Life Onboard LAST UPDATE  August 21, 2006
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August 6, 2006 India: Challenges of a Rising Nuclear Power – Admiral Ramu and Lalita Ramdas
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Lalita Ramdas, reflecting on decades of deep experience working on a wide range of India's social, environmental and peace issues
Taking turns to answer participants’ questions seamlessly, many were captivated by Lalita and Admiral Ramu Ramdas’ sophisticated wit and relaxed presence. In attending their lectures one is treated to a sense of visiting the Ramdas sitting room with a long afternoon to share.

Guest educators until Cochin, Mr. and Mrs. Ramdas covered a range of issues including the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir, nuclear disarmament, social and environmental challenges, and peoples’ peace movements across India.

After serving for 45 years in India's navy, and fighting in three wars against Pakistan and China, Ramu Ramdas retired from his post as admiral in 1993 and became a peace activist now at the forefront of India’s nuclear disarmament movement. About his experience Mr. Ramdas commented, “we killed a lot of people, they killed a lot of us, all because we couldn’t reach a political agreement. I saw that we were achieving nothing, only creating problems, so I renounced all military force as an instrument of policy. I was very angry after war so I had to bring change, even for myself.”
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Admiral Ramdas, who learned through direct involvement in three wars with Pakistan and one with China that war only creates more problems at great cost, and is clearly not a way to find peace
Lalita Ramdas also comes from a military background as the daughter of an admiral. She met Ramu when, as a young lieutenant, he was sent to Delhi to work as an aide to her father. Having been involved in various activities during the last three decades, she is now Board Chair for Greenpeace India – www.greenpeaceindia.org. About her experience Mrs. Ramdas told participants, “like many places in the world, we belong to the privileged life. Our schooling did not tell us the unhappy and ugly parts of society. Some time after my children were born I started working with poor illiterate women and children. For the first time, I came face to face with difficulties my country and her people are facing. I think this shaped why I’m doing this work.”
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The energetic group of participants onboard who volunteered their time to help Lalita and Admiral Ramdas produce a very successful program onboard
Since their divide after independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, India and Pakistan have been conflicting over a small mountainous region called Jammu-Kashmir. After India resumed nuclear weapons testing in 1998 (a single test was carried out in 1974), they have been engaged in a nuclear arms race - both sides rushing to assert more of a nuclear threat than the other. “India wanted to tell the US if they can do it so can we,” Admiral Ramdas explained. “That was the kind of attitude and feeling of tremendous pride India had in 1974. Others of us knew the hazards of the nuclear weapon and what a grievous harm they can cost the planet.”

In November of 2000, Lalita and Admiral Ramdas helped to form a large coalition of like-minded civil society groups who subscribe to the view that there should be nuclear disarmament and peace. 120 different organizations from around the country made up the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP). Today there are 600 members. Likewise in Pakistan there is the Pakistan Peoples’ Coalition with a similar vision. The two groups interact with each other and have had joint meetings in India and Pakistan.