Anti-Nuclear Activists in India Warn of Ignorance

NEW DELHI -- Unlike their Western counterparts, India's antinuclear activists are a lonely bunch.

But talk of a potential nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan has suddenly raised their profile with a recent cover story in the country's leading news magazine, India Today, showing people fleeing a giant mushroom cloud and a headline, "What If?"

Still, India's antinuclear movement says there is huge ignorance about the devastating consequences of a nuclear war in a country where hundreds of millions of people have to devote their energy to eking out a subsistence living.

"People in India are preoccupied with everyday problems and don't know what nuclear weapons are - they don't even know the fact that even a 'limited' nuclear war can kill millions," said Achin Vanaik, an executive member of the Coalition for Nuclear Peace and Disarmament.

In India, antinuclear activists are often accused of being unpatriotic because the country's membership in the nuclear club is seen by many as affirmation of its big power status, Vanaik said in an interview.

The antinuclear coalition, which bands together doctors, scientists, academics, social activists and writers, and runs on a shoestring out of members' homes, was founded two years after India held nuclear tests in 1998.