index
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2002 6:15:37 PM ]
LONDON: Piara Singh Khabra, from London, is a British Labour Party MP deeply interested in the Indian sub-continent. Mohammed Sarwar, from Glasgow in Scotland, is his party and parliamentary colleague with identical interests. But their shared present fractures when it comes to Kashmir as diplomatic cross-border shelling breaks out.
"MPs who support the Pakistani view can be counted on the fingers of the hands," boasted the frail and ancient former Punjab socialist Khabra to The Times of India.
"I haven't done a survey and I don't know numbers, but the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Kashmir has something like 54 MPs," shot back Sarwar.
The battle of the Kashmir parliamentary question is on in the British parliament, as the governing Labour Party seeks to reconcile its Indian and Pakistani origin MPs into a 'propah' and seemly British neutrality.
But it can be difficult, as Vikas Pota, director of the 110-member Labour Friends of India, explained: "I wouldn't say Indian and Pakistani origin MPs are jockeying for position, but obviously, there is a difference of views and equally obviously, all would ultimately abide by the Labour Party position on Kashmir rather than anything else."
Soothing words, but these too can be contentious. Sarwar, who on Wednesday asked Prime Minister Blair a high-profile question on Kashmir "and the lethal situation there", points to the Labour Party's 1995 resolution to support the UN position on Kashmir.
Khabra, meanwhile, counts as a personal triumph the party resolution's severely underlined view that it is a bilateral matter, to be decided with the consent of the people of Kashmir.
The difference in emphasis, admit some white Labour MPs, can sometimes be almost farcical, particularly when it comes to raising Kashmir as a PMQ or a Prime Minister's Question, the weekly parliamentary event that gets the most media and public attention.Khabra agrees. "I had put a question down on Wednesday, May 22, about cross-border terrorism, but because Sarwar asked his question on Kashmir, I couldn't ask mine".
Sarwar tries to be diplomatic. "We all, Piara and I, want peace. I asked a fair-minded question and received a fair-minded reply from the Prime Minister".
For the record, Blair's reply, which rebuked Musharraf's Pakistan and urged India to move to dialogue, was a model of geopolitical doublespeak.
"The situation is indeed grave and serious and the dangers inherent in it cannot be stressed enough," he told Sarwar gravely, adding that "My own view is that Pakistan should stop support for any form of terrorism in Kashmir or anywhere else in the region and, at the same time, India should be prepared to offer a proper system of dialogue to resolve all issues between the two countries, including disputes over Kashmir".
Khabra, who describes himself as "very pleased with Blair's reply", insists he and the Indian position are on a strong wicket in the House of Commons. "I get no support from Keith Vaz, but there are others who support me. Post-September 11, there is agreement that terrorism is terrorism whatever the cause."
AFP [ THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2002 2:07:20 PM ]
LONDON: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Thursday that there was a risk of nuclear war between India and Pakistan with tensions rising between the two nations over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Straw, who is due to visit the region next week, urged the international community to do everything possible to bring the two sides "back from the brink" of war, but acknowledged there were limits to what he could do to settle a conflict that has been simmering for more than 50 years.
"And as you get an increase in the mobilisation of forces on either side... a great increase in tension, and the fact that both sides have nuclear weapons and both sides have the capacity to use them...then there is a risk of nuclear warfare," Straw told BBC radio.
He is scheduled to travel to India and Pakistan early next week as part of US and European Union efforts to prevent the two nations engaging in what Straw has said could be "the most serious conflict in the world".
If current war clouds have receded and with it the danger of a
nuclear exchange, what about the next confrontation or the time after
that?
How many warning bells do we need to hear to recognise what has been
obvious since those tests of May 1998? That this is the part of the
world where a nuclear holocaust is most likely.
Remember those denials by so many in the pro-bomb lobby of India
after Pokhran II that this was a racist slur, implying as it did that
we in India and Pakistan were less responsible than other nuclear
weapons powers. Remember too, that virtually the whole of the Indian
bomb lobby in welcoming those tests declared that both countries
going openly nuclear would actually bring about greater regional
stability and peace. Could there have been a more disastrously inept
prediction?
The easy way out is to claim that a duplicitous Pakistan is
responsible for our post-Pokhran, post-Chagai mess. But this excuse
won't do because the egg still remains on the faces of our Indian
experts who were so inexpert as not to anticipate this duplicity.
Therefore, the temptation is to now claim that Pokhran II was
inevitable because Pakistan was threatening us anyway with its
nuclear capability, or some other argument resting on the wondrous
powers of nuclear deterrence. Anything to save face and the
pro-nuclear argument, except the truth.
The presumed nuclear threats from Pakistan and China were always the
excuses, never the reasons. Indeed, the official declared position of
this Indian government - that the Indian bomb is neither 'country
specific' nor 'threat specific' - itself gives the game away. Pokhran
II was supposed to be an expression of India's political manhood, a
way of equipping oneself to participate in the tough, hard-headed
game of global geo-politics as an ambitious and rising power.
Obsession with political manhood through greater military
belligerence and power has always been the hallmark of Sangh ideology
- the reason why it has wanted the bomb since the Fifties, well
before the Pakistan or China threat could have been said to exist. It
is this same ideologically rooted belligerence and hostility that has
also spread so widely among the Indian elite (how else could the
Sangh have climbed to power?) which now threatens a regional
Armageddon.
For if it is Pakistan that, on balance, might be the first to pull
the nuclear trigger, it is India that is the most likely to provoke
the kind of conventional military conflict (whether in the name of
fighting terrorism or whatever else) that can spiral upwards to such
a situation.
The Cold War was essentially an ideological conflict where though the
US and Russia might have engaged in proxy wars in the third world,
there was little danger of them directly confronting each other
militarily - let alone brandishing nuclear weapons. Even then, it
was, on several occasions, a close run thing.
Here in South Asia, Pakistan, behind the post-1998 nuclear shield,
thought it could launch an incursion into Kargil. That war, which saw
both sides prepare covertly for possible use of nuclear weapons, was
brought to an end by external intervention, in much the same way as
external - above all US - pressure dissuaded India from going beyond
the brink this time, whatever claims New Delhi will undoubtedly make
for the 'success' of its coercive diplomacy and brinkmanship.
The point is that whatever the political-diplomatic setbacks for
Pakistan during and after Kargil, it has not suffered any decisive
military defeat - precisely the aim and intention of so many amongst
the Indian elite (especially in Hindutva circles) who have demonised
Pakistan as the root cause of all India's troubles in Kashmir and
elsewhere. For them, Pakistan's 'nuclear bluff' must be called. That
is, the risk of a holocaust must be taken because Indian pride,
manhood, etc. demands it and because without a decisive military
defeat of Pakistan, India will always be tormented by an evil
Pakistan regime filled with an irrational and unbalanced hostility to
India. (Does it really matter if it is a Zia, Musharraf, Benazir or
Islamic fundamentalists in power in Islamabad?)
Yet, this same Pakistan regime can be relied upon to be rational and
balanced enough never to launch nuclear weapons no matter what the
military provocation from India, or even in the face of its own
'decisive' defeat. With this mindset so widespread in Indian
decision-shaping circles, is it any surprise that so many in South
Asia and internationally are now reaching the frightening conclusion
that some kind of nuclear exchange in the next seven or more years
between India and Pakistan is inevitable?
It is as simple as this: President Musharraf can and must do much
more to prevent cross-border terrorism. But because he is nowhere in
full control of events in Pakistan (indeed he is fighting for his own
political survival), he cannot guarantee its permanent end any more
than the US can stop terrorist attacks on it despite its own brutal
assault on Afghanistan. Recently, US Secretary of Defence Donald
Rumsfeld has said as much.
If India nonetheless sees such terrorist acts as sufficient cause for
war, then it will happen. There is a point where brinkmanship without
going further is unsustainable, and an India which has so cavalierly
practised brinkmanship after December 13 and May 14 has put itself in
a corner where in the future it will be under immense pressure
internally to go that one fatal step further. After all, the US,
Europe, Africa and the rest of Asia have the consolation of knowing
that they will not be directly affected by a nuclear exchange between
these two 'small' nuclear powers whatever their terrible mutual
devastation.
If war takes place between India and Pakistan, any Indian assumption
that it can score a 'decisive' victory quickly and easily will almost
certainly be shown to be faulty, leading to a dynamic of escalation
that has real likelihood of reaching the nuclear level. The Giriraj
Kishores of the world will, of course, not listen to some of the more
sober of India's military thinkers.
So what do we have to do? We have to avoid war by eschewing the
politics of war-mongering and brinkmanship, putting even terrorism
into proper perspective. If war still takes place, we must not resort
to nuclear exchanges. The second is even more important than the
first. But there is only one serious and effective way to ensure
this: get rid of all nuclear weapons in the region.
There are those in the Pakistani establishment who, recognising the
much greater burden and danger of nuclearisation and war for Pakistan
than for India, have always preferred non-nuclear parity between the
two countries, in contrast to others who believe nuclear weapons
compensate for Pakistan's conventional military imbalance vis-à-vis
India.
Twice after coming to power (September 2000 at the UN and in
mid-January 2002), Musharraf has proposed exploring such regional
denuclearisation measures, only to be ignored and contemptuously
rebuffed by India.
Thus, there is still space for both governments to rethink and
retreat from this insane nuclear path taken after May 1998. We must
understand clearly what the pro-bomb lobby will never like to admit:
nuclear deterrence is nothing but the irrational hope that terrible
fear (of the consequences of nuclear war) will always promote wise
decisions by fallible human beings operating under intense pressure
(especially in wartime situations) in changing circumstances they can
never fully control.
Seeking security through nuclear weapons is nothing but hope
masquerading as strategic wisdom. And that hope is looking
increasingly shopworn.
NEW DELHI: India has said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's address to his country on Monday was both disappointing and dangerous.
Spelling out India's response to the general's speech, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said on Tuesday that Musharraf only repeated promises he had made earlier. It was dangerous, and it involved belligerent posturing, which have led to "tensions being raised and not reduced", he said.
Singh said Pakistan had not taken any step to stop "the lethal export of terrorism" from its soil. Mere verbal denials about stoppage of cross-border terrorism were untenable as the situation on the ground was quite different. He said the world now recognises that Pakistan is the epicentre of international terrorism.
The current war against terrorism will not be won decisively unless the base camps in Pakistan were closed permanently. He said India would take all necessary measures.
Singh said Musharraf should act on his international commitments to control terrorism. "His commitment is not only to India but these are international commitments."
They are not born out of UN Resolution 1373, but make it incumbent on Pakistan to abjure violence, stop infiltration of terrorists, dismantle terrorist camps and stop using terrorism as an instrument of state policy, he said.
Asked how much time India was ready to give Musharraf to fulfil these commitments, including handing over of 20 terrorists and criminals, he said: "It will be difficult to specify as sufficient time has elapsed already."
Singh said India was not impressed with Pakistan's missile antics: "They (missiles) are either imported technology or imported hardware."
The international community should take note of the fact that Pakistan was holding threats of nuclear weapons and terrorism simultaneously: "India is not talking about it (nuclear conflict) now. General Musharraf and some of the ministers in his government and others have spoken very casually about nuclear war. India has not ever spoken about nuclear weapons."
Singh said India could not be "continued to be penalised for its patience". Every time it was attacked by terrorists, the world community told New Delhi to exercise restraint while assuring that Pakistan would take steps.
"Let me share the concerns India has. On October 1, 2001, the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly was attacked. We were advised that Pakistan would take action to stop cross-border terrorism, so India should exercise restraint.
"Then came December 13 when Parilament was attacked. We were again told that we should exercise restraint," he said.
Referring to Musharraf's January 12 speech, Singh said certain terrorist camps were shut down and several terrorists were arrested. "These camps have come up again. You know how many of the arrested persons have been released. Take the case of Azhar Masood, he lives in his bungalow and is paid Rs 10,000 every month."
However, Singh said the question of breaking diplomatic ties with Pakistan had not yet arisen. India would offer something in return to Pakistan if it became clear that terrorism had stopped and militant camps were closed down. "You cannot put the terrorist pistol to the head and say have a dialogue otherwise I will pull the trigger of terrorism."
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 2002 12:41:27 AM ]
NEW DELHI: Pakistani analysts are of the view that both General Pervez Musharraf’s tough speech on Monday and external affairs minister Jaswant Singh’s reaction to it on Tuesday seem to suggest that India and Pakistan are negotiating behind closed doors and a deal has been struck.
Lahore-based Friday Times editor, Najam Sethi, told The Times of India, ‘‘Musharraf’s speech was aimed at three audiences — domestic, international and Indian... For India, his message was, if you are flexing muscles so are we, but I am sure he has given India behind-the-scenes concessions. He has decided to take steps on cross-border terror and the hawkish posturing is only meant for Pakistanis’’.
According to Iqbal Haider of the Pakistan People’s Party, Singh’s harsh reaction was disappointing. ‘‘The kind of aggressive posturing on Singh’s part can only be counter-productive. He (Singh) should have realised that Musharraf’s speech was essentially meant for the domestic audience. Musharraf has given every indication in his speech that he is ready to concede on the issue of cross-border terror and was not aggressive in his posturing at all. Singh’s reaction has not helped the de-escalation of the war phobia at all and he should have kept a window open for talks at Almaty,’’ he said.
Chairman of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission I A Rehman, however, would like to believe that ‘‘even if the two talk to each other in harsh language, it means there is a dialogue between them, which is certainly better than not taking notice of each other.... Moreover, both governments are being persuaded by the international community, so whatever Musharraf and Jaswant Singh may say today is bound to change tomorrow.’’
For Najam Sethi, Jaswant’s reaction was on expected lines. ‘‘I am far more confident today than I was five days ago about behind the scene negotiations which must have happened between the two countries. Jaswant Singh was clearly diplomatic in his reaction, because India wants to test Pakistan. If India accepts Pakistan’s position, then it will have to reciprocate, which is not what it wants to do right away. I am happy that he was not hawkish in his reaction’’.
Sethi claimed that the Russians ‘‘have certainly not floated the Almaty idea without a nod from New Delhi. And there’s time to go for it. To begin with, Jaswant Singh will obviously say that there is no possibility of talks between Vajpayee and Musharraf. Otherwise Vajpayee will also lose face to his people after such a build-up.’’
ISLAMABAD MAY 28 . The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said after his talks with the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, today that the Pakistani leader was aware that he was expected to do more to clamp down on cross-border terrorism.
``I think that President Musharraf is under no doubt about the expectation of the international community for clear action to be taken in addition to that which has already been taken to clamp effectively down on cross-border terrorism,'' he said at a press conference.
Mr. Straw arrived in Pakistan on his peace mission a day after Gen. Musharraf delivered an address to his nation in which he claimed that no infiltration of militants was taking place in Kashmir. ``The test of assurances down the ages is how they work out on the ground, and it's of course against the practice that all these matters are inevitably judged,'' Mr. Straw said when asked about the claim.
All the member states of the United Nations, including Pakistan, had the responsibility to bear down ``effectively and consistently on all forms of terrorism, including cross-border terrorism... There isn't any doubt that Pakistan has, in the past, assisted what they would describe as freedom fighters (whom) the rest of the world describes as terrorists or activists, across the Line of Control,'' he said.Describing his meeting with Gen. Musharraf as ``constructive and forthright,'' Mr. Straw said his visit was aimed at sharing ``the international community's concerns'' with the Pakistani and the Indian leadership.
``This (Kashmir) is a bilateral dispute of long standing and sadly, considerable bitterness between India and Pakistan,'' he said. The conflict could only be resolved through a dialogue.
``Both sides have nuclear weapons and the capacity to use those nuclear weapons. With more than a million men facing each other across the border the risks are obvious and considerable.'' However, there were ``clear limits'' to what the international community could do ``since decisions about war and peace rest with the parties to the dispute.''
Mr. Straw also met the Pakistan Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar.
AFP, Reuters
A grave responsibility rests on the Prime Minister to see to it that anti-Pakistan feelings do not get reduced to anti-minority hysteria.
HAVING BEEN denied success as a peacemaker, Atal Behari Vajpayee has now scripted for himself the role of a wartime leader. From Lahore to Kargil, and, again, from Agra to Kaluchak, waging war has proven as problematic for him as making peace. After all, nothing in Mr. Vajpayee's long public innings has prepared him for either of the two roles. Yet, as the Prime Minister, he finds himself having to summon individual qualities as well as to tap the institutional resilience of his office to meet the exacting demands of war and peace. The question is: will Mr. Vajpayee succeed — or, more pertinently, will he be allowed to succeed — as a wartime leader when he was denied a modicum of success as peacemaker? The same very forces and individuals who worked overtime to stymie his efforts at peace-making would see to it that he fails in this critical hour too.
There are three aspects to wartime leadership: executive, political and inspirational. The executive part is the easiest, even though over the last four years the Vajpayee Government has not exactly earned a name for itself for sustained administrative grind; from the Home Minister down to the junior-most Minister of State, the tendency is to confuse television bytes for administrative accomplishments, and with few exceptions, most of Mr. Vajpayee's colleagues have proven incapable of quiet and diligent ministerial homework. Mr. Vajpayee himself has earned a reputation for not being much inclined to be bothered with the nuts and bolts of administrative decision-making. But now as a wartime leader, Mr. Vajpayee has to demonstrate that he can quarterback a massive mobilisation of national resources and talent. The inherent powers and prestige of his office would make it easy for him to undertake this role; all that is needed is a willingness to be in charge of the wartime show. It is the political part that could be problematic because it would mean a change of pace in Mr. Vajpayee's operative style. If in the past he failed as a peacemaker it is because he never insisted on controlling the agenda; and, the obvious lesson is that he would come a cropper as a wartime leader if he does not firmly take charge of his agenda. Controlling the agenda, in the present context, means controlling the rhetoric, colleagues, image, policy, the Sangh Parivar, and the Opposition. Prime Ministerial control, calibration and coordination of words and actions are the keys to success.
As a master communicator, Mr. Vajpayee should normally be in control of his own words. Unfortunately, of late, he has often spoken in contradictory terms; and, what is more, he has frequently taken to complaining that he was misunderstood. This is a strangely inexplicable complaint from a man who has reached the highest political office in the land on the strength of his ability to spin words, phrases, cliches and metaphors into comforting dreams and tantalising promises. A wartime leader does not have the luxury of issuing clarifications and caveats. More than measuring his own words, the Prime Minister would need to tell his senior colleagues to experience the joy of golden silence. For once he must tell L. K. Advani that the Home Minister of India would not lose his stature or effectiveness if he did not hit the headlines every day in the hourly television news bulletin. And, then, someone would have to restrain the garrulous Minister of State for External Affairs, who cavalierly keeps talking about the use of nuclear weapons; rather than acting as a team-player, the Minister keeps mixing his roles as a Kashmiri, as a National Conference boss and as Mr. Vajpayee's Minister. And, then, there is a Defence Minister who goes around detailing a war timetable to foreign correspondents. Not to be left behind is Uma Bharti reciting incendiary war-poetry in the company of Mr. Advani. In this age of nuclear stand-off and global spin, the "enemy" and the international community cannot be faulted if they fail to decipher correctly our intentions from the Prime Minister's babbling Cabinet colleagues. Outside this unruly ministerial crowd, the Prime Minister would need to have a word with the hotheads within his own party and the madcaps in the rest of the Sangh Parivar. As long as Mr. Vajpayee needed shrill domestic rhetoric to impress upon the rest of the world that he was under pressure from his own political backyard to put an end to Pakistan's state-sponsored terrorism, the tough talk from the BJP had its uses; but, now, there is an imminent danger of these old men of the Sangh Parivar, insistent on playing out their deadly fantasies towards Pakistan, trying their uninformed best to deprive Indian diplomacy of its creative potential. War cries from Jhandewalan cannot be allowed to distract from the obligation to use military power responsibly and imaginatively.
In other words, if the Prime Minister has to succeed in his latest role as a wartime leader he would have to control the policy and all its nuances, without letting the demagogues, within and outside the Cabinet, run away with images and rhetoric and thereby steer the agenda into waywardness. For example, it was most ill advised for the Prime Minister to have allowed himself to be flanked by the father-son Abdullah duo during his press conference in Srinagar; this thoughtlessness or, worse, mischief simply diluted the Prime Minister's promise of "free and fair elections". He is particularly fortunate to have an Opposition that is more responsible and more mature than his own political companions and ideological cohorts. Mr. Vajpayee has to be demonstratively in charge of the political direction of his own Government and party. He has an opportunity to reclaim the ground he lost in Goa; now is the time for the Prime Minister to complete his own unfinished agenda in Gujarat by sending Narendra Modi packing. Mr. Vajpayee has to cleanse his own reputation of the Modi stains before he can possibly hope to succeed as a wartime leader.
Beyond these executive and political tasks that Mr. Vajpayee must address, he would need to attend to the most crucial requirement of mobilising the national mood in a manner that is both inspiring and morally uplifting. In recent months, he has allowed himself to be pushed by excessively partisan colleagues and comrades into a confrontationist corner. No Prime Minister can lay claim to the support and cooperation of political rivals in times of war without himself eschewing partisanship.
Above all, the country — as well as the rest of the world — needs to hear from the Prime Minister that the war option is being talked about from the moral high ground. The nobility of our purpose — defence of a secular, pluralistic, democratic order — has to be articulated. Mr. Vajpayee would be doing himself and the country as great disservice if he were to allow the current mood of national frustration and anger over Pakistan's terror-centric habits to degenerate into an unabashed jingoism of the old Sangh Parivar variety. A grave responsibility rests on the Prime Minister to see to it that anti-Pakistan feelings do not get reduced to anti-minority hysteria. As a wartime leader, it will be incumbent upon Mr. Vajpayee to see to it that the conflict with Pakistan does not deepen the existing fault-lines in our polity.
If current war clouds have receded and with it the danger of a
nuclear exchange, what about the next confrontation or the time after
that?
How many warning bells do we need to hear to recognise what has been
obvious since those tests of May 1998? That this is the part of the
world where a nuclear holocaust is most likely.
Remember those denials by so many in the pro-bomb lobby of India
after Pokhran II that this was a racist slur, implying as it did that
we in India and Pakistan were less responsible than other nuclear
weapons powers. Remember too, that virtually the whole of the Indian
bomb lobby in welcoming those tests declared that both countries
going openly nuclear would actually bring about greater regional
stability and peace. Could there have been a more disastrously inept
prediction?
The easy way out is to claim that a duplicitous Pakistan is
responsible for our post-Pokhran, post-Chagai mess. But this excuse
won't do because the egg still remains on the faces of our Indian
experts who were so inexpert as not to anticipate this duplicity.
Therefore, the temptation is to now claim that Pokhran II was
inevitable because Pakistan was threatening us anyway with its
nuclear capability, or some other argument resting on the wondrous
powers of nuclear deterrence. Anything to save face and the
pro-nuclear argument, except the truth.
The presumed nuclear threats from Pakistan and China were always the
excuses, never the reasons. Indeed, the official declared position of
this Indian government - that the Indian bomb is neither 'country
specific' nor 'threat specific' - itself gives the game away. Pokhran
II was supposed to be an expression of India's political manhood, a
way of equipping oneself to participate in the tough, hard-headed
game of global geo-politics as an ambitious and rising power.
Obsession with political manhood through greater military
belligerence and power has always been the hallmark of Sangh ideology
- the reason why it has wanted the bomb since the Fifties, well
before the Pakistan or China threat could have been said to exist. It
is this same ideologically rooted belligerence and hostility that has
also spread so widely among the Indian elite (how else could the
Sangh have climbed to power?) which now threatens a regional
Armageddon.
For if it is Pakistan that, on balance, might be the first to pull
the nuclear trigger, it is India that is the most likely to provoke
the kind of conventional military conflict (whether in the name of
fighting terrorism or whatever else) that can spiral upwards to such
a situation.
The Cold War was essentially an ideological conflict where though the
US and Russia might have engaged in proxy wars in the third world,
there was little danger of them directly confronting each other
militarily - let alone brandishing nuclear weapons. Even then, it
was, on several occasions, a close run thing.
Here in South Asia, Pakistan, behind the post-1998 nuclear shield,
thought it could launch an incursion into Kargil. That war, which saw
both sides prepare covertly for possible use of nuclear weapons, was
brought to an end by external intervention, in much the same way as
external - above all US - pressure dissuaded India from going beyond
the brink this time, whatever claims New Delhi will undoubtedly make
for the 'success' of its coercive diplomacy and brinkmanship.
The point is that whatever the political-diplomatic setbacks for
Pakistan during and after Kargil, it has not suffered any decisive
military defeat - precisely the aim and intention of so many amongst
the Indian elite (especially in Hindutva circles) who have demonised
Pakistan as the root cause of all India's troubles in Kashmir and
elsewhere. For them, Pakistan's 'nuclear bluff' must be called. That
is, the risk of a holocaust must be taken because Indian pride,
manhood, etc. demands it and because without a decisive military
defeat of Pakistan, India will always be tormented by an evil
Pakistan regime filled with an irrational and unbalanced hostility to
India. (Does it really matter if it is a Zia, Musharraf, Benazir or
Islamic fundamentalists in power in Islamabad?)
Yet, this same Pakistan regime can be relied upon to be rational and
balanced enough never to launch nuclear weapons no matter what the
military provocation from India, or even in the face of its own
'decisive' defeat. With this mindset so widespread in Indian
decision-shaping circles, is it any surprise that so many in South
Asia and internationally are now reaching the frightening conclusion
that some kind of nuclear exchange in the next seven or more years
between India and Pakistan is inevitable?
It is as simple as this: President Musharraf can and must do much
more to prevent cross-border terrorism. But because he is nowhere in
full control of events in Pakistan (indeed he is fighting for his own
political survival), he cannot guarantee its permanent end any more
than the US can stop terrorist attacks on it despite its own brutal
assault on Afghanistan. Recently, US Secretary of Defence Donald
Rumsfeld has said as much.
If India nonetheless sees such terrorist acts as sufficient cause for
war, then it will happen. There is a point where brinkmanship without
going further is unsustainable, and an India which has so cavalierly
practised brinkmanship after December 13 and May 14 has put itself in
a corner where in the future it will be under immense pressure
internally to go that one fatal step further. After all, the US,
Europe, Africa and the rest of Asia have the consolation of knowing
that they will not be directly affected by a nuclear exchange between
these two 'small' nuclear powers whatever their terrible mutual
devastation.
If war takes place between India and Pakistan, any Indian assumption
that it can score a 'decisive' victory quickly and easily will almost
certainly be shown to be faulty, leading to a dynamic of escalation
that has real likelihood of reaching the nuclear level. The Giriraj
Kishores of the world will, of course, not listen to some of the more
sober of India's military thinkers.
So what do we have to do? We have to avoid war by eschewing the
politics of war-mongering and brinkmanship, putting even terrorism
into proper perspective. If war still takes place, we must not resort
to nuclear exchanges. The second is even more important than the
first. But there is only one serious and effective way to ensure
this: get rid of all nuclear weapons in the region.
There are those in the Pakistani establishment who, recognising the
much greater burden and danger of nuclearisation and war for Pakistan
than for India, have always preferred non-nuclear parity between the
two countries, in contrast to others who believe nuclear weapons
compensate for Pakistan's conventional military imbalance vis-à-vis
India.
Twice after coming to power (September 2000 at the UN and in
mid-January 2002), Musharraf has proposed exploring such regional
denuclearisation measures, only to be ignored and contemptuously
rebuffed by India.
Thus, there is still space for both governments to rethink and
retreat from this insane nuclear path taken after May 1998. We must
understand clearly what the pro-bomb lobby will never like to admit:
nuclear deterrence is nothing but the irrational hope that terrible
fear (of the consequences of nuclear war) will always promote wise
decisions by fallible human beings operating under intense pressure
(especially in wartime situations) in changing circumstances they can
never fully control.
Seeking security through nuclear weapons is nothing but hope
masquerading as strategic wisdom. And that hope is looking
increasingly shopworn.
Henry Porter
We always knew it would be something like this - two peoples
myopically locked in ancestral loathing and equipped with nuclear
weapons rush to war before the rest of the world has time to prevent
the disaster. Deterrence may just work this time. We must pray that
it does but meanwhile it is imperative to realise how the world came
to the point where a nuclear exchange became an admissible rather
than an unthinkable possibility.
Since September 11 the world has changed dramatically and in ways
that we have so far yet to understand. If India and Pakistan had come
to this pass last summer there would have been a far greater
diplomatic effort to bring the nations to their senses. UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan would have been shuttling between Islamabad and
Delhi or standing on the border in Kashmir (which incidentally is
where I believe he should be now), and America would have been
galvanised by the crisis, putting its full might into making sure
that these two countries understood that the nuclear option is
unacceptable to the whole of humanity.
But since 9/11 the processes of conflict resolution have been
diminished and the norms of international behaviour have been
degraded. Al-Qaida's attacks not only terrorised the west, they also
coarsened us and narrowed our ability to engage in a pro bono
diplomacy. While Pakistan and India were mobilising these past few
days, the Bush administration has been completely diverted by the
president's tour of Russia and Europe and the continuing agenda of
how to respond to the threat of al-Qaida.
Every emergency and every event is now passed through a new and
dangerously egotistical filter that was erected by the Americans last
autumn and is designed to see events exclusively in the context of
American security and peace of mind. We have, to some degree, been
converted to this process, for American security does matter to us
all even if we don't like to admit it - but it means that situations
which do not appear to have an immediate bearing on US concerns fade
from our attention. Kashmir, although just under 500 miles from the
theatre of war in Afghanistan, has been almost completely neglected
as an important issue because the US and Europe were primarily
concerned about President Musharraf's assistance in toppling the
Taliban.
In other words, the understanding of an entire region, its
complexities and competing needs, has been swept aside in the pursuit
of one western priority.
As important as this is, it is remarkable how little we have seen of
Annan and how powerless and negligible his contributions have seemed
in respect of the wars on Afghanistan and in the Middle East. In
these times of crisis he has turned out not to be the statesman that
we were all certain lay beneath that collected exterior of his, but a
rather slight and inoffensive figure.
Admittedly his influence has been in part reduced by the sheer force
of American unilateralist military action. The arguments for
retaliation were compelling last year, at least to the US and British
governments, and the UN more or less went along with them. But the UN
has since failed to rise above the shock of September 11 and provide
vision in this new era of disorder. For example, although the
security council has voted 14-1 against possible military action in
Iraq, there is no sense that this features in American calculations,
no sense that Annan has any power to impress upon America the
importance of the vote. If America's perception of the world's needs
has been subsumed by its own powerful sense of injury and outrage,
then it was for Annan to develop a rhetoric which goes beyond one
nation's interests. That is what he and the UN are for.
As Malcolm Rifkind said on Monday's Newsnight, it is astonishing that
the security council is not in permanent session. It is also
remarkable that there is not a greater sense of international alarm
at a situation which approaches the Cuban missile crisis in its
gravity. Annan should be in the subcontinent conveying a compelling
message to the Indian and Pakistani people which is that the world
will not contemplate such vast destruction and pain. Instead he talks
to the leaders by phone and issues weak statements from UN
headquarters which nobody takes the slightest notice of. How
different things would be if America had not got itself into a muddle
with Pakistan - on one border an ally of US's war against terrorism
and on another a sponsor of Islamist insurgency. It could then back
Annan with all its conviction and might.
American intelligence estimates put the toll in the event of a full
exchange of the two nuclear arsenals at 12 million dead with maybe
seven million wounded - an instant slaughter unprecedented in the
history of mankind. But despite the movement of missiles yesterday
and the tests which took place in Pakistan over the weekend, the
possibility of nuclear warfare still strikes the west as either
remote or not really very important. British newspapers carried these
figures on their inside pages, if at all, and the general impression
is that India and Pakistan have got a nerve to distract us from the
exciting run-up to the World Cup.
Possibly that is summarising things a bit flippantly but there is, I
think, a failure to understand the scale of the threat . We admit
this terrible possibility and allow the contemplation of the figures
and the crossing of a threshold where this horror becomes part of our
record. Why are we guilty of such drift, of such apathy? Have we
forgotten how the second world war ended in Japan, or is there maybe
something more sinister at work, a voice which is saying, "If there
is a going to be nuclear war to remind us all of the utter horror, it
might as well be in south Asia?" Or is it simply part of our
collective nature to expect these large-scale exterminations once
every couple of generations?
If similar hostilities menaced Europe the concern would be a great
deal sharper. Few of us would be able to concentrate on our lives,
let alone on the World Cup. But as it is this stand-off is taking
place many thousands of miles away and one has to consider the
possibility that there is a racist element in our thinking which
quietly suggests the two countries could easily afford to suffer 19
million casualties. I hope not, but how else do we explain our own
disengagement?
One columnist, writing in the Daily Mail, raised the issue that it
might be racist to have reservations about Indian and Pakistan
controlling nuclear weapons because they cannot be trusted. This is
to miss the point profoundly because the objections to these two
countries developing weapons of mass destruction was because they
have gone to war three times since partition in 1947 and their
relations are characterised by congenital mistrust. The second and
perhaps more subtle reason is the differential that exists between
the capabilities and understanding of the Indian and Pakistani masses
and the regimes which have acquired these weapons. It is plain, at
least in Pakistan where up to two thirds of people are thought to be
near illiterate, that there is very little understanding of the
consequences of a nuclear exchange. In effect it would be the end of
their nation. Clearly Musharraf and the Pakistani elite see that, but
under a military dictatorship all that stands between the people of
Pakistan and catastrophe is the balance of one man's mind. It is
hardly racist to observe that neighbouring countries with convulsive
politics and deep loathing should be discouraged from the development
of these weapons.
This is important because there must be much greater international
efforts against nuclear proliferation. It is all very well America
and Russia agreeing over the weekend to reduce their arsenals, but
their pact makes no difference whatsoever to the security of the very
large amounts of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium that is
available in Russia. In 1998, for example, Russia's federal security
service foiled an attempt to steal 18 kilograms of HEU - nearly
enough for a bomb - from a weapons laboratory in the Urals. In 2001,
six grams of plutonium were found hidden in a ship in a Latvian port.
In the past six years rods, pellets and plates of radioactive
material have been smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. This
requires our concentration and the focus of international effort. But
what did the Bush administration do when it arrived in our lives? It
proposed a cut in the non-proliferation budget of the energy
department of $41m (£28m).
The fact is that material is out there, both illicitly and with
legitimate regimes, and the west continues to endorse this situation
by trading in components and conventional weapons. As Jack Straw
pleads with both sides to see reason in Kashmir his case is eroded by
the history of British arms sales to the subcontinent. We are
anything but pure in this matter and some time soon we have to grasp
that the trade in arms with these countries is no way to effect peace.
If the two sides withdraw and we are able to get on with life, the
thing that we must take away from the situation was the failure of
the international community, of American diplomacy and of Europe's
cohesion. The dispute developed right under our noses, yet only this
week was anything like a response produced, and that was well below
par. I suppose in the end what we are talking about is lack of
leadership and vision in the UN, US and Europe, but there has also
been a failure of imagination. Opinion counts for something in these
matters and we are at least equipped with the knowledge to form those
opinions and express them. Our disengagement up to now has been
regrettable.
Test-firing of ballistic missiles by India or Pakistan cannot be seen
in isolation from the unfortunate race for building up arsenals of
weapons of mass destruction in which these internally unstable and
economically backward countries of the Subcontinent have allowed
themselves to be trapped.
Other redeeming feature is that a large number of people in the two
countries do not regard nuclearization of South Asia as a blessing.
In fact, large groups of lawyers, doctors, writers, artists and
journalists in the two countries remain strongly committed to the
objective of disarmament and denmmitted to the objective of
disarmament and denuclearization.
In January 2002, on the eve of the SAARC summit in Kathmandu, a
representative gathering of senior media personnel from the SAARC
nations expressed "alarm at the prospect of inter-state conflicts
leading to wars, including nuclear wars, which could cause a
tremendous loss of life, devastation of environment, destruction of
precious resources and enormous misery to peoples."
The on-going military standoff between India and Pakistan with the
forces of the two countries massed along their common border, has
created serious apprehensions of an armed showdown. Any such conflict
would inflict incalculable devastation in both countries because,
unlike 1965 or 1971, both India and Pakistan are now in possession of
nuclear weapons. A recent study conducted by US and Asian researchers
at American's Princeton University estimated that at least three
million people would be killed if "even a limited nuclear war broke
out between Pakistan and India." The destruction to property,
industrial and economic infrastructure would also be colossal.
The prospect of nuclear conflict in the subcontinent began with India
testing nuclear device in May 1974. However, 24 years later, in May
1998, it went overtly nuclear and conducted a series of nuclear tests.
With a Hindu communalist BJP government in power in New Delhi, the
flaunting of its nuclear capability by India's ruling establishment
was only to be expected. More so with super-hawkish home minister,
Lal Krishna Advani, setting the pace for an arrogant display of power.
On May 18, while Pakistan was still weighing the advantages and risks
involved in responding to India's nuclear tests, Advani warned
Pakistan that with the Indian tests the geostrategic situation in the
subcontinent had undergone a "decisive" change particularly in regard
to "finding a solution to the Kashmir problem". The Indian defence
minister, George Fernandes, also threatened "hot pursuit" of
"Pakistan-backed terrorists" operating in Indian held Kashmir into
Azad Kashmir.
Two Indian scholars, Praful Bidwai and Achin Vinaik, known for their
commitment to non-proliferation, have recorded the May 1998 scenario
saying that Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister at the time,
"showed a distinct reluctance to test... to seize high moral ground
and overcome some of the stigma deriving from his support to Islamic
extremist groups such as the Taliban..." However, he could not with
and for too long the increasing pressure from the jingoists on the
home front, especially when his close aides expressed the view that
in the event of non-testing the troops' morale would be affected.
According to Bidwai and Vinaik Nawaz Sharif even resisted offer of a
five-billion dollar US package in economic and military aid offered
as an incentive not to test ultimately decided to go for nuclear
tests of his own and "get even with India." This was only to be
expected in the peculiar context of the subcontinent where a
tit-for-tat propensity has long been the defining characteristic of
the military equation between two of its major countries.
Against the backdrop of the on-going military stand-off on its
eastern border, there has been a growing concern in Pakistan about
its security, particularly since the middle of December when India,
accusing Pakistan of masterminding an attack on its parliament house
in New Delhi, ordered the massing of forces on this country's eastern
border. There was also an alarming escalation in cross-border
shelling.
The other day, Mr Vajpayee told Indian forces confronting Pakistan
across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir that "the time has come
for a decisive battle. "For his part, President Pervez Musharraf has
made it clear that Pakistan is not seeking a war with India but if
one is foisted on it, it is capable of meeting any threat to its
security.
The frightening prospect of yet another India-Pakistan war has
prompted the world powers to express deep concern primarily because
both India and Pakistan now happen to be nuclear powers. The US
ambassador in Islamabad confirmed last week that the US was deeply
disturbed over the heightening tensions between India and Pakistan
and was working with both countries for de-escalation and for an end
to the five-month-old military stand-off.
Earlier, the US assistant secretary of state, Christina Rocca,
visited New Delhi and Islamabad to assess the situation and advise
restraint on both sides. However, some later developments, including
the forced recall of Pakistan's high commissioner in New Delhi, made
it plain that nothing concrete came out of Ms Rocca's visit.
Moreover, the pitch of her trip was marred by the killing of more
than 30 people at an army camp in Jammu allegedly by infiltrators
from Pakistan.
The US has since decided to send a higher level envoy on a peace
mission to India and Pakistan in early June. The British foreign
secretary, Mr Jack Straw, is also due to visit Islamabad and New
Delhi on similar mission. Many other world powers, including China
and Japan, have also urged Pakistan and India for de-escalation of
tensions and for the resumption of a peace dialogue.
The chances of peace and normality between and Pakistan are not
likely to improve as there is the tendency on the part of the western
powers to go along with the Indian contention that "cross-border
terrorism" is the only problem in occupied Kashmir - without taking
into account the basic cause of unrest and violence in the held
territory. There is indeed little attempt on the part of the world
leaders to address the core issue - the Kashmir dispute - as the
actual reason for between India and Pakistan.
However, perhaps as a result of some behind-the-scenes pressure by
the US, India has of late somewhat softened its war-like posture. It
has decided "to give Pakistan another two months to crack down on
extremists before considering military action."
What may make a tangible contribution towards the easing of tensions
in the subcontinent is our invitation extended by Russian president
Vladimir Putin to India and Pakistan for "negotiations" in Kazakhstan
next month. The format for the proposed dialogue is not clear but, as
India interprets Putin's invitation, the likelihood is that President
Putin will hold separate talks with Mr Vajpayee and Gen Pervez
Musharraf. India's response to Mr Putin's suggestion has been
somewhat guarded. Its foreign office spokesperson, Narupama Roy, has
merely said that New Delhi's understanding was that President Putin
would meet the two leaders separately.
Meanwhile, the report about the idea of a "civic dialogue" in an open
forum convened by the Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA)
and the institute for Asian Studies of Portland state University
suggests a possible format for the "search for a solution" of the
Kashmir issue.
The discussions in the open forum were stated to be intensive and
open. It developed the draft of a "comprehensive agreement based on
the idea of creation of five autonomous regions in Kashmir - Azad
Kashmir, Northern Territories, Jammu, (Indian occupied) Kashmir and
Ladakh - each to be governed by representatives elected by its
permanent residents.
Foreign affairs will be conducted by India or Pakistan for the region
under their respective control. The regions would be required to
create a joint governing council of Jammu and Kashmir within two
years to regulate inter-regional a fairs. The council would be
required to come up with a detailed plan for the "settlement of all
Jammu and Kashmir-related matters within five years. Until the final
resolution of the matter, the LoC would be treated as the
international border between India and Pakistan.
In a broad sense, the draft agreement comes close to what would have
been the shape of things if the plan for region-wise plebiscites
proposed by Sir Owen Dixon of the UN Commission for India and
Pakistan (UNCIP) in 1950 had been implemented. However, today's
Kashmir may prove to be too complex for the proposed solution. Yet it
deserves to be studied and its practicability in the given
configuration of things objectively examined.
Pakistan Peace Coalition
ST 001, Sector X, Sub Sector V, Gulsham e Maymar
Karachi 75340
PAKISTAN.
Phone : 009-221+6351145-46-47
Fax : 009-221+6350354
RESOLUTION
(adopted at the seminar : "Impact of Nuclearisation on South Asia"
held at SIDCO Centre, Karachi on 28-05-2002)
The consensus view of this seminar is to urge the governments of
India and Pakistan to desist from aggravating the military tensions
by jingoistic rhetoric and posturing, already initiated by the
forces of religious chauvinism on both sides. We deplore the gungho
militarism on either side along with irresponsible threats of a
nuclear war. No cause can justify the use of nuclear weapons. Lives
of millions of ordinary people on either side are involved. In any
case, war itself is never a sane option.
The two governments must order mutual de-escalation of warlike
deployment of their armies. These should move back to peace-time
stations.
They should resume the comprehensive dialogue between themselves and
promote it among the concerned citizens on both sides. For that, all
communication links by rail, road and air should be restored
immediately and visa regimes need to be relaxed to encourage
people-to-people contacts.
Disputed and contentious issues between the two countries need to be
tackled in relaxed, peaceful conditions, for the creation of which,
both governments and civil society leaders from both sides need to
strive hard. All issues should be seen afresh from the perspective of
their impact on the lives of the common people. The perspective
should naturally be based on the values of democracy, humanism and
scientific outlook on life. Popular wishes, welfare and improvement
in the conditions of life of common citizens must be supreme.
May 28 is the fourth anniversary of Pakistan's nuclear weapon tests
in Chaghi, Baluchistan, which came a fortnight after India had done
the same in Pokhran, Rajastan. In our view, the mass destruction
weapons of the two countries are too de-stabilising and offer a
standing provocation to India and Pakistan against each other.
So long as they have these weapons in their arsenals, there can be no
normalization of relations, let alone the people-to-people
reconciliation, which is the only solution of South Asia's problems.
These weapons have been justified on the bogus doctrine of
deterrence. But the fact is that they have neither deterred the other
side nor can their number remain limited. Otherwise, the continuing
arms race between India and Pakistan could be capped. This is however
not possible, and the continuing expenditures on such weapons that
cannot be used, is therefore, ruinous for both countries.
These MDWs (Mass Destruction Weapons) are of no use to Pakistan's
security. Pakistan must revert to its old and moral stance of keeping
South Asia free of nuclear weapons. Pakistan should also resist the
temptation to exhibit its armed muscles through acts such as
launching various missiles.
(Released to the press by B.M.Kutty.
Fully reported in Daily Dawn, 29-05-2002 [ see:
www.dawn.com/2002/05/29/nat8.htm ] )
Speakers at the Seminar:
M.B.Naqvi : President PPC
Dr. Jafer Ahmed : Karachi University
Mrs.Zahida Hina : Writer & Journalist
Farid Awan : Trade Union Leader
B.M.Kutty : President, Karachi Chapter PPC
India's Emerging Nuclear Posture by Ashley Tellis (OUP India, 2001)
faithfully expresses the mind-set of that extraordinary category -
'nuclear strategists'. These are people who devote most of their
thinking not to the task of how best to de-legitimise and get rid of
nuclear weapons but to justifying their possession, operationalising
their threat, and, if considered necessary, organizing their actual
use. The dominant characteristic of this mind-set is its inability or
unwillingness to think deeply about its own highly problematic
foundational assumptions and instead to preoccupy itself with
thinking as comprehensively as possible within the framework of those
accepted assumptions.
Among those assumptions are i) a notion of security overwhelmingly
pivoted on territorial protection which in turn prioritises above all
else war and military capabilities/preparedness. ii) A standard
state-centric notion of 'national' security where the presumption of
a socially neutral state leads easily to a crude reductionism whereby
a narrow category of people in and around the state apparatuses,
namely the 'national security establishment', become the principle
guardians and promoters of security. Apart from these and other very
conventional Realist assumptions, there is of course the
all-important belief in the efficacy of nuclear deterrence.
Tellis does at one point acknowledge the counterfactual character of
this efficacy claim but this is little more than a cursory ritual.
For he promptly goes on to make the usual kind of irresponsible and
uncontrolled (by historical evidence) speculative claims for the
efficacy of, for example, proportionate deterrence. So the small
nuclear arsenals of France and China did deter the USSR. How else,
apart from assuming Russian benign-ness, can one explain Russian
reticence towards them? Of course, the US belongs to a different
category. Its arsenal, through the workings of extended deterrence,
was a 'public good' protecting non-nuclear states in Europe and
elsewhere, like Sweden.
The book is divided into essentially four parts: a) explaining why
India went nuclear in May 1998. b) Assessing various alternative
postures from unilateral disarmament to regional de-nuclearization to
ambiguity to recessed deterrence to ready arsenal. c) Elaborating on
what Tellis believes is most likely going to be India's nuclear
posture - a "force-in-being". d) Some conjectures on the strategic
implications of this for India's future relations with China, US, and
so on. It is part three that needs to be taken seriously.
The first part purporting to explain why India went nuclear manages
to accomplish the amazing feat of ignoring completely the rise of
Hindutva. In a tome of almost 900 pages the term does not appear even
once. Though the study self-confessedly adopts the methodology of
conducting interviews with supposedly key people, it never thinks of
speaking to RSS leaders though they, not scientocrats or 'strategic
experts', had a far greater, indeed decisive, input into the BJP-led
government's decision in May 1998. However, this approach gives two
advantages to those who would share it. First, it enables 'strategic
experts' everywhere, in good Realist fashion, to relate to the BJP
with a good conscience, without having to bother about the fact that
the RSS-BJP represents the most ruthless, authoritarian and
pernicious political force that has ever befallen post-independence
India. Secondly, it allows the question of why India went nuclear to
be answered primarily by reference to the external - the 'China
threat' in particular.
Tellis is no different from other Indian 'nuclear strategists' in
displaying a marked unsureness of how to handle the China factor.
True, there were no missiles on the Tibetan plateau aimed at India
but there is some evidence that shows it is "likely" and "possible"
that China was anyway targeting India, Vietnam and other Southeast
Asian regions. This is deemed sufficient to justify the seriousness
of the Chinese threat and therefore the necessity of India going
nuclear. Moreover, there is always the possibility of China's nuclear
arsenal being an instrument of political coercion. After all, this
political capability is supposedly intrinsic to nuclear weapons and
testifies to their usefulness.
But in case anyone is expecting some serious survey of the historical
record to establish the plausibility of this claim that nuclear
weapons are effective as instruments of political coercion, they will
be disappointed. There isn't any. The absence of such a survey cannot
be said to be surprising, since there is no history whatsoever of
Chinese attempts at nuclear blackmail against anyone. Indeed, even
the general survey of the results of nuclear blackmail efforts
against non-nuclear states by nuclear states provides meager
nourishment to the claim about their value as coercive political
instruments. Similarly, the fact that a fiercely independent Vietnam
(also apparently targeted by the Chinese arsenal) with a 1000-year
history of enmity with China and the ability (should it put its mind
to it) to eventually acquire nuclear weapons has not chosen to go the
India-Pakistan way, must perforce be elided from consideration, since
it can hardly be said to strengthen the case made about the
seriousness of the China threat.
Time and again, we see the resort to what is, but a standard trope of
'nuclear strategists'. The profoundly ahistorical, speculative and
therefore implausible (or at best weakly plausible) character of the
claims made for the efficacy of nuclear weapons are sought to be
disguised through a diversion - unsubstantiable assertions
nonetheless about nuclear weapons efficacy which are combined with a
very conscious displacement of the discourse to expositions (that are
often highly technical) about operationalising deterrence in varying
circumstances and conditions. Thus, so much of what is supposed to be
responsible nuclear strategic thinking becomes multiple
scenario-building and even war-gaming thought-experiments. At one
point, Tellis, having to acknowledge that no notion of sensible
deterrence can explain the ridiculous overkill capacities of the US
and USSR in the Cold War can only assign the reason for this to the
unfortunate acceptance of the doctrine of "deterrence by denial" at
various rungs of the escalation ladder rather than reliance on the
robust and simple 'virtues' of "deterrence by punishment". But in
case, one is led to think this puts Tellis firmly in the
anti-warfighting camp, we are also informed that these multiple and
redundant capacities also played a part in reinforcing deterrence
between the superpowers. There is no major rupture between nuclear
warfighters and others, only a slippery slope. Dispute here belongs
to the domain of 'respectful' differences within the same club of
nuclear strategists, differences which count for much less than their
common opposition to anti-nuclearists outside.
In part two, where a survey of alternative postures is carried out,
there is the same resort to historically implausible assertions to
explain why consistent Pakistani proposals, between the mid-80s and
1998, for South Asian and bilateral (India-Pakistan) nuclear
renunciation were not to be taken seriously. They were simply a
bluff. Though conceding some merit to Pakistani fears concerning the
country's inadequate strategic depth, Tellis has to fall back on the
claim that Pakistan's security 'objectively' demanded nuclear
weaponization, despite the whole historical record that Pakistan's
nuclear diplomacy (though not its preparations) was always reactive
to India. So, contrary to that section within the Pakistan
establishment (which before May 1998 was in a minority) that
advocated nuclear weapons acquisition to counter India's conventional
military superiority, Pakistan would still never have crossed the
Rubicon if India did not do so first. It is far more plausible (and
backed much more strongly by the historical evidence) that before May
1998, Pakistan was always much more amenable to a 'non-nuclear
parity' solution to its relationship with India. Such a conclusion,
however, does not sit comfortably with the thesis presented in this
book. In short, parts one and two of Tellis's study, are his poorest
sections.
Part four dealing with possible futures is better for two reasons. In
case, any reader was still unaware of this before coming to the last
section, Tellis is an American nuclear strategist not an Indian one.
He is part of the US 'security establishment' out to advance American
global hegemony, which can then be rationalized as a universal good
through some variant or the other of the 'hegemonic stability'
thesis. Tellis belongs to the American hard right even if he is not
going to be as blunt as say, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who talks of the
world today being divided into American "tributaries" (much of the
world) and "vassals" (Canada, Western Europe, Japan), left-out
aspirants to tributary or vassal status or anything in-between, and
potential challengers (Russia, China, Iran). Tellis will talk more
politely of 'converging national interests' of the US and India. But
his vantage point gives him a clarity about the actual relationship
of forces and distribution of power between states that suffers from
none of the illusions or bombast so common to the post-Pokharan II
Indian 'strategic community'. India should not waste its time
thinking it can play the US card against Pakistan or China. The
asymmetry of power between the US and India is just too enormous and
it is India that must see how it can re-jig its foreign policy
perspectives to fit into the US's "grand design". In Brzezinski's
language this would amount to India contenting itself with being
somewhere between a tributary and a vassal, and coming to love it,
because this is in its - you've guessed it - 'national interest'.
Indeed, whenever Tellis retreats from the terrain of nuclear
strategizing to the terrain of more conventional geo-politics, his
judgement is both more sober and surer. So China is actually a
pragmatic power whose 'threat' to India should not be exaggerated.
After all, on the border issue, neither respective inclinations nor
military capabilities on the ground can alter the essential status
quo situation of Chinese dominance in the western, and Indian
domination in the eastern sector. In nuclear terms this means India
should content itself with being a small nuclear power (SNP) and not
try to complicate the US's larger geo-political-nuclear designs.
Thus, part three of Tellis's study combines analysis with a motivated
policy advocacy very much in keeping with the growing, perhaps
dominant, view within the US security establishment that it can live
with, and perhaps even use, India as a SNP. It is noticeable that
Tellis's tone of quite exaggerated and often unjustified 'respect'
for the opinions of the likes of K. Subrahmanyam and C. Rajamohan and
a host of others in the Indian 'strategic community' is not sustained
when it comes to Brahma Chellaney and Bharat Karnad. Here a note of
exasperation and irritation sometimes slips in. Of course, it is not
a coincidence that these two are the most ambitious with regard to
India's nuclear arsenal and the least comfortable with the idea of
India aiming only at being an SNP.
But motivated advocacy is no barrier to accuracy of analysis or
considered judgement, and it is on this level that part three must be
assessed. Here Tellis's argument is both original and
thought-provoking. He suggests that India's eventual nuclear posture
may well be what he calls a "force-in-being", a position between
"recessed deterrent" and "ready arsenal". Here recessed deterrent is
not a synonym for ambiguity (which is the way it was often used in
the past) but a post-1998 perspective that deliberately falls short
of further testing, assembly-line production of nuclear weapons and
open deployment, but concentrates on developing command-control
structures. Where a ready arsenal means open deployment of a robust
arsenal complete with all the accompanying processes of targeting,
mating and speedy launching abilities, "force-in-being" is a form of
non-deployment, de-alerting, and de-mating of the arsenal that would
delay a nonetheless assured retaliation by days or weeks (or longer)
rather than by hours or days.
The interesting thing about Tellis's view that India should not
overstep the goal of being a SNP, and that the form taken by this
should be a force-in-being is his belief that this will be determined
not merely by India's limited technical capabilities, but will also
emerge as a matter of doctrine and choice, though India's Draft
Nuclear Doctrine (DND) even with the best gloss on it, does not
provide much support for this viewpoint. So will India's nuclear
posture move in this direction? On balance, the alternative
perspective to Tellis's is probably stronger. This trajectory would
perceive India's nuclear posture, for some time to come, as
resembling Tellis's force-in-being. But instead of this being a
stable end-point situation, it would be a state of transition to
eventual open deployment where preparedness levels would not be those
of a force-in-being but of the ready arsenal type. Moreover, other
global developments such as NMD development, with its knock-on and
'destabilising' effects on Russia and China, tend to further weaken
the Tellis argument.
In conclusion, apart from the already commented upon one significant
merit of Tellis's book, there are three other more minor merits.
First, it is a useful reference work, full of quotes of who said
what, when and where. Second, it is useful for anyone wishing to get
a better grasp of the technical limits, problems and complexities
regarding the operationalising of a nuclear arsenal. Third, to get a
clearer idea of where the US is heading, how it regards other states,
and what is in store for the rest of the world in respect of American
behaviour, it is the US right, not its liberals, that provide the
no-illusions, nakedly arrogant but crystal-clear perspectives. And
Tellis belongs very much to this political rightwing.
All reason enough then for anti-nuclearists to read this book. But if
it is only to be expected that many or most pro-nuclearists (Indian
and American) will revert to in-house back-slapping plaudits for it,
it is all the more imperative for anti-nuclearists to provide a much
needed sense of proportion and balance in assessment. Ultimately, the
mind-set that would defend the acquisition of nuclear weapons, for
all its incidental illuminations, is deeply flawed, both morally and
politically-intellectually.
HYDERABAD, May 28: The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human
Rights and former chairperson Human Rights Commission of Pakistan,
Asma Jehangir has urged both India and Pakistan to avoid war because
even the richest countries in the world today could not afford war.
At the same time she asked President Pervez Musharraf to resort to
what she described 'de-jihadization' in the country because it was
far more necessary for the people. She said that there was great
worry about an imminent war between the two nuclear powers of the
subcontinent.
Speaking to this correspondent on Sunday in Khipro after attending a
Hari Convention, Ms Asma said that war could be avoided and it must
be avoided at all costs because it was always the last resort.
She said that the rulers would have to set the tone for dialogue. She
called upon India to lift the ban imposed on people-to-people contact.
Ms Asma stressed the need for public diplomacy and people-to-people
contact. She came hard on jihadi forces in the country saying that
the jihadi industry was the worst thing for our domestic concerns.
She said that in the wake of the post-September 11 scenario the
government would have to review its policy viz-a-viz jihadi forces.
She, however, expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of practical
measures against jihadis. "We have enough of rhetoric on the part of
General Pervez Musharraf but he is zero at delivery." She said that
Gen Musharraf had lost his credibility.
Referring to the forthcoming general elections, she called for
immediate removal of the chief election commissioner, adding that
under him she did not expect fair elections.
She opined that she was least bothered about who was coming into
power but was more concerned about transparent and fair elections
being held.
Ms Asma asserted that in case the witch-hunting of politicians
continued then the government would complicate the issues. She said,
"One thing is absolutely clear that if the people are less fond of
corrupt politicians, then they are lesser fond of a military regime
in the country."
She exhorted the government to begin the democratic process from
somewhere without delay. Severely criticizing the proposed National
Security Council, she said that since it was backed by an army
president, therefore it was a negation of restoring real democracy.
PRIVATE JAILS: Meanwhile, Asma Jehangir has made it clear that all
the private jails would be eliminated wherever they exist. She said
this while talking to a delegation of the Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz,
led by Dr Mir Alam Marri, at Khipro on Sunday.
He strongly pleaded the case of Achro Thar, asking the HRCP
chairperson to constitute a fact-finding team to highlight his issue,
which had been neglected by the government. He said that this area
had no resources right from water to drainage, and from health to
education.
Mr Mari said that the agriculture of the province had been ruined
during the last couple of years.
As India and Pakistan face each other in a grave confrontation, the
mainstream US media continues to be largely inattentive to, and
uninformed
about, the serious situation in the subcontinent. As 1.4 million Indian
and
Pakistani troops and nuclear arsenals are on high alert, as leaders and
generals play political games over divided Kashmir, as Pakistan conducts
its
third missile test in three days, the sun sets on the Pacific Ocean.
South
Asians in the United States remain terrified that India and Pakistan stand
on
the verge of a dangerous war over Kashmir.
The Indian central government, dominated by Hindu nationalists, continues
to
prioritize sectarian and non secular agendas. India pledges that it will
go
to war with Pakistan unless Islamic separatists stop their attacks on
Indian
Kashmir. India continues to insist that the situation in Kashmir, in
which
thousands have died, is entirely the responsibility of Pakistan and
Muslim
separatist groups. India's persistent refusal to address the Kashmir
issue
might well leave the fate of the Kashmiris in the hands of Islamic
fundamentalists. India is yet to take responsibility for its systematic
violation of the rights and lives of Kashmiris, while Pakistan continues
to
use terrorism as state policy.
In addition, in the recent carnage of Muslim minorities in Gujarat in
February and March this year, the saffronized central and state
government
demonstrated an abysmal display of militant Hindu dominance. The police
and
government in Gujarat perpetrated violence against Muslims in the State.
Police mistreatment in India of 'lower' caste and class peoples,
minority
religious groups, women, tribals, intellectuals, activists, political
groups
and others bears evidence to the unstable and insecure conditions in
which
non dominant and disenfranchised communities in India continue to live.
All
that is sacred in the Constitution, all that our ancestors struggled for,
all
that remains of the memory of M. K. Gandhi, is being desecrated.
In the midst of this, the majority of the Hindu Indian business community
in
the US maintain a complicitious silence, refusing to accept the vicious
consequences of Hindu nationalism. They continue to actively fund
fundamentalist Hindu organizations that are registered as charities in
the
US, ostensibly working to promote and protect Indian heritage and
culture.
Such organizations utilize funds raised in the name of 'culture' to
foment
social division, intolerance and brutalization of minorities in India.
Groups
across the US, such as the Coalition Against Communalism and other
progressive organizations, meet and struggle to build a political
culture
where Hindu xenophobia can be confronted. Hinduism, unlike Islam, has a
benevolent image in the West/North as a religion of peace. Hinduism in
the
West is often held and peddled as an abstract textual entity, vacant of
the
radical inequities that make up its cultural and historical reality.
Hardline
Hindu organizations maintain that Hindu culture and Hindus in India are
being
marginalized, that there is an Islamist plan for the genocide of Hindus,
and
that Hindu fundamentalism is a fiction conjured by the secular left.
As an Indian I struggle against the failures of India's democracy, and I
am
horrified at who we have become as a nation and as a people. I ask myself
how
India might commit to a secular and democratic society that addresses
its
injustices and entrenched oppressions. Violence in the name of religion
has
to stop and as a nation India must accord full and executable rights to
minority groups. We must defy Hindu nationalism and its systematic use
of
violence against minorities. We must insist on examining the present
political climate in which relations between India and Pakistan continue
to
deteriorate, and the crimes committed by both states in the name of
freedom.
We must not support the fabric of resistance connected to the use of
terror
on the part of states and groups. We must take responsibility for the
unjust
histories through which our nations were conceived. It will require
extraordinary courage and commitment of us all.
Angana Chatterji
Professor
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
California Institute of Integral Studies
San Francisco
Pakistani officials say the successful test-firing of three of its
surface-to-surface missiles in the last few days has confirmed the
country's capability to strike deep inside enemy territory in the
event of a war.
Interestingly, these tests have not only demonstrated the
effectiveness of Pakistan's missile technology; the names given to
these missiles are full of symbolism.
They suggest that Pakistan relates the present conflict in South Asia
to the conflicts of the mediaeval period when Muslim warriors from
Afghanistan frequently invaded India.
Ghauri, Ghaznavi, Abdali - these are the three ballistic missiles
Pakistan test-fired in the last week.
But these are also names of three prominent Muslim warlords, or
conquerors, who invaded India from Afghanistan between the 11th and
18th centuries in an attempt to expand their empires.
The medium-range Ghauri missile is Pakistan's answer to India's
Prithvi missile, and here the symbolism is perhaps most interesting.
Muhammad Ghauri was a powerful Afghan warlord who in the 12th century
had two fierce battles with the Hindu ruler of northern India,
Prithviraj Chouhan.
Ghauri was defeated in the first battle and later on, he returned
with a bigger army to achieve a convincing victory.
Although India insists that the name Prithvi given to its missile
means "earth" and has nothing to do with any Hindu ruler of the past,
Pakistan wants the world to believe otherwise.
The other two missiles Pakistan tested during the week are also named
after 11th and 18th-century Afghan conquerors, Mehmood Ghaznavi and
Ahmed Shah Abdali.
Ghaznavi is described in history books as a temple-destroyer who
attacked India 17 times.
Pakistan has never given any specific reason for naming these
missiles after such historical figures.
But the symbolism is a clear reflection of the official mindset in the
country.
It shows that for Islamabad, the present conflict with India is a
continuation of the battles of the past between people described in
Pakistani history books as just Muslim invaders and several of
India's cruel Hindu emperors.
Following Gen. Musharraf's May 27 speech and the Indian government's
official response the next day, it is clear that war clouds have
temporarily receded but have most certainly not been lifted. India will
wait to see 'results', i.e. what steps the Pakistan government will take
to
end the ability of terrorists to strike from across the border into
Indian
territory, including Jammu and Kashmir. One must distinguish here
between
two claims. Any attribution that the Musharraf government is directly
behind the December 13 attack on Parliament and now the May 14 attack in
Kaluchak, Jammu, is not substantiated by evidence and is, politically
speaking, utterly implausible. The Musharraf government is not so
foolish
or naïve as to impose even further pressure on itself in circumstances
when
his own regime is fighting for internal survival, or to want to shift
attention away from the state-sponsored anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat
and
the world's criticism of the Indian government on that score.
The claim that Musharraf has done far from enough to curb fundamentalist
groups determined to carry out terrorist actions in India, and has often
shut his eyes to their activities, is by contrast, quite justified. This
Indian government, however, has refused to make this distinction
effectively holding Musharraf culpable for any failure to end
cross-border
terrorist attacks. In this respect it is, like Israel, using the same
dishonest, spurious and ethically and legally untenable argument of
making
no distinction between actual terrorist perpetrators and the country
that
harbours them, which the US used to justify its assault on Afghanistan.
No
doubt, this makes it that much more difficult for the US to draw this
distinction to Indian attention, although it is clearly determined to
prevent a war from breaking out between India and Pakistan, even as it
pursues separate alliances with both countries.
In fact, if there has been no Indian military attack by its official
armed
forces across the border into Pakistan this time, it is because
Washington
said no, and India has heeded. But for how long? Herein lies the
problem.
Washington will put pressure on Musharraf to do more against the
fundamentalist groups using Pakistan, and Pakistan controlled Kashmir, as
a
base to organise operations in India. But because Musharraf is not in
full
control, there is simply no guarantee that another terrorist attack will
not take place, anymore than one can guarantee even after the US war on
Afghanistan that there will never be another terrorist attack on the US.
Indeed, Islamic fundamentalist groups who are out to destabilise the
Musharraf government, hit back at the US presence in Pakistan, and
determined to keep the Kashmir issue boiling, would like nothing better
than to provoke a war between India and Pakistan, which they believe can
help them on all three counts.
Such has been the character of Indian brinkmanship after May 14, that
the
likelihood of a limited military strike by India the next time around, a
Kargil in reverse, (US presence or disapproval notwithstanding) is
almost
certain. The alternative would be the most humiliating climb down given
the
pitch, tone and frequency of Indian official statements -- "there is a
limit to our patience", an "undeclared war has been going on for two
decades", etc, that has been taking place. In short, today, the
hardliners
within this BJP led-government have succeeded in severing the lines of
possible retreat from what is in political terms nothing less than an
ultimatum to Pakistan.
There are more than a few sober heads within the Indian 'security
establishment' who are disturbed by such inflexibility with all its
political-military implications. The probability of military actions
that
will lead to war between India and Pakistan, initiated by the former,
becomes far greater, than it has been so far. That such an outbreak of
armed hostilities has the potential to escalate to the nuclear level is
a
given, even as one hopes it doesn't ever reach that stage. Yet the
willingness of hardliners within and around the BJP (and its cohort
organizations promoting Hindu nationalism) to risk such possible
consequences must be recognized. Why is this so?
The reasons are both external and internal. Externally, there is a
widespread belief that not only must Pakistan be taught a 'decisive'
military lesson but that it can be so taught. Indeed, that the best or
only
way to 'satisfactorily' resolve the Kashmir problem for India lies,
above
all, in defeating Pakistan. Such a view greatly reduces, when it does
not
rationalize away altogether, Indian culpability for creating political
alienation in Kashmir through its own repressive behaviour, taking the
pressure off from finding a principled internal political solution to
the
Kashmir problem. Pakistan has cynically and brutally fished in the
troubled
waters of Kashmir but those waters are of India's making. Pakistan also
supported insurgency in Punjab, but India did not have to go to war with
Pakistan to finally resolve that problem. The key lay in what it did
internally where, admittedly, Punjabi alienation from the Union
government
was not so deep as in the Kashmir Valley. This is not a lesson,
however,
that this BJP-led government is interested in hearing or repeating.
Allied to this belief in Indian military superiority over Pakistan is
the
determination to call Pakistan's "nuclear bluff". That is to say,
Pakistan
must not be allowed to believe that it can shield itself from a serious
conventional military defeat in at least a 'limited' territorial
incursion
by threatening to launch its nuclear weapons. There are also those in
leadership positions within the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the
Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) (which is really the controlling body within the
'family of organizations of which the BJP is the electoral wing) who
want
more. They genuinely believe that Pakistan must be dismembered and
destroyed. That such an approach could be the recipe for the most
incredible disaster does not faze such Hindu fanatics, which is hardly
surprising given the similarity of their mind-sets to their extremist
Islamic counterparts in Pakistan.
There are also domestic reasons. If the BJP is to come back to power in
the
next general elections with an enhanced showing then one of its best
chances of doing so is to try and cash in on anti-Pakistani jingoism,
whose
attraction is potentially much wider than the double-edged appeal of the
nakedly anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic hatred it has shown in Gujarat.
Again,
in this respect it is no different from its Islamic counterpart hoping
to
do the same by promoting anti-Indian jingoism. The BJP needs a war or at
least strong and sustained wartime tensions before it brings forward the
date of the next general elections. By current reckoning this could well
be
early next year (when elections in the state of Gujarat are also due)
although a new Parliament is only due in 2004.
What the anti-nuclear opponents of the May 1998 tests in Pokharan and
Chagai most warned against has indeed come to pass. This is the part of
the
world where the unthinkable -- a nuclear exchange - is most likely to
take
place. If it happens it will be in the context of a war sparked by
developments in Jammu and Kashmir anytime over the next several years.
If
the long term challenge then is to find a stable, final and just
solution
to this problem, the short and medium term need is to find ways of
de-nuclearising South Asia, and to separate the militaries of the two
countries perhaps through some kind of truly effective international
buffer
force along the Line of Control in Kashmir. The price of failure in
these
respects could be disastrous.
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Landelijke India Werkgroep - 4 juni 2002