The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) expresses its deepest sense of sadness at the demise of one of its tallest founding members, Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas who passed away this morning at the Military Hospital in Secunderabad.
Admiral Ramdas, together with his dear wife and comrade Lalita Ramdas, remained intimately and intensely engaged with the affairs of the CNDP — in its relentless campaign for regional and global nuclear disarmament and peace. Ramu, as he was known to his multitude of friends and admirers, had played a very major role in helping to stitch up a truly national coalition to fight for nuclear disarmament and peace after the May 1998 nuclear tests and those by Pakistan that promptly followed.
The CNDP was formally inaugurated in December 2000 via a grand national conference in Delhi attended by delegates and eminent speakers from all over the country and the globe. Nearly a quarter of a century later, we still have the nuclear cloud hanging over us since this remains the only part of the world where two neighbouring nuclear powers continue to have a hot-cold war that still shows no sign of ending.
Ramu understood that a positive transformation of India-Pakistan relations and indeed of cross-country relations in South Asia as a whole, also requires a positive transformation within the countries that together make it up. More than many of his professional colleagues in the Navy and Armed Forces he understood that enduring military security requires, above all, the establishment of an enduring human security in all its economic, political and cultural dimensions both within and across countries.
This is why, he and his life partner Lolly Ramdas, will remain an inspiration to the many that are involved in a host of different progressive movements. The best celebration and tribute that the CNDP and others can pay to Ramu’s life and memory, is by sharing his commitment to preserve and promote secularism, democracy, justice, public welfare, environmental protection and not least, nuclear disarmament.