They came from near the uranium mines of Jaduguda and the nuclear test site at Pokharan. They represented the Adivasis of the Narmada Valley, the industrial workers of Mumbai, the artisanal fisherfolk of Tamil Nadu, and the peasants of the Gangetic delta of West Bengal. They came from schools and colleges, from art studios and science laboratories, from community health organisations and right-to know campaigns. From the semi-desert of Baluchistan, the lush-green south of Sri Lanka, the paddy-growing plains of Bangladesh.

They were feminists and social activists, trade unionists and kisan sabha workers, writers and journalists, physicians and engineers, teachers and students, environmentalists and peopleís science activists, Gandhians and post-modernists, human-rights campaigners and social scientists, artists and film-makers, musicians and theatre people, even former generals and admirals. They also came from Japan and England, Holland and Malaysia, America and Australasia, South Africa and France.

They came with hundreds of one-metre-by-one-metre cloth banners signed by thousands, and with scores of posters and paper-crane buntings. They spoke Oriya and Rajasthani, Sindhi and Telugu, Chhattisgarhi and Gujarati, Punjabi and Tamil, English and French.

The 600-plus delegates to Indiaís first-ever National Convention for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace held in New Delhi comprised the most varied gathering of peace activists ever assembled in India. It was, as former Chief of Naval Staff L. Ramdas put it, "a veritable peace fest and an altogether exciting historic landmark."

The Convention was the culmination of a one-year-long process of meetings and consultations involving nearly 120 groups and organisations, as well as individual peace activists, in more than 10 Indian cities. It was also the beginning of a new phase in Indiaís broad-based Rainbow Coalition-type movement for nuclear weapons abolition.

The Convention offered Indian peace activists the first national-level opportunity to debate a range of theoretical and practical issues, exchange experiences, and achieve a degree of clarity on aims and methods. It established Indiaís first-ever Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), a network with a 50-member Coordination Committee.

The Coalition gives Indiaís peace movement an organised national presence and profile. This fills a major void. Since the 1998 nuclear tests, there have been sustainedóand growingóprotests in more than 40 cities against weapons of mass destruction and Indiaís nuclear policy volte face. These tended to be discrete, and unconnected to a coalitional structure with a national (and international) presence, profile and perspective.

Matters changed with networking among different groups early in 2000 and the holding of three preparatory meetingsóin Nagpur (on March 26 and July 31), and in Delhi (on October 7), interspersed with an intense and very robust email debate on the Conventionís concept, function, programme, organisation, composition, finance and logistics.

Three-fourths of the Conventionís delegates came from outside Delhi. They all paid for their own travel and on an average spent a week in preparing for and attending the Convention.

There were 50 delegates from Pakistan (down from 60 owing to nasty visa problems), 15 from the rest of South Asia, and about 20 peace activists from Australasia, Northeast and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and America. They included star campaigners such as Bruce Kent and Jeremy Corbyn (MP) from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), representatives of the Abolition-2000 network, and Japanese activists, besides the Pakistan Peace Coalition.

The Programme of the Convention, spread over three days, was divided into five Plenaries, 22 Working Group sessions in four broad categories, and cultural events culminating in ìCelebration of Peaceî, with live music, theatre and poetry recital, in Central Delhi.

The venue for the first two days was Springdales School (Dhaula Kuan). The Final Plenary was at Lady Shri Ram College (Lajpat Nagar), followed by the Mandi House public event.

The flow of the Conventionís deliberations led from an analysis of recent international and national developments; discussions on how to construct a strong moral, legal, political and security-based case against nuclear weapons and their impact; understanding the experience of peace movements regionally and globally; and developing strategies and campaign tools for an abolition movement in South Asia.

The deliberations ended with the adoption of an Action Plan and an Interim Charter, and the election of a Coordination Committee. The Action Plan includes a number of specific programmes and campaigns, including regional disarmament conventions and sectoral meetings of professionals, advocacy and lobbying of political parties, ìtwinningî of 10 anti-nuclear weapons schools and colleges in India and Pakistan, institutionalising a ìNuclear Disarmament and Peace Weekî from August 4 to 10 every year, and setting up a national federation of radiation victims, besides enhancing the South Asian peace movementís presence in international peace forums.

The Inaugural Plenary, chaired by Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande and social scientist Rajni Kothari, set the tone and broad agenda of the Convention. The speakers included novelist Arundhati Roy, former Admiral L. Ramdas (on Nuclear Abolition: The Task Ahead), energy scientist A.K.N. Reddy (The Immorality of Nuclear Weapons), Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar (The Case for Peace) and M.B. Naqvi and Karamat Ali (both from Pakistan Peace Coalition), besides Praful Bidwai (who introduced the Conventionís rationale), as well as the two chairs who read a few of the 30-plus solidarity messages received from peace networks and organisations and one government (New Zealand).

The principal thrust of the speeches was on the immorality of nuclear weapons, the fallacy of nuclear deterrence, the crucial importance of comprehensive or human security, and need to build the broadest possible social coalition for peace.

Following the Plenary, the first set of Working Groups dealt with ìThe Case against Nuclear Weaponsî, with five sessions on Nuclear Doctrines, Peace and Security Issues in the Global Scenario; Security Issues and Nuclear Weaponisation of South Asia; Militarisation and the Scientific Establishment; Indian Security and the Draft Nuclear Doctrine; and Nuclear Restraint Regimes: CTBT, FMCT, De-alerting, etc.

The discussions were initiated wherever possible by mixed teams from India, Pakistan and elsewhere, and encouraged full participation from all present in Indian languages (with informal interpretation) as well as English.

The Groups stressed the deterioration in South Asian security caused by nuclearisation, the further hardening of Indiaís (Pakistanís) nuclear postures since 1998, and the growing danger of a new arms race from U.S. anti-ballistic missile programmes. Differences between participants remained sharp on the issue of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, although there was better appreciation of divergent positions. There was complete unanimity that there must be no further nuclear tests, no acquisition of fissile material and no research on nuclear weapons. (See the attached tentative Charter.)

The second category of Working Groups dealt with ìThe Impact of Nuclear Weapons on the Peopleî, with sessions devoted to the Culture of Militarisation and Male Supremacism; Communalism, Nationalism and the Bomb; Connections between Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power and Issues of Safety, Transparency and Efficacy; the Economic and Social Costs of the Bomb; Legitimising Nuclear Weapons: The Role of the Media; and Effects of Nuclear Explosions/Accidents.

These Groups generated a potent critique of the ideology of nuclearism and its contribution to virulent nationalism, communalism, and male-supremacism, with an emphasis on nuclearisationís onerous economic and social costs and harmful impact on health, food security, employment and education. The mainstream mediaís role in promoting chauvinistic nationalism and in legitimising nuclearism through unbalanced news and comment came in for widespread criticismóitself validated by the appallingly poor media coverage the Convention received.

Surprisingly, the issue of the nuclear power-weapons link, and of the viability and desirability of nuclear power generation, which was widely expected to generate heated debate, produced a remarkably sober discussion, with even the staunchest proponents of nuclear power conceding that in their existing designs and operational practices, most nuclear installations are far from safe or economical.

They did not contest AKN Reddyís computation of the high cost of nuclear electricity, or his support for cheaper alternatives. There was a dispute over the inevitability of the power-weapons nexus. But there was full unanimity that there must be no compromise on health, safety standards or transparency.

Physicist M.V. Ramana made a significant presentation on the effects of nuclear explosions and accidents, building upon his earlier work, Bombing Bombay.

The Evening Plenary, chaired by Perin Romesh Chandra, heard summaries of the discussions in the Working Groups.

November 12 opened with a Plenary, chaired by Syeda Hamid, Zaki Hasan (Pakistan), Kuldip Nayar, Bishop William Moses, and heard a series of presentations on the activities and concerns of delegates representing different regions, sectors and constituencies.

The Plenary discussed the movementís progress in different parts of India, in South Asia and the world. Of particular importance were reports from the states, the semi-urban areas of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, besides campaigns in major cities like Calcutta and Bangalore.

This Plenary was the main forum at which the international delegates spoke about their activities in national movements and in international coalitions like Abolition-2000 (a network over 2000 peace groups), New Agenda Coalition (comprised of Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden), the Middle Powers Initiative, the World Court Project (which led to the legal verdict against nuclear weapons in 1996), and the Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone Network, etc.

The speakers outlined the opportunities available to peace activists to lobby international disarmament forums. They emphasised the significance of the growing South Asian peace movement for abolition efforts worldwide, and more important, for the global peace movement. Some said the centre of gravity of the global movement is shifting to South Asia. Some others argued that the South Asian abolition campaign has already become an indispensable input into the international movement, one which would rejuvenate it, and help it get out of the state of decline into which it has drifted in many NATO and former Warsaw Pact countries after the Cold War ended.

Following the Plenary was the third set of Working Groups, on building a 'Movement in India Against Nuclear weapons: Sectoral and Statewise Strategies'. Simultaneous with these, there was a special Session on the ìCampaign for Safety and Environmental Aspects of Nuclear Power and Uranium Miningî, chaired by Dhirendra Sharma and Ghanashyam Biruli, the grassroots activists from Jaduguda uranium mines.

The eight Working Groups focused upon specific sectors; including Statewise Strategies; Scientists and Doctors; Media; NGOs, Panchayats, States; Women; Trade Unions; and Artists.

Their deliberations produced specific proposals on how to put nuclear disarmament on the agenda of youth, NGOs, medical and scientific associations, trade unions, the womenís movement, etc, by underscoring the practical impact of nuclearisation on their priorities, as well as on the larger society and politics. Of particular relevance was the Working Group on sensitising the Media to non-conventional notions of security. This was followed by the screening of an award-winning documentary by Shri Prakash (Jharkhand), ìThe Buddha Weeps at Jadugudaî, which depicts the havoc wreaked upon the health of uranium miners and their families by patently unsafe practices and avoidable exposure to radioactivity and other toxins.

The fourth (and final) session of the Working Groups was devoted to the nitty-gritty of developing ìNetworking, Methods, Forms-Campaign Experience: Methodologies and Campaign Materials for Different Constituenciesî. These sessions focused on educational material and cultural products, including videos, films, theatre, songs, dance, posters, cartoons, etc and discussions on Networking and Resource-Sharing and Advocacy. Another Working Group produced a draft ìPlan of Actionî to be presented to the Final Plenary.

The Evening Plenary of November 12, chaired by feminist-social activist Lalita Ramdas and fishworkersí unionist Tom Kocherry, heard reports from the four Working Groups, besides watching an educational slide-show by Chennai-based scientists, simplifying complex facts of nuclear physics, on how the Bomb works, and what makes it an illegitimate weapon of mass destruction.

The Closing Plenary at Lady Shri Ram College on November 13 discussed the Plan of Action, adopted a (tentative) Charter for Nuclear Disarmament for Peace and, most important, established a Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and choose its Coordination Committee. The Plenary Panel consisted of Prabir Purkayastha, Jaya Velankar, S.K. Biswas, J. Sri Raman, Ilina Sen and Sandeep Pandey, chaired by L Ramdas.

There were more than 30 interventions and many amendments to the Draft Charter, itself subjected to an intense debate over six months. Some speakers questioned the Draft statement of Indiaís nuclear policy after the first Pokharan test of 1974. Several underlined the importance of broadening the concept of peace.

Many speakers noted the uneven development of the movement in different regions, and underlined the need to strengthen it especially in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Kerala, the Northeastern states, etc and to address special constituencies like environmentalists, educationists, political leaders, and Dalits.

However, so numerous were the Charter amendments, both substantive and stylistic, that the chair felt they could not be all incorporated into a document to be adopted that very morning. The Plenary broadly accepted that it adopt a one-page summary of the thrust of the Charter, leaving the final document to the Coordination Committee. This summary was accepted (and later released to the press).

The Plenary adopted the Plan of Action (attached below) and resolved to work on a clearing house of information and campaign material, on advocacy and lobbying, besides implementing the specific campaigns outlined in programme.

The Plenary established a Coalition for Nuclear disarmament and Peace (CNDP) based on the principles contained in the Draft Charter and Plan of Action. Finally, the Plenary voted for a 50-member Coordination Committee. This Committee will have a Secretariat of 12 members, no more than five of whom will be from Delhi.

Forty members were proposed by the Nominations Committee (formed in the first Plenary, which had received over 90 names). It selected the 40 on the basis of their contribution to the movement, as well as regional, gender and sectoral balance. The other 10 members will be co-opted later. The Closing Plenary ended with a vote of thanks to the participants, chairs and speakers, the numerous institutions which helped, the artistes and musicians who performed, and not least, the 50-plus volunteers who looked after the practical arrangements: accommodation, food, transportation, registration, etc.

The volunteers included activists of Delhi Science Forum (which acted as the Convention coordination centre), a large number of students from Delhi University, and National Federation of Indian Women. Springdales School, Lady Shri Ram College, Indian Social Institute and Instute of Social Sciences provided generous support.

The final item on the Convention agenda was the five hour-long Public Event at Mandi House, in which 12 different ensembles/troupes performed.

Among the highlights were street theatre (Nishant Natya Manch and Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti), folk music (from Chhattisgarh), Zohra Sehgalís recitation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, qawwalis by the Wadali Brothers, Baul singing by Devdas and Kartik, and sufi/folk music by ìParvaazî and Madan Gopal Singh.