It is indeed a privilege for me to be invited to deliver the Sir C. Sankaran Nair memorial lecture this year. We no longer produce in Kerala the calibre of people who can match the integrity, erudition, character and vision of a Sir C. Sankaran Nayar. We have become a generation that puts too high value on undelayed gratification of our desires and instincts. We want to "enjoy" life in a way which is more animal than human. We no longer share in any great common suffering of our community. Nor do we have many persons today in our midst who strive sacrificially for the welfare and liberation of the whole people, as some had to do in the days of the anti-imperialist freedom struggle of the first half of our century. Today we focus more on maximizing the share we can get out of the common kitty, than on how heroically we can contribute to the fulfillment and freedom of all people. Let me pay tribute at this juncture not only to Sir C. Sankaran Nair, who lived in order that he may serve, but also to two other members of that lineage - my very dear friend the late K.P.S. Menon and the dynamic daughter of the family, Mrs Anujee Menon who is, by the grace of God, still present in our midst in full vigour and active good health.
As a child I had heard of Chettur Sankaran Nair not only as a heroic figure in opposing British Imperialism and its ways, but also as a middle class critic of Mahatma Gandhi's ways of opposing that imperialism. Sankaran Nair was a constitutionalist to the hilt. He wanted British rule to go, but by strictly constitutional and not agitational methods. And that is one of the issues that I want to raise in this paper.
There is a new peril -- a composite global peril much more capable of devastation than British Imperialism. In the face of this new peril, do we as the world's people resort to strictly legal and constitutional methods, or do we have to take to the agitational road ?
I hope an understanding of the nature of the peril will itself provide the answer to the question about the path we have to follow in removing that peril hanging above the human race.
The recognition of British Imperialism as a peril united Sir C. Sankaran Nair and Mahatma Gandhi in a common effort to remove the British yoke. Will the
recognition of the new imperialism that frightens the world and holds it prisoner, unite all of us in humanity to a common struggle against it? That is the question.
I said the peril that faces humanity today is a composite one. It has many elements in it, but I shall refer only to four of these:
- The Space and Nuclear Threat;
- Poverty and The Captivity of Science and Technology;
- The nature of the Military - Industrial - Financial - Communication Complex
- The cultural-educational imperialism that saps our vitality.
These are four aspects of a single peril which I submit is a spur from God, from history if you prefer, goading us on to find a new way of making it possible for all human beings to live together as a single humanity on this planet, in dignity and freedom.
I. The Nuclear and Space War Peril
Some years ago to talk about peace was itself regarded as Russian or communist propaganda. Today intelligent and informed people know that t is no propaganda at all. Even our late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and our present prime minister Rajiv Gandhi have given the avoidance of nuclear war top place in the Non-Aligned Movement agenda. Till yesterday it was possible for the peoples of the world to wish away the problem of nuclear war as a western problem, as a European concern. And in the back of the minds of many in our lands lurked the wicked thought: "those bloody westerners, they have had it so good for so long, let them destroy themselves".
Today we cannot afford that lurury. A nuclear war anywhere in the world would be our problem, the concern of the human race as a whole, for all human and other life would be endangered by even a limited nuclear war anywhere on our planet.
The publication of two scientific papers at the and of 1983 in Science magazine raised the issue of the Nuclear Winter. The first was a short paper --hardly ten printed pages with the notes, entitled "Nuclear Winter : Global consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions" ( Science, Vol 222:No. 4630, 23rd December 1983, pp 1283-1292). This paper came to be known as the T- TAPS paper, taking the first letters of the names of its five authors - Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack and Sagan. Except the last, Earl Sagan, the others are fairly unknown quiet research scientists working with NASA or private research centres like R & D Associates in California. But their little paper has now made history. The second paper, in the same science magazine (pp 1293-1396), is entitled "Long-Term Biological consequences of Nuclear War" produced by a team of international scientists - twenty of them- meeting at Cambridge, Massachussetts, U.S.A.
The points of these papers have been more elaborately worked out and the papers themselves included in a book by Paul Ehrlich, Carl Sagan et. al. The Cold and the Dark-- the world after th enuclear war (WW.Norton. N.Y., London, 1984)
The main point is this. Even a limited nuclear war, using only 1% of our present nuclear arsenals, over a heavily populated and built up urban area, can cause the destruction of the very possibility of human existence on our planet. A major nuclear war, with say one-third of our present arsenals, according to the scientists, "will produce, among its deny plausible effects, the greatest biological and physical disruptions of this planet in its last 65 million years - a period 190 times the life-span of our species so far". (The Cold and the Dark p 160)
The scientific study was based on computer models previously developed to measure the effects of volcanic eruptions. A major effect, apart from the immediate destruction caused by a nuclear attack is in temperature drops caused by the soot and dust clouds above our planet. The clouds may be as high as 39 km above, will spread all over the globe, and will remain for several weeks or months, shutting out all light causing a long night in which photosynthesis by leaves cannot take place.
The fire damage itself is incredible. There are five stages:
1. The flash of bomb light burns out all flammable materials over a large area, depending on the size of the warhead.
2. The blast from the explosion smashes buildings and ignites secondary fires;
3. As the fire-ball from the explosion rises, huge, fierce, convective winds over the burning area, blowing the other fires and spreading them
4. In urban areas, the individual fires merge to form a fire-storm, strong winds, blazing fires, clouds of Smoke rising, probably also some thick black rain;
5. A burnt out city covered by a pail of acrid, radio-active, smoke cloud.
According to both US and USSR scientists, about 49 days after the soot and dust cloud rises, the temperature in the northern hemisphere would drop by 20 degrees centigrade. In Ottapalam if the December temperature is 25° it will become 5°. How many will die in that cold? In cooler climates like Delhi, if December temperature is 10° above 0, it will become l0° below. Millions will die of the cold.
Even 8 months after the blast in Europe, Ottapalam temperatures would be 10° below normal.
In the western part of the USA, the temperature drop 40 days after the explosion could be as high as 30° centigrade, in the Eastern U.S. even 40° centigrade, over Europe as much as 50°. In the Soviet Union the drop could be more than 30° below normal. Meanwhile above the clouds, in the Himalayas, the Alps and the Rockies, the intense heat would melt the ice and floods would follow. The floods could drown the whole of India or the whole of Europe or U.5.A. The winds and storms caused by temperature changes and floods would be unpredictably destructive. Toxic gases and epidemics will also spread. The gene pool of all life would be seriously endangered."
Following the conference in the U.S.A. On "The World After Nuclear War“ - reported in detail in The Cold and the Dark", there was a TV conference between Soviet and American scientists.
It is the report on this TV conference that most impressed me. There was total, complete, agreement between Soviet and American scientists. Dr. Thomas F. Malone, who moderated the US Soviet scientific discussion across the Atlantic said,
"It seems to me that this conference and this exchange of views may well turn out in years ahead to be viewed - correctly — as the turning point in the affairs of mankind"
The conclusion from the scientific study on nuclear winter is crystal clear -- nuclear weapons have no right to exist, if life is to exist on this planet. Humanity will be safe on this planet only if nuclear weapons are totally and completely eliminated. There must be an international ban on the developing, testing, manufacturing stockpiling, deploying and using of nuclear weapons.
The logical next steps are also crystal clear. The most immediate next steps are
(a) total and immediate closing down of all manufacturing establishments for nuclear weapons and their delivery.systems. This can be called freeze, moratorium or better "Nuclear Close Down ". 'This should happen in U.S.A., U.S.S.R., Britain, Prance,China
and in all other countries where such facilities exist.(b) a comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that forbids nuclear tests in air, water, underground, or space.
(C) a total ban on all nuclear weapons research and development, and the closing down of all projects related to development or improvement of nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
(d) an immediate negotiated treaty for the dismantling and disposal of all existing arsenals of nuclear weapons and delivery systems in a joint international project.
(e) an immediate crash programme for the conversion of the nuclear research and production system to peaceful uses, retraining and reemployment of all workers in nuclear or related establishments in peaceful production-- particularly related to the problems of poverty ill-health and ignorance in the world.
II. The Star Wars
The above are the logical steps. But the way we are proceeding now is in the opposite direction most illogical. The two leading nuclear powers are adding to their arsenals, and improving the quality of their warheads and delivery systems. There is an average increase of at least three new nuclear warheads every day. All are involved in making the delivery systems more precise, reducing the C.E.P. or circular error probability.
Why? The ostensible reason is the strategic Defence Initiative of the U.S. Administration. This strategy claims to be for defense, and to be meant to make nuclear weapons obsolete.
In fact, however, the S.D.I or Star Wars scenario is a scheme to use nuclear weapons for a decapitating first strike. If there are no nuclear weapons, S.D.I. would have absolutely no purpose whatsoever. And if we can build an "absolutely safe“ space shield, the enemy's nuclear weapons also would be of no use. But the U.S. administration, while building the "space shield" also goes on increasing the number of warheads with which to destroy the enemy. There are plans to build 20 giant OHIO missile submarines, four of which have already been commissioned. MX Intercontinental Missiles are being developed for use in 1986. Trident-2 missiles are scheduled for commissioning in 1989. The B-1 B heavy bomber is already ready.
There is no reason to believe that the Soviet Union is sitting idle in the face of these developments. We have very little information about soviet preparations. But we know some things:
A) A space-based anti-ballistic missile system is most vulnerable. It is a sitting duck. It costs only 0.1% of the cost of an ABM in space, to shoot it down or de-capacitate it.
b) Laser beams making a hole in a warhead or its rocket is the main point of S.D.I. The technology for covering warheads and delivery rockets with laser-deflecting coating is already making progress.
(c) A space shield is totally useless against low flying cruise missiles, bombers and submarine launchers which can all deliver de-capacitating nuclear knock-outs.
Even if the space-shield overcomes all technical problems now known, its efficiency cannot exceed 95% according to all scientific estimates. The remaining 5% of a 5000 Warhead attack will let 250 warheads through more than enough to destroy a nation.
These are facts well known to the US administration. Then why do they go on with such an expensive programme which does not give them real security? There are two possible scenarios.
The first is that the S.D.I. is part of a "decapitating first strike" strategy. Once the space-based ABMs are in orbit, there will be a massive U.S. Attack on the Soviet Silos and war-heads, as well as on the command centres of the USSR, so that the retaliatory strike will he small, and most of that can be stopped by the space shield. Even if 20 or 30 warheads hit the US breaking through the shield, and cause the death of a few million Americans, this will be an "acceptable" price to pay for permanently destroying the USSR.
The second scenario in the minds of the US administration strategists is even more sinister. When the US prepares for a first strike, the USSR will not sit idle. It will have to start preparing its own space-based defense, and increase its arsenal. At the present state of the socialist economies, they cannot bear the cost of this without affecting the present growth in standards of living in socialist countries, which is growing much faster than in the capitalist countries. The economic strain of higher military expenditure will be felt by the socialist consumer, and he/she will rise up in revolt against the socialist regimes. This is the fond hope of some of President Reagan's advisers.
Look at what will happen if we go in for a Nuclear Close Down and disarmament. Immediately a very large number of corporations in the world will collapse, since they are now supported by the defence budgets. In fact the whole capitalistic system based on credits and loans may itself collapse. On the other hand, since military production is in the hands of the socialist governments in socialist countries (and not in the hands of private contractors and sub-contractors), they can re-organize production completely and find employment for all now engaged in war production. Disarmament will mean a shooting up of the standard of living in socialist countries, and many of them will out strip western market economy countries in standard of living. This will be too much of a triumph for socialism. This is what the U.S. administration and its allies want at present. And therefore a Nuclear Close Down is something they must avoid, by accelerating the arms race and making the socialist countries spend more.
The risk in all this is that a little miscalculation, a little computer error, a little spark of foolishness on the part of decision makers on the US side or the U.S.S.R. side, can send all life on our planet into holocaust and oblivion.
III. The Economic Beneficiaries
But who benefits from all this? Certainly not President Reagan, who only develops polyps in the colon and lumps on the nose. what does the face of the culprit behind all this look like? It is a face difficult to draw. But we will sketch a cartoon of that
face by calling it the Military-Industrial-Finance_Information complex or MIFDC for short. The MIFIC is the power behind the arms race and the war hysteria, and the main obstacle to solving the problems of poverty and injustice within and among nations.
The Market Economy world sustains a very precarious balance, if it has any. Since 1979 the capitalist world has been in one of its worst crises. The system has outlived many crisis in the past. Many prophecies about the imminent collapse of the system have proved false.
The most dramatic symbol of that crisis is the enormous debt burden of the poor countries and rich countries alike. The debt burden of the poor has been much publicized in recent times. But the public debt of countries like the U.S.A. is equally staggering. And by keeping interest rates very high and keeping dollar values inflated the U.S. has been drawing money from other countries into its economy, and imposing a very cruel burden on those to whom it has lent money.
Look at Latin America for example. The foreign debt burden, and the percentage of export earnings needed for debt service payments goes like this:
The total debt of the six Latin American countries is $290 billion. If you take the other L.A. Countries also into account it is $400 billion. They have to pay out about $80 billion each year for debt surviving. This burden falls on 130 million people in L.A. i.e. a debt of more than $3000 per person. It is impossible for them to pay this debt. The debt is the result of Shylockian exploitation -- through unequal trade terms, through the plundering activities of TNC's and the machinations of international finance.
The debt is unpayable. Fidel Castro of Cuba recently gave a brilliant mathematical demonstration of this fact. Even the best terms offered by the creditors will not help. Take four sets of terms.
1. A ten year grace period for repayment during which period only interest will be paid. After ten years, the debt is to amortized in ten equal annual installments, the rate of interest to be paid being about 10%.
In this case, Latin America will pay $400 billion in the first ten years to the creditor countries, (to the MIFIC) and an additional 600 billion in the next ten years -
provided they don't take any new loans from now. So in 20 years 1000 billion dollars will go out from L.A. to the MIFIC. This is impossible.
2. Another possibility is that Latin American debtor countries are asked to pay only 20% of the value of their total exports each year for 20 years, which will go towards amortisation and interest payment. Present L.A. exports are $100 billion, or a little less. So the annual payments will be only $20 billion. Supposing the Latin American nations can manage to pay that much, what is the situation at the end of 20 years? $400 billion has been paid out, and the calculation shows that the debt that remains to be paid will be $1,161.85 billion in place of the present $400 billion! It does not work either.
3. Supposing they say, for ten years you pay nothing, neither capital payments nor interest. Then in the next ten years you clear the capital and the interest accrued. This works for the first ten years. But in the next ten years 1447 billion will have to be paid. This is impossible.
4.The kindest of the formulas would be a reduction of the rate of interest to about 6% and an additional ten years to repay. Still Latin America would have to shell out $ 857.47 billion.
The question has been seriously raised if the MIFIC can survive if it writes off the whole debt. Some think the whole system will collapse. Others disagree. There are proposals that the western Bankers can float bonds that will take care of the loan amounts. I am not competent to judge the feasibility and utility of this proposal.
Of one thing I am, however, sure. The money supposedly owed by the 100 or more nations of the Two-third world is but a fraction of the amount of wealth that has been taken out of these countries by the colonial and neocolonial nations in the last 100 years.
This debt has therefore to be adjusted -- most of it written off. But along with the writing off of the debt, unless the trade terms are made more equitable and the international finance system brought under genuine international control, Two-third world countries will continue to accumulate unpayable debts again. That is the way the present Market Economy world order is set up -- to facilitate the flow of Two-third world countries wealth into a few rich countries.
That is why we have to consider the extent to which the arms manufacture and trade as well as the arms race fulfill also the function of upholding and defending this unjust economic order.
6% of the world's Gross Domestic Product is today used for defence or military expenditure. But in working out a new and more just economic order, we have to worry about more than just the 6% that is now spent for arms. We need to worry about how the remaining 94% of the production of the Market Economy world exercises power over the Two-third world countries. The MIFIC has now set up its own agencies in all Two-third world countries, including China, and is seeking to keep this empire intact through the Arms Race, which is needed to keep the arms market expanding and to finance the political systems that favour the MIFIC. They control industrial technology, international finance, and the information media. The military spending is the key to the keeping of the MIFIC in power.
I wish to submit therefore that we will not get very far with disarmament so long as this MIFIC has its power. Unless we direct our opposition directly on the MIFIC itself, the movements for peace cannot ultimately succeed.
The need of the hour is a strategy to expose the ways of operation of this MIFIC, in order that the moral conscience of the general public would be aroused.
IV. The Culture of Violence
The militaristic exploitative culture that has grown up in the last forty years is an extremely violent and heartless one. One symptom of that violence is the number of small wars since 1945.
Can you believe that since the Second World War ended in 1945, during the 37 years till 1982, 20 million people have been killed in something like 150 "small" wars in various parts of the Two-third world? The world war military casualties were 17 million mostly in Europe.
World military expenditures shot up from about $400 billion in 1968 to $800 billion in 1983, and is now approaching 1000 billion. 70% of that was spent by the six major military powers, but the military expenditure in the Two-third world has also shot up to produce repressive military regimes galore in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Half of Africa's 52 nations are governed by military-dominated regimes.
International arms trade went up from $10 billion in 1968 to more than $35 billion today. The Soviet Union has also exported weapons -- to countries like India, and to many socialist countries. In 1983 Soviet arms export to non-socialist countries in the Two-third world was 50% of their total export to these countries. However, in relation to the total world Arms trade, the Soviet Union's share has been declining. France, Britain, Germany and Spain are moving up fast to make maximum profit out of the arms market. The U.S.A. is still the leading exporter of arms accounting for 40% of the total U.S.S.R. share in 1984 was 32%.
The stockpile of chemical weapons is fast increasing. There is no law against the manufacture and stockpiling of chemical weapons, but only against their use. Even this law is now known to be violated by Iraq in the war against Iran, but there has been as yet no U.N.condemnation of this violation. Besides USA and USSR, also France, Iraq and according to the C.I.A., a dozen other countries have now chemical weapons. The U.S. congress has not yet approved funding for chemical weapons.
In 1984, we had 52 nuclear explosions by way of weapons tests -- most by the U.S.A. and the USSR. In 1984 we had also two advances in the military use of outer space. The U.S.A. tested its F- 15 aircraft with the anti-satellite missile and warhead; it also successfully tested a BMD interceptor for tracking and shooting down missiles and warheads above the atmosphere, using non-nuclear kinetic-energy weapons.
We have a culture in which, for every 100,000 of the world population we have 556 soldiers trained to kill, and only 85 doctors trained to heal. For every soldier the world spends an average of $20,000 a year, while for every child in school we spend only $380 (world average). And in a country, like India, the military expenditure keeps going up, while the poverty of the millions remains unabated or grows.
People feel powerless, frustrated and desperate about such oppressive military violence in the world. Some give expression to counter-violence of the terrorist kind, such as we see on the part of the Lebanese and the Sikh extremists.
There is another kind of violence which has not been adequately studied on a world scale. Amnesty International has done some work on Human Rights violations by governments. I have just recently visited El Salvador, which is today probably the worst case.
In El Salvador, the country where Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot dead while celebrating Holy Mass at his cathedral, with the undoubted support of the army, more than 50,000 human beings (civilians) have been assassinated in the last six years, by death squads of the El Salvador army. 6000 people have disappeared, without any trace of where their dead bodies have been disposed.
I spoke personally to one of the mothers of the disappeared. Let me recount to you what she said to me:
" My name is Maria Martinez. My eldest son, Luis, 26 years old, was the mainstay of our family. On a Wednesday in March, at 1.00 in the morning, soldiers in civilian clothes came and took my boy. I tried to stop them. I am a poor and physically weak woman. I work during the day washing floors to support my family. I asked the soldiers:'Why are you taking away my boy.' The response of the soldiers was to beat me on my face, on my back, everywhere on my frail body. I persisted with my questions.
"They took me out of the house, took me to a mango tree in our yard, and began beating me. This time they used rifle butts on my body. I fell down, exhausted and broken. By the time I was able to get up, they were gone with my son., I tried to run after the jeep. They pointed their guns at me and told me to stop. I recognized the Cherokee jeep of the army, and went back into the house.
"Luis, my son, was married a year ago, and his young wife and six-day-old baby were living with me. I took care of the baby. But I had to go and find my son. I looked for his body everywhere, in ravines and morgues, in coffee plantations and cemeteries. At that time there was a curfew at 7 p.m. The.Streets were full of police, army and national guard. At first I avoided Streets, and looked only in mountains and fields and ravines. For a whole month I searched.
"In the process I found many bodies -- many of them decapitated and disfigured -- faces, arms and legs chopped off. I saw a mass grave where a group of young girls in their early teens had been raped, killed and disposed off by the wayside .I saw many mass graves. Sometimes soldiers would try to stop me from seeing these, but I persisted. I had lost my fear. I saw bodies piled up in trucks, covered with cloth. I asked to see the bodies to look for my son. The soldiers would not let me. I saw that these bodies were being taken to El Playon, the secret cemetery on the beach. I looked there too, but to no effect."
At that point, my colleague Dr. Marga Buhrig asked her: "How do you get the courage to do all this and to continue protesting? Do you have no fears?"
Maria replied: "We are mothers. We, mothers of the disappeared, started organizing ourselves here. We walked in the mountains, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups, looking for our sons' bodies. We lost our fear in the process of digging up fresh graves, examining disintegrating dead bodies with our hands."
Another mother, much younger, joined in the conversation: "All of us wanted to find our children. So we organized ourselves as the "Comite de Madres de Presos y desaparecidos politicos". Monsignor Oscar Romero, our beloved Archbishop, who was killed by the military while at mass, supported us. He announced in church about our committee and invited other mothers of the disappeared to join us. He asked us mothers to unite working towards unconditional freeing of all political prisoners, and to work for justice also against the criminals who are doing all this. We occupied the headquarters of the International Red Cross. We marched into embassies, churches,and other institutions to tell them about our committee and our demands. "Then Government turned its persecution against us mothers. In 1982, one of the mothers in the Committee disappeared. Her thirteen year old daughter Anna Yamina was also taken. Another mother Elena Gonzales was killed by men whom we know".
She continued: "President Duarte says there is democracy in this country. A few weeks ago on June 12th, this office of the Committee was broken in and raided. They broke the roof to get in. They broke open our desks and took two cassette recorders and cassette tapes. They stole the S10,000 which had been given to us that day by a delegation visiting us. They took dossiers, photo albums, birth certificates and many other documents. These invaders were national guard in civilian clothes. The National Guard, armed and in uniform stood guard while all this was going on. Many people saw them.
“So many of us have been suffering torture and oppression for so long. We fight. We fight not just for our loved ones, but for our whole people of El Salvador. 50,000 people have been assassinated. 6,000 have been detained or disappeared. We mothers put our suffering together and made it a moral force to denounce the suffering of other people and to put an end to human rights violations. They killed our founder-president Marianella Garcia-Villos, a great lawyer and a great human being. They killed our Patron and Supporter Monseigneur Oscar Romero. They have assassinated three others of our mothers. Three of our workers have disappeared. They placed explosives in our old office and blew it up. Many of us receive threatening phone calls. But we are not demoralized. We shall go on, until our people can live in peace, justice and freedom!
In El Salvador, even today, the army goes and bombs its own villages, because the village people are alleged to support the Salvadorian guerrillas who fight against the army's atrocities. The Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador has trained tens of thousands of catechetical workers to spread literacy in these villages. 4000 of these lay workers of the Church were assassinated by the army between 1977 and 1982, according to what the Archbishop's office told us. The present Archbishop, the successor of Mgr Oscar Romero, Monseigneur Rivera Y Damas has also been threatened with death by the death squads. When I was in San Salvador, there was a full-page advertisement in the local newspaper, taken out by nine university professors who had received notices from the death squads that they were going to be assassinated.
As the villages are bombed and raided by the military, many flee from the villages to the city of El Salvador -- most of them widows and orphans. In the city the churches have been running refugios, temporary shelters where such refugees can find food who had thus fled. One such widow, with six children, the youngest a six weeks old baby in her hand, told me her story. The soldiers took her husband, because they thought he was a guerrilla supporter. In the presence of the wife and children they tortured him, took out his eyes, cut his face and mouth in several places to disfigure him, and then finally slit his
throat with a sharp knife.
Who supports this army? Why are they so powerful? They have three sources of support. More than 60% of El Salvador's poor people are openly opposed to the army and the government of Mr.Duarte put there by the U.S. government. The army, in public, is not supported even by the government. But the government cannot control the army. The army's support, as I said, comes from three sources -- the oligarchy, the Trans-National Corporations, and the U.S. Administration. 116 families (about a thousand people) concentrate in their hands 67% of the total domestic product of the country, and support the army, though not fully. 52 gigantic business enterprises, in which the TNC's are the dominant element, and which are controlled by the TNC-oligarchy alliance, account for 80% of the total industrial and agricultural production in the country. Since January 1981 till January 1985, the U.S. administration has pumped at least $2000 million dollars into this system. Even now the US spends 1.5 million dollars a day to support this system. And the western media co-operate in not giving much publicity to these inhuman acts. This is what the MIFIC does in many countries in Central America, in Chilies, and elsewhere.
Can you not understand why there is counter-violence in this world ? Why people, in their frustration and desperation, turn suicidally to violence as a solution to the problem of oppressive force in the world? This cult of violence is spreading in our country. The story of the violence perpetrated against Harijans by Bihar- U.P. landlords and traders has yet to be told by our media. There are so many stories of police violence in our own country. we saw in Delhi the mindless violence of our leading political party during the sequel to the brutal assassination of our beloved Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. We see new upsurges of violence in dowry deaths and rapes.
The human sub-conscious is aware that justice is at a premium in all lands, and the poor cannot have access to justice. It is this that promotes the culture of violence, assassinations, torture and terrorism. The nuclear-space peril has a major role in fomenting this culture of violence.
But if humanity can unite today against this culture of violence, that is the positive side of the opportunity before us. Sir C. Sankaran Nayar and others were inspired to sacrifice their career and wealth to fight the injustice of British Imperialism. Sir.C. thought, not in terms of his personal interests, or those of his village and region. He stood up for the people India.
we need today something bigger than just nationalism and the national freedom movement led by Gandhi, Nehru and others. we need an international freedom movement, in which the peoples of the world unite to overthrow the power of the MIFIC, and to lay the foundations of a New International warless, Just, Political, Economic and Information Order, where all human beings can live together in peace and security, with justice and dignity, and without violence and exploitation.
Can the peril that faces us, in the unyielding arms race, in the cult of militarism and violence, in Nuclear Winter and Star Wars, in oppressive injustice and exploitation, unite the human race to a new international and global consciousness with commitment to justice, peace and human dignity? That is the call of the hour. That is also the challenge I wish humbly to leave with you. Thank you for hearing me out. God bless you all, and also our human race.