What nuclear war can do?

Seventy-four years back on August 6, 1945, A US Air Force B-29, dropped an atomic bomb nicknamed, Little Boy, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people. Three days later, another bomb dropped at Nagasaki killed some 40,000 to 80,000 people. Out of some 183,519 survivors, few visited both Pakistan and India, when they became a nuclear state, just to warn them, “What devastation such a war could cause”.

I still remember two of them who visited Karachi Press Club (KPC) to tell the most horrifying stories of the day of death, when bomb was dropped.

"Please, don't even think of nuclear war, what to talk of such a war,” said one of survivors of Hiroshima bombing during her visit to the Karachi Press Club, along with two others, few years back.

“Who knows better than us what it means. Its impact is too devastating for generations to come. It can kill millions,” she said.

"I still remember what happened on August 6, 1945. I was a kid and reached the school a little early. At 8:15am, I just heard a loud sound and within minutes everything was levelled," she said.

“There was nothing except for bodies. Can't even explain it in words, and I didn't know how I survive.

“When some of us heard that India and Pakistan have become nuclear states, we decided to visit them to warn them, alert them of the consequences of even thinking of such a war,” she added.

Pakistan and India had fought three conventional wars and one mini-conflict over Kargil.

India was first to join the nuclear race when, for the first time in 1974, only three years after 1971 war, it conducted a nuclear test amid criticism.

The then prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, while addressing a press conference, said: "I send ministers abroad after the blast with a plea to the world to give Pakistan security assurance and impose sanctions on India.

“India had started its nuclear programme in 1960. I had informed the Ayub cabinet that India would go nuclear. No one in the cabinet believed me, but years later it happened.”

Bhutto started the nuclear programme and faced US pressure. But, Pakistan waited till 1998, when India conducted five nuclear tests and within weeks, former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, declared that Pakistan had conducted six nuclear tests.

Thus, the two hostile neighbours are now nuclear states. With India, having an extremists party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power and its most hardline leader, Narendra Modi, contesting for the second tenure as PM, this year, many within India fear rise in tension.

Some independent observers believe that despite tension, both India and Pakistan know that the days of any conventional war was over as both had detonated nuclear devices and it’s no more a conventional fear.

Some Pakistani nuclear scientists believe that both know what nuclear war means: simply killing millions of people.

In the post-Pulwama suicide attack, which killed some 50 Indian soldiers, tension between the two countries is on the rise particularly in view of war hysteria, created by the Indian media and hardline BJP government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan rejected the Indian allegations of involvement but assured India of all kinds of cooperation and action in case it provides any evidence, which Indian had not yet provided.

Imran also warned India that in case of any misadventure, Pakistan will not even think to retaliate but will retaliate."

Two days back, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA from Hindu minority, Ramesh Kumar, returned from New Delhi and was quite optimistic about his backdoor diplomacy after meeting Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and also claimed that he had delivered a message from PM Imran Khan to India Premier Modi.

While he was expecting a goodwill response from India, an Indian Air Force plane violated Line of Control (LoC) from Muzaffarbabad sector, but due to immediate response from PAF, the jet returned and in haste dropped payload.

US President Donald Trump was the first world leader, who reacted after the tension heightened and termed situation quite volatile. He, along with many world leaders, called for dialogue between the two countries and Pakistan welcomed any initiative to bring the two countries on the table.

"From day one, we are ready for talks on all outstanding issues and PM Imran Khan had even offered talks on terrorism,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said.

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors, who visited Pakistan and India after they conducted six and five nuclear tests in 1998, need to visit these two countries again to warn them that “what nuclear war means”.

"Please, don't even think of a war, what to talk of nuclear war,” their message was loud and clear.

The writer is a columnist and analyst of Geo, The News and Jang.

Twitter: @MazharAbbasGEO