Introduction

The delegation to India and Pakistan in August 2005 was rather successful, though we had some initial problems with communication and finding funding for the participants. This was due to lack of time. We held three dialogues in Nagpur, India, and one in Karachi, Pakistan. Trainings were conducted in Nagpur and Karachi as well as in Patna, India. The Patna training aimed at teaching the dialogue technique to the Nepalese delegation.

We attended the South Asia Regional Conference in Patna whereby we arranged a role-play where Pakistani and Indian students acted the other countries’ decision makers with Nepalese students as negotiators. In Islamabad, Pakistan, the NWIP-delegation were making efforts of finding contacts for PDPD (Pakistani Doctors for Peace and Development) - the Pakistani affiliate of IPPNW. We met with students at two medical colleges as well as several NGOs.

In all we have spread knowledge of IPPNW as well as nuclear weapon issues to many people by conducting open discussions. The dialogue technique has worked out really well and provides an excellent way of approaching people with a respectful open-mind.

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Preparation process

At the European student meeting in St Petersburg in April 2005 the NWIP team had several meetings. At that time we tried to decide whether to go to India in August. Due to different reasons, nobody felt like taking total responsibility for planning the delegation. But all of us felt that it would be so great to see NWIP go to India in August, so we decided to help each other out. Simon Achter from Austria and Thomas split the time before the delegation, to be responsible for one part each. Jenny decided that she could help out on certain areas. Camilla would join the team to India, and so far she was the only one seeing and performing a dialogue before. Before the NWIP meeting in Sweden in June the NWIP team had also decided to make a joint delegation to India and Pakistan. Jenny and Thomas planned the Pakistan delegation. At the meeting in June we had not decided on dates to India or Pakistan. We had not decided which cities we would go to in either counties. It had been difficult to be in communication with the Indian coordinators, due to the fact that there are two IPPNW groups in India, and that we planned to visit both. So it was tricky to fit the dates with everyone.

The Pakistani students that are active in Karachi decided to come to the IPPNW South Asia Hiroshima Conference on the 6-9th of August. This was great and so we put forward the delegation to Pakistan one week. Finally we had dates that suited everyone.

It is really important to decide the goals of the NWIP delegation and make it clear in the team how many cities it would be preferable to go to, if we should travel by train or flight, how many days and what dates can each person in the team be abroad etc. To make the team work, it is important that everyone feel comfortable and that we listen to each other. The NWIP team should also have it clear how many dialogues and trainings we want to have, and let the coordinators in the countries now that early. It is important to be polite to the coordinators in the countries you will visit. For example you show them your interest in joining activities that are important in their country. This is excluding the dialogues and trainings that the team wants to have. It is also good if the students planning to join the delegation apply for visas early. If you are late with the visa application it is risky to give you funding, because of the risk to end up with paid tickets and no visa. This delegation to India and Pakistan was supposed to be bigger and broader internationally. Simon Achter from Austria, Michael Drusano from the US, Veevek Thankey and David Chessor from Australia, also planned to join the delegation team. But due to difficulties in funding, late visa applications and the increase in ticket prices closer to the departure, they could in the end not join the NWIP delegation.

One of the co-presidents in IPPNW, Gunnar Westberg, has now written a letter to the affiliates to show the importance to support the students in disarmament activities financially if it is possible. It is really sad that active and interested students cannot join the delegation due to economic difficulties.

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Program

August 1st                    Dialogue at Indira Gandhi Governmental Medical College, Nagpur

August 2nd                   Dialogue at Government  Medical College, Nagpur

August 2nd                   Training, Nagpur

August 3rd                    Dialogue at Medical College, Sevagram

August 5th-8th              South Asia Regional Conference on Peace and Disarmament

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Dialogues

Arguments we used during the dialogues:

• A world without nuclear weapons is better than a world where more and more countries get nuclear weapons.
• Nuclear weapons don’t give you national security. What is security to you? Costs.
• Alternatives (NPT, Nuclear Weapons Free Zones, Nuclear Weapons Convention, Lahore declaration)
• Big risks with nuclear weapons: accidents, terrorism, rational leaders, human factor, radioactive fallout.
• Proliferation
• Deterrence argument and the Kashmir conflict
• We are medical students and we are the youth, the only thing we can do is to work for prevention of a nuclear war.
• 200 million people in India have no safe drinking water
• 400 millions cannot read
• 600 millions don’t have basic sanitation

Arguments from Indian students:

• Threat from Pakistan and China
• US policy. Shouldn’t the US start to disarm?
• Deterrence. India needs nuclear weapons to prevent a nuclear attack to their country.
• Security. India needs nuclear weapons to feel safe.
• India is a great country and having nuclear weapons make India a stronger country internationally.
• National pride
• It is unrealistic for India to disarm alone.
• India would never use its weapons anyways. It is a peace-loving country
  
• The US will never start to disarm.

Dialogue 1 at Indira Gandhi Governmental Medical College, Nagpur

Participants: 46 students and 4 doctors

All of us were feeling very nervous before our first dialogue. We had been working so long with the preparations for the delegation, and I think we all had high expectations on ourselves. We were happy that we had been given enough time to prepare before the dialogue, but still we were a bit shaky when we entered the hall were we would have our first dialogue with Indian students.

As soon as the dialogue started, I think we all felt more relaxed. We were able to make our main points, and we had a good discussion with the students, although we felt that it would have been good if more of them had said what they thought. We also felt that we had to try to answer their comments more directly, without loosing the track. This was a bit tricky- either we waited too long before answering the question, or we answered directly but instead switched a lot between different topics.

The students knew a lot about the nuclear weapon issue. Though most of them stated that they thought India should have nuclear weapons when we started the dialogue, by the end of the session they had agreed with us that:

• it would be better with a nuclear free world
• the money would be better spent on health care and education
• the whole world should disarm together

Many students showed an interest in learning more about the issue, and some of them participated in the training the next day. When we left the room after the dialogue, we all felt very happy with the result of the dialogue. There were things we could improve, but in total, we had managed to do what we were there for: to have an open minded discussion about nuclear weapons and give the students our perspective on the questions. Some students actually told us afterwards that they hadn’t thought of the things we said before, and that they now agreed with us. Things like that were very encouraging to hear. The students all seemed very happy to meet us, and after the dialogue, we continued our discussion for an hour or so in the student’s cafeteria.

In the NWIP group, we felt that we had a good cooperation and that we all participated in the discussion. The chair did the introduction and the sum up, as well as dividing the word among the participants and making sure that the discussion was moving in the right direction. Since this worked out well, we decided to have the same kind of chair function during the other dialogues as well. We also decided to let everyone in the group try to be the chair during at least one dialogue, and presenting the medical effects during one.

 
Dialogue 2 at Government Medical College, Nagpur

Participants: 45 students and 3 doctors

This dialogue turned out to be more of discussion than the previous one. Most of the participants thought that India should possess nuclear weapons. The subject seemed to be a sensitive one. That meant that the arguments were delivered with a lot of feeling and sometimes a bit aggressive. We tried to keep ourselves calm and reply on the questions in turn. In the beginning, the discussion lacked a bit of structure because of all the comments that were delivered. The discussion seemed to get stuck on the US role in disarmament, but we clarified that we are working for global disarmament (and not just for Indian disarmament). This is something which really needs to be pointed out. Eventually we managed to get some more structure into it and find some points of agreement. There was a general perception of working for confidence building over the borders, and that we need to disarm universally.

The dialogue at some points tended to be rather technical, due to the fact that some of the students did know a lot about these subjects. Later, we were told that some of the participants had won a debate contest on these matters.

We handed out quite a few of our fact sheets and many of the students seemed interested in discussing these issues in more detail. Some of these students turned up at the training later that evening, among these some of them which had showed a different opinion than us during the dialogue. This can be seen as a success.

Dialogue 3 at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Science, Sevagram

Participants: 50 medical students (final year)

It was very exciting to be able to meet students at Sevagram, students who are studying and living in the spirits of Mahatma Gandhi. Sevagram, a place that Gandhi once built up, is a totally non-violent place to live and a place where education is the center of it all.

Introduction of the dialogue and the NWIP project followed by Camilla making it clear that there are no other weapons that can destroy generation after generation through radiation. We also showed pictures of victims in Hiroshima, showing the different types of medical effects of a nuclear attack, and showed why we as medical students (soon to be physicians) can only work to prevent a nuclear attack, because when it happens there is nothing we can do.

We expected students with a lot of thoughts and opinions, and expected them to share their views with us. Instead we met a quiet group, and it came to show us the difficulties having a dialogue with students that do not talk and respond to what you try to say.

When starting the dialogue, we asked the students if any of them thought India should keep their nuclear weapons. This question was followed by silence. Instead we asked if anyone thought India should not have nuclear weapons. Again silence. One of the teachers explained that it was better if they left the room, so that the students would feel more comfortable speaking up, so they and Dr Kurvey left. When we once again asked if anyone could let us know about there views, one student raised his hand. This student thought India should have nuclear weapons because of the threat from China and Pakistan.

It was a quiet group but they agreed with us that a world without nuclear weapons is better than a world where more and more countries get nuclear weapons. They pointed out that it is not realistic for one country to start to disarm alone, so instead we talked about alternatives such as a South Asia nuclear weapons free zone, or a nuclear weapons convention. We talked about how students can influence others, to raise awareness in general public or influence decision makers. The students were in the final year but even if they don’t have time for activities, they can in so many other ways in there future as physicians change many peoples thoughts about nuclear weapons. We tried to show them that as young persons we can say no to nuclear weapons in the world and instead try to talk about this issue openly, if we cannot do much we can at least do a little. Maybe some of your friends or sisters and brothers will be the decision makers here in a few years? If you think its wrong as a physician someone will listen to you…

We were able to discuss one subject at a time, a little bit worse in the end of the session. Many people gave short comments. It was difficult to know if they agreed or disagreed with us. We tried to listen to them through their moves with their heads and eye contacts, so we knew if they were with us or not, and it worked ok.

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Training in Nagpur

We had already met the students at the dialogue the same day and the day before. Therefore we had a short presentation of us and the NWIP project. We also let the participants to introduce themselves, and thereafter we introduced the program for the evening. We explained the dialogue technique that we use in NWIP. After that, we started a strategic planning

We divided the 20 students into small groups where they got a piece of paper to come up with ideas for disarmament activities. They were supposed to come up with the goal, the method and the material they needed. We let the groups choose 2 of the best ideas in each group, which they introduced to the whole group. Finally we together found out that 3 of the ideas were really inspiring and the students wanted to work on them. They could now choose with project they wanted to be apart of. The ideas that were chosen were: 1) Street play/drama 2) Photo exhibition 3) Raise awareness at hospitals and medical schools

They sat down at wrote the goal of the projects, the method, what they needed to do to organize it, what material they needed. We found out that Dr. Kurvey could lend the students great photos from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Photo exhibition group will go and discuss with students what they feel when they see these pictures, and thereafter discuss nuclear weapons and disarmament with them. They could get the allowance to meet classes from the principal.

The drama group had done street plays before and now they wanted to show a story for the general public on the streets, and this would make them stay and see and listen. After they could give handouts and talk to interested students about nuclear weapons.

The hospital/medical collage group talked about the importance that doctors and nurses are aware about this issue. Methods: posters, seminars…

The groups also decided who to do what and when to start with the projects. We are really excited to see what will happen the next months. Already, we have got reports that one group has done an exhibition at different hospitals.

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South Asia Regional Conference on Peace and Disarmament in Patna

We arrived in Patna on the 4th of August and spent the evening on the hotel, planning for the conference as we received the schedule on arrival. We met with Dr Satyajeet Kumar Singh who was coordinating the conference. He informed us about the plans.

We tried to be able to do the Target X on Friday the 5th, but because of that all the students were involved in planning for the conference we were not able to live that through. But, the Nepalese students were very interested in learning more about the dialogue technique. We held quite a spontaneous training in our hotel room about that. They seemed very interested in our method, listened carefully and asked a lot of questions. The conference started with a welcome session and a visit at a Hiroshima Photo Exhibition. In the evening we attended the opening presentations and had dinner.

On the 6th, the Hiroshima day was initiated with a Run for Peace among many of the high school students. After some speeches and prize-awards, delegates from the different countries each released a white dove to the sky. The rest of the day took place in the Hall and was dedicated to speeches from all of the special guests and arrangers.

In the afternoon there was the students’ session during which student work from the region was presented. In the end of that session the NWIP got approximately an hour to do our things. We had expected some more time, but the program was already delayed. We started with touching upon a few points that hadn't already been discussed and we argued to why we as doctors should care about nuclear weapon issues. Then we organised about 30 students from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh to participate in a role-play. The Indian students should act as Pakistani decision makers and the Pakistani students acted as Indian decision makers. The rest, including the Nepalese students acted as Negotiators (in the name of NWIP!). First they had some time to gather arguments (and we helped along as best as we could). Then they were divided into two groups and they had about half an hour to discussing. This role play turned out to be really successful. The participants thought it were very useful and many said that they learned a lot. The point of giving a different perspective was clearly shown.

After that there was more time for speeches, among these NWIP made a short presentation on our project. Then there was candle lighting with many of the participants representing all the countries in the conference. The day ended with cultural evening and dinner.

On the 7th we all went by car to Gaya, were there was a 3 hour session of additional speeches. Here NWIP spoke about the importance of seeing the small people, the everyday victims of means taken from health care and social security networks and given to defence budgets and nuclear weapons. The rest of the day was spent at Bodhgaya, visiting temples as well as the place where Buddha got his enlightenment. On the 8th the NWIP left the conference to go back to Delhi.

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Conclusion

IPPNW-Central India