Under the nuclear shadow

THIS week as diplomats’ families and tourists quickly disappeared, journalists from Europe and America arrived in droves. Most of them stay at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi.

Many of them call me. Why are you still here, they ask, why haven’t you left the city? Isn’t nuclear war a real possibility? It is, but where shall I go? If I go away and everything and every one, every friend, every tree, every home, every dog, squirrel and bird that I have known and loved is incinerated, how shall I live on? Who shall I love, and who will love me back? Which society will welcome me and allow me to be the hooligan I am, here, at home?

We’ve decided we’re all staying. We’ve huddled together, we realize how much we love each other and we think what a shame it would be to die now. Life’s normal, only because the macabre has become normal. While we wait for rain, for football, for justice, on TV the old generals and the eager boy anchors talk of first strike and second strike capability, as though they’re discussing a family board game.

My friends and I discuss “Prophecy”, the film of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the dead bodies choking the river, the living stripped of their skin and hair, we remember especially the man who just melted into the steps of the building and we imagine ourselves like that, as stains on staircases.

My husband’s writing a book about trees. He has a section on how figs are pollinated, each fig by its own specialized fig wasp. There are nearly 1,000 different species of fig wasps. All the fig wasps will be nuked, and my husband and his book.

A dear friend, who is an activist in the anti-dam movement in the Narmanda Valley, is on indefinite hunger strike. Today is the twelfth day of her fast. She and the others fasting with her are weakening quickly. They are protesting because the government is bulldozing schools, felling forests, uprooting hand pumps, forcing people from their villages. What an act of faith and hope. But to a government comfortable with the notion of a wasted world, what’s a wasted value?

Terrorists have the power to trigger a nuclear war. Non-violence is treated with contempt. Displacement, dispossession, starvation, poverty, disease, these are all just funny comic strip items now. Meanwhile, emissaries of the coalition against terror come and go preaching restraint. Tony Blair arrives to preach peace — and on the side, to sell weapons to both India and Pakistan. The last question every visiting journalist always asks me: “Are you writing another book?”

That question mocks me. Another book? Right now when it looks as though all the music, the art, the architecture, the literature, the whole of human civilization means nothing to the monsters who run the world. What kind of book should I write? For now, just for now, for just a while pointlessness is my biggest enemy. That’s what nuclear bombs do, whether they’re used or not. They violate everything that is humane, they alter the meaning of life.

Why do we tolerate them? Why do we tolerate the men who use nuclear weapons to blackmail the entire human race?

The writer is a Indian novelist, a leading anti-war and anti-corporate globalization activist. This commentary was first broadcast on Radio 4’s “Today” programme in the UK.

Waging war to stay in power

SHOULD India and Pakistan be unfortunate enough to go to war for a fourth time, it will not be over Kashmir. Nor will it be over militancy and terrorism.

The thousands, possibly tens of thousands, or — God forbid, should it turn nuclear — millions, who will lose their lives in that conflict will do so for reasons quite unrelated to the fifty-five-year Indo-Pak dispute over the princely state or the twelve-year armed separatist movement there. They will do so purely because of domestic politics.

One of the first concepts taught to students of international relations is the nexus between domestic politics and foreign policy: domestic politics determines foreign policy choices, foreign policy success/failure influences domestic politics. Nowhere is that nexus more apparent than in South Asia today.

Neither leadership, of course, admits to such a nexus. If one listens to the BJP-led coalition government in New Delhi, all the actions taken by it since December 13 — recalling its high commissioner from Islamabad, cutting road, rail and air links, deploying thousands of troops along the LoC and international border and, most recently, expelling Pakistan high commissioner in New Delhi and sending five warships to “strengthen the western sector” — have as their sole motive India’s determination to eradicate the ‘terrorist menace’.

If one listens to President Musharraf, the ban on five militant groups (including some waging ‘jihad’in Kashmir) that he announced on January 12 and the subsequent arrest of their activists, was motivated purely by the desire to eradicate religious extremism within Pakistan.

The Indian ‘fighting militancy’ justification is easily dismissed. An armed separatist struggle has been under way in Indian Kashmir since 1989. New Delhi has always refused to acknowledge the indigenous origins of this movement, preferring instead to blame it on Pakistani incitement and sponsorship. Even as it blamed Pakistan, though, the Indian government never threatened full-scale war.

The argument that militancy never before claimed victims on such a large or audacious scale does not hold water either. About 35 Sikhs were killed in Chattisinghpura in March 2000; over 100 Hindus in separate incidents in just one August night; the Red Fort was assaulted. Those incidents did not prompt India to threaten to attack Pakistan. And if concern for human life has pushed New Delhi to the brink of war, surely it would have been infinitely more energized by the carnage in Gujrat. (A few dozen people were killed at Kulchanak and in the Lok Sabha building; around 2,000 have died in Gujrat).

The Indian government claims to have run out of patience in Kashmir. But a country that has obstinately deployed hundreds of thousands of forces to hold onto a state by force, at enormous physical and financial cost to itself, does not run out of patience so abruptly. In short, the Indian war machine is being driven by factors other than militancy in Kashmir.

One possibility is the dramatically altered global environment after 9/11. Readers will be all too familiar with the changes that have taken place: intolerance of any form of non-state actor violence, the equation of all Muslim armed struggles with Islamic fundamentalism, and sympathy for any government claiming to be fighting that. Tel Aviv and New Delhi have been the quickest to grasp the new mood. India’s heightened belligerence could therefore be interpreted as its taking advantage of altered international priorities in seeking support for its Kashmir policy by presenting it as a problem of international terrorism.

Without doubt, this has been a big factor in Indian decision-making. But it still fails to explain the escalation to a point of war. New Delhi could have won international sympathy without deploying hundreds of thousands of troops along the border and raising the spectre of a nuclear conflagration. Indeed, had it shown restraint, it would have won more support. Furthermore, though it might not publicly acknowledge it, the Indian government is well aware of the indigenous roots of Kashmiri militancy. (Why else would Vajpayee announce a $1.4 billion development package for the state?) Bombing Pakistan will not erase Kashmiri anger — or militancy.

No, the reason why South Asia today stands on the brink of war is because of the domestic political problems besetting the Vajpayee government. Hindutva — the creed of anti-Muslim hatred and righting so-called historical wrongs — that propelled the BJP to national power, has lost its appeal. At the end of the day, even the most saffron-hued Hindu voters want their government to deliver on bread and butter issues: education, health care, jobs. Suppressing Indian Muslims is not a long-term alternative to those. The diminishing appeal of Hindutva was clearly seen in recent state elections. The BJP failed to hold onto or gain control in a single contested state.

The state-supported massacre of Muslims in Gujrat won the party support from the most blood-thirsty of Hindutva’s radical cadres, but at a price. Moderate Indian voices, including some from within the NDA coalition, criticized the government’s failure to act. As the death toll continued to rise, the international community added its voice and pressured Vajpayee to stop the carnage.

He thus found himself forced into a precarious balancing act — appeasing the BJP’s core Hindu voters, while, at the same time, keeping his moderates-dependent coalition together and silencing international criticism.

All these domestic pressures on the BJP government — the diminishing appeal of Hindutva, the need for an alternative mass vote-winner, opposition criticism, threats to the coalition — have been relieved through one simple strategy: attacking Pakistan. Pakistan has replaced Indian Muslims as the unifying ‘enemy’ for India’s Hindu masses. Shouting from the rooftops about being the victim of ‘Pakistan-sponsored terrorism’ has deflected international attention from the killing in Gujrat. A sense of national crisis has defused domestic opposition: all parties have rallied behind the government. Prime Minister Vajpayee is thus far more secure in his seat today than he was before May 14.

But nothing comes for free. Before considering the payback for Vajpayee’s domestic bliss, one should — if one is fair — assess the domestic politics-foreign policy nexus within Pakistan. A time of national crisis, however, is not the time to be fair: it is a time to unite and forget internal differences. Suffice it to say that the Musharraf government needs to match its words with actions, and that perhaps some of the compromises it made to garner support (especially from the religious parties) in the recent referendum were a mistake. An additional point: whatever the domestic compulsions of the Musharraf government, they did not cause it to threaten India with war. The current push to war stems solely from domestic Indian political compulsions.

A South Asian colloquy

IN recent days, a remarkable colloquy has taken place in the American media between two men widely regarded as the greatest contemporary Indian novelists. Amitav Ghosh, in America’s most important progressive weekly magazine, The Nation, argued that a new imperialism is in the air: “The idea of empire...has recently undergone a strange rehabilitation in the United States.”

Within a week, Salman Rushdie wrote an essay for The New York Times, asserting of Kashmir that “right now it’s the most dangerous place in the world,” and asking whether a fear of ‘imperial’ intervention might not be allowing the world to slide into a nuclear conflagration.

I do not know if Rushdie was specifically responding to Ghosh, or whether the two essays simply address a region and an issue that is on everyone’s mind at this historical moment. Although Americans know little about Kashmir, they are nonetheless troubled by reports that over a million troops, Indian and Pakistani, are massed at the Line of Control and on the two countries’ common border. The possibility that sporadic violence could lead to war, and war to the two nations ‘going nuclear,’ has currency in the American press. (One recent national story asserted with pseudo-scientific certainty that a nuclear exchange would produce 12 million fatalities - not 13 million, not 28.467 million, not just an ‘incomprehensible number’.

Here is the lead of Thom Shanker’s front-page story in the national paper of record, The New York Times: “An American intelligence assessment, completed this week as tensions between India and Pakistan intensified, warns that a full-scale nuclear exchange between the two rivals could kill up to 12 million people immediately and injure up to seven million, Pentagon officials say.” The numerical exactitude is staggering in its arrogant assertion that hypothetical guesswork is somehow an accurate measurement of future events.)

The thought of a nuclear war is profoundly unsettling. And, not knowing what might happen in South Asia nor how to keep the unthinkable from happening, Americans welcome guidance. The American populace, largely people of goodwill, want to know what sort of role, if any, the United States can play in forestalling threats to world peace.

The politicos in Washington are not similarly inclined to seek out advice. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Richard Cheney seem to have the world figured out, knowing instinctively who the good guys and the bad guys are. For them, as for President Bush to whom they are the central advisers, it is all a matter of stopping terrorism against the United States: ‘If you’re not with us then you are against us’. This is tied to the corollary that if terrorism is visited upon Americans, it is evil; if terrorism targets those who are not American, it is regrettable and maybe even bad — or maybe only the ways things are.

But the American public wants to learn about what might be, what should be, done. Enter Amitav Ghosh. Enter Salman Rushdie. Both men are remarkably thoughtful, and both are brimming with insight. The concerns of each, however, are almost diametrically opposed to the other.

Mr. Ghosh reported that the notion of empire is resurgent on both left and right in America and Britain. His assessment is accurate: “Those who embrace the idea of empire frequently cite the advantages of an imperial peace over the disorder of the current world situation.” But, Ghosh argues, the peace-making function of empire is triply compromised. First, resort to empire is compromised by history. In the twentieth century the imposition of peace almost inevitably provoked enormous conflict. As Ghosh writes, “The peace of the British, French and Austro-Hungarian empires was purchased at the cost of a destabilization so radical as to generate the two greatest conflicts in human history: the world wars.”

Second, empire is compromised by internal logic, as Ghosh brilliantly argues. “In a world run by empires, some people are rulers and some are the ruled: It is impossible to think of a situation where all peoples possess an empire. On the other hand, the idea of the nation-state, for all its failings, holds the great advantage that it can indeed be generalized to all peoples everywhere.”

Third, empire is undermined by its own inbuilt dynamic of endless expansion and relentless assertion. “An imperium also generates an unstoppable push toward overreach, which is one of the reasons it is a charter for destabilization.”

Ghosh is eloquent in reminding us all, post-colonizers and post-colonized alike, that imperial ambitions lead to catastrophe. In particular, he questions whether intervention by powerful nations can, in the long run, do anything more than destabilize the world by creating a new colonial imperium convinced of its right to exert control over the nations of the world. Even with the best of intentions, imperial interventions ultimately undermine the national autonomy of every country but the superpowers.

Mr. Rushdie, seems, seems, to be responding to Ghosh. He abjures the general to look at the specific, the present ongoing conflict over Kashmir. He sees a narrow partisan political agenda impelling Prime Mister Vajpayee to nationalism and militancy in order to position the BJP so that it can win out in the next general election. Further, he sees this as a repetition of Mr. Vajpayee’s previous militancy over Kashmir, which also took place shortly before general elections were forthcoming.

Rushdie clear-sightedly compares this to the similarly narrow partisan political agenda impelling President Musharraf. Mr. Musharraf needs to satisfy the very Islamist radicals who sided with him when he overthrew President Nawaz Sharif. That overthrow, Rushdie reminds us, was justified on the grounds that Mr. Sharif reined in Muslim terrorists, instead of insisting upon national autonomy, when the Americans pressured him to do so. (The American baseball player Yogi Berra, who often slaughtered the English language, nonetheless came up with memorable bon mots in his verbal confusion. One of them, Rushdie would assert, is appropriate to both India and Pakistan today: ‘It is dij‘ vu all over again.’)

These partisan agendas of the current leaders of India and Pakistan are propelling both nations ever closer to war and, indeed, nuclear confrontation. In this context, Rushdie maintains, “The point is to make the world safer for us all. The situation can only be stabilized if India and Pakistan are both forced to back away, preferably to outside of Kashmir’s historic, unpartitioned borders.”

He goes on to suggest that an imperial solution may be necessary, even as he echoes Ghosh’s concerns about such a step. Rushdie says, “This ‘hands off Kashmir’ solution will have to be externally imposed on the reluctant principals and will require that a large peacekeeping force be sent to the region to support Kashmir as an autonomous area. But who in the West wants that - it’s just the old colonialist-imperialist power trip, isn’t it?”

But his Ghosh-like question raises other questions, especially given the context: the possibility of a nuclear war of tragic proportions. And so Rushdie asks, “What’s the alternative? Do you have a better idea? Or shall we just stand back and keep our post-colonial, non-imperialist fingers crossed? Will it take mushroom clouds over Delhi and Islamabad to make us give up our ingrained prejudices and try something that might actually work?”

It is possible to imagine these two essays in the American media as adda in a disembodied form. It is as if the two of them, Salman and Amitav, are sitting across the table from one another in the Indian Coffee House, initiating an intellectual-political discussion which dozens of onlookers are privileged to hear.

It is impossible to say who is right. Nothing could be more laudable than trying to prevent a nuclear holocaust — unless it is trying to prevent the world from falling back into a regime of militaristic colonialism.

It is possible that if they talked on in this adda in the American press, the two interlocutors might come up with common ground. After all, Ghosh acknowledges that “there can be no doubt that political catastrophes can often be prevented by multilateral intervention, and clearly such actions are sometimes necessary,” even though he proceeds to once again remind us that even the possibility of securing intervention can itself initiate violence.

Perhaps their common ground might be the necessity for the international community to intervene in the affairs of autonomous nation-states when nuclear conflagration or genocide might result if such intervention were absent. Perhaps they might agree, in the long metaphysical night, that the only way to guarantee such intervention would not re-establish an imperial order which no one (except self-aggrandizing imperialists) wants, would be to initiate such intervention through the United Nations. And to insist that such intervention be carried out with troops under the leadership of the UN — not First-World — military command. Perhaps they might agree that United Nations intervention will only work if nations can put aside (however unlikely this may seem) considerations of their own partisan advantage in the interest of preserving world peace and the human dignity of all people.

Perhaps. Their adda might continue, should continue, into the late hours of the night. Our collective future may well depend on how we resolve the thorny problem of disentangling intervention and imperialism.

The writer was Fulbright Visiting Professor of English at Calcutta University. He is an author and columnist.

A novel approach: OF MICE AND MEN

I RAN into Colonel Hasan the other day. Sorry, Colonel (retired) Hasan, to use the mode of address devised by Field Marshal Ayub Khan in his time. Before I tell you what the Colonel and I talked about let me give you the story behind this business of putting “retired” in brackets after the military rank, since most of you — even the top military brass of today — wouldn’t know how it started.

Some time in 1967 Air Marshal Asghar Khan, who had retired from the Air Force and relinquished the post of Chairman PIA, took to politics, and, in support of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, came out in open opposition to President Ayub. The official media of course never bothered about his biting speeches and statements but his name had to be mentioned when any of his utterances wee rebutted or lambasted by the government’s chamchas.

President Ayub hated the man’s guts, and more than that he hated to hear the words “Air Marshal” attached with the name Asghar Khan. So he and the Information Minister decided on the brackets. The intention was that as soon as the words “Air Marshal” were spoken on radio and TV, the bracket “retired” would at once clarify that he had had his wings clipped.

I don’t know why the Field Marshal didn’t choose to take the errant Air Marshal’s name as plain Mr Asghar Khan. That would have solved the problem. But by employing the brackets a distinction was secured for Pakistan. In no other country in the world is this mode used. Sensible military officers in this country bridle at it, but the majority use it as if this too were a tradition left behind by the British. However, let me not waste valuable space on this silly matter.

Colonel Hasan is a pensioner and he took me into confidence because I too am one, though a lowly civilian. Hasan neither got a cushy job when he left the army nor was he able to secure any advantage (like half a dozen plots) before retirement from service which could have yielded a handsome permanent income.

According to the Colonel, he is hand to mouth. In order to improve the lot of retired defence personnel he wants to clamp martial law on the country, to be administered this time by superannuated officers of the army, the navy and the air force. It was nice of him to take me into confidence, for things of this kind are supposed to be highly confidential.

Hasan’s biggest problem in this regard (as he described it) is that serving officers of the army, who dominate the defence forces, will not tolerate the proposed novelty because they believe — and rightly so — that in any future martial law they should have the prior right of government. Let me clarify here that neither Hasan nor his serving friends in the army consider the present dispensation as a martial law regime and think it is nothing but a hodge-podge of army and civilian rule, and General Pervez Musharraf is more of a democrat than an autocrat. As he put it, “Martial law is martial law.”

As it is, said Hasan, nearly 24 years have elapsed since the last martial law was imposed and fifteen since it was rolled up. The result is that the new senior officers are feeling neglected and frustrated. They are strongly of the view that martial law must come at regular intervals so that everyone can have their share of it. “A whole generation of officers is being deprived of its benefits,” they aver.

I asked Colonel Hasan how he had come across the bright idea. He took out from his brief case an old clipping from a Lahore newspaper. It reported that since the traffic police had miserably failed in their basic duty, a retired PAF officer had taken over the command of traffic in a busy sector of Lahore where he lived and seemed to have made a good job of it, with no one objecting to his initiative.

“You must admit”, said Hasan, “that you civilians are just not discipline-minded. You can’t run things like we do. As I see it, civilians should only look after trade and business and routine aspects of government. Sort of glorified clerks. We should be at the head of all organizations, especially banks and autonomous corporations like the PIA.”

He sneered at my observation that even now everything was being managed by the military and insisted that without the cover of martial law it was not the same thing.

“That’s a truly novel approach I must say,” was my comment. “But why do you think you people will do better than the generals and brigadiers who ruled the roost during the previous three regimes under martial law? They were hardly a success.”

“Success?” roared Hasan, “they were utter failures. That’s because you can’t do two jobs at one time. You can’t be the army and the government in the same breath. Half the time some of the top brass were looking for ways to make money, fearing that martial law would be wrapped up before they had made their first million. The result was disaster for both the fields.”

“We, the retired officers,” he continued, “will have nothing to distract us. We’ll be doing a whole time job setting the country right. In our retired martial law you will only witness the best possible side of the forces. You will find Pakistan a much better place to live in after we’ve finished with it.” I wanted Colonel Hasan to explain the words “finished with it”, but decided to let the matter go. But I was impressed by his great scheme, and said so. “You put things so well, Colonel, that I cannot but agree with you. However there’s one small point. Some situations and some jobs are just not made for military officers to handle on a permanent basis. A few years ago the army did a wonderful job in Sindh but it couldn’t remain there forever. Recently it was the same in WAPDA. You need someone like Chief Minister Abdullah Shah of Sindh and CM Shahbaz Sharif of Punjab to solve certain problems, although they too have become defunct. What would you do? Dispense with chief ministers? Don’t forget they are elected by the people.”

“We have thought about that,” replied the Colonel confidently. “We understand the value of chief ministers even in martial law. They are useful for taking blame and cushioning the people’s anger and despair. What we’ll do is to give them honorary military ranks and then retire them. That should fill the bill. Major-General (retired) Mehtab Abbasi or Vice Admiral (retired) Mumtaz Bhutto sounds nice, doesn’t it? They can even wear uniform on ceremonial occasions and strut about. I’m sure they’ll enjoy it.”

Strange swings amidst tensions

WHILE there is almost universal concern about the military stand-off on the Indo-Pakistan border, now in its sixth month, some recent American statements imply that Pakistan, more than India, is responsible for the crisis which has brought the subcontinent to the brink of a nuclear conflict.

President Bush put it quite bluntly at his press conference last week when he insisted that President Pervez Musharraf “must stop the incursion into Kashmir.” He said that his assessment of the situation in the disputed state was based on the United States’ own sources and not on what he was being told by the Indians. He also announced that the US was planning to evacuate American citizens from the region. At the time of writing, a large number of Americans based in Pakistan in official positions or in a private capacity had in fact commenced their journey homeward.

Following the Americans, the nationals of most other western countries, including Britain, Germany and France, were also in the process of leaving Pakistan. Somewhat unexpectedly, the Saudi embassy in Islamabad has also announced a three-phase plan to evacuate its diplomats and their families. Malaysia has advised its ‘non-essential’ diplomatic staff and their families to do likewise.

Lately, the US has been putting the heat on Pakistan for not going far enough in reining in the militants as promised by Gen Musharraf in his January 12 speech. This was evident from a statement of the US secretary of state in a TV interview. He said: “We are pressing President Musharraf very hard to cease all infiltration activities on the part of the terrorist organizations across the Line of Control and we are asking the Indians to show restraint until we can determine whether or not that infiltration activity has ceased.”

The American concern about the alleged infiltration has lately increased because of Gen Pervez Musharraf’s remark, while addressing troops in forward positions the other day, that “we will unleash a storm” if India attempted to come across the LoC or the international border. The word ‘storm’ was seen as referring to a possible nuclear strike if attacked. That there should be no cross-border infiltration cannot be questioned. But how is it that India, with its forces massed on the border, has not been able to check infiltration or catch militants trying to cross the LoC into held Kashmir? This is not easy to understand. Besides, if “cross-border terrorism” is such a problem, how is that India has repeatedly turned down Pakistan’s suggestion that the UN observers present in the subcontinent be posted along the LoC to monitor the situation there?

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, during his recent visit to the region, reportedly suggested that a 300-strong helicopter force should monitor the LoC to prevent any cross-border violence. While Pakistan was prepared to consider the proposal positively, India stuck to its traditional position that the UN had no locus standi in the Kashmir dispute. One has heard no more of the British foreign secretary’s sensible proposal.

It is plain that, for whatever reason, the US and other western countries are not prepared to accept any assurances held out by President Musharraf on their face value. They are convinced that Pakistan is not prepared to do enough to put the militants on this side firmly in check and prevent them from causing trouble in held Kashmir.

Japan’s peace envoy to South Asia, Seiken Sugiura, has also reportedly said Japan would work with the US and others “to pressure Pakistan” to put an end to proxy terrorism in Kashmir and that any steps taken by Pakistan in this regard should be ‘visible’ and ‘verifiable.’ Japan is obviously inclined, like the US and others, to give greater credence to what they are told by India.

India has the opportunity to get a clear understanding of President Pervez Musharraf’s real intentions if it agrees to accept Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal for the Indian and Pakistani leaders to hold talks on the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-building Measures in Asia (CICA) — a grouping of 16 Asian, Central Asian and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) nations — which is being held at Almaty in Kazakhstan. But Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has already said ‘no’ to any such idea.

However, some observes believe that President Putin may meet the two leaders separately hoping perhaps to act as a bridge between India and Pakistan and try to get a dialogue going. However, according to reports, Pakistan fears that at Almaty India could be aiming to “nail Pakistan as the epicentre of international terrorism.” This is what has been broadly indicated by Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh. Pakistan hopes that any declaration adopted by the Almaty conference would remain free of any partisan reference to any aspect of the current crisis in the subcontinent.

India has made it amply clear that, like the American-led military operation in Afghanistan, it should be free to launch an ‘Operation Enduring freedom’ of its own and carry out strikes against suspected bases and training centres of the Mujahideen in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan. Pakistan is determined to resist any such attempt.

However, Pakistan has made it clear that it would not wish to start a war and that it would not resort to the use of nuclear weapons in the event of a war. India and — more importantly — the US and its western allies regard such assurances with a degree of scepticism. Hence, the mounting concern about the military stand-off on the LoC and Indo-Pakistan border.

It is not inconceivable that behind America’s deep concern about the crisis in the subcontinent is not merely the alleged cross-border terrorism but also the fear that a war between India and Pakistan could escalate into a nuclear conflict. For its part, Pakistan is not prepared to give commitment that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons in the event of a military conflict with India, even though it promises that it would not be the one ‘to initiate a war.’ India has not even been asked to make a commitment on no-first use of nuclear weapons. There are also indications that the US believes that Pakistan may have moved its nuclear weapons and missiles closer to the border, as India has done.

Washington makes no secret of its somewhat partial attitude lately towards India. This may will be because India being a democratic society wedded to secularism and having a strong, burgeoning economy has a stronger pull in Washington and other major world capitals than Pakistan with its history of repeated military interventions, its troubled economy and its democratic future rather uncertain.

Whether or not Pakistan feels concerned about what the US and other western countries may believe about its nuclear capability, it must realize that nuclear capability is not an unmixed blessing. It could even become an albatross round Pakistan’s neck. If Pakistan unilaterally abjures resort to the use of nuclear weapons now or any time in the future it could not only overcome its prevailing image problem of being seen as a volatile, footloose entity but also be recognized as a responsible and self-disciplined nuclear power.

Resisting searches and security checks

EVERY law-abiding citizen in America has experienced some disruption in life since Sept. 11. As society sorts through new security procedures and relationships — sometimes clumsily — everyone needs a little patience, sometimes a lot.

Many concerns focus on airport security checkpoints, where old fears intersect with new suspicions. So it was disappointing recently to see at least two commercial airline pilots, of all people, arrested after strongly objecting to searches and not cooperating.

Here’s the deal: Everybody _ repeat, everybody _ goes through the same security checkpoints. That’s how it is and should be in a thorough, democratic security procedure, at least until someone figures out a foolproof way to identify “safe” travelers.

Yes, the searches can be annoying, even picayune. Removing shoes and belts, being frisked and “randomly” selected for repeat searches by sometimes polite functionaries are new experiences for nonconvicts, which most of us are. True, contrary to hallowed American legal tradition, everyone seeking to board an airliner is now suspect until they prove themselves innocent at these checkpoints. Every pocket is emptied. All carry-ons are X-rayed; many are hand-searched. Metal detectors for everyone. The key word here is “every.”

“It is insulting,” said John Darrah, a pilots union official, “for pilots to be treated like criminals in full view of the traveling public.” Well, we think it’s arrogant for a few pilots to think they’re above the rules that apply to their passengers. Airline crews should and do have their own, shorter inspection lines.

We all respect pilots, for their hard-earned skills and cool professionalism and for the awesome responsibility of safely transporting hundreds of lives in a complex multimillion-dollar machine. Yet one’s profession — even if it calls for wearing a nifty uniform — is no ticket to special treatment.

It’s one thing to let million-mile frequent fliers board the plane first; think about it, is it really a reward to sit in that cramped cocoon an extra five minutes? But seeing pilots undergo the same inspections adds to passenger confidence and security. When it comes to security checks in a post-9/11 world, thoroughly checking everyone is just fine.

—Los Angeles Times