I have still to see a major newspaper or magazine that has given unequivocal support to the decision to test. Aromar Revi, a development consultant in New Delhi, reminded me that the BJP, the party newly and narrowly in power in India, ran explicitly on the promise of wielding India's nuclear might. Nothing better in such a situation of adversity than to move to a fascist mode of governance. Email brought an address by Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physics professor, given at MIT the day after the first Indian bombs went off. We stand here to challenge the merchants of hate and destruction, the makers and promoters of weapons that kill by the millions, and the megalomaniacs who think that greatness comes from the power to commit mass murder.
Nuclear weapons are evil, mass destroyers of human life, and morally indefensible.
No country should possess them. We are worried at the attempt of the power-elite to create a hysteric wave of national jingoism and nuclear chauvinism among the Indian masses to divert their attention from the burning problems of their lives. Unless we are serious about denuclearization of military forces by ALL countries, talk of nuclear nonproliferation is just not very persuasive. Lovins included an article he wrote in 1995 for the Christian Science Monitor, in which he pointed out the fatal mistake of believing there can be peaceful nuclear power separate from nuclear weapons. Civilian nuclear power is now known to be a peculiarly convenient route to bomb-making.