The employment of nuclear weapons is only part of the technique of terror. The idea behind it is that if the tyrant can demonstrate his undoubted capacity to exterminate the adversary, the latter is bound to submit. But if the adversary learns the art of dying without submission or a sense of defeat, if he develops the awareness that here is in us something which the armaments cannot destroy and which survives even the destruction of our physical body, the power of armaments, nuclear or other, will be sterilized. For it is not the physical destruction of the adversary that the tyrant desires as a rule, but only to bend him to his will....

Lord Irwin had to declare that his government could not impose “the peace of the grave” on India, even though they had the capacity.