Roy and World Peace

Himadeep Muppidi’s reference Arundhati Roy’s critique of a nuclear India struck me. Roy’s take on the issue of nuclear proliferation in postcolonial countries is fascinating. Roy alleges that nuclear proliferation by India is the ultimate gesture of compliance and conformity with colonial powers. With nuclear proliferation, India has sacrificed the key to its freedom, the ability to articulate a new noncolonial view of the global. For Roy, colonial powers are not free but very much locked into their fate as members of a global that has exploited humanity and plundered nations, and that is incapable of turning back. Colonies on the other hand have a freedom that their colonial masters do not. They have the freedom to reverse this trend by their choices and actions, something that India failed to take advantage of, its moral position. This is an interesting concept and would explain why prospects for world peace are so small. Colonial powers are already at a place in their moral development from which they cannot return. Colonies are at a place in their moral development where they can decide to break from the mold and pursue a new global order based on morals and peace. However, these colonial states are in pursuit of what the colonial powers have as evidenced by India’s nuclear proliferation, they are colonizing themselves better than any state could colonize them. Prospects for world peace are damaged therefore because the states that can aid work towards a change in the global do not and the only option left, as Roy suggests, is secession. Under this framework, it is the individual alone who can save the global. Individuals must show the initiative to fight a fight that they know they will lose against the moral end-state of colonization. Thus it is the use of IR in everyday practice that offers the best opportunity to find a way to achieve world peace because the potential for peace lies with individuals.