The last days of two Titans

The founding fathers of India and Pakistan have been transfixed in the invective, abuse, distortion, selective memory and benign neglect of our times. Practically every ideal that they stood for has been subverted as if by design by the power wielders in the evolving histories of their respective countries.

It is not difficult to extrapolate that they would most probably be the severest critics of the government policies that followed their demise. Both were Titans in their hey day and now suffer the ignominy of having their images and words stuck up on the walls and chambers of all the great offices of the state, mouthed on the TV and Radio followed by banal bazaar ads and the rituals of their birth and death anniversaries observed in a repetitive ritualistic, wooden manner.

'To call a spade a spade', to use a favourite phrase of plain Mr. Jinnah, no two men could have been more different than the Mahatma and the Quaid. Indeed, they were antagonists, each with a different dream.

But, we need not get into the ancient cobwebs of their differences. Their legacies have to be determined by the thoughts and actions of their final days. The last days of life given to us are like a filter that ejects the unwanted and retains the quintessence of our enduring beliefs.

Let us examine the actions and final thoughts of this charismatic duo in their last days for such impact as it may have on present times. Of the many opinion wielders that I met in India during recent visits, I met only one, the redoubtable Kuldip Nayar, who was aware of the Quaid's final testament of August 11, 1947.

Most Indians consider the Quaid as the "wrecker of Indian unity and the father of Islamic fanaticism". But the historical fact is that in the teeth of opposition from his own supporters, the Quaid accepted the British imposed confederation idea, known as the "grouping scheme".

It was Pandit Nehru as the newly elected Congress president in 1946 who unilaterally changed the terms and conditions of the settlement that had been agreed upon by the Congress and the Muslim League.

And no charge could be more ill-founded than the accusation of the Quaid spawning Islamic fanaticism. It betrays either deep bias or profound ignorance. The Quaid as we well know was opposed to a theocratic state.

He would certainly not have suffered a mullah-interpreted political Islam which is currently the fulcrum of our muddled up polity consisting of theocracy, hypocrisy and pseudo democracy. Quaid's Pakistan was a homeland for the Muslims of India imbued by modern democratic statecraft and inspired by the glorious ideals of Islam.

The Pakistani public, and by this I mean the wielders of public opinion, is equally ignorant or biased in evaluating the role of Gandhiji in the short life granted to him after partition. No doubt, our school and college books on so-called "Pakistan Studies" are largely responsible for the current climate of bias and distortion.

In August 1947, Punjab, Bihar and Bengal, the three provinces on the Hindu/Muslim religious fault-lines, were burning. Human life had lost all sanctity in Gandhiji's words: "people had gone mad".

In remote Noakhali in East Bengal, Muslim mobs in retaliation to the massacre of the Muslims in Bihar went on a rampage against the minority Hindus. The Mahatma agreed to go to Noakhali to cool tempers.

On August 10, 1947, he arrived in Calcutta en'route to Noakhali, where the Muslims (less than 25 per cent of the population) were trembling for their lives fearing retribution.

The British army had moved out and the law-enforcement agencies were paralyzed. Bengal Chief Minister (and later prime minister of Pakistan) Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy begged Gandhi to remain in Calcutta, to protect the Muslims.

Gandhi agreed provided Suhrawardy moved in with him at Hyderi House situated in the Muslim district of Calcutta. Gandhiji vowed to fast unto death unless he received assurances of communal tolerance from the leaders of both communities.

For nine days there was communal peace in Calcutta after Gandhi-Suhrawardy began their satyagarah in Calcutta. But, on August 31, a Hindu crowd broke into Hyderi House accusing Gandhi of his failure to protect the Hindus in Noakhali and elsewhere where fresh outbursts of frenzy had occurred; Hyderi House was wrecked and Gandhi was almost overrun himself. On September 1, he announced a fast unto death unless the carnage was stopped.

By September 4, he received written assurances of communal harmony from every political leader of Calcutta and people in the thousands gathered to give this assurance. Calcutta was relatively free of communal madness thereafter.

The Muslims of Calcutta are ever grateful for Gandhiji's choosing to protect the Calcutta Muslims when his destination was Noakhali. Gandhiji then decided to move onto the Punjab, which was in the grip of even worse horrors.

He never reached Punjab. At Delhi he was detained by communal fires that raged in the city and the incessant of quarrels between his proteges, Nehru and Vallahbhai Patel.

There were two other matters that deeply troubled him, namely the failure of the Indian government to remit 550 million rupees of Pakistan's share of the sterling assets (this would be worth probably 55 billion rupees in today's money) and, the emerging Kashmir dispute with Pakistan. On both these issues Gandhiji was totally opposed to the policies of Nehru.

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan visited New Delhi in November but failed to yank Pakistan's sterling assets from the Nehru government. The funds were held in hostage till Pakistan withdrew the Pathan "raiders" that had entered Kashmir.

For Gandhiji, the repatriation of Pakistan's sterling assets was a moral issue and the last fast of his life which occurred a few days before his assassination in January 1948 literally forced the Indian government to surrender to Pakistan its due and legitimate property.

Gandhiji's views on the Kashmir dispute are not too widely known. He was no chauvinist on Kashmir. At a prayer meeting on October 19, 1947 he declared: "The real sovereign of the state are the people of the state.

If the ruler is not a servant of the people then he is not the ruler." Gandhiji's conviction was that "now the power belongs to the people," and therefore, "the people of Kashmir should be asked whether they want to join Pakistan or India. Let them do as they want. The ruler is nothing. The people are everything."

The above quote and those that follow have been taken from the eminent biography of Gandhi by Stanley Wolpert.

On Christmas day 1947 Gandhi declared:

"Can we not settle the issue between ourselves?... One should always admit one's mistakes. The Hindus and Sikhs of Jammu or those who had gone there from outside killed Muslims there... I shall advise Pakistan and India to sit together and decide the matter... The Maharaja can step aside and let India and Pakistan deliberate over the matter... If they want an arbitrator they can appoint one. "

And on December 29 he declared at an open meeting:

"I have been severely reprimanded for what I said concerning Kashmir," Gandhiji confided to the attendees at Birla House a few days later. "The advice I gave is the kind of advice the humblest man may give.

Occasionally it becomes one's duty to offer such advice... Kashmir is a Hindu state, the majority of its people being Muslims. The raiders... say that the Muslims of Kashmir are being ground down under the tyranny of Hindu raj and that they have come for their succour...

It seems obvious to me, as it should seem obvious to others... that if Sheikh Abdullah cannot carry with him the minority as well as the majority, Kashmir cannot be saved by military might alone... "

On January 12 he told his friends: "I yearn for a heart friendship between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims... Today it is non-existent... Fasting is a satyagrahi's last resort."

He resolved to start his "indefinite" fast the next day. At the top of his protest agenda was the return of Pakistan's assets. On January 15 India decided to repatriate Pakistan's sterling assets.

Gandhiji declared: "Our cabinet... deserves the warmest thanks," he said for having agreed that day to transfer to Pakistan the unpaid partition funds. "this is no policy of appeasement of the Muslims...

The present gesture on the part of the Government of India... ought to lead to an honourable settlement not only of the Kashmir question but of all the differences between the two Dominions. Friendship should replace the present enmity."

On January 18 he terminated fasting after he received a written pledge from over a hundred leaders including the heads of all the parties "that we shall protect life, property and faith of the Muslims."

On January 30, 1948 at 5-17 p.m. Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a hate-crazed RSS man by the name of Nathuram Godse in the grounds of Birla House in New Delhi. The assassin's concluding speech in the High Court of India reads in part as follows: -

"My provocation was his constant and consistent pandering to the Muslims... I declare here before man and God that in putting an end to Gandhi's life I have removed one who was a curse to India, a force of evil, and who had, during thirty years of... hare-brained policy, brought nothing but misery and unhappiness... I do not doubt that history will give me justice."

Gandhiji's legacy provides the format of a unifying bond between India and Pakistan. He was no doubt opposed to the creation of Pakistan, but once it became a reality he wished India to embrace it in friendship and fairness. Revenge was never a Gandhian trait - as he famously declared, "that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind".

Quaid's enduring legacy is best summed up in his own words:-

"...I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities,... will vanish... You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan...

You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the state... We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state..."

The writer is a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan.

E-mail: murbr@isb.paknet.com.pk.

Weapons of 'mass deception'

'Weapons of mass destruction.' No term has been more abused, or less understood. President George Bush has made it his personal mantra, and the slogan of his presidency.

The Bush administration, which cooked up fake evidence to justify launching war on Iraq, may yet conveniently 'discover' unconventional weapons in Iraq - before November elections. So, let's define what such weapons are - and are not.

Three types of unconventional arms are called weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, chemical and biological. Nuclear - The only true weapons of mass destruction. The US, Russia, China, France, Britain, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea possess them. Japan could make nuclear weapons within 90 days.

Without specialized medium and long-ranged delivery systems (aircraft or missiles), nuclear weapons are useless, even suicidal. Last week, Bush warned of nuclear proliferation and called for a worldwide ban on the trade of nuclear material.

This came right after Pakistan apparently exposed a major nuclear proliferator and black marketer. Meanwhile, Israel is covertly helping build India's nuclear forces with tacit backing from Washington. And the US plans to deploy a new generation of nuclear weapons designed to attack Third World targets - such as Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

Chemical weapons - Not weapons of mass destruction. Blistering, choking, or toxic agents. Mustard gas possessed by Iraq, Libya, Syria, possibly Pakistan, India, and many other nations is World War I technology.

Horrible as they are, these are strictly battlefield weapons, requiring large, clumsy tanks, and depend on favourable winds. Winston Churchill authorized using poison gas against 'primitive tribesmen' - Kurds in Iraq and Afghans - when he was British Home Secretary. Italy used mustard gas in Ethiopia and Libya.

Choking gas, like chlorine, is also a tactical battlefield agent. French troops without gas masks defending a four-km front at Verdun in 1916, were hit by 60,000 chlorine gas shells, yet survived and held their lines.

Nerve gases, like Sarin and VX, are World War II vintage. Though very deadly, they, too, are tactical agents designed for area denial and neutralizing high value targets.

Using nerve gas requires specialized vehicles or aircraft with highly complex dispensing systems. Gas is dependant on temperature, humidity and wind. The Soviets tried various nerve agents in Afghanistan, but found them ineffective and dangerous to their own troops.

Nerve agents would be very lethal if released by terrorists in a large building, mall or airport, but, again, they are weapons of localized destruction, not mass destruction. In 1995, a Japanese cult released nerve gas in Tokyo's subway, killing 12 people.

Nerve gas was not used during WWII because of its unreliability and lack of wide area lethality. Many gases are unstable and have limited shelf lives. Iraq and Iran used poison gas during the 1980-1988 Gulf War - killing or maiming many soldiers but achieving no strategic breakthroughs.

Biological agents, like anthrax, botulism, q-fever, tularemia, and plague, are the most feared, yet least understood weapons. They are difficult to produce, store, transport and deliver.

Germ weapons have never been successfully used in warfare. The USSR was secretly working on mutated, drug-resistant forms of anthrax and plague when it collapsed. The US and Britain secretly aided Iraq in developing germ weapons in the 1980s.

In the 1930s and 40s, Japan used anthrax in bombs, and also released plague-infected rats, against Chinese civilian and military targets. These attempts produced some localized casualties. The Japanese military ruled their biological warfare campaign a failure.

Biowarfare agents are weapons of uncertain, limited destructiveness. Conventional weapons can be as destructive as nuclear weapons. The two atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945 killed 103,000 people. In one night alone, US fire bombs incinerated 100,000 civilians in Tokyo.

Japanese sources say one million civilians were killed by US bombing raids. Over 100,000 German civilians were burned to death by the US-British fire-bombing of Dresden and Hamburg.

UN experts reported 500,000 Iraqis died from 1991-2002 as a result of a disease caused by the destruction of Iraq's sewage and water facilities by US bombing and by sanctions. Soviet forces killed 1.5 million Afghan civilians using conventional arms; Russian forces killed 90,000 Chechen civilians in the 1990s.

Fuel-air explosives, or thermobaric weapons, used by Russia in Chechnya and the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, can be as destructive as small, tactical nuclear weapons. So is the recently deployed US 21,500 lb MOAB bomb. Larger versions are planned.

Given these facts, it's important to dissipate the hysteria and confusion over WMD's. Even if Iraq had had some chemical or biological weapons - which it did not in 1993 - they were not true wmd's. Iraq had no means of delivering them to the US, and they could never have posed the threat of mass destruction, as Bush claimed.

No terrorist group is likely to sneak enough chemical or biological material into the US to cause more than localized damage. Localized, like the World Trade centre, may still be horrible, but it is not mass destruction. Even a small nuclear device would cause limited - not mass-destruction.

Ironically, the most lethal, yet most ignored, weapon of mass destruction faced by the Americans happens to be their beloved cars, SUV's and trucks, in which some 43,000 die each year in traffic accidents.-Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2004

Responsible nuclear state

The evidence of proliferation by some Pakistanis has once again brought our country's nuclear capability under adverse international focus. For too long our governments had dismissed suspicions.

It took foresight and courage on the part of President Pervez Musharraf to abandon the ostrich posture and take courageous decisions in order to reassure the world community that Pakistan can and will put a stop to criminal activity of the individuals who sold sensitive technology for personal greed.

Thanks to the correct policies that ended Pakistan's isolation and brought it in the mainstream of the world community, our country today enjoys the goodwill and understanding of major powers so that they have refrained from voicing indignation or threatening sanctions.

President Bush has noted Pakistan government's assurances that the "country will never again become a source of weapons proliferation." Under-secretary of state John Bolton has stated he did not detect any involvement of government leaders in the sale of nuclear technology. IAEA director-general Mohammad ElBaracie has expressed appreciation for Pakistan's cooperation in investigation of charges of leakage.

Still apprehensions abound about future penalties and sanctions. Nor can these be dismissed, particularly if Pakistan were to fail to deliver on its pledge.

But there is no basis to the speculation about a demand for unilateral rollback or a drive for "joint control" over Pakistan's nuclear assets. No such proposal has so far been made. Nor can Pakistan succumb to any demand, which might deprive it of the deterrence necessary for its security.

To that end, the state has to continue the pursuit of the polices and approaches that can steer the ship of the state out of the current crisis. A salutary strategy has to aim at resuscitating confidence in our state's capacity for rectification and reform, and assure the world community that the leakage of sensitive technology will never happen again.

Any attempt to belittle the past failure to safeguard sensitive technology would betray a cavalier attitude towards an issue of utmost gravity and further undermine our claim as a responsible nuclear state.

Criminal activities of state functionaries cannot be shrugged off by equating them with private peddlers. Law holds a state responsible for the misconduct of its officials. Poor governance or prevalence of corruption and venality cannot win international extenuation or exculpation.

Nor would it avail us to take shelter behind seductive slogans. The reasons are not to be found in prejudice alone even though Pakistan is painfully aware that it suffered discriminatory sanctions despite a convincing rationale for acquiring the capability for deterrence. Nor did Non-Proliferation Treaty apply to Pakistan as a non-party.

The immediate trigger for counter-proliferation sanctions was the Indian bomb test in 1974. Canada and the US promptly prescribed mandatory sanctions against the acquisition of fissile technology. The western countries then decided on new measures to prevent transfer of nuclear technology.

The pseudo-doctrine of clash of civilizations came much later. It was irrelevant to the main US focus in the 1990s on prevention of leakage of nuclear material and technology from Russia. Even currently, not all the states in the eye of the storm are Muslim.

The principal driver of the recent anti-proliferation drive was 9/11. It conjured up the nightmare of weapons of mass destruction being used for terrorist acts and injected a new urgency into the prevention of proliferation.

Not only in the United States perceptions and preoccupations changed. Mohammed ElBaradei has warned, "With deadly technology going on the market, there is the terrible possibility that terrorist groups could obtain the ultimate weapons they desire most."

The main targets of counter-proliferation now became the states suspected of pursuing the weapons option even though they were parties to the NPT. The world community is also concerned about he danger of loss of control and of weapons falling in the hands of the extremists.

Recognizing the objective reality and mindful of lurking dangers, our state must continue to walk the right road, cooperate with the world community, devise and learn efficacious measures, and pursue proactive policies and solemn approaches to reassure the world community that Pakistan has turned the page.

Those who peddled the state secrets and exposed the nation to international censure and jeopardized national security must be held to account. Deterrent action has to be an integral part of crime prevention.

Pakistan should show willingness to cooperate with the world community in reduction of nuclear dangers. Expanding programmes and arsenals, dispersal of warheads and delivery systems, and increase of personnel in the chain of command have added to the dangers of accidental or unauthorized use.

Pakistan's strategic plans division has already introduced stringent custodial controls and reliability checks on the personnel. It will no doubt continue to devise and implement additional measures.

Other neo-nuclear states, too, can benefit from cooperation with the more experienced nuclear powers in order to learn means and methods for foolproof security of strategic assets. A proposal for initiation of such a multilateral dialogue would underline Pakistan's earnestness and sense of responsibility.

Pakistan should also support the proposal put forward by Mohammed ElBaradei, calling for the international community "to engage in an urgent dialogue that can move up towards an agreed package of measures to strengthen the non-proliferation regime and international security system."

The European Union has suggested that nuclear plants in all countries should be brought under IAEA safeguards. At the first sight the idea seems impractical. Safeguards were devised only to prevent clandestine diversion of fissile materials for weapons. But if the other seven nuclear states show a positive inclination, Pakistan should do the same. Islamabad is on record to be willing to sign the NPT if India did.

Utmost caution is needed in public discussion of nuclear issues such as 'No First Use'. Fortunately, our articulation has matured so that few flaunt nuclear weapons as some did in the past. That was never necessary. Every one understands that deterrence depends on the fear of the use of weapon of last resort.

But threatening their use projects an image of a trigger-happy people. Instead, our emphasis should be on the prevention of nuclear as well as conventional war. (No first use of force).

The task confronting Pakistan is difficult but doable. It can overcome the proliferation crisis just as it has others over recent years. It has extricated itself from external isolation and multiple sanctions. Aid flows have been resumed.

International financial institutions and aid donors have commended Pakistan's performance. Transparency International has recognized the curbing of corruption. Not only is the state financially stronger and more self-reliant. It has also taken encouraging strides toward improved governance and political consensus.

Of course, this encouraging record needs to be built on. The problems at home and abroad will not go away. We have to cope with them through provident policies and improved performance.

The writer is a former foreign minister of Pakistan.