The first casualties of the war against Iraq have predictably been on our side. They are the UN, the EU and Nato. Wilfulness on both sides of the Atlantic has played its part.

An American administration which began in office showing a marked indifference to international institutions changed its mind, somewhere between Afghanistan and Iraq, about their usefulness, but not to the extent that it would tolerate any serious obstacles to its fundamental purposes. The governments of France and Germany, which have championed multilateralism, have ended up making a stand on principle which cannot stop the war but will hurt the very institutions which embody the multilateral idea.

There have always been rows in Nato, splits within the EU and frustrations at the UN. But this landscape is disturbingly different. Again and again a German chancellor has come to the rescue of the US in Europe. Konrad Adenauer did it when he resisted De Gaulle’s blandishments. Helmut Schmidt did it over the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles. Helmut Kohl did it over the expansion of Nato to eastern Europe, and again over the choice of the first candidates from that region for Nato membership, all serious alliance quarrels in their time.

What is different now is that for the first time in half a century the German chancellor is not a dependable American ally. Britain could be taken for granted, France was always problematic, but Germany was the rock upon which American policy in Europe was founded. The way in which the German and American governments together managed the reunification of Germany was a crowning common achievement and one which is, after all, not too many years in the past.

It is not surprising that some Americans may feel that something which is owed is not being paid. That is one reason why the alliance row over Iraq, unlike all those others, may not end in compromise, and that in turn will affect how far European divisions are reconciled, and how the UN functions, or does not, in the future.

The next few days will bring in some evidence. Hans Blix’s report yesterday or the EU summit on Monday might conceivably give the French, and with them the Germans, an opportunity to revise their position. It is also not entirely impossible, although unlikely, that the US could agree to a further delay in the Gulf. But the course the French and Germans seem to be favouring is to avoid a second resolution at the UN, and thus the difficulty of voting either yes or no on a war, while expecting America nevertheless to go ahead.

It is worth noting how much of a role chance has played in this crisis. Until very recently it was the received wisdom among diplomats and students of international affairs that France would make its reservations clear by imposing some delay and then join the US and Britain in the war. If that is still going to happen it is getting very late in the day — too late, already, for French ground troops to take part.

Not much further back, it was equally the received wisdom that chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would also perform a u-turn, discreetly, after winning the election. Both these ideas turned out to be wrong. “Turned out”, though, is probably the right phrase, because Schroeder’s decision to keep up the anti-war argument after he had won the election was probably taken without any great weighing of the pros and cons.

Not having the same consciousness of the importance of the American connection as his predecessors, no doubt it just seemed politically the right thing to do, given his own instinctive aversion to the war path, the state of German public opinion and the views of his coalition partners.

That, in turn, played into the project for reviving Franco- German relations. Paris felt it was needed in an expanded union that was drifting and whose new members and members-to-be in the east felt more loyalty to Washington than they did to Brussels. Iraq became something that France and Germany could agree on, for, in truth, there were not a lot of other issues on which they were as one.

It is likely that neither France nor Germany intended to go as far in their opposition as they have done. Scudding before the strong wind of public opinion, they have reached a point where it is hard to come around. But this is how governments sometimes arrive at a principled position. The principle is not to be scorned because a certain amount of opportunism and accident played its part in the way in which it was adopted.

Yet, what is the purpose here? If France was serious about extending and intensifying the inspections, it would, first of all, have moved much earlier. It would, secondly, have moved behind the scenes in the manner of normal diplomacy to explore what the Americans might be brought to concede. It could have offered troops to sit out the long, hot summer in the Gulf with American and British soldiers, and Germany could have offered money to pay for such a costly deployment. It could have made contact with American elements who also favour a delay. This would probably not have worked, but the point is that it was not even tried.

Instead, we have a counterproductive declaratory diplomacy, from the Franco-German summit on, in which countries produce with a flourish schemes they have not even mentioned to the foreign ministries of close allies. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that France and Germany’s purpose is neither to stop a war nor to delay it until such time as force might be used with more justification in terms of evidence of Iraqi weapons holdings, if that emerged, but simply to dramatically disassociate themselves from a war. That puts them in the right place as far as European public opinion is concerned.

The idea that public opinion is in some simple way the ultimate arbiter of policy in a democracy is wrong, but when it comes to choices between war and peace it can reasonably be argued that it should have a special role. Yet pollsters’ questions tend to distil, in the citizen’s mind, down to very general propositions in which answers recording a natural distaste for violence and uncertainty get interpreted as an informed rejection of complex policy arguments.

Finally, everybody knows there are occasions when the survival of an organization is more important than whether or not you agree on its current purposes. France and Germany seem close to deciding, or perhaps already have, that in this instance principle comes before unity, even though they cannot alter US policy by their stand.

The Bush administration began a more cavalier era in international politics, before September 11, and only hesitatingly drew back from it afterwards. The combined result of American and European choices, it has to be painfully recorded, is now that we are about to wage war in a mood of disunity and recrimination, and having weakened the very institutions which will be most needed once it is over. —Dawn/Guardian Service

IT IS always difficult to reconcile religious passions with the discipline of legal judgments. Still, organizations and individuals do so for sordid motives. But when the governments go the same way, they betray their political leanings.

The BJP-led government at the centre does not seem to be even embarrassed about it. That it has wanted to build a temple at the disputed Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid site is not something that it has hidden ever. But when it kept the issue out of the agenda of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) — the 24-party conglomerate — the BJP made it clear that it would not mix its intention with the consensus of the NDA to have the temple issue aside.

The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the BJPs Taliban, was never reconciled to it because it wanted three sites — the Babri masjid and the mosques standing alongside at Varanasi and Mathura. The VHP’s entire activity, in fact, revolved around what would polarize society. And now it wants the possession of the Trisul (trident), to be legalized, because it thrives on the success it gets in an atmosphere of force, not the law of the land.

Apparently under pressure from the VHP, the BJP has made the NDA government approach the Supreme Court to vacate the stay on construction of any structure on the land the centre had acquired around the demolished Babri masjid site. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has supported the reference on the ground that “when a dispute cannot be resolved through negotiations, the verdict of the judiciary has to be accepted.”

This statement is unexceptionable. But it suffers from two drawbacks. One, the VHP has declared that it would not accept a verdict that goes against its stand. If that is the case, then how does Vajpayee propose to implement the judgment if the masjid site is given to the Muslims? By requesting the Supreme Court to vacate the stay, his government has already yielded to the VHP’s blackmail. Its mentor and Ram Janambhoomi Nyas chairman Mahant Ram Chandra Pramahans has already declared that the Ram temple would be built “at any cost” within 18 months at the disputed site. In other words, the VHP does not mean to respect the verdict of the judiciary that Vajpayee holds so high.

Another drawback in his defence is that the government has gone back on what it once considered was the best way out. At that time, the VHP’s threat was so real and so persistent that acquisition of the 67 acres of land surrounding the disputed site was considered the right move to stall any untoward incident. When the Supreme Court upheld the government’s step some nine years ago, it also said that all the acquired land must remain with the government till the decision to whom the site of the Babri masjid belonged. The centre’s reference runs counter to the Supreme Court’s earlier observation.

The dispute is still pending before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, although the proceedings have picked up some speed. Some expect the verdict in a year’s time. When the centre has waited for decades, why hurry now and that too about the land, which does not in any way settle the core issue: the disputed site where the Babri masjid stood before demolition?

It is not difficult to guess why the VHP is keen on getting the acquired land. It is undisputed. It belongs to Hindu owners who can always be pressured in the name of religion or otherwise to hand it over to the VHP. Once the land is in its possession, the VHP will lose no time in building the temple — the walls, the pillars and the doors of which have been carved elsewhere and kept ready. Even if the disputed site is not touched, the temple without the sanctum sanctorum will be ready. It will be surrounding the disputed site. How will any government stop the VHP from extending the temple to the disputed site?

A similar situation arose before the demolition of the Babri masjid when lakhs of Kar Sevaks were allowed to assemble at Ayodhya with shovels and baskets despite the Supreme Court’s order not to disturb the status quo.

Kalyan Singh of the BJP was the state chief minister then. Now Mayawati’s support is assured because the BJP gives her majority in the UP assembly. When the centre under the Congress government could not do anything to stop the demolition, how will it now check the VHP when both the prime minister and the home minister are a willing party? True, not all the NDA constituents are behind the BJP’s reference to the court.

But George Fernandes, the convener of the alliance, is already working on smothering the differences. Even Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, whose voice counts, may not be willing to join issue with the BJP, knowing well that Mayawati’s BSP has counter-weighed his Telugu Desam on the strength in the Lok Sabha. Other allies of the BJP have become more or less pieces of the party’s furniture. Nothing matters to them except berths in the council of ministers. They may make noises to impress the people.

The voters will, however, avenge the betrayal because they returned them on their secular credentials. The BJP’s allies may not worry about such a prospect because the general election is still 20 months away. There is thinking in the Sangh parivar that it has saffronized the country enough to face the polls any time. Two-thirds of majority in the Gujarat assembly elections seem to have gone to the party’s head.

The BJP should realize, if it has not already, that its strength is proportionate to the weakness of the Congress. The latter has not been able to put its act together because people like Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh are trying to fight the BJP on a religious plank.

Some in the Congress believe that it is a political fight. The party does not seem to realize that the real problem is economic. The VHP is only diverting the nation’s attention. On its part, the BJP is trying to cover up its failures with emotive issues like the Ram temple.

A Hindu card, played too often, can evoke a feeling of disgust among the Hindus who have imbibed the spirit of pluralism and accommodation for centuries.

The demolition of the Babri masjid evoked a sense of disgust among them and they showed it during the state elections in UP, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.

It is an opportune moment for the Liberhan commission to come out with its verdict. It has been sitting for more than 10 years to find out who were responsible for the demolition of the Babri masjid. Commissions, headed by retired judges or bureaucrats, tend to extend themselves endlessly. The verdict of the Liberhan commission is very much needed at a time when the VHP has revived the temple issue all over again. People want to know the names of those who destroyed the masjid and why.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

ON November 25, 1969 in the midst of the war in Vietnam, President Richard Nixon, besieged by protests that he was a war-monger, threw out a sop to public opinion.

The US, he announced, had decided to renounce the possession and use of lethal and incapacitating biological weapons. He declared that the government would destroy its stockpile of biological weapons. “These important decisions”, said Nixon, “have been taken as an initiative towards peace. Mankind already carries in its own hands too many of the seeds of its own destruction.”

Privately Nixon was convinced that they had little military utility for the US whilst at the same time he feared that, if the big powers continued to depend on biological weapons, one day a “rogue” state might one day get its hands on the knowledge of how to make them and use them against American cities. Sending the message that the US military considered them an ineffective tool might discourage other nations from trying to develop them.

This was the first time a major power had unilaterally announced an entire category of weapons of mass destruction and it catalysed a quick response from the rest of the world. By 1972 the major powers had all signed up to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. It seemed that mankind, for once, had taken a big step forward. But the truth was different — both the United States and the Soviet Union (and later Russia) cheated, violating the Convention in important ways.

The rot started on the American side because Nixon’s original executive order delegated the follow-up on his new policy to the defence department, with no effective control or follow-up by the White House’s own National Security Council. Almost immediately the CIA violated the president’s promise, deciding to retain a secret cache of biological and toxin agents, including 100 grams of dried anthrax spores, 5.2 grams of saxitoxin (paralytic shell fish poison) and seed cultures of the causative agents of smallpox, tularemia and brucellosis.

Only in 1975 did this come to light during Senate hearings. The cache was then destroyed, three years after the Convention had come into effect.

Also during the 1970s US military intelligence used the double agents, Sgt. Joseph Cassidy and Dmitry Polyakov, to feed false information to the Soviet Union saying that the US was maintaining a secret programme to develop new biological weapons. The apparent point of this extraordinarily perverse exercise was to push the Soviets to squander their scarce resources on emulating the Americans, especially in areas the US had already decided were unpromising for battlefield use.

Of course, Moscow then felt justified in breaking its own treaty commitment and in doing so achieved some remarkable breakthroughs in the use of anthrax and plague in wartime and also developed advanced delivery systems such as refrigerated warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles — information that by now may have been passed on to “rogue” countries by unscrupulous or poverty stricken ex-Soviet scientists.

Thus instead of “smothering the baby in the cradle”, as the US diplomat in charge of negotiating the Convention put it, the US inadvertently paced the Soviet Union to make breakthroughs that then posed a major strategic threat to the US.

Although this was perhaps the worst of it, later the US took advantages of ambiguity in the Convention’s language that allowed signatories to pursue research on biodefence. Until the late 1990s the US was quite transparent about its programmes, keeping all the reports unclassified. But then the Pentagon and the intelligence community, without informing Congress or the White House, started on some secret research including on a vaccine-resistant strain of anthrax.

Only investigative reporting by the New York Times, published in September 2001, blew the whistle. Also later that year the Baltimore Sun unearthed a US army programme to manufacture anthrax spores that could readily become airborne. Much informed opinion within the US considered these programmes in violation of the Convention. But even if that was unclear the programmes were large-scale and serious enough to convince many outsiders that the US was pursuing offensive programmes. Certainly if another country had carried out such research the US would have been quick to condemn them.

Jonathan Tucker who runs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Non-proliferation programme at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, whose work has done much to bring this troubled history to light, argues that if the US is to regain credibility it has to rapidly change gears. It needs a “reasonable level of transparency” with the White House being regularly briefed. The State Department lawyers need to be told to keep an eye on the research so that it complies with the strict terms of the Convention. “Suspicion that the US is secretly engaged in offensively orientated R & D could have a corrosive political effect and even promote the proliferation of biological weapons programmes,” he observes.

If indeed Saddam Hussein has developed biological weapons and he is one day arrested and arraigned before an international criminal tribunal it would be sad day for everyone if he could use as an argument in his defence: the Americans and the Russians did it and so did we.—Copyright Jonathan Power

INDIA’s political philosophers, academia and media project secularism as a pillar on which their country’s constitution and political system are based. From Nehru to Vajpayee all prime ministers have preached secularism for weighty reasons. India’s multi-lingual, multi-national and highly diverse society — excelling in regionalism and ethnic diversity — needs a strong cementing force to preserve and strengthen its culturally old and politically young heritage.

Successive governments in India have adhered to the political wisdom that in view of the ground realities, secularism is a good option for the country to follow. Their efforts bore a reasonable degree of success. Despite some glaring lapses and failures, secularism has served India well since its independence in 1947.

The going was never trouble-free, however. Widespread communal riots at the time of independence dealt the first serious blow to secularism. Soon thereafter India was shaken by a tragedy of monumental proportions when in 1948 a Hindu fanatic gunned down Mahatma Gandhi in New Delhi. Nehru’s long rule and his family’s domination of India’s political landscape consolidated secularism. Extremist political groups preaching communal hatred existed in Indian society but they were small in size and, more significantly, their representation in the central and state assemblies was negligible.

Slowly but surely the political scenario underwent a change, almost at an imperceptible pace initially but became increasingly visible as time passed. India’s hate-Pakistan policy and its hegemonic interference in the internal affairs of its neighbours cast ominous shadows over South Asia. The ruling elite in India brainwashed their own people by spreading venom, hate and falsehood against Pakistan. Its tirade against Pakistan also affected Indian Muslims and other minorities who are treated with suspicion. Some political parties developed a culture of hate in the belief that anti-Muslim violence and hatred could win Hindu votes.

In 1984, Hindu chauvinists of the ruling Congress indulged in a large-scale massacre of Sikhs in Delhi. In the elections that followed the Congress achieved a spectacular electoral success. In 1990, Babri Masjid was destroyed with the active support of the Uttar Pradesh state government and the connivance of the then prime minister, Narasimha Rao. In its wake came the notorious anti-Muslim riots in Bombay. In 1993 Bal Thackeray jubilantly confessed that Shiv Sena was behind the premeditated carnage. Resultantly, Shiv Sena went on to win quite a few state elections. Surprisingly, the Sri Krishna Commission’s recommendations on Bombay riots were never implemented.

A more recent example is the resounding electoral victory of the BJP in Gujarat. Here the Godhra train tragedy was exploited and the state chief minister, Narendra Modi, kept communal and chauvinistic passions high to influence Hindu voters. Over 2000 Muslims were systematically killed and the BJP won on people’s fears. “The state of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallavbhai Patel has become a laboratory for a particularly mindless brand of Hindutva,” lamented The Hindustan Times.

Dr Praveen Togadia of Vishwa Hindu Parishad boastfully declares that, “a Hindu Rashtra can be expected in the next two years .... we will change India’s history and Pakistan’s geography by then.” He went on to assert that “When madrassahs in various parts of the country can train jihadis, why can’t the VHP set up its Hindutva laboratory? Gujarat turned out to be a graveyard for secular forces.” Accepting the electoral defeat Gujarat Congress (I) chief Shankarsinha Vaghela admits that “people did not accept our offer of peace, happiness, prosperity and security. Instead, they opted for ‘Maro, Kato, Jalao (Attack, Hack, Burn).’”

‘The BJP is punch drunk on its victory in Gujarat and has triumphantly declared that it would contest the coming elections in other states on the same Hindutva plank’ reports The Tribune. Advani openly asserted himself and played a key role in making recent changes in the Indian cabinet. This reshuffle marginalized the non-BJP secular parties in the ruling coalition. The cabinet has been given an election-oriented profile to repeat the Gujarat Model in the state elections due later this year and general elections in 2004. The BJP promotes militant Hindutva philosophy in the garb of secularism, hoping to swing Hindu votes in its favour in the coming elections.

L.K. Advani commends Hindutva, now paraphrased as ‘cultural nationalism’ as a ‘noble concept’ as against secularism. No concept can be noble if it is based on militancy, tyranny and persecution of minorities. The Times of India describes the prevailing mood in India thus: “Modi, who had been painted as a villain by the secularists, has been accepted as a hero by the people of Gujarat.” The moral decline that swept Gujarat towards Hindu extremism has dangerous implications for India and for this region. This trend disturbs the supporters of genuine secularism.

The ‘Gujarat model’ indicates that communal and chauvinistic passions provide electoral dividends in the Hindu belt. Peace and social harmony may increasingly become casualties as the election period draws nearer. Such polarization may adversely affect India’s own economic development plans. Foreign investors may shy away from regions where Gujarat-like chaotic conditions prevail. The BJP’s rich electoral harvest of hate in Gujarat elections lacks moral and legal legitimacy. But, who cares about such virtues in the game of power politics? For the present, the BJP is euphoric. The future will tell if the forces of reason can prevail over those of tyranny of extremism.

Besides the Muslims, a low-caste Hindus too are forced to live under subhuman conditions. Gandhi had once lamented ‘the sinful denial of elementary justice to the Dalits’. Fifty-five years after India’s independence the condition of Dalits is much worse in a supposed secularist India.

Three examples reveal the Dalit’s misery and predicament. One, “Every time they try to assert themselves, the Dalits risk being beaten up” (The Hindu, December 29, 2002). Two, “A Dalit man was paraded naked in Bihar for daring to fetch his daughter-in-law belonging to a higher caste” (The Hindustan Times, December 20, 2002). Three, “A Dalit youth was assaulted and forced to drink urine after a petty quarrel in Karnataka” (The Tribune, December 27, 2002). One Indian analyst writes, “The frequency with which communal holocausts have been taking place in India shows that there is something fundamentally wrong with our political system as well as our secular governance.”

Hindu extremism and minority-bashing are two striking features of the domestic policies of the BJP government. It preaches secularism as a tactical necessity but breaches it with impunity in practice. The Vajpayee government adopts a double-speak policy on the state-sponsored acts of communal carnage and vandalism in Gujarat. It looks the other way, mildly censures the massacre of Muslims but gives a free hand to Narendra Modi to rule Gujarat with state-sponsored terror. The BJP’s primary objective of winning state elections by arousing communal passions.

On the external front, India’s foreign policy is based on hating Pakistan and trying to subjugate South Asia. The racial policies of rabidly Hindutva government raise eyebrows in the regional countries. India prevents Nepal from importing small arms from Europe. India-Bangladesh relations have nose-dived. India tries to destabilize Pakistan.

Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani blurts out incendiary statements at home and abroad. He overshadowed his prime minister and sabotaged the Agra Summit after both the foreign ministers had already finalized the draft communique with the approval of Musharraf and Vajpayee. He played a key role in declaring red alert and concentrating military forces on the border with Pakistan. He emits venom and arrogance against all India’s neighbours.

India’s army chief admits that he had planned an offensive across the Line of Control (Operation Parakrama) with forces, including a para brigade. This would have started a full-scale war in this region. Such a disclosure is unusual, to say the least. In a democratic country the military hierarchy never makes policy statements such as these. It only confirms Pakistan’s apprehensions about India’s mindset and the real motives behind its bellicosity.

The Vajpayee government projects militant Hindutva for political purposes. In reality, Hindutva is a trap for the cultural enslavement of Indian minorities who are pressured to accept dogmas and rituals specific to Hinduism. The BJP considers elections based on fear and communal hate as legitimate acts. Advani ridicules Islam with offensive phrases like ‘jihadi terrorism’, knowing full well that jihad and terror are poles apart in Islam. Militant Hindutva has started fires of communal hatred in India. Such fires are easy to ignite but almost impossible to extinguish.

Hindu extremists believe that the fires of hate will also consume the voices of sanity and peace in a country that has a long history of communal violence. The concept of secularism is in decline. It has been put on a steep downward slope during the rule of the BJP government. This is a very disturbing development whose repercussions will not leave the region unaffected.

The writer is a retired general of the Pakistan army.