RUSSELL – EINSTEIN MANIFESTO (1955)

In 1954, at the University of London I joined radical student movement. And it was at this historical juncture that Concerned Scientists led by Einstein and Bertrand Russell had launched an anti-nuclear campaign. On the 9th July 1955, I received my first lesson in activism in science when I attended the first ever anti-nuclear meeting held in the Caxton Hall, London. A young scientist Dr. Joseph Rotblat helped an old philosopher Bertrand Russell to release a historical document signed by eminent scientists to the world media. It warned the world governments against the threat posed by the Atomic weapons. The document released on that fateful day had now come to be known as the Einstein –Russell ( or vice versa) Manifesto. It read:

WE ARE SPEAKING ON THIS OCCASION, NOT AS MEMBERS OF THIS OR THAT NATION, CONTINENT OR CREED, BUT AS HUMAN BEINGS, MEMBERS OF THE SPECIES MAN, WHOSE CONTINUED EXISTENCE IS IN DOUBT.

WE APPEAL, AS HUMAN BEINGS, TO HUMAN BEINGS:
REMEMBER YOUR HUMANITY, AND FORGET THE REST. IF YOU CAN DO SO THE WAY LIES OPEN TO A NEW PARADISE; IF YOU CANNOT, THERE LIES BEFORE YOU THE RISK OF UNIVERSAL DEATH.

The warning, issued by Bertrand Russell, was signed by Albert Einstein and nine other scientists, mostly Nobel Laureates working in the field of nuclear science. The manifesto urged the world scientists to assemble in a conference and work to avert the nuclear holocaust that had arisen from the development of the H-bomb.

Russell had earlier met our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and Nehru enthusiastically had invited Russell to hold the first scientists’ conference against nuclear weapons in New Delhi. But Nehru’s Scientific Advisor, Homi J. Bhabha refused to support such a movement. A group of concerned scientists from ten countries eventually met in 1957 in a Canadian village “Pugwash” - the birthplace of Cyrus Eaton – an American industrialist who hosted the meeting.

The Pugwash became a leading scientists’ anti-nuclear international Movement that brought scientists, academicians and concerned citizens from around the world to campaign against the weapons of mass destruction and work towards reducing the world conflicts. But no Indian scientist was allowed to go to Pugwash, nor any Indian had signed the Russell -Einstein Manifesto.