National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) chairperson Justice Arun Kumar Mishra (retd.) on Friday said India’s policy on nuclear weapons was a manifestation of its past ideology.
He was addressing the last day of the conference ‘Human Rights in Indian Culture and Philosophy’, conducted by the NHRC and Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) .
Justice Mishra said Indian civilisational ethos was “blessed with the power of assimilation of different streams of ideas and faiths, as we want to improve and not impose our culture upon others, which may amount to violation of human rights,” an NHRC statement said. He said the world was today facing the threat of destructive weapons, the use of which only benefitted the manufacturers of the weapons.
“India’s doctrine of nuclear policy is a manifestation of its past ideology that prohibits the use of weapons of mass destruction, which only harm humanity. It has been reflected both in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata when the use of weapons of mass destruction was prohibited,” Justice Mishra said, according to the statement.
The NHRC statement added that the two-day conference ended with the predominant feeling among participants that such dialogues were necessary to understand Indian heritage.
IGNCA member secretary Sachchidanand Joshi said: “Our scriptures are the repository of human rights-centric ideas” and that those values were seen even today when Indian society, despite multiple challenges “sailed through the COVID-19 pandemic”.
