THE foreign ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (ECO), now popularly called the ‘Shanghai Six’, met in Beijing in early January to review its progress and set the agenda for its next summit meeting scheduled to be held in June in the Russian city of St. Petersburg.

While the ECO foreign ministers pledged support for global efforts to fight terrorism, they also reaffirmed their own plan of action to deal with the threat of home-grown religious extremism and ethnic separatism. The coming summit is expected to adopt a formal charter of the ECO as well as documents on setting up a ‘regional counter-terrorism agency’ and a ‘mechanism for emergency response’.

The fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, accompanied by the destruction of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network for sponsoring Islamic warriors of various hues, including a large contingent of recruits from Central Asia, has brought about a dramatic change in the regional scenario. The threat of sponsorship of ‘cross-border terrorism’ has been, at least for the time being, effectively countered. The Americans who have declared war on Islamic militants have made it known that their campaign will not stop at Afghanistan. The Central Asian countries may have to, under the circumstances, review their threat perception and chart a new course of action to deal with their security problem.

On the face of it, all members of the SCO pledged support to the US-led coalition as its stated objectives were in consonance with their own agenda. But some were more willing than the others to let the Americans set the rules of the game. The Chinese kept their distance, expressing reservations about indiscriminate bombing, arbitrary actions and extending the war to targets beyond Osama bin Laden’s apparatus. They did not at any stage endorse the US plan to topple the Taliban and install a regime of its own preference in Kabul. The Russians were actively involved in funding and arming the Northern Alliance, as they gave their open support to its claim as the alternative to the Taliban regime.

The upshot of the Russian manoeuvres was to secure a share in the spoils of war in terms of gaining political influence. Uzbekistan went the whole hog to identify itself with the American designs. It was the only country among Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours which allowed the US to station troops on its soil and use its territory as an operational base for military action in Afghanistan.

The US military presence in Uzbekistan, however limited or transitory, is an ominous signal that neither China nor Russia can afford to overlook. The precedent may have far-reaching implications for the balance of forces in Central Asia while it has already raised questions about the viability of the SCO’s mechanism for joint action. That China, Russia and Uzbekistan did not pursue a common line on an issue which has been a priority matter on the agenda of the Shanghai process underscored the failure of the SCO to rise to the occasion.

Whether or not the SCO will be able to salvage the authority or relevance of its own security apparatus is a little too early to say, but one cannot rule out the possibility that the Uzbek model may well be followed by other Central Asian countries. The fear is that the temptation to do business with the US rather than relying on an autonomous collective security system in the region may be too great to resist for the Central Asian states.

The Chinese do not envy the prospect of being seen as a US camp follower in fighting ‘international terrorism’, while the Russian have been vacillating, partly because of their bondage to the IMF and partly due to confusion in their ‘post-Soviet’ foreign policy dispensation. Nevertheless, if the Americans were to use their presence in Afghanistan as a stepping stone to making advances into Central Asia, both China and Russia will have reasons to feel concerned, and hence the need for active collaboration to contain the US influence. Conspiracy theories have been attributing a sinister design to the US military operation in Afghanistan.

The Taliban regime, they say, was toppled to secure a safe passage to Central Asia, since the Americans have set their eyes on the huge oil and gas reserves there which they would require to lessen their dependence on the Middle East for energy. Uzbekistan, it is being said, has given the Americans the foothold they needed in Central Asia to carry out their agenda for control over the exploration and outflow of energy resources.

Whatever is their ‘hidden agenda’ in Afghanistan, or even if there is none beyond destroying the so-called terrorist network, the US offensive in the region poses a serious security threat to both China and Russia. The Sino-Russian partnership in Central Asia will be under great stress, as the co-sponsors of the Shanghai process will be required to hold their allies together in the SCO, notwithstanding their divergence on the question of dealing with the Americans.

The future of SCO hinges on many variables. The US war against terrorism, initially seen as a ‘blessing in disguise’ for Central Asia, has created a sense of anxiety and uneasiness in the SCO, as observers see its fallout as a set-back for the regional alliance. The liquidation of the Islamic fundamentalist forces’ base in Afghanistan has inflicted a heavy blow on the militant groups operating in Central Asia, more so in terms of isolation and demoralization.

The ruling elites in the Central Asian republics need safeguards against foreign interference to preserve the political order in their countries. One reason why these countries refrain from seeking outright US patronage was the stringent terms set by the Americans for the good behaviour of states. Neither democracy nor a free play of the market forces is in the scheme of things in Central Asia.

Ironically, separatist elements, termed ‘dissidents’ in American idiom, were known to have at one time or the other a western connection, including the Chechens in Russia and the Uygurs in China’s Xinjiang province. Little wonder some observers do not rule out the possibility that the Americans may once again deem it necessary to use the ‘dissidence’ card in Central Asia. The SCO security mechanism will therefore have a long-term relevance for the security concerns of the Central Asian states.

As most observers agree, SCO’s economic viability will, above all, determine its future. China’s shifting of developmental activity to western China, including the Xinjiang province, will have a spillover effect on these neighbouring countries. Cementing of economic ties in areas of mutual benefit and enlarging cooperation from trade to investment and technological assistance will offset the looming temptation in Central Asia to look up to the West, in particular the US, for leadership and patronage.

Before the SCO was formally set up in June 2001, some countries had shown a certain interest in the Shanghai Five mechanism. Among them were Pakistan, India and Iran. The SCO is an open partnership and new members are welcome to join in as Uzbekistan did on its founding. But a consensus among all the members is required to admit new entrants so as to pre-empt chances of factionalism and polarisation within its ranks. Pakistan was the only country to have formally applied for the membership of the Shanghai Five in January 2001. However, no decision was taken regarding Pakistan’s membership. A Russian analyst said, the “complicated question of Islamabad joining the Shanghai Five is unlikely to be answered in the near future.” According to him, Tajikistan had given a ‘flat no’, even though the Tajik president did not give his reasons for opposing Pakistan’s induction.

It goes without saying that Pakistan’s Afghan policy was the stumbling block. However, opposition to its membership was led by Moscow, which had reasons other than the Taliban factor to blackball Pakistan. Moscow was said to have been more enthusiastic about India joining the alliance than the Indians themselves.

According to some Chinese critics, the Russians were trying for a ‘package deal’ to allow admission to both India and Pakistan simultaneously. In the wake of the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Islamabad distancing itself from the Islamic extremists, it may now be easier for Pakistan to pursue SCO membership, albeit the Russian response would still be largely determined by the India factor. Nevertheless, the Chinese have every reason to resist any Russian move to sponsor India’s membership to preserve what has been termed the “delicate equilibrium of power between the participants.”

Under the circumstances the SCO will have to concentrate on deepening its partnership rather than expanding the organization. The only country likely to join in without any hassle is Mongolia which is a natural ally of all the participants and which will be accepted into the SCO without opposition from any quarters. The building of the Gwadar sea port with Chinese assistance may open up new avenues for Pakistan to do business with Central Asia, in particular for the outflow of oil and gas from the landlocked Central Asian countries via the shortest and the cheapest route. But to what extent it will facilitate Pakistan’s entry into the SCO is a little too early to say. In any case, the question of enlarging the SCO is not central to its growth as a significant alliance for regional security and development.

The six countries that constitute the SCO cover 30 million square kilometres — 60 per cent of continental Europe and Asia — and have a combined population of 1.5 billion — about one quarter of the world population. From a strategic perspective, a Sino-Russian axis is a formidable combination. Central Asia added to it makes the alliance a serious contender for power and influence in the evolving global scenario.

THE announcement of a series of changes in the electoral system by the government on January 16 introduced a welcome diversion from the atmosphere of crisis arising out of the military stand-off on the border. A lively debate has ensued over some aspects of the changes, notably the decision that only graduates would be eligible to contest elections. The most important, though obvious, implication of the announcement is that the military government is firmly on course in keeping its promise to return the country to democratic governance by October this year.

The constitutional package announced by Lt. Gen. Tanvir Husain Naqvi, Chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau, at a press conference in Islamabad, consisted of three major components. The elections would be held on the basis of joint electorate. Secondly, the number of seats in the National Assembly would be increased from the previous 237 to 350, including 60 seats for women, a three-fold increase in their representation. Lastly, the minimum level of education for candidates would be graduation in any discipline.

The increase in the strength of the National Assembly has been generally welcomed. The population of the country has doubled since 1973, when the present Constitution was adopted. Out of the increase of 113 seats, 40 extra seats have been allocated to women, while 25 seats are to be reserved for technocrats. Election to these would be held on the basis of proportional representation, and would be allocated to various parties on the basis of the votes polled by them.

As the ten seats reserved for minorities have been abolished, there are 58 additional seats to be allocated to the provinces in the National Assembly. Their allocation to the provinces was announced on January 22, increasing the number for Punjab from 115 to 147, for Sindh from 46 to 59, for the NWFP from 26 to 32 and for Balochistan from 11 to 14, with FATA’s share increasing from 8 to 12. Increases are also proposed in the strength of the provincial assemblies. These increases have been generally welcomed, as providing for more adequate representation for the people.

The decision to restore joint electorate has been widely applauded as meeting a popular demand. It may be recalled that all three Constitutions adopted by Pakistan since its independence, in 1956, 1962 and 1973, had provided for joint electorate. In welcoming this decision, many leaders referred to the speech of the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on August 11, 1947, that favoured the concept of joint electorate. It was President Zia-ul-Haq who had brought in separate electorates in 1985 amid widespread criticism.

The decision to provide separate representation to the minorities, by reserving ten seats for them, was not seen by them in a favourable light. Though designed superficially to ensure adequate representation for them, the step virtually had the effect of reducing them to the status of second class citizens, with separate voters’ lists and polling arrangements. Furthermore, the widely scattered members of the minority groups had great difficulty in keeping in contact with their representatives and keeping them posted with the problems and issues affecting their over-size constituencies. They also felt that they had been separated from the mainstream of the country’s politics. The most glowing tributes to the decision to restore joint electorate have come from leaders of minority communities.

It is the decision to prescribe graduation as the minimum qualification for candidates for the National Assembly that has generated widespread controversy. Those who have spoken in favour mostly represent smaller parties that perhaps feel that as many political heavyweights from major parties will be ineligible to contest elections, this will improve the chances for their candidates. However, the objections raised by major parties and large sections of opinion to this proposal need to be taken seriously.

The requirement of a minimum level of education for contesting elections does not exist in most democratic countries. The argument is advanced that if there is no criterion of literacy for voters, some 60 per cent of whom are illiterate, why should a sizable number of aspiring or tried and tested legislators be debarred from contesting elections? During the British period, the condition of literacy was enforced for voting at some level but that was under a colonial system and the government was hardly democratic. It has been said that many politicians with limited formal education belonging to major parties have held seats in the national and provincial assemblies and enjoyed the confidence of their constituents. To debar them after years of active participation in the electoral process is seen to be unfair, even undemocratic.

Perhaps an interim arrangement can be considered to accommodate political personalities who have won elections in the past but who lack a bachelor’s degree. An exception could be made for persons who have won seats in the national or provincial assemblies in at least two elections over the past 14 years, starting from 1988. The condition of graduation might be applied to all new candidates.

Some major political parties also have reservations about the new electoral rolls being prepared by NADRA on the basis of computerized information gathered in connection with the issuance of new national identity cards. The new electoral rolls are due to be completed by January 30, 2002. PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto has demanded that the electoral rolls prepared in 1995 be used, as the latest computerized rolls had left out the names of many prominent leaders of her party. This objection would, hopefully, be met by opening the new rolls for public scrutiny, so that missing names could be included. It would be a pity if the technical facilities available these days through the use of computers were not utilized for removing such gaps and deficiencies.

There are other criticisms of the electoral reforms coming from some major political parties. They point out that as a military government is promulgating these reforms, they lack the endorsement of the people. Though the cabinet has approved them, they represent basically the decision of one man. This view is reflective of the attitude of the political parties that even otherwise desirable or necessary reforms should have popular sanction behind them. Whenever the stage is reached for making constitutional amendments, the decisions taken during the period of military rule would have to be brought before the newly elected National Assembly for endorsement or else would lapse.

The positive aspect of the electoral reforms announced recently is that they constitute a response to popular sentiments on such issues as joint electorates and on increasing seats, as well as representation for women and technocrats. Even more important is the evidence they provide of the commitment of the government to honouring its pledge to restore democratic governance within a three-year period as laid down by the Supreme Court.

One of the great contradictions of American liberals is their blind, unquestioning support of Israel and all things and actions Israeli and their ejection of Palestine and all things Palestinian.

For so long now has the Palestinian movement for self-determination been painted as “terrorist” that the few in America who may have a different view will refrain from speaking or writing anything reflecting of that view. The greatest fear most Americans have is of being called anti-Semitic. Rarely does one come across a situation where a distinction has been made between Judaism and Zionism. Anyone who speaks against Zionism is immediately branded anti-Semitic. It is unthinkable for anyone to be publicly critical of the Jews or anything Jewish.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to get any writing critical of Israel printed in the mainstream US press. The situation in Europe may be somewhat better but not much, as a friend of mine who worked much of her life for a renowned French magazine assured me some time ago. She said you could not do a piece taking on Israel and expect to see it in print. More likely than not, it would be rejected and, if printed at all, much of its sting would be taken out. It is ironic that the guilt the West lives with on account of the treatment of European Jewry by Nazi Germany should be expiated at the expense of the Palestinians who did no harm to the Jews.

The holocaust was unleashed by the Europeans, not Arabs. While no one questions the right of the Israelis to return to their historical home, there is little feeling for, or even awareness of, the fact that the Palestinians were ejected from their land over half a century ago and have not been allowed to return. They are scattered all around the world and their third generation is growing up in refugee camps. Few in the West feel any guilt on that account.

Arab states do what they can but despite the enormous wealth that oil brought to some of them, they are helpless or not angry enough to stand up and fight for the Palestinians. Words that cost nothing and are always available in abundance in all Arab, if not all Muslim, lands, are their favoured substitutes for more concrete actions.

What Israel and its western backers have done is to first dispossess the Palestinians and then govern them by occupying their land, by forcing them into refugee camps, by blocking roadways that take them to their jobs, by refusing to let them get proper schooling, or even basic health care, and by undermining, if not discounting, their humanity. Today, Israeli leaders declare Yasser Arafat to be irrelevant. What little the Palestinian Authority had, has since been either destroyed or placed under severe restrictions.

As someone said, the Palestinian people were declared irrelevant a long time ago, so what is so surprising that the man who has been in the Palestinian struggle from the very start and in whom the Israelis once saw another possible Sadat, has been declared irrelevant because he refused to sign on the dotted line. His sin is that he tried to retrieve and proclaim the rights and honour of his people. That is unforgivable.

No greater catastrophe has struck the Muslims than September 11 because since that dark and terrible day, the Taliban have been used by the West in general and Israel in particular as the representation of all Islam and all Muslim nations. It is now said here that while all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are Muslim. Terror and ignorance are portrayed as diseases endemic to the Muslims. Even if all the enemies of Islam over the centuries had somehow got together and planned vengeance, they could not even have dreamed of doing what the Taliban and Al Qaeda managed to do in a few seconds on that day in September.

Sobhi Ghandour, an Arab journalist recently wrote, “The US-Israeli marriage sits at the core of the problem that has tarnished the image of the US in Arab and Islamic worlds.” There is so much about Israel that should be widely known but isn’t. Some time ago, Zaigham Khattab, a young Pakistani academic of my acquaintance, shared with his friends a few of those things. Here are some.

Non-Jewish Israelis cannot buy or lease land in Israel. Palestinian car licence plates in Israel are colour coded to distinguish Jews from non-Jews. Israel allots 85 per cent of its water resources to Jews and the remaining 15 per cent among all Palestinians in the territories. In Hebron, for example, 85 per cent of the water is given to about 400 settlers, while 15 per cent must be divided among the town’s 120,000 Palestinians.

US aid to Israel — around $5 billion a year — exceeds its aid to the entire continent of Africa. The only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons — about which not a word is said in the West — is also the only one in the region not to have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has also consistently barred international inspection of its nuclear sites and facilities.

Israel also continues to be in occupation of the territories of two sovereign states: Lebanon and Syria. Israel is in defiance of as many as 69 standing Security Council resolutions. Israel, as constituted today, occupies the former sites of 400 now-vanished Palestinian villages. Each of these sites has been renamed so that there should be no record of their ever having existed. In the eight years since Oslo, Israel’s settlement-building policy has shown no sign of being abandoned.

Palestinians make up the largest portion of the world’s refugee population. Despite a ban on torture by Israel’s High Court of Justice, torture has continued to be used against Palestinian prisoners by Shin Bet interrogators. Despite the unremitting US and Israeli propaganda about the “generous” offer by Ehud Barak of the return to the Palestinians of 95 per cent of the occupied territories, that Arafat is said to have spurned, the fact is the Palestinians have already accepted Israel’s existence on 78 per cent of what was once Palestine.

Israel also refuses to prosecute soldiers who have confessed that they executed Arab prisoners of war. Israel also routinely confiscates bank accounts, businesses and land, while refusing to pay compensation. It also demolishes Palestinian residential areas whenever and wherever it wishes. It may surprise some to know that it was not until 1988 that Israelis were barred from running ads for jobs that said ‘Jews only’.

Quite often, one argument used to justify the establishment and existence of the Israeli state is that it says in the Bible: God said to Abraham, ‘Unto thy seed, I will give thy land.’ What is left unsaid is that Abraham had two sons, the Arab son, Ismael and the Jewish son, Isaac. So, even if the Bible were to be followed, both sons should have a right to the land. In this case, one son, the Arab, has been dispossessed.

But, of course, here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, no one has any time for such “inconvenient” facts.

A READER of a column of mine published on Christmas eve on the social consequences of abandoned street children wrote to point out that my prognosis that these little Lords of the Flies would grow up as the new bin Ladens, primed to wreck vengeance on established societies, was mistaken.

“Osama bin Laden’s anger did not develop out of poverty,” she argued, “but out of a middle class malaise”. Of course. And so did Che Guevara’s and Stokely Carmichael’s and that of Marx and Lenin. But this does not exclude the undisputable, well-researched, fact that poverty, particularly when it exists in a society of gross inequalities, breeds violence, crime and the urge to deal out deadly punishment on conventional society.

The leaders may be educated; the shock troops often come from the underclass. Besides, humanity has never confronted before 100 million youngsters growing up on the street, without parents. Their anger, one day, will surely find a political channel as well as the inevitable criminal one.

I think, indeed, the argument can be taken even further: there are 800 million people living in hunger without sufficient nourishment. Many exist in a state of political torpor, barely able to summon the energy to plant next year’s crop. But somewhere in the vast mass there are those who seethe with anger at their predicament.

These days the mass media is ubiquitous, reaching even into the poorest villages, telling all. I’ll never forget sitting on an African country bus, filled with peasants holding their live chickens, watching French-made videos portraying the most ghastly violence. Ideas travel. The only surprise is that it has taken so long for a bin Laden type to hit us where it hurts.

Enormous progress has been made since the crucial World Food Conference in 1974 when it was realized the world was entering a danger zone with food stocks the world over perilously low. The then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger vowed in his speech “by the end of the century no child should go to bed hungry”. And indeed the number of malnourished has fallen-as a percentage of the total world’s population.

It is down from 37% to 18%. But if it is no longer a billion people, it is 800 million with a good part of them concentrated in the very poorest 50 or so countries who, while everyone else prospered in the golden 1990s, fell further into economic retardation. Sartaj Aziz, a former minister of finance in Pakistan and a key player at the World Food Conference recalls the 1970s as a “remarkably creative period. The UN system began to elaborate an alternative development strategy focussed on the basic needs of the population, poverty reduction, income redistribution and employment.

“But before these new concepts could be translated into actual policies a serious debt crisis struck several Latin American countries and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank relegated these ideas to the back burner. Privatisation and liberalisation were presented as the panacea for all economic ills.” These days, concludes Aziz “there is no fiscal space for actually implementing pro-agriculture and pro-poor policies”.

Few development economists question the need for continued liberalisation and globalisation. But what has to go hand in hand with that is an awareness that the richer countries have many of the most important markets rigged in their favour and that particular effort needs to be concentrated on the poorest and hungriest with methods that often supplement or, if necessary, bypass the market.

The World Trade Organization’s policy of liberalizing trade concentrates on high tech products largely of interest to the richer countries, a few middle-income developing countries and the multinational companies. The simple manufactured products such as textile and leather goods, which are of greater interest to the developing countries, remain subject to many protectionist policies.

—Copyright Jonathan Power

THE events of the last few weeks reveal the pressing need for Pakistan to formulate a long-term strategy to deal with India. Despite the visit of quick fixers like the American secretary of state, Colin Powell, and the United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan to this part of the world, there is no let-up in India’s bellicosity. Nor have its policy-makers sobered up.

The habitual finger-pointing towards Pakistan in the aftermath of the Kolkata killing, the testing of nuclear-capable inter-continental ballistic missile, and a mulish resistance to the idea of dialogue with Pakistan are different facets of the same problem: India’s attitude towards Pakistan remains nasty, brutish and hostile. And not many in the world are willing to make Delhi change its vicious ways. This means that for all practical purposes Pakistan is pretty much on its own in dealing with the challenge from India.

The first element of the long-term India strategy has to be an informed understanding of its strengths and weaknesses. In other words, we have to know our enemy. India’s challenge to Pakistan is not just military or nuclear; it is also economic, diplomatic, intellectual and internal.

For instance, Delhi’s present threat of imposing a war on Pakistan, coupled with the possibility of launching a catastrophic nuclear attack, is a military ploy meant to draw Pakistan into a conflict that would debilitate its economy to a point of collapse.

Similarly, the international drum-beating about Pakistan being a haven of terrorists is aimed at destroying Pakistan’s post September 11 goodwill, smearing its image across the world, among people so paranoid that they see a terrorist lurking even in their own shadows.

In the same vein, the studied contempt with which Delhi’s conceited politicians have responded to Pakistan’s many gestures, even bold initiatives, is of a piece with that country’s assumed air of superiority — the message to Pakistan being that there cannot be a peace between unequals.

We must understand what is driving and keeping India on this mad policy course towards Pakistan. It is not just the Hindu revivalists who infest the ruling party’s ranks, or sharp-shooting hawks like L. K. Advani who underpin the illogic of inflexibility which characterizes Delhi’s attitude towards Pakistan. It is a combination of economic progress, military strength, media-marketing, diplomatic work of a whole decade involving talks with foes (China), cementing of relations with friends (Russia and Israel), cultivating new allies (Iran), and the deepening of its relations with Washington that form Indias foreign policy assets.

However, all these years that we have been locked in a bitter conflict with India, we have acquired a holistic view of its strong points. Which is quite remarkable considering that the outcome of all modern wars depends critically on the range and accuracy of information — not just about strategic targets and military assets, but also about the minds that make policies and the modern political and social currents that are shaping their responses. Also without this kind of information-based knowledge it is next to impossible to form our own responses to the enemy’s moves in a crisis like the present one correctly.

The poverty of our knowledge of India is reflected in the fact that hardly anyone in the whole country can claim to be an India expert on the strength of a life-long dedication to the subject, and that no book worth the name has been authored by a Pakistani on India that records and analyses the changes taking place in that country. Other than the government-controlled Institute of Regional Studies, no scholarly energy goes into researching India. As a result, public discourse on how to deal with India has been characterized by a lack of intellectual depth and maturity. At the policy level it has made the country’s responses mostly reactive, swinging wildly between peace calls and war cries.

All this would have to change. A more balanced outlook on India, which fuses all essential factors comprehensively and keeps the course of policy steady under all circumstances will have to be grounded in an informed perspective. We cannot be relying just on press clippings, intelligence assessments, or the high commission’s debriefings or cables for finding out the strengths and weaknesses of India. Much of this

task will now have to be performed with the labour of scholarship.

The second prong of the strategy to deal with India is of course economic. It is a fact that the primary reason many of India’s hawks have been so emboldened as to actually assume that they can impose a war on Pakistan is because of the brittle state of our economy. It is brave of our Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz to say that with $ 4.8 billion forex reserves, Pakistan can absorb the impact of war.

But absorbing the immediate jolts and shocks of a war is different from sustaining a long military engagement — precisely what some in India think they can impose on Pakistan and get away with it. It has become abundantly clear that a viable, effective defence strategy cannot be formulated without the centrepiece of a strong economy that has the resilience to back counter offences in a war situation.

With the drying up development coffers to oil the defence industry already evident, an all-round economic growth, including the growth and development of our human resource, is a must. It is in many ways our first line of defence. As a head of the board of directors of a multinational business corporation recently told one of our ambassadors to Europe: “I would have been your biggest supporter in the campaign to convince the world that India should be restrained, if I had a business stake in your country.”

The third prong of the long-term strategy to deal with India is internal. The time has come for serious soul-searching on the domestic front. Lack of a fully functioning political system — any system — is not just a blot on our international image but a severe handicap in the way of working out a consensus-based national policy towards India. Corruption, self-seeking politicians and frequent martial laws have all demoralized the people who need a sense of direction and abiding faith in the longevity of a system that works to their advantage.

We cannot handle foreign policy and defence challenges if we are in a state permanent internal crisis, or if we are endlessly searching for a formula for political stability. It does not have to take a war with India for us to realize the importance of internal unity. The mere threat of war, and the little help that we are getting from the world, ought to be enough to drive the message home.