The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Sri Lanka is holding a lecture at the University of Peradeniya entitled The Indo-Pakistan Conflict and the Threat of Nuclear World War.
The Political Science Association (PSA) is hosting the lecture which will be in Room No. 86 of the Department of Political Science of the University of Peradeniya on Thursday June 5.
The IYSSE invites students, university lecturers and employees to attend this significant meeting which will discuss the life-and-death questions now confronting humanity.
India launched its “Operation Sindhoor,” which targeted Pakistan’s Punjab province and Pakistan-held Kashmir, immediately after a terrorist attack that killed 26 people in Indian-held Kashmir on April 22. The Indian government blamed Pakistan for the terrorist attack then unilaterally abrogated the Indus Water Treaty, which guarantees uninterrupted irrigation water supplies to Pakistan, crucial for its agriculture and power generation.
Following intense missile attacks by India, which involved over 75 advanced warplanes, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Kawja Asif warned that nuclear conflict could break out “at any time,” if India “imposes an all-out war on the region.”
The India-Pakistan conflict brought the region, which is home to 2 billion people, and the entire planet to the brink of nuclear conflagration. Such a war could rapidly escalate into nuclear annihilation and draw in other major powers, the United States and China in particular.
These are the dynamics of the current situation, which is driven by a deepening global economic crisis not seen since the 1930s Depression and intensifying rivalry between the major powers, with India a major ally in the US war preparations against China.
The catastrophic consequences of conflict between nuclear-armed nations are incalculable. Even a limited nuclear exchange involving just 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs could trigger a global “nuclear winter,” leading to worldwide agricultural collapse and mass starvation, potentially resulting in up to a billion deaths, on top of the initial 20 million fatalities from blasts, fire, and radiation.
After four days of hostilities last month between India and Pakistan, with considerable casualties, both countries have entered a shaky ceasefire. Tensions remain high, however, as India’s Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janatha Party government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to threaten Pakistan, which has responded with warnings of military retaliation.
In line with its geo-strategic moves against China, the US has developed close military relations with successive Sri Lankan governments. These relations have been taken to a new high by the current Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/National People’s Power government. In April, President Dissanayake signed a first-time defence pact with India.
The root of India-Pakistan rivalry lies in the capitalist profit system, and the communal partition of British India in 1947 into a Hindu India and an Islamic Pakistan. This irrational and divisive state system was designed to suppress the then growing movement of South Asian workers and rural toilers.
Appeals to the imperialist powers to come to their “senses” will not prevent the eruption of nuclear war. There is only one powerful revolutionary force that can prevent such a catastrophe, and that is the international working class. This fact was historically proven by the 1917 socialist revolution in Russia, which brought the First World War to an end.
The IYSSE, together with the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and all its Socialist Equality Parties are waging a relentless fight to build a global anti-war movement of the international working class and youth based on socialist policies. Everything hinges on this struggle. In this endeavour, we campaign for the unity of all workers across national borders, religious and ethnic divisions, and for a federation of socialist republics in South Asia as a part of the broader struggle for socialism globally.
Our speaker will elaborate on these positions. We invite you to attend the lecture and participate in this crucial discussion.
Meeting venue
Room No. 86. The Department of Political Science, University of Peradeniya.
Date and time
June 5 at 3.30 p.m.