the issue in the cold light of facts and logic. The
sense of security that the nuclear shield is supposed to have given us
is a fantasy--it is a futile and a highly dangerous fantasy. Some of the
highly emotive contributions to Zamir Saheb's book arouse in our minds
the sense of horror that this should indeed arouse. But now we need
works that will go further and analyse in detail what is involved in
practical terms, so that we may take a rational stand in this very grave
matter.

While welcoming Zamin ka Nauha wholeheartedly, and congratulating Zamir
Niazi and his colleagues for putting it into our hands, one would wish
to point to the urgent tasks that have yet to be done by our
intellectuals. Why this imbalance in our intellectual labours? This
one-sided bias in our intellectual responses makes one think how much
our national intellectual culture is aesthetic rather than analytical.
By aesthetic, I mean, that which appeals to the heart and the
sentiments. By contrast the concept of analytic culture refers to appeal
to cold logic, appeals to the mind. Both approaches are essential.

In Zamin ka Nauha, after only browsing through the book, I was left with
the impression that most of the contributors have dealt with the subject
quite powerfully in terms of feelings of horror and sorrow that the
subject invokes, with great passion. But that is not complemented by any
contribution that analyses the reality of nuclearisation. We urgently
need another volume that may complement this excellent volume.

Pakistan's case for the bomb is based on extremely simplistic
assumptions. It is the nuclear shield doctrine. It is suggested that
protected by that shield, we can continue to provide support to Kashmiri
militants, for example, without fear of retaliatory Indian invasion of
Pakistan. Large scale Indian attack on us, it is said, would invite a
nuclear strike by Pakistan. The fear of our bomb, it is argued, will
make India desist from even a conventional attack on us. If they do
attack us, they say, we will hit them back with nuclear weapons. That is
a foolish and a dangerous doctrine, ignores all the real problems that
lie, out of sight, in this area. We need to uncover these issues so that
both our people and the government may be shaken out of their misguided
fantasies.

The official argument assumes that our own nuclear installations will be
left intact to make the strike against the Indians. Leaving aside the
problems of the limitations of our delivery systems, consider the fact
that while we can reach only a part of India (Bombay and Delhi) the
Indians have the capacity to reach every part of Pakistan and destroy
our country totally.

There are a host of problems that have to be thought about, short of
that ultimate scenario. We have no time to catalogue now. But one or two
examples may suffice. How real is the danger of a nuclear
miscalculation. If our radar picks up a flight of Indian MiGs flying in
our direction, say heading toward Amritsar or Ferozepur. They could
easily be heading towards Lahore or Multan. There is no time for
verification. We must act instantly. But we have no means of knowing if
the Indian Migs are carrying conventional weapons or nuclear weapons.
Are we to assume the worst? Or, are we to assume that without positive
information we must assume that they are not carrying nuclear weapons.
What if we are wrong? The consequences in either case must be
incalculable.

And, how much will the nuclear option cost? Can we afford it? We are
already a bankrupt country. And what we have spent so far is only the
tip of the iceberg. The cost that we will need to incur further to set
up the nuclear shield in place will be phenomenal. The United States has
spent a lot more than 3 trillion dollars. The financial burden drove the
Soviet Union to bankruptcy. It is questionable if we, as a backward and
impoverished economy can sustain it at all, even a fraction of the cost
that has to be involved. The nuclear option, so-called, is not a cheap
option. Bombs are only a tiny part of the total project. Huge amounts
will have to be spent for the overall infrastructure that is
indispensable for putting the nuclear shield in place. At the heart of
it there must be an adequate and effective Command, Control and
Communication system. Without that we cannot have a credible and
effective a nuclear force. It was this race that drove the Soviet Union
to bankruptcy.

There is one more related problem. That is the problem of devising a
safe command and control system in our conditions. There are two
contradictory requirements. One is to disperse the bombs and the
delivery vehicles, and with that the authority to use them, instead of
concentrating the authority with say the GHQ, in order to make them less
vulnerable to an Indian pre-emptive attack. If the authority to use them
is held exclusively with such a single centre, there would be the
possibility of the Indians might decapitate our system by a single hit,
knocking out the Pakistani nerve centre.

But if that option is taken, that will create even greater problems. The
autonomy of dispersed and mobile units poses infinitely more difficult
problems because that would magnify the chance of an unauthorised launch
by some mistaken general or even by a fanatic. We cannot easily rule
that out in our case. That could also happen as a result of
miscalculation because of an alarm. If there is an alarm, there can be
no time margin available to check and verify. Decisions will have to be
made in split seconds. The danger of miscalculation or sheer mischief is
therefore much too great to contemplate. These are only a few problems
that come to the surface once we begin to think about this. There are a
lot more issues that need careful examination. They require systematic
and careful study. But we can see is that nuclear weapons far from being
a safeguard for either Pakistan or for India, in fact are a terrible
threat for both our countries.

Both Indians and Pakistanis must realise that this is not a viable
situation. It is fraught with the utmost danger for all the peoples of
South Asia. What is needed therefore is a movement on both sides of the
border demanding immediate negotiations for mutual and simultaneous
nuclear disarmament and demanding that both India and Pakistan renounce
nuclear weapons and destroy their respective nuclear arms and
facilities.

______

#2.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/aug/12inter.htm
Rediff on the Net
12 August 2000

Rediff Interview/ Praful Bidwai

'ARE NUCLEAR WEAPONS GOING TO HELP US COUNTER LOW-LEVEL INSURGENCY IN
KASHMIR?'

May 1998: India has just carried out nuclear tests in the desert of
Rajasthan and many Indians appear to have gone ballistic in delight. The
media is agog with this frenzy of patriotism. But there were other
voices that were drowned out in the orgy of self-congratulations, of
statements questioning the need for plunging India into an arms race
that it can ill-afford at this stage.

One of the strongest critics of India's nuclear tests (and a strong
advocate for nuclear disarmament) is Praful Bidwai, who recently
co-authored a book with Achin Vanaik, South Asia on a Short Fuse:
Nuclear Politics and the Future of Disarmament.

Bidwai, who quit IIT-Bombay in his final year, is one of India's
bestknown columnists. He is also a scholar at the Fellow Transnational
Institute, Amsterdam, where he works on North-South issues and Third
World debt and poverty. And today, he is as well-known as an activist in
the field of nuclear disarmament and is part of the Movement in India
for Nuclear Disarmament.

At present, Bidwai is busy organising the first National Convention on
Nuclear Disarmament. In an exclusive interview to rediff.com Associate
Editor Amberish K Diwanji he explains the need for the convention and
his reasons for seeking nuclear disarmament.

Why are you holding this convention?

This convention will be held in New Delhi from November 11 to 13. The
background is that there are at least 40 cities in India where there
have been sustained anti-nuclear activities. There have been symposia,
seminars, discussions on nuclear weapons and the wisdom, or lack of it,
in relying on nuclear weapons for security. There has been public action
demanding disarmament, reduction in military expenditure, a return to
the right development priorities in this country. Now, most of these
groups have been doing these activities discretely with no coordination
with each other.

There are also been groups based on professional affiliations such as
Journalists for Peace, Physicians for Peace, Physicists for Disarmament,
and so on. All these groups feel the urgent need to have a
national-level organisation and network and such a network must have a
national profile and identity because these are issues on which policies
are being made at the national level. There is not much that you can do
at the regional level.

It is with a view to setting up a national network and to trigger off a
national campaign of a very concerted kind that the proposed convention
is to be held. Now, the demand for the convention came from all these
different groups. In fact, over a 100 groups have made this request.
Some of us, like Vanaik and I, were lucky enough to travel while we were
writing our book. We went around to a number of Indian cities, partly to
hold discussions on the book and partly to generate interest on nuclear
disarmament and meet groups that are active in different cities.

These groups were keen to hold a national-level meeting, and we had two
preparatory meetings in Nagpur, including one on July 30, where 100 of
us met. There we decided on the concept, scope and agenda of the
convention.

Will there be delegates from abroad, especially Pakistan?

We are anticipating about 500 to 700 people, about 90 per cent from
different parts of India, representing about 200 organisations. But we
are expecting people from the South Asian region, and, of course,
Pakistan in particular. We have had a lot of contact with Pakistani
groups, thanks to e-mail, thanks to citizen-to-citizen contacts over the
last few years. We have been in steady touch and done joint programmes.

For example, last year on Hiroshima Day (August 6), many members of the
public wore white ribbons in Pakistan and India. The Pakistan Peace
Coalition held a convention in February 1999 and 30 people from India
were invited to this convention which had 500 delegates. I was one of
those invited from India. So we do have close connections with the
disarmament groups in Pakistan.

We will also have some observers from the international peace movement;
activists from Japan, US, Germany, some for international peace
organisations like Greenpeace, Peace Bureau and so on. There will also
be participants from the UK's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, one of
the oldest peace movements. You know the peace sign -- a circle and a
triangle -- is the symbol of CND. So we hope to get a substantial
number.

What do you hope to achieve from the convention?

In India we have three kinds of groups involved. First, there are the
groups for whom nuclear disarmament is a principle agenda, which include
the one that I am with -- MIND. This was set up first in 1983 in Bombay
and re-established after the nuclear tests in 1998 in Delhi. There are
groups that identify with MIND and want to affiliate with MIND. And then
there are the groups like Physicians for Peace for whom also the main
agenda is nuclear disarmament.

The second type of groups are those for whom the priority is principally
human rights, displacement of people, development issues, gender and
caste issues, Dalit rights, environmental protection and so on. All of
them see nuclear armament as an emerging concern that impinges on what
they are doing. If India makes the bomb, it is going to take money away
from development issues. And as India plunges into a nuclear arms race
not just with Pakistan but also with China, it will have repercussions
for Indian polity and ideology.

For instance, you have the emergence of a national security obsession
and syndrome which justifies mindless forms of reliance on nuclear
weapons and which justifies anything in the name of national security.
These groups are concerned that the diversion of resources and emergence
of a macho form of nationalism will impact on them and their concerns.

The third set of people who are keen to get involved see mass education
and advocacy of peace and reconciliation as their main agenda. These are
teachers and people who feel we haven't learnt enough from Hiroshima,
who feel we don't teach our children values of peace and conciliation,
don't talk about the importance of ethics and morality. We have a whole
generation growing up which thinks that war is a normal way of life,
that strife and conflict are part of human nature. They are concerned
with reversing some of these views.

So all three groups are keen to set up a national network which will
have coordination committee which will try to organise activities in
many areas -- public education, advocacy and lobbying. The convention
will produce a permanent organisation which will meet periodically.

You plan to set up an organisation with a secretariat?

To the extent possible with our 'very' limited resources. In fact, one
reason for us not being able to hold this convention earlier was because
the resources seemed daunting and even now it is going to be very
difficult to raise the lakhs or rupees we need for this convention, but
a strong effort is on to get the money.

But we do want to set up a lasting structure to respond to what is
happening, so that if there some statement from, say, the government on
the nuclear question, we would like to provide an alternative analysis
or a critique. We also want to try and educate members of Parliament who
know so little about nuclear issues, educate people in public life and
act in the area of disarmament.

Nuclear activists, both in India and Pakistan, and even the world, are
seen as idealists who have little impact in the real world? Do you see
yourselves having any influence over government policy?

Many of these groups have historically started as very, very small
initiatives. For example, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in
Britain was started in the 1950s by people like Bertrand Russell. You
had only a handful of people -- 10 or 20 -- holding marches. Yet it grew
so that the CND had more members than the entire Labour Party and its
influence was so strong that it was able to persuade Labour to adopt a
completely unilateral disarmament agenda. This was the influence that
CND came to acquire in the 1970s and 1980s.

That apart, in India I think our numbers have grown. In the beginning it
seemed we were very small, but so were the strongest supporters of
nuclear weapons. You saw all these people celebrating on television, but
that was a small minority. The bulk of the supporters were more
ambivalent: They thought it was an act of defiance against the global
unequal nuclear order; some thought India had made a point about able to
test but was not going to make the weapons and some thought India and
Pakistan were going to reach some sort of a stable, mature relationship
after the tests.

Now, none of that has happened. India and Pakistan, instead of becoming
more mature, became more aggressive and within a year, went to war.
Kargil was one of the bloodiest conflicts between India and Pakistan,
and the only war between two nuclear powers.

Again, those who thought that India was defying the international
nuclear order, which is undoubtedly discriminatory, saw that India has
actually joined it on the side of the discriminators. It became a second
or third rate member of the nuclear club and people saw through it!

Thirdly, I think people realise that nuclear weapons lead to an arms
race, and that is happening. Look at the hardening of the Indian
posture. First we said we are going to be just a small nuclear power but
a year ago, the government published the draft nuclear doctrine which
talks of a very ambitious, open-ended, triadic arsenal with deployments
on the ground, in the air and at sea, with no limits on the technology.

You now have a new emerging arms race between India and China that is
being the inevitable consequence of India's nuclearisation. So what you
have now is a complete falsification of some of the romantic assumptions
and that is why some of the people who initially supported the nuclear
tests are now very critical of the nuclear weapons programme. I mean, we
had a 28 per cent increase in one year in the defence budget after the
Kargil War...

But that was after the war...

Yes, but even after the China war, we never had that kind of an
increase! Today, defence expenditure is 50 per cent more than what is
spent on primary education. Are you going to get security through
military spending or are you going to get real, human, genuine security
through education, jobs, social cohesion? And I think people are
questioning that. But I think our numbers are growing.

How many numbers do you put it at?

It is difficult but in a good survey last year, 72.9 per cent of the
Indians polled in 13 cities said they do not want India to make or use
nuclear weapons, even in emergencies. This is a large number and we have
seen that nuclear weapons have not been a political tool. Just after the
nuclear tests, the BJP lost in the elections in the states (in November
1998), even though the BJP made a referendum of the tests. It was
Pokharan versus pyaaz (onions) and Pokharan did not win. In Rajasthan,
it is possible that the BJP lost because of what happened in Pokharan.

India has Pakistan on one side and all the troubles in Kashmir, it has
China on the other side, which has shown no interest in disarmament. In
such a world, what would you say that India should do?

First of all, I am not denying the problems with Pakistan in Kashmir and
so on, but how do nuclear weapons help us resolve the problems? Are
nuclear weapons going to help us counter low-level insurgency in
Kashmir? On the contrary, nuclear weapons have helped Pakistan in that
we had decisive conventional weapons superiority over Pakistan, which we
lost after the nuclear tests.

Nuclear weapons have aggravated the situation and it is correct for us
in India to say that the South Asian region is the most dangerous in the
world today. Chances of a nuclear war breaking out today -- whether by
design or accident, intended or unintended -- is much higher today in
South Asia than during the entire Cold War. Let us not forget that there
is no strategic distance between India and Pakistan; we live cheek by
jowl. Missile time between our cities is three to eight minutes and has
seen a hot-cold war for the past 50 years.

What about China?

I think China and India reached a very major breakthrough in the 1990s.
In 1993 and 1996, we signed two major treaties -- on maintaining peace
and tranquility along the border and on confidence-building measures --
which would allow demilitarisation of up to 100,000 troops. After this,
China dropped plans for a particular missiles which could have targetted
peninsular India.

Now, we have reversed that. We are getting into a serious and hostile
arms race with China at the nuclear level. And don't forget, China is 30
years ahead as a nuclear and missile power and three times bigger than
India as an economic power. It would be suicidal and economically ruin
us to get into that race. We need not have provoked China, but we
needled and named China.

Let us go back to the fundamental question that India argued for 50
years. Nuclear weapons do not provide security but an illusion of it;
they do not prevent defeat even by non-nuclear weapons states. Look at
America's defeat by Vietnam and the Soviet Union's defeat by
Afghanistan! The Soviet Union ultimately collapsed.

Thus these are bogus notions of power; they do not provide security.
India learnt and preached that lesson for 50 years, one which it has now
forgotten.

What about the fact that some countries continue with to arm themselves,
such as the US and its National Missile Defence?

Yes, but we don't have to imitate them in their horrible historical
blunders. The fact is that nuclear weapons are not compatible with
international law and countries possessing nuclear arms are rogue
states. That is the judgement of the International Court of Justice in
1996. Because there are criminals in the world does not mean you should
do that; you do not enhance your power or prestige by doing so.

Now that we have gone nuclear, what would you suggest next?

First, completely halt all nuclear and missile programmes. In fact,
those attending the convention have agreed that nuclear weapons must not
be made, inducted into the armed forces or deployed. We must freeze our
programmes.

Second, we must launch a national effort at reversing our programme to
return to a pre-1998 status. And along with we must return to the
international disarmament agenda with some spirit and enthusiasm.
Imagine the impact if India and Pakistan were to say that we are
suspending our nuclear weapons programme if you five nuclear powers get
down to fulfilling your obligations under NPT and CTBT.

Are they doing that?

No, I am saying the moral and political impact will be tremendous.
Today, the vast majority of states despise nuclear weapons and have
opted out of it, including powers like Japan and Germany. It is only a
handful of states who want nuclear weapons and who have to give them up.
With our peace legacy of Buddha, Gandhi, and Nehru, we have a stature
that we can use for nuclear disarmament.

What about Pakistan?

Pakistan is the most reluctant nuclear power to have disclosed its
cards. It is a reactive power to whatever India does. Because it knows
that in the long run, it can't compete with India. They have said they
will not deploy if India does not. And if India agrees to sign the CTBT,
it will follow suit. They have even said we don't care about principles,
we will do what India does.

______

#3.

13 August 2000

ANTI NUCLEAR LEAFLET BY MAITREE (A CALCUTTA BASED WOMENS PLATFORM)

[During the preparation of the anti-nuclear demonstration in Calcutta in
2000, there were a number of debates, some of which were fruitful in as
much as they allowed a deepening of understanding. One issue in debate was
whether there was any gender-specific anti-nuclear thrust, with the
women's rights movement and sections of the political left ranged against
others on the left along with most of the people's science movement.
Maitree, a network of 42 organisations and a number of individuals,
working on issues related to women's rights, issued the following leaflet
in several thousand copies as its contribution to this debate. Though the
small space meant that all the arguments could not be developed, this was
an important contribution to the debate. The translation of the leaflet is
being circulated for information.]

Come and Liberate

Women have rallied to struggles against the nuclear bombs, weapons, and
power plants in a big way. Though war ruins the pattern of every human
being's life, for women it adds a separate dimension to the nightmare of
their lives. When the anti nuclear weapons movement began in the 1950s,
women came forward in large numbers to participate in such protests in the
USA, in Japan and in Europe. In their ranks they counted a wide range of
women, from salaried employees to housewives. Today, at the dawn of the
new century, women's role for peace is also something that comes to the
eye. The voice of the state power is very faint if it has to oppose
nuclear weapons. For it, the testing of nuclear weapons is legitimate, as
a way of demonstrating the prowess of one's own country. After the
Pokharan explosions of 1998, the Viswa Hindu Parishad had proudly declared
that at last the Government of India has shown true manhood. All previous
governments had been Hijras (hermaphrodites). Where the naked display of
muscle power to neighbouring countries is compared to manhood, there, the
same logic of manhood will also appear in a slighttly different guise in
order to crush all democratic movements directed against the state power.
State violence against women, likewise, gets support on the plea that "the
nation is in peril". In India, state terrorism against women has been
condoned on such grounds in a number of provinces, like Jammu and Kashmir,
West Bengal, the North-East, or Uttar Pradesh.

Where state violence gets legitimacy, there, eventually, similar pleas are
used to justify domestic violence against women. Ministers, cops and the
judiciary, all alike are tarred with this brush. Personally, all too many
of them think that when women go "astray", a little disciplining of the
women is not unjust. For peace in the family, that is even necessary. Even
people seated in august positions like that of member of the human rights
commissions, share many of these ideas. So women also join the peace
movement because they see a link between it, and the struggles of women to
survive and live with dignity.

Hand in hand with national chauvinism comes religious fundamentalism. In
the framework of state power these two are close kin. Whenever walls of
distrust are raised between different communities, women are harmed all
the more. Women are forced to stay within various regulations and curbs.
The woman's body is variously attacked in a climate of conflict and
violence. Rape is a major instrument for the display of such power. The
old tactics of asserting the superiority of one community, one state, by
physically assaulting women of a different community, a different country,
are still prevalent. For fear of loss of prestige, the men of the family
set up barriers to women's free movement. This does not only impede their
freedom of mobility, but also closes the passage of the free air through
their minds. Women of different communities also lose the opportunity to
exchange opinions. As a result all struggles against anti-women policies
by women of all communities in a united manner gets a body blow.

The massive funds needed to feed the militaristic outlook can only be
supplied through a heartless reduction in the education, health and
cultural budgets. The discriminatory attitude to women and girl children,
already present in a big way in Indian society, will be further
accentuated. The reason is, whenever the supplies run dry, it is the
allocations for women that have to bear the cuts, whether direct or
indirect.

Woman's motherhood is what has allowed the species to survive by the
transmission through the mother. But the state always uses motherhood to
further its interests. Mothers of soldiers who have laid down their lives
in battle for the state power are honoured by an upward elevation of the
period when they had exercised de facto power. But when nuclear radiation
causes deformed children to be born in the womb of women, state power does
not side with those women. In the family and in the community, they get
the blame for the birth of many such children. In Jadugoda, Bihar, uranium
mining has caused suffering to many, including in particular women who
have given birth to deformed children. Such is the widespread rumour about
that area that women find it difficult to get married and they find
themselves blamed for the deformed children and possessing no
alternatives, while the state just ignores their plight.

Maitree wants a nuclear weapons free world in defence of peace, a world wh=
ere:

Aggressive patriarchal values will not be honoured by being called
patriotism, where the warmongers' mentality will not be glorified as
evidence of manhood, where pity, love, toleration will be recognised as
truly human values, and where, therefore, there will be a serious struggle
for gender equality and human rights.