The Unheeded Warnings
Here are two statements from a representative section of India's movement issued during the six-month-old stand between India and Pakistan. "Declare a War on War" is a Peace Declaration adopted on February 26, 2002, at a convention in Chennai (formerly Madras), India, organized by several anti-war groups including the Movement Against Nuclear Weapons (MANW). How much the warning went unheeded is shown by the second statement issued by the MANW on June 24, after the supposed relaxation of tensions. (S.R.)
Declare a War on War
Listen to the dominant media, and their message is clear: War. Listen to our rulers, and a louder rhetoric of jingoism assails your ears. The same shrill cries of warmongering emanate from every other establishment - economic, social and cultural. They are all telling the common man to prepare for war, for a prolonged war. To prepare for a so-called 'global war on terror' as a good citizen of the unipolar world. And for a war on Pakistan as a patriotic Indian.
To be anti-war, they proclaim, is to be anti-national. To call for peace, they say, is to comfort 'terrorism'.
We speak up for the silent, peace-loving majority of this country. We say a 'no' to war. And an equally loud and clear 'yes' to the people's right to live.
We reject the warmongers' spurious claim that 'terrorism' is their target. It is the common people who condemn terrorism most strongly and for its own sake. Terrorism as a method of political combat that targets innocent, unarmed, unprotected, uninvolved people including women and children. As a method that respects no civilized norms of such combat, and is constrained by no humane considerations. Terrorism especially as practised, promoted, and perpetuated by the state. The roots of terrorism lie in the policies and practices of USA-led forces that seek world domination and their regional lackeys including the rulers of India.
We say 'no' to the 'war without an end' that the George Bush Administration seeks to unleash on the world. A war, to be waged with the most highly destructive weapons of history, which can spell an end to the world civilisation as we know it. We are shocked at the attempts to sanctify a war in which the survival of humanity itself will be at stake.
We are especially outraged that this land of Mahavir Jain, Gautam Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi is being made part of a multinational 'coalition' on a crusade against world peace. It is a matter of profound sorrow that South Asian peace has been put in grave peril in this context and that the dire threat of an India-Pakistan conflict hangs like the sword of Damocles over the subcontinent. By its deliberate and unrelenting escalation of the threat with a distinct nuclear dimension, New Delhi is flaunting only a near-fascist contempt for the fundamental security of the people of our country and region.
We call upon it to desist from its course of demented militarism. We demand of it, instead, immediate steps for a de-escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan and the forging of friendly relations between the two countries with cherished bonds of kinship, beginning with a restoration of recently terminated people-to-people contacts and moving towards greater economic and trade cooperation between the two countries to meet the challenges of the emerging global economic order.
A byproduct as well as a back-up of the war build-up is a campaign underway to promote a communal conflict within the country. It is no coincidence that the recent period has also witnessed the orchestrated aggravation of the communal situation on the Ayodhya issue. The majoritarian offensive menaces not only the minorities but our democratic polity as well as developmental priorities. We call upon all forces of peace to unite in a common resistance to communalism.
In demanding peace, we also demand development. It is not only national attention that is sought to be diverted by warmongering from urgent tasks of development, pressing problems of the people. It is a sizeable share of national resources that is actually siphoned off in order to serve the cause of militarism. Our 'defence' budgets and our nuclear-weapons schemes of astronomical outlays are a vicious mockery of the unspeakable poverty of the vast majority of our people. Missiles and other mass destruction weapons cannot provide our people the minimum of human security in terms of food, clothing, shelter, education, and medicare. The peace we envisage is not mere absence of war. It is creation of just conditions for the holistic well-being of both the people and Mother Nature.
The right to live and the right to a life are today particularly threatened for the weakest and the most vulnerable, the poorest and the most peripheralised sections of the people - including women, tribes, fishing communities, artisans, and the army of unorganized toilers of various kinds. The marauding economic forces behind the militarist upsurge have snatched away means of livelihood from millions, even while countries like India face the prospect of losing control over their own natural resources.
While condemning the warmongers' campaign to advance the imperialist cause of world domination, we emphasise the economic dimension of the campaign. The much-vaunted 'globalisation' spells a grave threat to the developing world including India, especially its marginalized millions. The war that Bush and his band are trying to thrust on the world is an attempt to extend by another means an economic hegemony of an unprecedentedly exploitative order.
The offensive being unleashed on humanity, especially its weaker and more vulnerable sections, is also predictably accompanied by unabashed assaults on human rights, including the right to exist. The warmongers cannot win if the right to protest is retained and if ways remain to check and challenge authoritarianism. And, they are determined to win - the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) is proof enough. The people must reply with a resolve to defend the endangered rights.
Say 'No' to war. Say 'Yes' to the right to live.
The War Threat Remains:
MANW Warning
The Movement Against Nuclear Weapons (MANW) voices its extreme concern at the persistently grave threat of an India-Pakistan war, which can lead to a nuclear holocaust in the region. It warns the peace-loving people of India, Pakistan, and the world against any complacency on this count caused by any apparent, temporary or partial easing of tensions between the two nuclear-weapon-flaunting neighbours.
The MANW strongly condemns the nuclear militarism and jingoism that had driven the governments of both the nations to push the subcontinent to the brink of an unprecedented disaster. It places on record its grateful appreciation of the role played by the world public opinion and, particularly, the international peace movement in averting the grave threat of a major India-Pakistan conflict and a nuclear conflagration.
While welcoming the limited steps taken by the two governments under world pressure to defuse the crisis, the MANW cautions against any relaxation of popular vigilance against the wiles of warmongers on both sides. With the deployment of nearly a million troops on the borders and of missiles trained on each other's territory, the main source of tensions remains, and so does a dangerously prolonged standoff.
The recurring rhetoric of jingoism on both sides including nuclear chest-thumping, despite occasional protestations of restraint and responsibility, is no reassurance to the people of India and Pakistan who desire a speedy return to normalcy. The absurd, stale argument that the nuclear weapons of both the countries have proved a "deterrent" against a war between them - not heard after Kargil and until recently - is being repeated. The real danger of a nuclear war being sparked off by accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons only adds to the nightmarish prospects that threaten the region. Not a single step has been taken by either side for a peaceful bilateral settlement of the disputes between both.
The MANW pleads for an immediate pull-back by both sides from the borders followed by all necessary measures for a swift de-escalation of tensions. It urges normalization of state-level relations and resumption of people-to-people contacts without further delay. It calls for demonstration of statesmanship on both sides for a peaceful settlement of all India-Pakistan disputes.
The MANW cautions the people of both countries against falling prey to forces which indulge in campaigns of hate, violence, and terrorism in the name of religion, contributing to warmongering and rise of anti-democratic forces in both the countries.
Developments since the Pokharan II and Chagai tests, including the Kargil conflict and the current standoff which has brought the region near the brink of a nuclear war, bear out the truth of the warnings of the peace movement over the past four years. We say this not in a self-congratulatory manner but with deep regret that sane counsel has gone unheeded and that the situation has been allowed to come to such a sorry pause. The MANW reiterates its demand for a reversal of the process of nuclear weaponization in both India and Pakistan. It is only when the region has been entirely rid of nuclear weapons that the people of the two countries can truly afford to heave a sigh of relief.
