Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Demonstrating Vehemence Dismaying Populace
NUCLEAR BOMBING -Lahore means killing lakhs in Amritsar, too
India developed Prithvi missile and Pakistan retaliated by Ghauri. Infuriated India ,conducted 5 nuclear tests and the Pakistanis became mad unless Nawaz Sharief carried out 5 nuclear explosions. An arms race has set in. History is witness that races end up in a war. The proverb that the ‘war brings peace' is outdated in view of nuclear weapons. Fortunately or unfortunately there is only one contentious issue i.e Kashmir. Unfortunately no solution is in sight as the shortsighted political parties on both sides have too much involved the public in the Kashmir issue. Thus no party can dare to tackle the issue objectively .There are several instances in history where the war was accidently sparked off and chances of such an accident cannot be ruled out in view of the sporadic incidences of firing on the border or LOC. Mushrooming clouds of possible nuclear war are looming large over the region and people are not quite conscious of it. KHUSHWANT SINGH enlightens us of the horrible consequences of the nuclear bomb.
For more than the one and a quarter billion people who live in South Asia, the world has been radically, horrifically, shockingly transformed. After the nuclear tests of India and Pakistan in May, they now live under the shadow of the Mushroom Cloud that is, to put it bluntly, the threat of mass annihilation, unspeakable destruction, and epochal devastation. Unless India and Pakistan stop their descent into the bottomless pit of nuclear rivalry now, they will inflict unlimited damage upon their societies, states and , above all, their own people.
The bulk of the blame for this terrifying development must be
squarely laid at the door of communalism. The nuclear obsession of a particular
party was imposed upon a billion people on May 11, when the BJP led minoritY government
made a violent break with a policy with a 50 year long continuity of opposing nuclear deterrence and not exercising
the nuclear weapons option. The BJP altered this radically, undemocratically,
without the pretence of strategic review, and without even the fig leaf of a
security rationale.
The BJP's decision to put India on the dangerous path of
nuclearisation deeply offends all notions of civilised public conduct. lt
degrades, it dose not enhance, India,s security. lt has propelled us into a
confrontation with our neighbours and lowered our global status. India is the
object of reprimand, reproach and
humiliating sanctions from the world community. Nuclearisation will promote the
profoundly undemocratic values of militarism, secrecy, Jingoism and male
chauvinism. And it could prove economically ruinous. Most of all, it is fraught
with unconscionably destructive human consequences.
Let us look at some of these on the basis of a scientific
analysis. To start with, lndia and Pakistan are likely to fight a nuclear war
than the two rival blocs came close to at any point during the Cold War barring
perhaps the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Even a limited exchange would result
in killing lakhs of people in the two countries in ways that will make Genghis
Khan look like an angel.
lf a single nuclear weapon is exploded over a major city such
as Bombay, Bombay, Karachi, Lahore or Delhi, it could result in the death of up
to 9,00,000 people depending on factors such as population density, height of air
bust and prevalent wind velocity, Apart from these early deaths, there would be
hundreds of thousands of cancer leukaemia victims due to radiation, besides a
host of other serious illnesses and disorders.
That is not all. The damage would be carried to a number of
future generations. Some of the worst effecls would be caused by plutonium 239,
named after the God of Hell, and the most
toxic substance known to scicence, which has a half life of 24,440 years which
means it will not decay fully for millions of years. A few millionths of a gram
of plutonium, of ingested or inhaled, can cause cancers of lung and gastrointestinal
tract over a period of time. The victims of nuclear explosion would experience
series of effects.
The first affect is an intense flux of photons from the
blast, which releases 70 to 80 percent burns, and are not a pretty sight. Initial
deaths are due to this effect.
The next phenomenon is the supersonic blast front. You see it
before you hear it. The pressure front has the effect or blowing away anything
in its path. Heavy steel girders were found bent at 90 degree angles after the Japanese
bombings.
After the front comes the ever pressure phase, the would feel
like being under water at a few hundred meters death. At a few thousand metres
under the sea, even pressurised hulls implode. The pressure gradually dies off,
and there is a negative overpressure phase, with a reversed blast. This
reversal is due to air rushing back to fill the void left by the explosion. The
air gradually returns to room pressure. At this stage, fires caused by electrical
destruction and ignited debris, turn the whole area into a firestorm.
Then come the middle term effect such as cell damage and chromosomal
aberrations. Genetic or hereditary damage can show up to 40 years after initial
irradiation. In a nuclear blast can show up to 40 years after initial irradiation.
In a,nuclear blast, with a crude, first generation Hiroshima or Nagasaki type
bomb, everything within a radius of 0.8 km would be vaporised, with 98 percent fatalities.
There would be firestorms raging at a velocity of 500 kmph and an unbearable
overpressure of 25 pounds per square inch. Within a radius of 1.6, all structures
above ground would be totally destroyed, and the fatality rate would be g0
percent. '
In the next concentric
circle, with a radius of 3 km, there would be severe blast damage. All
factories and huge buildings would
collapse, as would bridges and flyovers. Rivers would flow countercurrent.
Winds would blow at 400 kmph. The fatality rate would be 65 percent.
Next comes severe heat damage within a radius of 4 kms everything
flammable burns. People suffocate because most of the available oxygen would be
consumed by the fires. The likely wind velocities: 200 kmph. Likely fatalities
: 50 Percent in the fifth zone, with a radius of 5 km. winds would blow at 150
kmph. People would be blown around' The fatality rate would be 15 percent plus.
Most survivors would be severely damaged.
A huge electromagnetic
Pulse would be produced by the radio radar portion of the multiple wave length discharge
of radiation. The EMP effect increases the higher you go into the atomospere.
High altitude explosions can knock out electronics by inducing a current surge
in closed circuit metallic object computers, power lines, phone lines, TVs.
radios, etc. The damage range can be over 1 ,000 Km.,
All these effects would be magnified roughly 25 times if a thermonuclear
(hydrogen) bomb with an explosive yield of one megaton is burst over an
altitude of 8,000 ft. (i.e about 2,500 metres). India claims to have developed
just such a bomb. lf a 20 megaton device which is not difficult to make once
the thermonuclear technology is learnt is used, the destruction would be roughly 1OO fold
greater.
After a nuclear blast,
all water bodies within a radius of 100 to 300 km would be dangerously
contaminated. As would all vegetation and the soil' Cattle would be so severely
exposed to radiation that milk could not be consumed. Underground acquifers would
remain polluted foryears. Not just cities, but whole regions, comprising anything
between five and 20 districts, would become wastelands.
Millions of People would be severely traumatised and will
never be able to live normal, sane lives. Children would be the worst affected,
with lasting physical and psychological damage, most of it irreversible.
In the South Asia
context, a nuclear attack would have clear trans border consequences Bombing Lahore
will amount to signing out from Jalandhar will not leave Pakistan's Punjab
unaffected. And Bombay’s bombing could have devastating effects in Sindh. Nuclear weapons will act like boomerang
on both India and Pakistan. Using them would tantamount to committing suicide.
Among the early casualties
in a nuclear explosion would be the civil, defence and medical infrastructure.
As International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear war Say, First Aid would
be reduced to Last Aid . There will be, can be, no defence against a nuclear
bomb. These are not fanciful scare mongering scenarios, but sober estimates
based on hard core physics and biology,
developed by Nobel Prize winning scientists and physicians. These estimates
must be treated with the utmost seriousness and gravity. The threat of
megadeath today hang over India and Pakistan the very circumstance that a nuclearwar
between the two is possible should alarm us all. But the situation may be even
worse: an India Pakistan nuclear exchange appears likelier than perhaps the
Cuban missile crisis of 1962. This is not because Indian and Pakistani Politicians
and nuclear scientists are more irresponsible than those in America and the
former USSR. lt is more because South Asia is the only part of the world which
has experienced a relentless hot cold war over 50 years. lt bristles with
mutual hatreds, suspicions and hostility on so many counts that any of them
could turn into a flashpoint the Kashmir
Valley, the border dispute in the eastern sector, military exercises getting
out of hand as happened in 1987 under Gen. K. Sundarji.
The very fact that the two states continue to sacrifice
hundreds of men in fighting an insane war at Siachen the world's highest altitude conflict where it costs Rs. 1.5. Lakh to reach one
chapati to a soldier speaks of the profound irrationality that mark their
relations. And today, their politicians are actually talking about using
nuclear weapons witness Dr. Farooq
Abdullah's statement of June 8. Equally worrisome is the likelihood that both
are working on battlefield level tactful nuclear weapons. (Hence the sub kiloton
tests.) These considerably lower the danger threshold.
There is, besides, the horrific likelihood of accidental,
unauthorised or unintentional use of nuclear weapons. This is not some fantasy,
but a real possibility. More than 100 such incidents occurred during the Cold
War in spite of scores confidence building measures and precautionary
procedures adopted by the two warring blocs. These included multiple hot lines,
permissive action links (PALs, which are
computer chips with codes for authorisation), early warning systems, false
alarm filters, efficient radars and expensive control and communications
systems.
A bookings Institution study says that it was sheer luck, not
nuclear deterrence, or fear of unacceptable damage that prevented the hight of
the Cold War, the lag time between the NATO and Warsaw pact was never less than
30 minutes. Their stategic missiles would take that long to reach their targets.
In the case of India and Pakistan, the missile flight time would be just two to
three minutes grossly inadequate to take remedial action or activate war prevention
procedures. And given that virtually no interception of missiles is possible, a
nuclear warhead could almost certainly be delivered across the border before
there is time to react with devastating results.
Nuclear weapons and
missiles are highly complex systems with strong coupling between different
subsystems and processes and hence a high chance of accidents. There is no way
that their accidental or unauthorised use can be reliably prevented. There is,
besides the real possibility of a group of over zealous officers launching an
attack on the "enemy" on their own. Pakistan, for instance, has had a
series of army coup attempts by lslamic fanatics. lf they have access to
nuclear weapons, they could play havoc.
You just cannot take chances with nuclear weapons. They are
too destructive to be left with even an infinitesimally low chance of use. That
is why they must never be made, leave alone deployed, especially in this subcontinent
where the two governments are working up bestial reponses to one another and
indulging in open warmongering.
All of us citizens who do not wish to be roasted to death and
turned into radioactive dust must act to prevent nuclear wapons from being made
or deployed. This is too important a task to be entrusted to governments, least
of all governments led by recklessly irresponsible fanatics and bigots. We must
act by building a citizens' movement that mounts pressure on our government to
stop in its tracks and get them to retrace steps.
They must commit themselves never to test again, and drop all
plans to make nuclear weapons, leave alone think of using them or threatening
to use them under any circumstances. We must act now. Or it could soon be too
late.
