It is clearly not the exaggerated fears of laymen that have induced the current wave of protests against test explosions. The opinion rather of the veterans of science is the basis of the world's opposition.

It is often alleged that laymen exaggerate the terrible consequences. On the other hand, the truth is that the dangers are often played down by specialists engaged by the Powers. There is no such thing as a tolerance dose so far as genetic effects are concerned. Any radiation can lead to changes in the germ plasm. This was clearly affirmed at a highlevel symposium. There is no casual therapy for acute radiation injuries. Therapeutic management is limited to symptomatic measures. There is no prophylaxis against delayed effects. Changes in the heredity structure are irreversible. Once affected there is no going back. With increasing mutation consequent on radioactive damage there is an increased tendency to spontaneous mutation.

In calculating harmful consequences or percentage of chances, there is no meaning in assuming that the poison of fallout will be evenly spread over the whole earth. The likelihood is that the poison may come down in denser quantities in some areas.

There are some people who think that the real remedy lies in doing away with war altogether. Bertrand Russell once took this view and I immediately contested the correctness or the expediency of this attitude. The immediate duty should not be forgotten in the hope that we may succeed on the wider issue.

There is no conceivable point of time at which our distrust will disappear of itself, if we maintain the conditions for mutual distrust and especially this supreme cause for more and more mutual fear.

It is truly scandalous that these tests could be going on when eminent men of science, one after another, have pointed out the grave danger to world health and to future generations in the clearest possible language that men of science can command. Is science only to serve the purposes of war? When science warns against something_ as being dangerous to the whole human race, must we not, react with greater alacrity and heed the warning?

Whatever be the motive or necessity, the coldwar Powers have no right to disregard the rights of the world to continue in good health and in the prospect of successive, uncontaminated generations of men and women being born; and in this matter we have to accept the opinion of great scientists of well  recognised eminence in preference to that of State hired technologists and scientific administrators.

In April 1957 the Prime Minister of India publicly raised the question whether the nuclear powers have the right to spread radioactive poison over other parts of the world. Five years have passed and an immense quantity of poisonous fallout has been added during this period instead of the rights of mankind being recognised and respected.

So far, it was poisoning of mankind and of the genetic basis for future generations. But now the United States has planned highaltitude explosions, which will corrupt the cosmic environment in which the evolution of life has taken place on this planet, and which is an integral part of the current life kept up on the planet. This, so to say, would be a diabolic pincer movement against mankind. British scientist Bernard Lovell has expressed his strong disapproval of this adventure, whatever the motive of it may be. "It is a black moment for humanity and an affront to the civilized world. I regard it", he says, "as one of the most clumsy and dangerous experiments ever devised."

Where is International law now? Even if the whole world has become subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, these tests that poisoned the air and the earth would be criminally punishable under domestic law, unless a special enactment were passed authorizing the dangerous contamination as an act of State In the interests of the USA But the whole world has not passed into the jurisdiction of the U.S.A. yet and the poison spreads over the nonAmerican world and nonAmerican air and soil as well as over the U.S.A.  Had there been any international law alive, these test explosions would be inconceivable.

Russia has at least in theory realised that poisoning uninvolved nations and future generations of mankind is no legitimate part of any national defence. But the U.S. government is still arguing as if this crime against innocent nations were a lawful right and must be considered and negotiated along with other issues related to disarmament. And Britain loyally joins this claim of her dominant partner. Opinion in Britain has definitely revolved and repudiated this claim that the poisoning of the world's atmosphere and land and water can be part of legitimate national defence.

The cessation of the explosions should not depend on the will and pleasure of the nuclear powers but is a right, which the neutral nations can demand through their governments. The unqualified assertion of the right of mankind to the purity of the atmosphere with which the planet is endowed and to the integrity of the hereditary hymen cells must precede the organisation of any machinery for detection and prevention of evasion. The wrongdoers have no right to be left alone in their career of infringing this right of mankind until the machinery to prevent evasion is perfected to their satisfaction, any more than ordinary criminals are entitled to carry on their trade until the courts and police are perfected.

What prevents an antitests group of nations in the UN raising the issue whether the UN is not bound by its Charter unconditionally to ban the poisoning of the earth's atmosphere by any individual power in its own supposed or even real interests? It would not be interference in the international affairs of the State, for this poisoning of the air and the human cells for generations to come is not just a matter of national defence but an infringement of other people's rights. What prevents even a minority in the UN from claiming this overriding fundamental right to call for a cessation of wrongdoing, although the offending powers may secure a majority of votes in favour of continued poisoning. If the UN regulations do not permit this, the regulations call for amendment in the light of developments, which had not been foreseen.

The world, Communist and nonCommunist united in one common front against Hitler, when he proved himself to be a danger to civilization. The nuclear menace is a greater, far greater menace than Hitler was; and the world must unite against it. What prevents this but the illusions that Brute Powers creates and which it is the duty of enlightened nations to dispel with vigour.

It is a shame that over and above the torpor that over unofficial life by reason of overgovernment all over the world, even governments charged with the sacred duty of protecting their people by every means should exhibit inertia in a matter of such great importance to the health of mankind, the purity of the atmosphere and the health of the animal and vegetable worlds on which man depends for life. All these governments outside the Cold War seems to be suffering from a deficiency of spirit and courage which Hippocrates attributed to the people who inhabit temperate lands where seasonal variations are not severe.

From the day the two atom bombs were burst over Japan I have been saying and writing about this enemy of mankind continually all these years. Everyone knows in a general way all about it. Yet, I fear, neither is the knowledge complete nor has it impressed in the way serious knowledge should impress.

I suggest, therefore, that we should pass a resolution calling upon the Government of India, in the name of the people of this land and all our neighbouring peoples, to take steps to bring this issue before the United Nations and drive the issue to a speedy decision for a prohibitory order to the nuclear powers to desist from any further tests, the sanction for which command should be the expulsion of the recalcitrant nation from the UN It may seem ridiculous to do something which may result in an attempt to expel the most important element in the UN and in the dissolution of the UN itself. But when a great institution is found Impotent to serve its purpose, it is better that the fact is recognised and the institution commits suicide than that it should live a false and purposeless life.