Last Sunday, my question was: for what are we fighting? So far, I have not received a cogent or coherent reply. One chest-thumping correspondent maintained it was for honour and glory. Fine, if there be glory in death and annihilation.

On July 9, 1931, seventy-one years ago, Winston Spencer Churchill, MP, spoke on the subject of India in the House of Commons at Westminster, London. He said: "If the viceroys and governments of India in the past had given half as much attention to dealing with the social conditions of the masses of the Indian people as they have to busying themselves with negotiating with unrepresentative leaders of the political classes for constitutional changes - if they had addressed themselves to the moral and material problems which are at the root of Indian life, I think it would have been much better for the working folk of Burnely and Bombay, of Oldham and Ahmadabad."

Nothing has changed.

Three days ago, a suggestion was made in The Washington Post that one of the most useful things US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could do when he visited India and Pakistan would be to bring with him two copies of John Hersey's epic study of the results of a nuclear attack, his book 'Hiroshima', and hand Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf a copy each, ask them to read it, and ask them point blank: 'Is this what you really want?'

How many of us in the subcontinent have even heard of this book, let alone read it?

A year after the ending of World War II, in its issue of August 31, 1946, The New Yorker published a thirty-one thousand word article, displacing virtually all other editorial and advertising matter, which strikingly depicted what life was like for those who survived a nuclear attack. The article was simply titled 'Hiroshima'. It traced the experience of six residents who survived the blast of August 6, 1945, starting from when they awoke that morning, to what they were doing at the moment of the blast and during the next few hours, continuing through the next several days and then ending with the situations of the six survivors several months later.

Hersey's article created a blast of its own. The New Yorker sold out immediately, and requests for reprints poured in from all over the world. Albert Einstein, one of the principal actors in the nuclear drama, considered the article to be of such importance that he ordered a thousand copies of the magazine.

In September, 'Hiroshima' was swiftly brought to a larger audience by radio. ABC pre-empted its regular programming and broadcast the full text over a four and a half-hour long programme. Later that autumn, 'Hiroshima' was published as a book by Alfred A. Knopf. It has sold over three million copies, and has remained in print ever since. In 1949 it was published in Japan.

One of the Manhattan Project scientists wrote to a friend: "I wept as I read John Hersey's New Yorker account of what has happened during the past year to six who were lucky enough to survive Hiroshima. I am filled with shame to recall the whoopee spirit when we came back from lunch to find others who had returned with the first extras announcing the bombing of Hiroshima. That evening we had a hastily arranged champagne dinner, some forty of us ...... And at the same moment, the bomb's victims were living through indescribable horror (or rather, describable only in the simple, straightforward reportorial style used by Hersey). We didn't realize then. I wonder if we do yet."

Yet another book which Rumsfeld may consider presenting to Vajpayee and Musharraf (and reading it himself) is 'New Nukes', by Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik, published in May, 2000, a study of how India and Pakistan fell upon the acquisition of nuclear weapons. In a foreword, Arundhati Roy writes: "The nuclear bomb is the most anti-democratic, anti-national, anti-human, outright evil thing that man has ever made."

Bidwai and Vanaik have it that nuclearization has induced a mood of complacency in both countries as it is taken as allowing for more, rather than less, brinkmanship. For India's BJP, the bomb was a trophy, and it was a provocation for Pakistan to follow suit which would serve India as a future justification for their madness. Following the two tests, the glee, celebrations, gloating, dancing and prancing was sign enough that well over 90 per cent of both populations had no understanding of what a nuclear war would mean to them, and that probably those with some understanding were undermined by government propaganda.

What are the results, so far, of the possession of these weapons of mass destruction? Vajpayee vacillates, bellicose one day and restrained the next. Musharraf likewise. Both think they can manipulate the western envoys sent out by a nervous western world. Both have problems. But the biggest of all their problems - bigger than Kashmir, terrorism, failure, poverty, their mutual loathing - is the bomb itself.

The two journalist-authors also map out a new approach to nuclear abolition, how not only the two South Asian nuclearized countries but also the old nuclear powers of the western world can initiate serious efforts towards complete nuclear disarmament.

To return to Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy's film, 'Pakistan and India under the nuclear shadow', the good news is that a few of those who rule in Islamabad have awoken, and two organizations, some of whose men may be those whose itchy fingers will press the red button should their wisdom so dictate, have procured copies. Vajpayee and his BJP hawks would do well to also ask for copies so that they may realize who the men are who are likely to take over Pakistan should Musharraf be forced to depart. It is quite probable that they would then order a 'mahapuja' and implore their gods to grant Musharraf longevity of rule.

A few citizens of Karachi who have any consideration for the life of both Pakistanis and Indians, and who consider that life is a gift of God, have arranged for Hoodbhoy, an MIT trained physicist of Islamabad's Quaid-i-Azam University, to come to our city next weekend, show his film and answer questions put to him. The main organizers of this event, which will take place at 1100 hours on Saturday, June 15, at the Beach Luxury Hotel, are Hameed Maker of The Helpline Trust (telephone 5889643) and Dr Bazmi Inam, a Harvard trained community health doctor of the Ziauddin University (telephone 0300-8293109).

Hoodbhoy will tell the audience all about the effects of the bomb, how its victims will suffer and die, or suffer on and on, and Inam will tell them how helpless he and the members of his fraternity will be in the event of a nuclear blast, as they have no back-up, no available facilities to either treat or alleviate the suffering.

Last Friday, whilst driving past the Press Club of Karachi, I spotted a bunch of hirsute, fierce-looking (but friendly) individuals squatting on the footpath (which they had taken over), shouting slogans and bearing banners announcing that they were on a hunger strike. The police were present, as usual, lounging around. When I stopped to see what was happening, the 'quaid' of an unpronounceable party recognized me, and after yelling 'Cowasjee zindabad', asked me to join their protest.

What was their 'fast unto death' in aid of? They wanted to meet Vajpayee and tell him how unreasonable he was in refusing to talk to Musharraf. When I asked how long they had maintained their hunger strike, I was told that they had all had a hearty breakfast that morning, would break their fast at 1500 hours that afternoon, and I was invited to join them in their feast.

Pakistan Paindabad!