DAWN - OpEd; January 23, 2003 - Newspaper

Fundamentalism in the subcontinent

By Sayeed Hasan Khan

The South Asian subcontinent is passing through one of the worst phases in recent history. There is no communication by road, rail or air between India and Pakistan. The ruling BJP in India has discouraged any contact between Indians and Pakistanis. This had not happened before for such a prolonged period.

Yet, we in Pakistan do not have any reason to feel self-righteous. We still do not fully realize what has happened to our society after the death of the Quaid. What that he stood for do we cherish today? Even his speeches have been edited to suit the needs of the government of the day. Is there much concern about the killings of shia doctors in Karachi or Ahmadis and Christians in Punjab and other parts of Pakistan? Is there any feeling of guilt about what happened in East Pakistan?

Marx has said that shame is a revolutionary sentiment, but we have no shame. Everyday we see the same faces on our television screens playing a different tune and seeking to suggest that they were not hawks during the 1971 disaster.

The violent campaign against Muslims in India and targeted killing of minorities in Pakistan appear today to enjoy ideological sanction. Parallel organizations of Hindus and Muslims are helping each other in promoting hatred between communities. The role of the Bajrang Dal or the RSS is not much different from the role of the Sipah-i-Sahaba or the Lashkar-i-Tayyaba.

The BJP government has revised history textbooks to depict Muslim rules as villains. Indian historians are resisting such distortions of history while some states have refused to implement the policy of the BJP in their schools. Such revision has been going on in Pakistan since the beginning. Have we done anything about it?

Harsh Mandar, a senior Indian bureaucrat who resigned in protest at his government’s policy on Gujarat, writes that what the state witnessed was not a riot but a terrorist attack followed by a systematic, planned massacre, a pogrom. Thee was glaring cruelty and injustice. He lamented that after Gujarat, he will no longer he able to sing his favourite song, “Saare Jahan Se Accha Hindustan Hamara”.

The irony is that the RSS, which never joined the freedom movement, now controls the most prosperous state of India. The British government cynically left it free to grow when they aligned themselves against the Congress. An important minority in the Congress also clandestinely owed its allegiance to the RSS. Gujarat’s business elite and wealthy overseas Indians are pumping a lot of money into anti-Muslim activities in India. America has not imposed any control on such charities while it had done so in the case of Muslim organizations.

The present situation is no sudden cloudburst. Looking back at the growth of negative forces in the subcontinent during the last eight decades or so, one should have no reason to feel surprised at the turn of events.

Since the 19th century, the over-riding credo was nationalism. Indian nationalism hardly could be unaffected by the fact of a Hindu majority, but the Hindus were divided in many castes and sub-castes which sometime were hostile to each other. Then there were the 30 per cent Muslims who carried the baggage of ruling India. It was difficult for them to consider an independent India where the majority community’s culture would inevitably have an impact.

But in spite of all this, a composite multicultural nation had developed. The failure of the Khilafat movement, which was a watershed in the politics of India, badly affected Hindu-Muslim relations. It brought them on one platform and its failure separated them in a lasting way. The Muslim community felt very bitter toward the Congress leadership which they believed had let them down.

It was in this atmosphere of distrust that V.D. Saverkar emerged in the 1920s as a Hindutva leader in spite of his revolutionary past. He wrote a fanatical pamphlet, Who is a Hindu, in which he advocated that only those who believed that their fatherland was Bharatversha, from the Indus to the Sees and felt that this land held all their holy places could be considered as truly India. This automatically excluded Muslim and Christians, as their holy places were outside India. Later one, he thoughtfully added secularists and communists in his list of aliens. Saverkar set the ugly pattern of Hindu fundamentalist and soon after another Maharashtrian, K.B. Hedgewar, founded the RSS at Nagpur.

A look into the Hindutva politics of the last eighty years will show how much today’s Hindu militancy (and the resultant Muslim militancy) owes itself to the venomous teachings of Saverker and Hedgewar. The organizations which made their presence felt during this period included the Arya Samaj, Shudhi, Tabligh, Tanzim and the Khaksar movement of Allama Mashriqi. Ironically, both RSS leader Golwarkar and Allama Mashriqi admired a common hero, Adolph Hitler, who, ironically, would have had little time for them.

Before the formation of anti-Muslim fronts, the most significant political movement in Bombay was that of Dr Ambedkar, who organized the Dalits to fight against the injustices inflicted by the upper castes. Some decades earlier a powerful anti-Brahman party was started by Jyotiba Phule which was called Satyashodhak Samaj. The Hindu Fundamentalist parties were as much upper caste as they are today, but as Gandhi wanted to unite all communities to fight for independence, he had to keep the Congress secular. The slogan of “Ram Raj”, however, alienated Muslims from the Congress. The Brahman Bania combination continued to rule independent India under the banner of secularism.

Gandhi, it must be admitted, rose to great heights during the massacre of Muslims in Delhi. His private secretary, Pyare Lal, writes that Gandhi was told about the zeal of RSS volunteers during the riots in Punjab, to which he replied: “Do not forget the Nazis and the Italian fascists.” He viewed the RSS as a communal body with a totalitarian outlook. Even with his assassination Gandhi derailed the Hindu fanatic movement for 30 years.

The RSS raised its ugly face again under the umbrella of the BJP which also nurtures the Vishva Hindu Parisad and the Bajrang Dal under its vicious wings. These organizations played havoc with Muslims in Gujarat. The upper castes and middle class adherents driving posh cars looted Muslim homes and shops because the Hindu elite no longer believes that the dalits will fight or rob for them. Middle class youth are being trained in RSS camps.

While there is no reason to downplay these atrocities against Muslims in India, there is no need either to lump every Hindu with militants. There are many who are writing and protesting against these insanities, which have taken control of some of their compatriots.

A bigoted attitude on the part of some Pakistanis, especially the fundamentalists who were not part of the Pakistan movement, only weakens secularists in India and Pakistan. It is the good fortune of India to have an Arundhati Roy there. She has done a lot to expose the atrocities in her country. When we try to cope with India, we should think of her and the many people there of similar integrity and decency.

Let us also not forget to tend our own ragged garden. This brings to mind the saying of the veteran congressman Acharya Vinobha Bhave at the time of the assassination of Gandhi. When asked who he thought had killed Gandhi, Bhave said: “I”.

Russia’s deadly junk room

AS United Nations inspectors search Iraq for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, barns in the Siberian town of Shchuchye store thousands of tons of VX, sarin and other nerve agents, along with 2 million chemical artillery shells small enough to fit in a suitcase, each containing enough poison to kill a stadium full of people.

Ridding the world of such weapons — wherever they are — must be a top priority for the United States. Fortunately, after considerable prodding, Congress has authorized millions to destroy the gases in Shchuchye and other weapons across Russia before terrorists get them.

A US-Russian programme to burn or otherwise disable chemical, biological and nuclear weapons has worked well for more than a decade. Several years ago Congress approved more money for this task, then refused to release it. In November, President Bush, with vocal support from Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., prevailed on Congress to authorize spending the $466 million it originally earmarked for the programme, and last week Bush signed two waivers to free those funds.

It was Lugar and then-Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., who set up the arms destruction programme in 1991. Russia was having difficulty even paying guards to stop thieves from snatching the weapons, let alone financing the programme. So the United States has spent $7 billion over 11 years to destroy thousands of nuclear warheads and hundreds of ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines in the former Soviet Union.

Some in Congress worried all along that money was being wasted and urged Russia to chip in — which it has. Critics also have demanded that the money be tied to ending human rights abuses in Russia and that the Kremlin stop helping build nuclear reactors in Iran. Those are good goals, but the place to pursue them is outside the weapons destruction programme.—Los Angeles Times

Beyond the relief package

By Sultan Ahmed

THE federal cabinet, following the initiative of Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali, has come up with a relief package targeted towards the very poor and those unemployed for long periods. The first phase of the “falahi package” is meant to help 2.5 million families with Rs 2,500 a year at a total cost of Rs 5 billion.

The whole package is to eventually cover seven million families at a cost of around Rs 15 billion, which would mean most of the poor living below the poverty line of a dollar a day or even less. This is a very modest effort as the proposed relief comes to an average of Rs 200 per month per family and may cover only the cost of basic food.

Funds for the relief package have to come out of the budget deficit which was initially agreed with the IMF at four per cent of GDP for this year. But the IMF has now agreed to raise the deficit to 4.6 per cent and expects the relief announced and other such measures to come not to exceed this ceiling. The government has agreed to this so as to stay on the reform course negotiated with the IMF.

The government has announced a scheme to help pensioners hit by the fall in returns from their deposits in national savings schemes. As against other depositors, who get nine per cent interest, pensioners will get 11 per cent for 10 years. This will be subject to a reduction of 10 per cent withholding tax but will enjoy exemption from Zakat. In addition, there is a package for widows and disabled persons who may be given up to Rs 50,000 to engage in commercial activities which will help them earn a living.

Sugar-cane growers in the country too are to be helped by authorising the Trading Corporation of Pakistan to buy surplus sugar between 0.3 to 0.5 million tonnes for export at heavily subsidised rates. Sugar millowners have been wanting a subsidy of Rs 4,000 and more for exporting the surplus sugar at a time when the world prices of sugar are very low and sugar mills have long been holding surplus sugar. As a result, the mills are reported to be purchasing cane at less than the officially fixed price of Rs 42 for 40 kg of cane, and there have been loud protests from growers.

There is usually a big gap between a policy decision at the cabinet level and its execution at the grassroots level, particularly when it comes to distribution of money to the people. We have to see how diligently and uprightly the district steering committees now do their job. The logistics for distribution of relief money to 2.5 million families initially and seven million families or 42 million persons on the basis of six persons per family will not be easy to devise.

All that leaves low middle income and middle income groups out in the cold. Their daily experience does not make them believe that the inflation rate now is as low as four to five per cent, particularly in areas where energy of any kind has to be paid for. They feel they need relief, though not in the form of charity or official donation.

They are all struck by the fact that although the dollar has come down by more than 10 per cent since 9/11, prices of imported goods or articles made from imported raw materials have not come down. Import duty on such goods which is charged on the basis of their rupee value has also come down. Imported goods ought to be costing less. But there has been no relief for the people in this regard while POL prices have been going up following the rise in world oil prices. The government ought to look into this problem critically and help the consumers.

While helping the very poor, the government wants to help itself by repaying costly loans from the IMF like the Stand-by Credit of $650 million and from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. It can make use of the $9.5 billion of foreign exchange reserves for that purpose as interest payments on such loans are higher than what can be earned by investing the reserves in foreign treasury bonds.

The people need dynamic official economic policies along with a sincere political leadership to have a better future. And that has to come in the form of steadily increasing employment opportunities, for which large-scale industrial investment along with expansion of the services sector, is necessary.

With energy prices rising all the time, the prospects for large-scale investment are small. If the US attacks Iraq, the economy of the region will be disrupted and oil prices will go up, impeding foreign investment and tourism. It will also delay privatization of our major utility companies.

The prime minister’s adviser, Mr Shaukat Aziz, has said that the first draft of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper drawn up in consultation with the World Bank and others will be shared with the public in March to improve it further and the final document released by May 1. He is confident that economic growth this year will exceed the targeted 4.5 per cent, and that the six per cent growth target will be achieved within two to three years. Growth sectors have been identified as oil and gas, agriculture, information technology and exports.

Meanwhile, the government is reported to have barred the IMF mission currently in the country from meeting opposition leaders. This is not right. Maybe, if the IMF mission meets opposition leaders, it may try to convince them of the relevance and benefits of its policies with regard to Pakistan. There is very little which the IMF can hear from opposition leaders which it cannot hear from other non-officials in the country or read in the press.

It may not be too difficult to do away with IMF assistance as it has been small in volume though its conditionalities have been tough. But Pakistan needs a certificate of good health from the IMF to receive enough assistance from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and other donors. The IMF is the monetary inspector of those donors, particularly of the US. As long as Pakistan depends on large external aid — now not only for development but also for poverty reduction — it has to heed the counsels of the IMF and maintain its economy on sound lines.

The IMF says the government is welcome to give relief to the people but that any increase in expenditure that raises the deficit far above the agreed limit of 4.6 per cent of the GDP should be met through additional tax revenues. It means that any such relief will lead to a rise in taxes. If that happens, it could lead to a great deal of protests as traders tend to raise prices far above the incidence of additional taxation.

All this needs a great deal of tightrope walking by the government in the midst of difficult conditions. And if there is a war on Iraq, a score of political and economic questions could arise, with their impact on our foreign policy as well.

The government ought to step up its efforts for increasing domestic investment, beginning with agriculture which can quickly pay good dividends. And it should not be the task of the investment adviser alone to campaign for larger investment, but also the task of all ministers, beginning with the prime minister. That has to be the nation’s top priority if the target of six per cent annual economic growth has to be met. Without that, this nation of 140 million cannot have a bright future in this age of globalization and survival of the fittest.

Beyond the relief package

By Sultan Ahmed

Why the West is losing the war

By Peter Beaumont

IT IS the great heresy of free societies, so speak it softly, but the accumulating evidence of the past four years is that terrorism can — and does — work. And it is working on a global scale.

It is a simple fact that is more terrifying than any of attacks themselves — September 11 included. That a tiny group of extremists, for the most part using the most basic of technologies, could effect such a startling paradigm shift that has transformed the world we live in. But to what end? The answer is more surprising than our political classes appear yet to have grasped.

Strip away the millenarian agenda and its language of apocalyptic struggle — the Great Satans, the enemies of God, references to the Crusaders. Strip away, just for a moment, its extreme religious aspects and what you are left with is a non-negotiable political agenda. That aim is to remove — or neutralize — American and western influence from large areas of the globe, including states that are not exclusively Islamist.

It is a tension that was in part foreseen by Benjamin Barber in 1992 in his essay ‘Jihad versus McWorld’, which predicted that the greatest threat to democracy would be the clash between the spread of a homogenizing American culture — paradoxically indifferent to what was happening in the world it touched on — and a new kind of anti-political tribal politics which, he predicted, would see ‘the breakdown of civility in the name of identity; of comity in the name of community’.

Barber thought that breakdown in civility would likely come from the kind of gang warfare then beginning to grip the Balkans. Instead, the real challenge to McWorld has been the unforeseen emergence of an extremist version of radical Islam literally at war with the West and all it stands for. For the time being at least, it seems it is the terrorists who are winning.

It is a pessimistic outlook, but an easy case to make. Let’s start with the most obvious economic impact. The fear engendered by a spate of attacks by Jihad International — Al Qaeda and groups that share its agenda — is crippling the long-haul tourist industry, threatening the West’s airline industry and has almost shut down tourism outside of the US. That cost is likely to amount to billions of pounds in the long run, its impact being felt as keenly in countries such as Indonesia and Kenya which are heavily dependent on tourist dollars.

What is less quantifiable is what John Stevenson, senior fellow in counter terrorism at the International Institute for Strategic Studies describes as Al Qaeda’s aim of ‘neutralizing’ America and the West’s influence in large areas of the world. Already the US and other countries have reduced embassies in vulnerable areas of the world, like other nations — Britain included — closing down missions at times of threat. But it is not just diplomats who carry our message into the world. Business too is supposed to fly the flag for our values. And as businesses become more wary of operating in threatened areas, they too will withdraw to safer areas of operation.

And in our withdrawal from exactly those places where the kind of Islamist extremism we fear most is at its most threatening, we give up the intellectual and psychological space to those who most threaten our values. Because the real war with Al Qaeda, as James Thomson, president of the Rand Corporation think-tank, pointed out in the organization’s summer review, is not simply one of missiles, snatch squads and bullets. It is quintessentially one of ideas.

And it is in the war of ideas that we are most notably failing in the war on terrorism. As Thomson’s overview points out, even more a year after 9/11 America and its allies still have little idea of the roots of the discontent that has made Jihad International so attractive to so many young Islamist men, or the etiology of the hatred of America.

Not only is the message not getting across, but there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of where the real sophistication of Jihad International comes from. It is not in its ingenious and despicable skill in butchering innocent civilians, or even in its apparently formidable organizational skills, which in reality may be far less formidable than assumed, but in syndicating and marketing its brand of terror. This is not the old terrorism of the IRA or ETA, with structures, doctrines and pseudo-military organization. What Bush and Blair and all their allies do not understand is that it is the idea of Al Qaeda, not its physical reality, that is the key, an idea which has taken deep root in countries from Afghanistan to South East Asia and Africa.

At the centre of that idea is an oppositional discourse that seeks to drive the West, particularly America, out of what Osama bin Laden has claimed as the wider Islamic nation. That misunderstanding is represented at its worst by George Bush who, it is said, keeps a list of 12 names of the top Al Qaeda terrorists in his desk and ticks them off as they are captured or killed.

But Al Qaeda is less a hierarchical organization out of James Bond led by a sinister mastermind, than a dynamic dialogue between like-minded radicals conducted via mosques, radical publications and the internet. A specific order is almost redundant as individual groups know exactly what must be done and when, adapting themselves to new security constraints and to new targets.

And what appears to have been ‘understood’ before the attack on Mombasa (Kenya) was that it was the right time to polarize the war on terrorism. Just at the moment Bush and his allies had constructed a grudging consent from the Arab world for its tough line on Iraq, Jihad International brought in Israel. In his belligerent threat to hunt down the perpetrators of the Mombasa attacks, Israel’s right-wing prime minister Ariel Sharon has threatened to upset the delicate consensus between America and its allies on the issue of the war on terrorism, and on the Security Council over Iraq.

Few of Sharon’s friends among the hawks that surround George Bush are unaware of his motto — ‘Always escalate’ — and his long history of ill-conceived military responses from the Gaza raid, the invasion of south Lebanon to his handling of the al-Aqsa intifada, that have delivered a quick political or military fix at the cost of long-term disaster.

By bringing Israel explosively into the mix a week before the deadline for Iraq’s weapons declaration, Jihad International has shown a political and operational astuteness that is quite terrifying.

What is more terrifying still is the notion among the West’s political classes that it is an organization, not an idea, that they are fighting. With each new arrest, each new targeted killing, we congratulate ourselves that we are winning — until the next atrocity takes place. All the while, we fail to tackle the ideas that replace each arrested or dead terrorist with a new recruit.

As the tens of millions dead in the last century demonstrated, ideas — no matter that they are venal ones like Nazism or Stalinism — can be as hard to kill as they are lethally and stupidly persistent.

But in a war of ideas, to do nothing is the worst of all options.

—Dawn/Guardian Service

No-news stories

THESE are the stories that never made the papers last year.

George Hunt, of Baltimore, and his wife, had a terrible fight. Mrs. Hunt got so mad she threw a Bible at him. It hit his chest and George was saved by a bullet he always carried in his pocket for good luck.

Congressman Hourcourt said if re-elected, he “could fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time — but he intends to fool all of the people all of the time.”

Everett Flink was off by only one number on the Powerball, and when he showed up at the lottery office they told him to go home.

Artie Hyman embezzled $300 million from his company. He said he could have stolen more but he didn’t want to be greedy.

In the same story it turned out Hilda Offenback thought Artie Hyman was “Mr. Right.” When she found out he embezzled all that money, she told reporters, “I still love him because I am high maintenance.”

A White House staff member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “A lot of people in the country say the president knows something we don’t know. He doesn’t know any more than everyone else and that is why we trust him.”

A taxi driver in Brooklyn found a briefcase full of money in the back of his cab. His mother told him never to keep anything that wasn’t his. He thought about it for 30 seconds and said, “What does she know about it?” Then he drove straight to Atlantic City.

A woman in Easthampton backed her SUV into a parking spot but didn’t hit anyone. The town made her “Driver of the Year.”

A senator who was supposed to be at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party had a cold and couldn’t make it. He sent Strom an e-mail instead. A doctor in Ottawa sued his lawyer for malpractice.

The Milton Orshefskys told their two children they couldn’t go to an Eminem concert. The son said, “That’s OK with us Dad. We’d rather stay home with you and mom than go to a lousy concert where none of the kids stay in their seats.”

A dog named Lassie had run away and was missing for three years. Suddenly she appeared at the door of the Barnstables’ house. Her owners wouldn’t take her back because their household insurance wouldn’t cover her. A man said to his companion on Fifth Avenue, “If I hear the name Saddam Hussein one more time I’m going to spit.” Then he spat and was arrested for expectorating in the street.

Mary S. Murphy decided to apply for membership in the Augusta National Golf Club. She was turned down. The admission chairman explained, “Not because you are a woman, but because you had a run in your stocking.”—Dawn/Tribune Media Services

India’s emerging nuclear posture

By Ghulam Umar

WITH the successful launching of a medium-range ballistic missile (Agni II), Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee declared that “India has achieved minimum nuclear deterrence.” He further said: “The entire process of achieving minimum deterrence has been completed. Now India is fully secure. We are satisfied that we are fully secure.”

After Ghauri II and Shaheen II had been test-fired, Pakistan declared that the process of minimum deterrence had been concluded.

It was encouraging to note that both India and Pakistan had underlined minimum deterrence. It should have been possible for them at that stage to discuss and arrive at an understanding about minimum deterrence and a sensible restraint regime. This would have required defining effective deterrence in terms of numbers, quality of weapons and delivery systems.

They could have negotiated to evolve an agreed strategic restraint regime. Till such time that a framework was worked out, further tests and development of missiles could have been suspended. Alas, this was not to be.

Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons that are deployable and deliverable. Because of geographical contiguity, the warning time is almost non-existent. This by itself creates a degree of strategic instability. It provides cause for anxiety, although one cannot see any objective that would justify the actual use of nuclear weapons. Even conventional war does not make any sense; we have seen in the past that wars do not solve any problems. In fact, they create new ones, while aggravating old disputes and differences.

We now see that India’s desire to achieve minimum deterrence has resulted in a posture of force. Even though the latest announcement about a nuclear command system and the desired force posture have not been spelt out in any significant detail, one gets the impression that it is much more than minimum deterrence that India is aiming at, particularly when seen in the light of the continued development of a missile system and other means of delivery of nuclear weapons.

India has now declared that the latest firing of the Agni missile, which has a range of nearly 700 kilometres, is Pakistan-specific. Its scientific adviser has indicated that India could develop a missile which will carry a nuclear warhead upto 14,000 kilometres. This should be a cause for concern for the US and China. It indicates India’s misplaced sense of priorities and is an attempt to secure a great power status by military means rather than by attending more assiduously to the economic well-being of its citizens. It also shows that India wants to force, through sheer military power, the states of this region to toe the Indian line not only in international affairs but also in their internal policies.

While announcing its Nuclear Command System, India deliberately kept vague its no-first-use stance. However, the statement that India could retaliate in the face of a major attack including a biological or a chemical weapons assault on Indian forces at home or elsewhere, indicates that India is not serious about its declared policy of no-first-strike. No mention has been made of any mechanism for delay in the use of nuclear weapons.

Would such weapons be kept in a state of assembled preparedness for instant launching or will the various components be kept separated as is the case in the United States? Another serious flaw is that only one person, the prime minister, has the power to order the use of nuclear weapons. The deliberate decision to use these weapons goes against a safe system to prevent an accident.

Pakistan had established its National Command Authority about four years ago. Unlike India, the authority is empowered to take a joint decision and not by any individual, including the present. The prime minister of Pakistan is a member of the National Command Authority. The nuclear programme of Pakistan is safe and there is no confusion about it, as the effectiveness of the command and control structure assures that.

Pakistan’s nuclear assets and strategic forces are completely secure and they continue to be developed as a form of minimum deterrence. While handing over an indigenously developed, intermediate range ballistic missile system to the army, President Musharraf declared: “Pakistanis are a responsible nation and are aware of international obligations. Our command and control structures are water tight.”

India’s National Security Advisory Board, India’s top panel of national security experts, has advised the government to review its no-first-use of nuclear weapons policy in light of the history of the last four years. The board’s final report is quoted as recommending that “India may consider withdrawing from this commitment as other nuclear weapon states have not accepted this policy.”

Is India trying to follow the policy of pre-emptive strike? The United States had at no stage agreed to such a policy and Russia abandoned the posture, which had been adopted by the Soviet Union. There are also clear indications that India could resume nuclear weapons testing. The direction, extent and patterns of changes in India’s nuclear posture will depend to a large extent on the character of the global nuclear regime. Pakistan’s nuclear policy has been and will continue to be influenced by developments in India in this field. Pakistan’s primary concern is its security. This, therefore, dominates its decision-making. There have been three wars between these two countries.

Acquisition of nuclear weapons by Islamabad should serve to boost Pakistan’s confidence about its security and by implication offers the best hope for stabilized relations with India. Attaining this goal remains important to achieve peace and security in the region.

So far there has been no sign to indicate that the existing nuclear states will ever move towards complete abolition of weapons of mass destruction, even though there has been some reduction in the stockpile of nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia. Thus, the nuclear problem remains a global one, where strategic considerations, as far as India is concerned, relate to vertical proliferation.

This is because India is possessed by the ambition of becoming a world power. It will therefore try to justify the increase in numbers of weapons and continued development of its missile system. This is bound to have a negative and dangerous impact towards further horizontal proliferation in South Asia. The current global regime influences India’s nuclear policy by making denuclearization impossible. This global regime in fact allows the existing nuclear weapon states to continue maintaining and in fact improving their arsenals.

If the global order were really to change in a direction manifestly unfavourable to India, personified most simply by China’s rise as a superpower, Indian policymakers expect that the current strong wave of American nonproliferation pressures on New Delhi will steadily abate and that India will then be free for the first time to return to the business of developing a more robust nuclear posture of the kind it believes the altered strategic environment requires.

Let us take serious notice of the United States official statement made available by the US embassy in Delhi. It describes the tension between India and Pakistan as more dangerous than the scariest period during the cold war.

Let India and Pakistan show to the world that our two countries could be and are as responsible as any other nation that has nuclear weapons. There is urgent need for taking the necessary steps to arrive at an understanding on mutual nuclear restraint. The possibility of an accidental and unauthorized start of nuclear conflict must be completely eradicated.

As far as the region is concerned, the best chance of avoiding a conflict is to move towards a conflict-free South Asia and a peaceful solution of the Kashmir problem. While moving towards that end, let India and Pakistan ensure a nuclear safe zone and ultimately make joint efforts for complete elimination of weapons of mass destruction worldwide. let there be no arms race and let us cooperate and concentrate on solving the problems of poverty, disease and ignorance amongst the large masses in the region.

The writer is a retired major-general of the Pakistan Army.

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