I fail to understand those who desist from an outright condemnation of the British rule in India citing stuff like the Railways, Civil Services etc. Most (probably all) of these so called gifts to India were created by the British not out any altruistic inclination towards the suffering Indians but were rather created as instruments of furthering British interests in India. For all our Gandhian heritage of love and non-violence, I am unable to banish the feelings of acute resentment against the British. At the least, India (and all other ex-colonies) deserve a public apology from Britain for the numerous historical wrongs.
Some facts for public consumption
1)In the Bengal famine of 1770-72, close to ten million people died, as Rajni Palme-Dutt pointed out in his remarkable book, India Today. The East India Company's own report put it simply. The famine in that province "exceeds all description."
Yet, Warren Hastings wrote to the directors of the East India Company in 1772: "Notwithstanding the loss of at least one-third of the inhabitants of this province, and the consequent decrease in cultivation, the net collections of the year 1771 exceeded even those of [pre-famine] 1768." Hastings was clear on why and how this was achieved. It was "owing to [tax collection] being violently kept up to its former standard."
Calling it cruel would be understating it.
2) Over 6 million humans perished in just 1876 — when Madras was a hell. This, it may be noted, was after the honourable British government had taken over the administration from the Company.
3)Between 24 million and 29 million Indians, maybe more, died in famines in the era of British good governance. Many of these famines were policy-driven.
4)Before the Great Bengal Famine, the report of that province's Director for Health for 1927-28 made grisly reading. It noted that "the present peasantry of Bengal are in a very large proportion taking to a dietary on which even rats could not live for more than five weeks."
5)By 1931, life expectancy in India was sharply down. It was now 23.2 and 22.8 years for men and women. Less than half that of those living in England and Wales. (Palme-Dutt.)
6)4 million people died in the Great Bengal Famine of 1942-43. As Amartya Sen points out, this appalling event was never officially declared as a famine. It was only in October 1943, when much of the damage had been done, that the famine was "acknowledged officially in Parliament by the Secretary of State for India... "
7)Countless numbers of Indians died in wars waged for, by, and against the British. Over 8,000 died in the single battle around Kut in Iraq in 1916. London used them as canon fodder in its desperate search for a success against the Turks after the rout at Gallipoli. When there were no Indians around, the British sacrificed other captive peoples. "Waste the Irish" was the term used by an English officer when sending out troops on a suicidal mission.
......
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The Pugwash Conferences
Einstein's advice to fellow scientists, "concern for Man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours in order that the creation of our minds shall be a blessing and not a curse,"...
Chain of events-
1)On August 6, 1945, the most dreadful of the weapons of mass destruction — the atom bomb — was dropped in the civilian area of Hiroshima. Three days later, another atom bomb was dropped in Nagasaki.
2)Early in 1954, Nehru called "for the setting up of a Committee of scientists to explain to the world the effect a nuclear war would have on humanity." (Nehru by the way was also the first foreign Prime Minister to visit Hiroshima).
3)In 1955, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein issued their famous manifesto seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons and appealing to all inhabitants of Planet Earth: "Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way is open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death."
4)In 1957, Nehru's idea and and the Russell-Einstein Manifesto inspired Joseph Rotblat, who along with Pugwash was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995, and Eugene Rabinowitch, to organize the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an organisation devoted to ending the nuclear peril and reminding scientists of their ethical responsibility for the consequences of their discoveries, particularly in the area of nuclear threat to human survival.
The name of the organisation comes from Pugwash Village in Nova Scotia, Canada, where the first conference was held in 1957.
Chain of events-
1)On August 6, 1945, the most dreadful of the weapons of mass destruction — the atom bomb — was dropped in the civilian area of Hiroshima. Three days later, another atom bomb was dropped in Nagasaki.
2)Early in 1954, Nehru called "for the setting up of a Committee of scientists to explain to the world the effect a nuclear war would have on humanity." (Nehru by the way was also the first foreign Prime Minister to visit Hiroshima).
3)In 1955, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein issued their famous manifesto seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons and appealing to all inhabitants of Planet Earth: "Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way is open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death."
4)In 1957, Nehru's idea and and the Russell-Einstein Manifesto inspired Joseph Rotblat, who along with Pugwash was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995, and Eugene Rabinowitch, to organize the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an organisation devoted to ending the nuclear peril and reminding scientists of their ethical responsibility for the consequences of their discoveries, particularly in the area of nuclear threat to human survival.
The name of the organisation comes from Pugwash Village in Nova Scotia, Canada, where the first conference was held in 1957.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
For thinking people - US hypocrisy on nuclear weapons and disarmament .. 2
Lost opportunites
The Pugwash Conference held in 1995 in Hiroshima on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the advent of atomic weapons concluded, "the end of the cold war, and the beginning of deep reduction in the huge nuclear arsenals that the war spawned, have provided an unprecedented opportunity for the abolition of nuclear weapons as well as the abolition of war." Meeting again in Hiroshima in July 2005, the Pugwash Council observed, "The decade since 1995, when Pugwash last met in Hiroshima, has been one of missed opportunities and a marked deterioration in global security, not least regarding the nuclear threat. In that time, additional States have acquired nuclear weapons, there has been little tangible progress in nuclear disarmament, new nuclear weapons are being proposed, and military doctrines are being revised that place a greater reliance on the potential use of such weapons."
Failure of NPT
The Seventh Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), held in the spring of 2005 in New York, ended in a deadlock. The five original nuclear weapon states (the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China) showed themselves unwilling to take decisive action to implement their obligations under Article VI of the NPT to move decisively toward the irreversible elimination of their nuclear arsenals.
Failure of CTBT
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not entered into force, the U.S. and Russia need to accelerate and enlarge the reductions called for by the Moscow Treaty, and negotiations have yet to begin on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) to eliminate production of weapons-grade Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and plutonium.
The Pugwash Conference held in 1995 in Hiroshima on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the advent of atomic weapons concluded, "the end of the cold war, and the beginning of deep reduction in the huge nuclear arsenals that the war spawned, have provided an unprecedented opportunity for the abolition of nuclear weapons as well as the abolition of war." Meeting again in Hiroshima in July 2005, the Pugwash Council observed, "The decade since 1995, when Pugwash last met in Hiroshima, has been one of missed opportunities and a marked deterioration in global security, not least regarding the nuclear threat. In that time, additional States have acquired nuclear weapons, there has been little tangible progress in nuclear disarmament, new nuclear weapons are being proposed, and military doctrines are being revised that place a greater reliance on the potential use of such weapons."
Failure of NPT
The Seventh Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), held in the spring of 2005 in New York, ended in a deadlock. The five original nuclear weapon states (the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China) showed themselves unwilling to take decisive action to implement their obligations under Article VI of the NPT to move decisively toward the irreversible elimination of their nuclear arsenals.
Failure of CTBT
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not entered into force, the U.S. and Russia need to accelerate and enlarge the reductions called for by the Moscow Treaty, and negotiations have yet to begin on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) to eliminate production of weapons-grade Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and plutonium.
For thinking people - World War II:Civilian killings by US and Britain
Nuclear weapons were described as "the greatest achievement of organised science in history" by US President Harry Truman. Many would comment that it is correct to a certain non-negligible proportion to think that it says something of the mentality of a people when their leader eulogises the most monstrous creation of science in such terms.
Anyway, we just quote the facts. For thinking people, correct information and not opinion should be enough.
1)In 1939 the British Government had entered the war with high protestations of virtue. The then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told Parliament: "Whatever be the lengths to which others may go, His Majesty's government will never resort to the deliberate attack on women and children, and on other civilians for the purposes of mere terrorism." By the end of the war, the British had resorted to enough "mere terrorism" to destroy most of the cities of Germany and many of their inhabitants, 100,000 of them children.
2)300,000 British uniformed servicemen died in 1939-45 compared to the 600,000 German civilians killed.
3)Before August 1945, very many Japanese had already been killed by "conventional" bombing. On one night in Tokyo in March, American bombers killed 85,000 civilians — more than would die at Nagasaki — and at least 300,000 were incinerated in great fire raids over the following months.
4)It was argued then, and still sometimes is, that the bombing of Hiroshima 60 years ago on August 6, and of Nagasaki three days later, was justified by the Japanese surrender, obviating the need for an invasion of Japan which would have meant huge casualties.
By the summer of 1945, Japan was already prostrate. Not only were Japanese armies being driven out of the Pacific islands and Burma, American bombers were wrecking the cities of Japan and, in one of the most successful campaigns of the whole war, submarines of the United States navy had done to Japan what German U-boats had never managed to do to England, by completely destroying its shipping. Some American admirals believed then and ever after that surrender was a matter of time, and not much of it, and a strong suspicion persists of an ulterior motive by Washington, wanting to end the war with Japan quickly before Soviet Russia joined in.
Monsignor Ronald Knox, a conservative English Catholic (author of God and the Atom, an astonishing book, neglected at the time and since) : Hiroshima was an assault on faith, ... because — this answers those who still defend the bombing of Hiroshima — "men fighting for a good case have taken, at one particular moment of decision, the easier, not the nobler path."
The facts are taken from the editorial of the Hindu on 06-08-2005.
Anyway, we just quote the facts. For thinking people, correct information and not opinion should be enough.
1)In 1939 the British Government had entered the war with high protestations of virtue. The then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told Parliament: "Whatever be the lengths to which others may go, His Majesty's government will never resort to the deliberate attack on women and children, and on other civilians for the purposes of mere terrorism." By the end of the war, the British had resorted to enough "mere terrorism" to destroy most of the cities of Germany and many of their inhabitants, 100,000 of them children.
2)300,000 British uniformed servicemen died in 1939-45 compared to the 600,000 German civilians killed.
3)Before August 1945, very many Japanese had already been killed by "conventional" bombing. On one night in Tokyo in March, American bombers killed 85,000 civilians — more than would die at Nagasaki — and at least 300,000 were incinerated in great fire raids over the following months.
4)It was argued then, and still sometimes is, that the bombing of Hiroshima 60 years ago on August 6, and of Nagasaki three days later, was justified by the Japanese surrender, obviating the need for an invasion of Japan which would have meant huge casualties.
By the summer of 1945, Japan was already prostrate. Not only were Japanese armies being driven out of the Pacific islands and Burma, American bombers were wrecking the cities of Japan and, in one of the most successful campaigns of the whole war, submarines of the United States navy had done to Japan what German U-boats had never managed to do to England, by completely destroying its shipping. Some American admirals believed then and ever after that surrender was a matter of time, and not much of it, and a strong suspicion persists of an ulterior motive by Washington, wanting to end the war with Japan quickly before Soviet Russia joined in.
Monsignor Ronald Knox, a conservative English Catholic (author of God and the Atom, an astonishing book, neglected at the time and since) : Hiroshima was an assault on faith, ... because — this answers those who still defend the bombing of Hiroshima — "men fighting for a good case have taken, at one particular moment of decision, the easier, not the nobler path."
The facts are taken from the editorial of the Hindu on 06-08-2005.
For thinking people - US hypocrisy on nuclear weapons and disarmament
Extracted from the editorial of the Hindu (06-08-2005)
The deadlocked negotiations at the seventh Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) bring into sharp focus the lack of progress in global nuclear disarmament, in the context of an increased threat of nuclear proliferation. In the May 2005 conference, the Bush administration pursued stridently the far-Right rhetoric on proliferation by `rogue states' — an obvious reference to the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea — to camouflage its own obduracy in ignoring its disarmament obligations. Since the 2000 NPT review, the United States, one of the two largest stockpilers of nuclear weapons, has rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and refused to agree to a moratorium on further weapons tests and explosions. Even the minimal assurance to non-nuclear-weapons states of immunity from nuclear threats, as provided in the 1995 United Nations resolution, stands jettisoned; the U.S. and the United Kingdom regard this as incompatible with the doctrine of deterrence. The other commitment was to ensure a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in a country's defence programmes. But only last year the two allies renewed the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement to enable the production of a new generation of nuclear warheads. The U.S. and Russia have, no doubt, agreed under the Moscow Treaty of 2002 to cut back two-thirds of their warheads from deployment by 2012, but they have not bound themselves to destroying them. Washington's initiation of the National Missile Defence programme, ostensibly to counter threats to its national security, is in violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that seeks to prevent a qualitatively different arms race.
Global disarmament commitments thus stand dishonoured. The only country that has so far used nuclear weapons in war, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process, and other nuclear weapon states have done little to reduce their arsenals more than a decade after the end of the `Cold War'. The double standards and inequities built into the unequal global nuclear bargain that is the NPT, and the one-sided anti-proliferation drive of the nuclear haves, are paving the way for a risky nuclear nationalism in some threshold nuclear states. The question of genuine movement towards global nuclear disarmament assumes greater urgency given the real possibility of extremist movements and terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons, which is technically no big deal. As the world observes the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is obvious that nuclear weapon states have turned their back on the lessons of history. The U.S. has extracted from Japan an apology for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbour but has itself refused to express regret for its anti-human nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. India will be betraying both its people and its international affairs heritage if it follows the nuclear weapons club in sidelining the disarmament agenda.
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