On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, a second bomb was unleashed over the city of Nagasaki. Together, the twin explosions claimed over 200000 lives by the end of that year from the grievous effects of thermal blast and ionising radiation. August 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of these bombings.Like each year, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are organising a memorial service to commemorate the victims of the atomic bomb tragedy. Over the years, the commemorative events have become vital to keeping the fading memory of victims alive and recounting the struggles of survivors in the post-war world. Year after year, the performative commemoration through visual exhibits and survivors’ testimonies has been rendering a deeply affective appeal to rid the world of these menacing weapons and honour its victims not just in Japan but worldwide.For this year’s commemoration, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki reportedly invited US President Donald Trump to attend the memorial. The invitation was not so much for Trump’s desire to be the “peacemaker and unifier” of the world as for his insensitive comparison of Japan’s 1945 atomic bombing to his own decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Talking to mediapersons after attending the NATO summit in the Netherlands, Trump compared the American strikes on Iran to the nuclear attack on Japan, claiming that, “I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing; that ended that war, and this ended this war”.Trump’s remarks triggered an angry reaction within Japan, leading Hiroshima’s city assembly to pass a resolution condemning the US president’s justification of the “use of atomic bombs.” City’s mayor, Kazumi Matsui, a lifetime advocate of nuclear disarmament, lamented the President’s ignorance about the effects of atomic war, pointing out that “if used, “(nuclear weapons) take the lives of many innocent citizens, regardless of whether they were friend or foe, and threaten the survival of the human race.”Trump, of course, is not the first, nor will he be the last, leader to justify the use of atomic weapons. In 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons to end the Ukraine conflict. As the world today finds itself amid a new nuclear arms race that is fast eroding international peace and stability, humanity’s reliance on the fear of these weapons to prevent wars is increasingly becoming taboo. The assembly of Nobel Laureates and international nuclear experts last month issued a historic Declaration for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which called on world leaders to take pragmatic steps towards reducing the risk of nuclear war and support disarmament efforts.The global nuclear discourse today is conscious than ever of the devastating consequences of nuclear war. The rise of the humanitarian initiative on nuclear weapons over the past decade has spearheaded an international campaign to ban nuclear weapons. Drawing inspiration from the struggles of the atomic bomb survivors – the Hibakushas – the humanitarian initiative led to the negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) at the United Nations in 2017.Many hibakushas have spent their lifetime sharing their stories of loss and survival in the hope that the events of 1945 are never forgotten or repeated. The lived experiences of Hibakushas have been vital to memorialising and reactivating the atomic bomb tragedy. In recognition of their lifelong campaign to depict atomic bomb horrors and ban nuclear weapons, the Hibakusha Group Nihon Hidankyo was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. Yet, the world harbours grave ignorance about the experiences of Hibakushas. The Hibakushas have battled not only the long-term health and psychological effects of bombing but also the institutional apathy and social ostracisation. The slow violence of atomic bombing continues to unfold as the bomb has become “a matter of living” for its victims.Eighty years later, the world therefore needs to acknowledge the sufferings of the Japanese atomic bomb survivors as well as the scores of indigenous communities facing long-term health impacts of radioactive contamination at nuclear weapons test sites. Throughout the Cold War, the peace movements of various hues and persuasions became a strong voice against the nuclear weapon states’ apathy towards the human and environmental costs of nuclear arms testing. The nerve-wrecking Cold War nuclear brinkmanship drove the peace groups to appeal for sanity and demand the de-escalation of tensions. With more than 13,000 nuclear warheads still in existence, however, the threat of nuclear conflict continues to loom large. The new nuclear arms race and the unregulated use of emerging technologies are further intensifying the fears about accidental or inadvertent use of nuclear weapons. It is thus incumbent that the world remembers the atomic bombing of Japan not only with sorrow but with a renewed sense of responsibility to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemorations compel us than ever to untold the fables of deterrence and embody the destructive impacts of the atomic bomb tragedy.Over the years, the atomic bomb survivors have narrated their tales of survival through extensive verbal testimonies and graphic illustrations. Atom bomb survivor Akiko Takakura’s iconic drawings have immortalised the imagery of the black rain that fell on Hiroshima after the bombing. The tragic memory of the bombings has also been reconstructed through varying literary and artistic forms, including Maruki murals, Kenzaburō Ōe’s essays, and the film version of Masuji Ibuse’s Black Rain, to name a few. The Hibakusha memory today offers a single most affective register that needs to be preserved and amplified as the beacon of humanity’s hope for a nuclear weapons-free world. The 80th anniversary must therefore be dedicated to spreading the voice of Hibakushas and rejecting the delusional thinking about deterrence. Kapil Patil, PhD, teaches at the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies at Shiv Nadar University, New Delhi-NCR.