Building a Strong Nation

seen them through all kinds of adversity and brought them to extraordinary heights of progress in modern times. Both the major industrial cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bustling with life, became enormous areas of devastation in a matter of minutes. Within a tenmile radius every kind of life—human, animal and vegetable—was blown to bits. One and a half million people died on the spot. Ten thousand of them simply disappeared. Yet these cities have now been built up once again with wide streets, spacious houses, parks and gardens, all of which have a modern look. Only one ruined building has been left as it was, in order to remind the people of the grim punishment meted out to them during the Second World War. When the late Mr. Khushwant Singh, an eminent Indian journalist and social commentator, visited Japan, he learnt, much to his astonishment, that the Japanese do not exploit the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to discredit the US. It is other nations, on the contrary, who have exploited the same events for this purpose. When Mr. Singh asked the reason for this attitude, a Japanese replied in a surprisingly calm tone: "We hit them first at Pearl Harbour. We killed a lot of them. They warned us of what they were going to do, but we thought they were only bluffing. They beat us fair and square. We were quits, and now we are friends.” (Hindustan Times, April 4, 1981) A memorial has been erected to commemorate the dead, the victims of a gruesome tragedy. In the museum are displayed photographs depicting death and destruction on a mass scale. About 70 lakh Japanese visit Hiroshima every year to witness this spectacle.