-By Shivam Pathak

Mankind of today’s diaspora is quiet fascinated with the advancement in science and technology, which marks the dawn of modernization throughout the world. But their understanding on the very same is rather complicated. If we consider the literal definition of modernization, then the term meant-“a progressive transition from pre-modern or traditional
to a modern society”. In reality the term means a lot more than this literal definition could callf for. My concern here is to break the fallacious reasoning of this term modernization. However the term has many
dimensions or aspects, but in this article I prefer to shed light on one of its dimensions and that is- “The false association of arms and ammunition development to modernization”. Before moving forward I want to quote a widely accepted cliché-‘Arms are responsible for both, war and peace’.

But always remember, to start a war a nation needs competent arms and ammunition to resist their counterparts, as Germany had against USA in world war two (1939-1945), which is one way or the other is a consequence of modernization. The eve of arms development marked a drastic change in human existence forever. For the first time in human history we now are capable of our own destruction as a species. But we always attempt to conceal the devastation caused by disastrous weapon testing by the veil of modernization, as USA had done in its nuclear testing on various sites on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, somewhere between 1946-1962. Arms or weapons which were once considered as branch on the trunk (modernization) are now trying to replace the trunk all by itself. The modern age is now heavily interpreted as a nuclear age, so we need to understand that if it continues then it would be catastrophic not simply for one nation or another, but for the whole mankind. The
misconception regarding the definition of modernization is a big environmental issue, political issue, economic issue and most importantly moral issue. The 1986 accidental nuclear explosion at Chernobyl in Ukraine, then part of Soviet Union, served as the best example that the thing which we for so long believe in, is in actuality entails the source for the end of civilization or mankind.

The present situation of COVID-19 proves us that the modernization in terms of technology and arms
development is not the real development which we all are striving for. At last, I think the only way through which we could save ourselves from the upcoming jeopardy is the way of disassociation, disassociation of the idea of arms to the idea of modernization. The full-stop on arms and ammunition development could also result in eradication of the ideas of imperialism, dominance and the rest of the ill will issues. I left the rest on my reader’s consciousness on what is right and what is wrong.