| June 12, 2002 | Wednesday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 30, 1423 |
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Free ticket to heaven
An agency for espionage at home
De-escalation in sight
Right to bear arms
No war is a worthy aim but it won’t be enough
IT IS surprising that, in spite of its size and resources, India is unable to shed its inferiority complex and claim its place on the world stage as a great power, a dream it has cherished since its independence. To achieve this status, it has done everything except behave like one. During the last 53 years, only once, when Mr Gujral was Prime Minister, did the Indians come up with what is known as the Gujral doctrine, based on the premise that India did not have to bully its neighbours to be recognized by them and others as primus inter pares. But that, too, was never implemented.
CONSCIENTIOUS Muslims object to the official system of zakaat initiated by General Ziaul Haq and controlled by a regular government department.
ALTHOUGH Indian and Pakistani troops continue to be massed along the two countries’ common border, there are indications that tensions between the two sides are beginning to ebb, however slowly and haltingly.
That was quite in keeping with Indian leaders’ earlier record Pandit Nehru accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan, and then rejected it, destroying the last chance of preventing the partition of India, an objective that was so dear to them. Faced by Mountbatten’s threat that the UK will unilaterally withdraw from the subcontinent, they accepted the partition plan but withheld Pakistan’s share of military stores and foreign exchange reserves, thereby aggravating mistrust among Pakistanis.
Gandhiji’s fast forced them to release Pakistan’s foreign exchange share, but the RSS assassinated him. In regard to the future of princely states, they forced the British to accept the principle that a ruler’s decision to join India or Pakistan will take into account the wishes of the majority of his subjects. Then, India used force in Hyderabad and Junagarh to enforce this principle, but violated it in the case of Kashmir. They took the Kashmir dispute to the UN, voted for the Security Council resolution, for three years gave unequivocal pledges to Kashmiris in respect of their right of self-determination, but refused to implement it and finally reneged on the lame excuse of Pakistan joining Cento and Seato pacts.
The list goes on and on, and not only in regard to Pakistan and Kashmir but its other neighbours. Has this behaviour helped India achieve its objective of being recognized as a big power by its neighbours and others? The fact is that India could not even subdue the Tamil Tigers, while Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had to pay the ultimate price for the intervention. Bangladesh, which became independent through direct Indian military help, refuses to be bullied on gas supply, the enclave issue and the Farrakka barrage question. Even Nepal occasionally feels exasperated by Indian bullying.
So what is wrong with India? I believe it is its refusal to see the plain fact that in today’s world military power as a primary instrument of policy in inter-state relations is no longer an effective tool for the realization of a state’s objectives. Of course, the sole superpower of today occasionally provides an exception to this general rule, but it, too, had to eat humble pie in Vietnam, as did the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Another regional nuclear superpower, Israel, is using genocidal military force with the full backing of the US against the helpless Palestinians but has not been able to crush them and will not be able to do so try as it may for another 50 years.
Unfortunately, India has missed the point about the inefficacy of military power not only in situations of self-determination but also in the case of nuclear weapons. Look at its decision to go nuclear at a wrong time and for the wrong reasons. All other nuclear powers went nuclear at an appropriate time and for objectives they were able to achieve: the US to get there before Germany and win the war, the USSR to deter the US domination of the world, and Britain and France because they could not rely on the US nuclear umbrella alone. What about India?
Its publicly stated position is that it needed nuclear parity with China, its enemy number one. But nuclear parity for what purpose? To settle its border dispute with China? Even an A level student knows that nukes are of no use for that kind of goal; rather they help freeze all disputes between two nuclear powers. So what was India’s purpose in going nuclear, not to gain parity with China or to deter Pakistan, but to achieve the status of a great power. The result though was again quite the opposite. It was condemned by the world after its first nuclear explosion in 1974, was denied the membership of the nuclear club and forced Pakistan to go nuclear.
The Indians, particularly the ruling BJP and its allies, thought that perhaps becoming an overt nuclear power will help them achieve that status, entitle India to a permanent seat in the UNSC and also force Pakistan to accept the status quo in Kashmir. But once again their policy failed to achieve its objectives. Not only that: it has led to the internationalization of the Kashmir dispute, which the Indians have so assiduously tried to avoid since the Simla agreement. The frustration caused by their failure to suppress the Kashmir freedom struggle and browbeat Pakistan seems to be driving them to yet another futile option, that of a limited war. A growing number of Indian politicians, retired and serving generals, think tank pundits and diplomats are talking about the feasibility of a limited war and the need to call Pakistan’s nuclear bluff. Let us examine this hypothesis of limited war in the light of various possible scenarios. Scenario - 1: India launches air strikes in AJK to destroy the Mujahideen training camps, its planes meet stiff resistance from the Pakistani Air Force and anti-air defence, it suffers losses and fails to achieve the objective of destroying the camps, the world intervenes and succeeds in stopping the air war. Many lives are lost but the stalemate remains unchanged.
Scenario - 2: Along with air strikes, Indian troops cross the LoC. As the Indian Air Force is unable to achieve air superiority, the Pakistan army is able to hold its ground, both sides suffer heavy casualties, the world intervenes, a ceasefire takes place, many more lives are lost but the status quo remains intact.
Scenario - 3: India is able to capture some territory in AJK, but fails to defeat the Pakistan army, which now has no option but to give full support to the insurgents to force India to vacate. India gets bogged down.
Scenario - 4: India captures all of AJK, the Pakistan army suffers local defeat but is not totally destroyed, the freedom struggle is transformed into full-scale guerilla warfare, Pakistan, free from all constraints, provides them full military support. India faces the choice of bleeding indefinitely or launching an attack on Pakistan.
Scenario - 5: India expands the war across the international border. A limited war desired by India is transformed into a full-scale war. Massive casualties and enormous damage to both economies, the world intervenes before the Pakistan army is destroyed, a ceasefire is established. Pakistan remains undefeated, guerrilla warfare in Kashmir intensifies and India bleeds to death.
Scenario - 6: India is on the verge of complete military victory and Pakistan reaches the point of total defeat. Faced with that situation it uses tactical nuclear weapons, India retaliates, the war is transformed into MAD, both are destroyed. Are Indians prepared to call Pakistan’s nuclear bluff? They should not forget that they had tried to call Pakistan’s bluff in the case of the nuclear tests in May 1998.
So my advice to my Indian friends is: try to understand that you will not achieve your objective in Kashmir by a limited war, and you cannot launch a full-scale attack without facing the spectre of MAD which will leave no winners. Hence give diplomacy a chance. You failed to avail of it after President Musharraf’s January 12 speech. You missed another chance in Almaty. Now do not turn down the peace plan that secretary Rumsfeld is bringing.
The writer is former Pakistan’s Ambassador to Russia.
They have nothing against the collection of zakaat and its disbursement among the needy, but they object vehemently to the purchase of staff cars, air conditioners and other bureaucratic perks from this money (which they consider a sacred trust) and, on this basis, consider the entire system a travesty of Islamic injunctions.
I have no knowledge of how the zakaat system operated in the time of the caliphs in Arabia and the Middle East, or even under the Mughal and other Muslim kings in India, but I am sure the functionaries deputed to the collection and disbursement of zakaat were not paid salaries out of these funds for performing their duties. So if you come to know that hundreds of VIPs, opulent hangers-on of a political regime and its other dirty-rich chamchas and their families have performed the hajj from zakaat money, without spending a teddy paisa of their own, what would be your reaction?
I shall not ask what the conscientious Muslims, mentioned in my first sentence, think of this profane exercise, because it is rarely that I come across that pious breed, not being one of them myself. But I am sure they must have read the reported proceedings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) where the subject of free hajj on zakaat money first came to light, and, turning their faces towards God, may have exclaimed, “Ya Allah, what next will the Muslims of Pakistan think of by way of subverting the faith!”
This was in 1995, but like old skeletons in the cupboard has only now been revealed. (This does not mean that other years have gone by without this kind of robbery being perpetrated on zakaat funds. The cupboard must be full of many annual skeletons). It has taken seven years because the process whereby financial discrepancies, irregularities and defalcations in government departments reach the PAC is necessarily long and devious, since all other kinds of audit, big and small, have to be exhausted before this high-powered body comes into the picture. The file cannot be closed without the matter reaching a satisfactory conclusion.
The point is, did the 316 persons, men and women, all Muslims, all educated and enlightened, with certainly more knowledge about the principles and tenets of Islam than I possess, think for a moment whether such a hajj was acceptable to the Almighty or not in the light of what they had been taught about Islam? I say this because, without being a scholar, I have known all my life that hajj becomes obligatory only when a Muslim has completed certain responsibilities as a good citizen and head of his family. Also that the pilgrimage has to be done from one’s own money.
But perhaps I’m nor being fair to the 316, who comprised 59 legislators / VIPs and 257 family members, close friends and other dear and near ones Maybe they knew all this even better than I do, and were not bothered whether a hajj performed at somebody else’s expense, and especially out of zakaat funds, was permissible or not. Maybe they were fully aware of the conditions attached to Muslim pilgrimage and were just not interested in the spiritual aspect of the journey to the holy land, treating it only as a picnic arranged by a good friend who happened to be the prime minister of Pakistan, plus an opportunity to do some shopping in Jeddah.
I do not know how devoted to religion Ms Benazir Bhutto — the prime minister in this case — was. All ruling regimes in Pakistan are chockfull of advisers on Islamic matters, and there’s a full-fledged ministry of religious affairs always at hand to remove doubts on theology.
Maybe one of the advisers, or all of them, and even the ministry itself, had told her that by sanctioning free hajj for the 316, which lay well in her power, particularly when the money was coming from zakaat fund at her disposal, she was actually enabling 316 Muslims to perform the holy pilgrimage and was thus entitled to the savaab that would follow. Mind you, this is just a conjecture, for I do not really know how her mind worked.
But work it did, as circumstances show, for she even sought and obtained the approval of President Farooq Leghari to this spiritual adventure. Why it was necessary to involve the President in a case pertaining to the misuse of zakaat money, is something that I am not able to explain. I wouldn’t like to think that she knew she was doing something wrong and therefore it would be safer if the head of state was also drawn into the picture. But today one is obliged to remark that Mr Leghari is hardly being sporting when he goes about claiming that BB never listened to advice coming from the Aiwan-e-Sadar, particularly if it was meant to limit her waywardness and arbitrary exercise of authority.
Actually the whole malady in Pakistan’s unwritten system of government has been the inability, and even refusal, of prime ministers and other men in power to curb their authority. They do not feel they are the top cat unless they can throw their weight about, make indiscreet monetary sanctions, approve unmerited appointments and let everyone in the country see that they have firmly ensconced themselves in the country’s throne. This was also the weakness of Mian Nawaz Sharif, to appear more powerful than he really was, and led to his downfall.
Perhaps (I say perhaps) some noble but weak voice among the religious advisers did pick up courage and advise PM Benazir Bhutto that it was iniquitous to spend zakaat money on a pilgrimage that was more of a junket, but he must have been rudely silenced by the senior advisers all of whom are experts in showing to our rulers the short-cut to paradise. But this does not absolve the PM, for prime ministers pick their own advisers, preferably fawning boot-lickers. As it may be said, “Those given to dissenting need not apply.”
There is a short but happy postscript. Apparently it was decided later that the charges of the free trip to the Hejaz should be recovered from the holiday-makers. I think those few who responded positively deserve to be mentioned, for in Pakistan’s given conditions they would be as rare as comets. The names are: Balochistan Governor, General Imranullah Khan, ex-MNA Mian Riaz Husain Pirzada, ex-Senator Haji Noor Sher Khan and ex-MNA Rai Arif Husain. God bless them!
THE United States has never had an agency devoted exclusively to domestic intelligence; it has resisted the notion of espionage at home. People who obey the law should be able to believe and say what they like, Americans believe, and government has no business investigating them for it.
The FBI’s responsibilities have included catching spies and other counterintelligence work, but the postwar axiom has held that spies and cops are different species. And when that axiom has been violated, and intelligence and law enforcement have mingled too closely, the result was serious abuse. The tools of espionage are corrosive to a democratic society —- a statement that is as true today as it ever was.
The threat of terrorism, however, raises the question of whether a serious domestic intelligence power is a prerequisite for survival in the modern age. People within this country are bent on doing it great harm, and their capacity to do so may be enormous. Terrorist attacks — particularly those involving weapons of mass destruction — are profoundly different from other criminal threats. Prosecuting perpetrators after the fact isn’t good enough; prevention is the only reasonable goal. To prevent, the government needs information. But gathering information may require government surveillance of people who have committed no crime.
FBI Director Robert Mueller recently told Washington Post editors and reporters of a sizable number of people in this country against whom the bureau can make no criminal case, who are here legally, and yet who are likely agents of terrorist groups. The challenge is to somehow facilitate information-gathering about such people, yet insulate those who are merely engaged in political activity — even radical political activity — from intrusive scrutiny.
Everyone wishes in retrospect that the Phoenix memorandum on flight schools had been shared with those investigating Zacarias Moussaoui and those thinking about al-Qaida’s interest in crashing aeroplanes, for example. Somehow, we must permit — indeed, demand —such information-sharing without demanding the same information flow on the unlucky innocent. The structural separation between the responsible agencies is also an impediment to analysis and swift action. Some relevant intelligence is here, some abroad, yet the same agencies cannot gather and process both. With the administration’s efforts to consolidate homeland security functions, there will be three major agencies —the FBI domestically, the CIA abroad and the new homeland security agency — managing pieces of the complex puzzles that possible terrorist plots present. Somehow, they will have to be coordinated.
The separation, central to liberty, frays accountability and exacerbates the problems inherent in bureaucracies of information flow.
Some part of the answer lies in making sure that domestic security investigations are effectively targeted, not on the basis of hunches. There is more congruence between effective security and civil liberties protection than some civil libertarians or security officials like to admit.
Agencies busy gathering the goods on real bad guys, after all, have limited time for cointelpro. Another element is candour and openness about the changes the country is undergoing, their dangers and their necessity. The tension between liberty and security is not going away. Designing rules and agencies to serve security and liberty both is a challenge that should be confronted without pretence. —The Washington Post
The latest of these is India’s decision to allow Pakistan’s commercial aircraft to use its airspace. But this does not include landing rights, which, along with bus and train links between the two countries, remain suspended as they have since December 31 when India discontinued these links in protest against the terrorist attack on its parliament building earlier that month.
The gesture is in response to the firm and credible assurances that President Musharraf has provided, directly and through foreign diplomats, of not allowing the use of Pakistan’s territory for cross-border terrorism. It also speaks of a measure of success for US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage’s recently concluded trouble-shooting mission in the subcontinent. To confirm that the tensions between India and Pakistan is somewhat lessening the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, personally called Gen Pervez Musharraf on telephone to tell him that “things are looking better now.”
A military de-escalation may take time and, in any case, a move towards that end may not be considered by India until the scheduled election in occupied Kashmir has been held in September or October.
However, if nothing untoward happens meanwhile to queer the pitch for it, the slow-down in tensions lately visible may be strengthened by the restoration of full diplomatic relations between Islamabad and New Delhi and the resumption of bus and train services which have remained suspended since the beginning of this year.
An early restoration of the air, road and rail links between the two countries may create a better climate for peace and normalization and prove immensely beneficial to the people at the two countries who have now to make a long and costly detour via Dubai or Dhaka to visit their relatives and friends in the other country.
The expected normalization of diplomatic relations and communication links should help reduce tensions between India and Pakistan. However, India does not seem to be ready to withdraw its forces from the border in the near future. This means that peace and normality time being.
It is important to note that the easing of tensions now visible is largely the result of the diplomatic efforts made by the United States with some help lately from Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who held consultations with President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on the sidelines of the Conference for Interaction and Confidence-Building measures in Asia (CICA) at Almaty last week. The US now has a vested interest in the region because of its leading role in the on-going war against terrorism in Afghanistan.
For establishing a long-term basis for resolving their differences and strengthening mutual trust, Pakistan and India need to resume their own bilateral negotiations and create the framework for the purpose. As the military stand-off between India and Pakistan, which began with the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament house in New Delhi in mid-December, has shown, an armed conflict, even a nuclear exchange, will remain an ominous possibility as long as the armed forces of the two countries remain poised along the common border in a war-like posture.
What has made the present military standoff particularly unnerving is the fear that even a minor miscalculation or misjudgment of the situation by either side could lead to a nuclear holocaust. A recent study on the nuclear developments, co-authored by a Pakistani and an Indian specialist on environmental issues, stresses that nothing that has happened in the subcontinent in the past fifty years or so had graver consequences for the people than the nuclear tests of May 1998 and the ‘spectre of war shall continue to cast its terrible shadow across the subcontinent.’ This is what has made the massing of forces on the Indo-Pakistan border a matter of utmost concern to the outside world.
A redeeming feature however is the growing concern among large sections of opinion on both sides calling upon the two governments to step back from the brink of open hostilities and return to the path of peace and normalization. To do so will obviously call for a large degree of sanity, wisdom and realism on the part of decision-makers in Islamabad and New Delhi with considerable prodding from major world powers.
ONCE again the battle rages over what the founding fathers meant when they insisted on adding the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.
On one side are those who say the writers had in mind the right of the people to be armed in some sort of organized defence.
The other side insists the men in Philadelphia meant everybody should own a gun to protect themselves.
The Bush Administration has gone to the Supreme Court to maintain that the right to bear arms means everybody.
An interesting sidebar to the controversy is that a week ago a restorer was cleaning a painting of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart when he had a hunch there was something underneath the painting.
He scraped the paint off the picture, and sure enough, underneath George Washington he found the minutes of the meeting concerning the Second Amendment, written by someone who was there.
The author did not sign his name. He wrote, “Philadelphia is hot as Hades and an argument has broken out between the pro-gun and the anti-gun forces.
“The delegate from South Carolina said, ‘Everyone should have a gun. How else am I going to keep my slaves from running away?’
“The delegate from Rhode Island said, ‘I don’t believe every citizen should own a gun. Have you people heard of “road rage,” where the driver of one horse and buggy cuts off the other and the two get off their buggies and start shooting at each other?’
“Georgia spoke up next. ‘Georgia wants guns to kill snakes. We have snakes all over — most of them come over from North Carolina.’
“North Carolina said, ‘And what about the cattle thieves that come in from Georgia? The only justice they should receive is from the muzzle of a rifle. No one can afford to wait for an organized national guard.’
“New Jersey spoke next. ‘Isn’t anyone afraid that if you have a gun your kid will find it and blow your brains out?’
“Then something happened that almost caused the Constitutional Congress to go home without a Second Amendment. The delegate from Massachusetts said, ‘I want the Second Amendment to also include the right to bear fish poles. Fishermen must be protected as much as gun owners.’ “After fierce battle, the motion was killed, so fishing was never added to the Second Amendment.
“Finally, after everyone was exhausted, the delegate from Pennsylvania came up with a compromise. ‘Let’s add the word “militia” so that later generations will have no idea what we really meant. They will be fighting over it for years to come.’
“The pro-gun forces said, ‘We’ll give in on “militia” as long as “the right to bear arms” is in there too.”’
As we know, the amendment was passed and, to this day, as they counted on, no one knows what the heck they meant.—Dawn/Tribune Media Services
JOINT patrols along the Line of Control. As soon as Atal Behari Vajpayee uttered that phrase, General Pervez Musharraf ought to have responded with words to the effect: Sounds like a great idea — when can we get together to discuss it further?
Such a reaction would at least have put India’s leadership on the defensive. Pakistan’s distinct lack of enthusiasm made it that much easier for George Fernandes and other Indian officials to renege on the offer, to pretend that their prime minister didn’t mean what he said.
The retraction was couched in disingenuous excuses, such as that the proposal was intended for a post-crisis period. That would make little sense and the likelier explanation lies in some sort of a tussle between hawks and doves in the Vajpayee administration. It is fairly obvious that the doves are vastly outnumbered, and it remains to be seen whether the visitors from Washington are able to calm the hawks down to any appreciable extent.
Although there were a few hopeful signs at the start of the week and Musharraf optimistically went to the extent of describing chances of war as “minimal”, the volatility of the situation is such that the level of bellicosity varies from one day to the next, and one can never be certain that signs of restraint aren’t the calm before a firestorm.
Pakistan’s stance on the joint patrols was evidently determined by doubts about practicalities, some of them reasonably valid. Diplomatically, however, it would have made more sense to accept the proposal in principle before airing the problems involved in its implementation, given the crucial fact that the very notion of joint patrols assumes an absence of war.
Musharraf also broached the idea of an international presence — which would do no harm, but which New Delhi finds unacceptable. India has all along been desperate not to internationalize the Kashmir issue, but the war clouds it has generated have, naturally enough, had the opposite effect. Besides, the dogged refusal to even contemplate mediation is, surely, at odds with the Vajpayee regime’s determination to eschew virtually all bilateral contacts.
The security conference in Almaty was a squandered opportunity, and in turning down Russian president Vladimir Putin’s offer to host Indo-Pakistan talks, Vajpayee pointed out that if the need arose he and Musharraf could always meet closer to home. Which they could, of course, but for the fact that New Delhi seems intent not to let it happen.
Its foremost condition for a cooling down has been the end of cross-border infiltration. It now appears that Musharraf has indeed ordered such a suspension, albeit, according to the khaki grapevine in Pakistan, for a period of six weeks. That’s a sensible move — although the limited time-frame is a worry, given that sending non-Kashmiri jihadis into Indian territory is as morally reprehensible and indefensible as the trigger-happy tactics of Indian forces in Kashmir. Unfortunately, it also does not necessarily follow that “terrorism” will cease to be used as an excuse for talking up the war option.
There are several possible reasons for this, notably the fact that Musharraf cannot personally ensure that no infiltration whatsoever occurs across the Line of Control and the border. Determined jihadis may well be willing to risk encountering adversaries on both sides. The bigger danger, of course, is that elements in the Pakistan army may be prepared to disobey their commanders. Were New Delhi prepared to be completely realistic, however, it would appreciate the fact that if Indian border forces are unable to intercept all infiltrators, how can the Pakistanis be expected to do better?
Then, of course, there is the risk that indigenous militants, whose existence is beyond dispute, regardless of the impression India may try to convey, could carry out provocations aimed at instigating a war. Although there can be little question that the overwhelming majority of Kashmiris would like nothing better than to be left alone by New Delhi as well as Islamabad, desperadoes among them may well prefer war to an uncomfortable stalemate.
Worst of all is the possibility that elements in the Indian security forces, with or without instigation from political forces in the BJP-led coalition, could stage incidents designed to put Pakistan on the spot. It has almost certainly been done before, and several Indian analysts have remarked on the coincidence between the war mania and the BJP’s electoral misfortunes. In other words, if the Vajpayee regime is determined to go to war and cannot find an immediate excuse, it is perfectly capable of manufacturing one.
Which brings us to possible war scenarios. “Surgical” strikes against purported militant training camps on the Pakistani side of Kashmir appear to be the likeliest initial option, with the second week of June ominously mentioned as a possible launch period. The indeterminate factor, obviously, is how Pakistan would react to such an incursion. Would it simply fight back or initiate attacks across the border in other sectors?
The latter strategy would amount to a reversal of what happened in 1965, when Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto managed to convince President Ayub Khan that Pakistani moves across the ceasefire line in Kashmir would not lead to an all-out war. He was profoundly mistaken, or perhaps deliberately misleading, given his retrospective claim, in private, that he perceived an unwinnable war as the only means of dislodging a dictator. It is intriguing to note that his daughter believes the current situation calls for a change of regime in Islamabad.
Notwithstanding the broad unacceptability of military rule in Pakistan, in the context of the war mania, one would have thought that it’s New Delhi that requires a less unreasonable administration, given that Musharraf has all along been prepared for talks, as well as generous with his assurances that Islamabad has no desire to initiate a conflagration.
The prospect that has, not surprisingly, caused the greatest degree of alarm abroad is that of a desperate Pakistan exercising the nuclear option. Unlike New Delhi, Islamabad has refused to rule out a first strike — much like the Nato powers during the cold war. The nation’s military strategists and diplomats must be fully aware that to lob so much as a single nuclear-tipped missile in India’s direction would be suicidal. Their intention, presumably, is to deter and Indian attack in the first place.
But what if that ploy doesn’t work? What if Indian troops not only occupy swathes in Azad Kashmir but appear to be headed for Sialkot and Lahore? In 1971, Indira Gandhi was able to dissuade her generals from overrunning West Pakistan. Vajpayee, Fernandes and Lal Krishna Advani may not be inclined to act likewise (and Ariel Sharon has demonstrated how pressure from Washington can be withstood for as long as necessary).
Would that be the cue for nuclear suicide on Pakistan’s part?
Hopefully, this existential question will never need to be answered. It would have been much better, of course, if it had never arisen. If people in India and Pakistan are, by and large, showing few signs of panic at the possibility of a nuclear exchange, it may be partly because they don’t really expect it to take place — but also because they have little idea of what it would entail.
Satoru Konishi was 16 when a US bomber dropped an atomic bomb on his hometown. At a gathering of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors in Japan last week, he pointed out: “If ordinary people in India and Pakistan knew the truth about nuclear warfare, they would never allow their governments to behave in this way ... Young people cannot imagine what it is like.”
The Japan Confederation of A-Bomb Sufferers is dedicated to preventing a repetition of the events of August 1945. Which is hardly surprising, given that its elderly members include people who recall wandering around Hiroshima after the mushroom cloud had dissipated, with their skin still dripping like wax from the radiation and blackened corpses everywhere.
It mustn’t be allowed to happen again. Anywhere. Ever. And the only way of guaranteeing that would be the outlawing of all nuclear weapons coupled with a strict monitoring regime — policed by the UN rather than the US.
The UN has been conspicuously inactive on the Indo-Pakistan front, while the US has finally got around to despatching its arm-twisters to Islamabad and New Delhi. If Richard Armitage and Donald Rumsfeld are able to contribute towards averting an outbreak of madness in the subcontinent, their missions will have been worthwhile (notwithstanding one’s strong reservations about the nature and motives of the Bush administration and its emissaries).
However, all parties involved would do well to remember that the absence of war does not add up to peace. Even if the present crisis can be transcended without all-out hostilities, if India and Pakistan remain at loggerheads, they could again be at each other’s throats within months. A comprehensive settlement, including a satisfactory resolution of the Kashmir dispute is required. And an appropriate degree of international instigation and pressure should produce results.
Therefore, the tendency to secure a temporary no-war agreement and leave it at that ought to be resisted. It shouldn’t automatically be assumed that the current tensions constitute an insurmountable barrier to going any further. Let’s not forget that the Shimla Accord was concluded just months after Pakistan’s military defeat and the liberation of Bangladesh. It was a step in the right direction, and Z.A. Bhutto and Mrs Gandhi were able to project it as such without encountering serious opposition.