Editorial: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”
Reflections on the recent India-Pakistan military skirmishes and concerns of escalation towards nuclear war.
J. Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb” not only misquoted the original verse from the Bhagavad Gita (“I am Time, the great destroyer of worlds, and I have come to destroy all people.” –Chapter 11, Verse 32.), but more importantly, he turned its deep divine meaning on its head in giving voice to his apprehension for having created one of the most destructive forces known to mankind.
While Oppenheimer’s use of the Gita verse was questionable, the underlying intent was dead-on. Who better than the creator of what has evolved into the modern nuclear bomb to voice the fear of its horrific power to create hell on earth?
Scientists tell us that the initial fireball of a thermonuclear bomb can exceed 300 million degrees Celsius—ten times hotter than the center of the Sun. Those at the epicenter of such a bomb might be the fortunate ones—vaporizing into nothingness in no time at all. It is those at the periphery who may experience unimaginable suffering—scorching pain from a torturous vaporizing of skin, flesh, and bones that would make boiling oil seem tame—if such intensities are even imaginable.
The dust cloud created from such an explosion would rise to the stratosphere, spread across the Earth, and ruin crops for years to come. The global economy would take a deep dive into depression. The radioactive contamination left behind would result in babies born with deformities and brain damage. Cancer and cardiovascular diseases would surge among the masses. Experts have said that the aftermath of a nuclear bomb would be so hellish that “the living would envy the dead.”
Some might say, “Chill, man, what’s with the gloom and doom? Haven’t you heard about Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)? According to this doctrine, precisely because the horrors of a nuclear war are so horrific, it would never happen. The argument goes that if two adversaries possess sufficient nuclear capabilities, neither would initiate an attack on the other due to the certainty of mutual annihilation.
But what if Murphy’s Law trounces MAD? After all, MAD seems to be placing a bit too much faith in the rationality of the human race—the same race that, to this day, after thousands of years of civilization, has yet to see an extended period that has been war-free, and which, in a not-too-distant past, rounded up over six millioncivilians like cattle and gassed them to death, simply based on an idea of racial supremacy.
A cacophony of warmongering
In the aftermath of the Pahalgam terrorist attack , a large section of India’s right-wing media almost immediately went on a reckless rampage of warmongering. Bloodthirsty cries for vengeance were aired, even as details were yet unfolding. This was soon matched with viral social media posts and memes such as “Ab tera kya hoga, Pakistan? #Sholay”, making light of a serious situation.
And then there were those who treated the first visuals of military strikes on their screens as some kind of spectator sport, with flippant posts like, “26 for 26. Blood for Sindoor!”—referring to the casualty count that Pakistan reported from the nine sites targeted by India and comparing it to the 26 killed in Pahalgam. These instigators of war were buzzing with excitement as if about a new “shoot ‘em down” video game that had just hit the market.
I wonder if these shouting heads on TV and the army of WhatsApp warriors, making light of war and whipping up a frenzy for it, would be just as enthusiastic if there was a definite threat of bombs raining on their own rooftops. It is easy to sound like a tough patriot when the bombs that are dropping are “out there”—a safe distance from you. Meanwhile, fear grips the areas where missiles are dropping and fighter planes are flying overhead, whether in Kashmir or in Pakistan.
These social media memes and the toxic bravado of sensational newsrooms were indicative of juvenile machismo more than true courage and strength that a nation needs when attacked.
So high-pitched was the fervor for war that, in a wave of online abuse, Vikram Misri, the Foreign Secretary, was called “antinational,” “traitor,” and worse, simply for announcing the ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Even his daughter wasn’t spared by mobs of online trolls—never mind that the truce wasn’t Misri’s personal choice; he was simply doing his job. That is precisely the danger of a bandwagon of pseudo-nationalism: the lust for war.
Escalation between two nuclear-armed nations …
… rarely happens in a single moment, or as a single action, or by the exclusive decision of a single leader, no matter how powerful. Often, the penultimate moment of launching an airstrike, or any number of turning points in a war-like environment, is a culmination of many moments and many forces, each building upon another.
In a democracy, it is impossible to underestimate the immense pressure on the leader to appear tough and deliver action—wise or not—when the public outcry reaches a fever pitch—especially when that leader is one prone to boasting about his "56-inch chest” and weaponizing hyper-nationalism and communalism.
We would do well not to rule out the plausibility of nuclear-warfare when you consider that on the India side, we saw a rampage of warmongering from a runaway, reckless right-wing media apparatus, as well as an army of WhatsApp warriors, together, behaving like barbarians braying for war—and on the Pakistan side, we have a highly destabilized, failed military state whose rulers derive their very justification from anti-India bravado…and are answerable to no one.
Far from the assurance of MAD, the situation in India and Pakistan seems ripe for the plausibility of nuclear escalation.
Room for reason is needed—and patroitic
One might ask: “Okay, wise guy, what are you saying, then? Does India not have the right to defend itself? Are you saying it was wrong to initiate a military attack on Pakistan?”
No, I’m not saying that categorically. I do not have the thousands of bits of information needed, much of which is top secret, to make such assessments. All I’m saying is that drumming up a national fervor of hyperventilation, which makes it unpatriotic or wimpy to do anything other than lash out blindly, is a prescription for mutually assured destruction.
Patriotism turns into toxic nationalism when asking valid questions of the administration, let alone—God forbid—expressing dissent of any kind, is seen as weak or antinational. Lost in this fog are questions and thoughts that we ought to allow in our common spaces instead of quashing them:
- It is true that Pakistan is a proven and self-admitted sponsor of terrorism, specifically in Kashmir and against India. Yet, jurisprudence—if we want to live in a civilized world—dictates that each incident/case can only be fought on its own merits. Breaching Pakistan’s territorial integrity with military strikes, without having apprehended the terrorists and proving Pakistan’s hand behind it, simply on the tenuous grounds of historical track record, weakens India’s credibility in a world where, increasingly, soft power, more than military might, is the way forward.
- The very idea of war between nations, as a strategy to fight terrorism, has limited effectiveness. Terrorist organizations are often fluid and operate in silos that are not always in control of nation-states. That is far more true of Pakistan, evident in the fact that it has become the biggest victim of home-grown terrorism in the world in recent decades.
- Why, despite Modi’s prolific (some would say, excessive) foreign trips made allegedly to strengthen international relations, why despite External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s assertive diplomacy, and why despite self-proclamations of India becoming “Vishwaguru,” did no single country in the world come to the support of India in this latest Indo-Pak rivalry? In contrast, Turkey and Azerbaijan came strongly in favor of Pakistan. And of course, China is the wind beneath Pakistan’s military wings.
- What exactly did India achieve with its military aggression? Looking at it from a neutral and objective lens, rather than a defensive spin, it appears there was more loss than gain:
- Considering the massive advantage of size and budget of the Indian military compared to Pakistan, it should have been able to walk all over the latter’s military defenses. That did not happen. Turns out Pakistan’s China-supplied tech and tools of war made the playing field more level than expected.
- The timing of the ceasefire between India and Pakistan—right after Trump’s mediation phone calls, along with his stealing the thunder by announcing it before either country did, and taking credit for it—suddenly reversed decades of gain India had made in two areas: (1) Shedding its geopolitical hyphenation with Pakistan and, (2) Its insistence that Kashmir is a bilateral issue on which it would not entertain global interference. Through his repeated boasts of taking credit for the ceasefire and suggesting that the countries had agreed to meet at a neutral venue to discuss Kashmir, Trump has, for now, decimated India’s upper hand in both these areas.
- Meanwhile, the Pahalgam terrorists are still at large, and, under the pretext of “war,” the already authoritarian Modi government further muzzled free speech by shutting down individuals and media organizations that dared to question the government.
None of the above rational analysis is possible in an environment of partisan politics, Modi worship, and war frenzy. Instead, what comes out of such is a slow but steady inching towards the escalation of warfare between nations.
It is precisely why I have wondered in recent days if those media loudmouths, greedy for TRPs, or those social media armchair warriors wanting to appear tough and patriotic, ever pause to consider the gravity of their actions. Taken in isolation, these little acts of battle bombast may seem harmless, but repeated by millions, the collective national mood turns into a testosterone-driven ratcheting up of tensions, which leaves little room for reason and sound strategy. Does it ever occur to these warmongers that, with their thoughtless memes and war cries, they are playing their small part towards becoming “destroyers of worlds”?
Parthiv N. Parekh is the editor-in-chief of Khabar. We welcome your comments at editor@khabar.com.
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