DiaNuke, an online platform of dedicated researchers, activists and concerned citizens working to provide resources on nuclear information, documenting developments etc. has started an online petition on May 10, 2018 calling India and Pakistan for disarmament as both the countries are in the 20th year of the nuclear tests that started in 1998. They asked for an “immediate end to arms race and competitive belligerence” and for the negotiation of “nuclear disarmament at the earliest”.
The petition notes that the past 20 years have only witnessed an exacerbation of tensions and heightened war-mongering, both os which have lent a disconcerting instability to the entire region.
The petition draws attention to the fact that while military and weapons’ expenses in both the countries have increased exponentially, making both India and Pakistan some of the largest importers of weapons in a global landscape, armed conflicts and violence by both state and non-state actors in the two countries has reached “savage heights.” It said that this situation is ironical especially since both the countries have significantly fallen down on human development indices such as poverty, hunger, education, health, safety of women and children, minority rights, and social and legal justice.
It highlights the grave issue of nuclear exchange between both the countries saying that any such exchange would annihilate the entire region and will have an irreversible climate change impact. Such an exchange will also have catastrophic global consequences.
It said that millions of people residing in these countries had no say in the inhuman escalation, though they will be at the receiving end if such an “exchange” takes place. In fact, South Asia, which is also the world’s most populous region, is the only region which has two nuclear-armed neighbours with a history of active conflicts, unending border skirmishes and wars.
The petition also draws attention to the growing problem of emergence of religious extremism in the past few years, “the emergence of religious extremism and war-loving populist nationalism, particularly during election seasons, in both countries, has made the situation more dangerous than ever. It was in the wake of such dangerous rhetoric and abiding conflicts that South Asia appeared in the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin Atomic Scientists that has now inched closest ever to midnight.”
It added that even amid such rising tensions, India and Pakistan chose to remain outside the ambit of the historic Nuclear Ban Treaty, adopted by the UN last year.
The petition made an appeal for peace, saying, “We urge leaders of both countries to negotiate disarmament and peace in all seriousness, sign the international Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and introduce immediate risk-reduction measures, including dialogues both, at the level of government and civil society. For even a semblance of peace in the region, it is imperative that the jingoism and hate-mongering within politics and mainstream media be stopped with immediate effect. 20 years is long enough to learn from the futile nuclear insanity and bluster that both countries have hitherto engaged in!”
Currently, the petition has more than hundred signatories from across the world.