Nuclear Nobel

Sir — The award of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has come not only as a shot in the arm for anti-nuke campaigners but also as a clarion call to lose no further time for nuclear disarmament, a goal that has eluded the world for decades. 

The end of the Cold War was not followed up with an end to flirtation with nuclear weapons. The world’s nuclear-armed powers (India has the dubious honour of being one among them) have more nuclear weapons than needed to annihilate the human race in the blink of an eye. In the event of a nuclear war, no one will be alive to perpetuate the species and populate the earth. Nuclear weapons that can be detonated at the touch of a button, keep us in a state of preparedness to commit mass suicide.

There is no way to escape an apocalypse but to banish the nuclear weapons from the face of the earth. Countries nuclear-armed to the teeth, like the US and Russia, cannot hide or deny nuclear disparity. In fact, they are bereft of moral authority to prevent other countries from going ahead with nuclear programmes. They must lead by example and deactivate or destroy the nuclear arsenal in a phased but in a time-bound manner. Making the world free from nuclear weapons would be a wise thing to do to secure our continued existence on the planet evolved to support life.