The nuclear tests by the governments of India and Pakistan this spring have cast the long shadow of Nuclear Armageddon over the entire subcontinent. With rising tensions, comes the imperative for activists and ordinary citizens of both countries to take back the initiative and work for peace in the region and throughout the world.

The dangers of not acting are grave - by sitting on the sidelines now, the current situation threatens to further polarize opinion in both countries, making it impossible for patriotic people to oppose their government's policies, without feeling marginalized or having to defend their country's conduct from internal and external critics. Already, the rightful indignation towards Western hypocrisy has bolstered a pro-nuclear policy, as anti-imperialist sentiment has been heightened by the West's double standards on nuclear testing.

Now that both nations have affirmed their nuclear capabilities, the time has come to debate the issues in the context of broader regional security and the real needs of all the people living in the subcontinent. Ironically, with the threat of mutually assured destruction looming, the potential for finding permanent solutions to problems that have afflicted South Asia since independence has never been greater, nor more imperative. it is time for people on all sides of the issue to take a deep breath and refrain from recrimination and name-calling - particularly the three F's of "fascism", "fundamentalism", "fanaticism" - intentionally inflammatory words that have no place in civilized dialogue. Any movement towards peace is by its very nature all-inclusive, and nothing would harm chances for reconciliation more than sectarian divisions and internecine conflict.

Indeed, even now, calls to end the nuclear hypocrisy of the Big Five Nuclear Powers, perhaps the biggest obstacle for the total elimination of nuclear arms, are ringing out throughout the world. South Asia's defiance of an unjust nuclear status quo may finally force the world's hegemonic powers to seriously rethink their ambivalent commitment to disarmament, and may hopefully push them to accept timetables for the complete abolition of their nuclear arsenals.

To meet the challenge, and roll back the darkness that threatens to engulf us, South Asians of all backgrounds and friends of the subcontinent are invited to campaign with whatever means necessary for peace with justice, the abolition of all nuclear weapons, and eventually for reconciliation between communities and nations. The opportunity for achieving lasting global peace is again at our doorstep, half a century after the ancient South Asian creed of - ahimsa - non-violence - enlightened the world's hearts and minds. With these and other imaginative steps, we can start by being "extremists for love", and redeem South Asia from the bloody and fiery crucible in which her various nations were born, and that threatens to engulf us again.