Dhaka, Jan 30 - A forum of Indian and Pakistani experts has said that
Bangladesh as one of the founders of the seven member South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) can play a significant role in
making South Asia a nuclear free zone.
A delegation of the non-official Pakistan-India People's Forum (PIPF),
comprising former Indian Navy chief Admiral (retired) L. Ramdas and
Pakistani physicists A.H. Nayyar and Zia Mian, now here to drum up support
for this cause, said the five smaller SAARC countries -- Bangladesh, Nepal,
Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives - could urge India and Pakistan to give up
their arms race.
The team told reporters that these countries should make Islamabad and New
Delhi realize that the challenges facing the region are hunger, poverty and
malnutrition - problems, which could not be addressed by a nuclear arms
race.
Such a move has succeeded in South America where all states except
Argentina and Brazil had signed a nuclear arms-free zone treaty, the forum
members said. Argentina and Brazil, which initially had nuclear
aspirations, felt the moral pressure and subsequently joined them.
Nuclear power did not help the United States win the war against Vietnam
nor had the former Soviet Union succeeded in subduing Afghanistan, which
did not have nuclear weapons, the members added.
Research on solar energy, which was abundant in South Asia, could yield
more dividends than investment in nuclear power generation. So far Russia
and the U.S. had about 400 nuclear accidents, major and minor, the members
said.
They said that in India, there have been accidents and emergency shutdowns
of nuclear plants on many occasions. Any error -- human or mechanical --
could spell disaster at any time.
The campaign against the nuclear arms race in India and Pakistan picked up
after a series of nuclear explosions by the two countries in May 1998. The
forum has been conducting a campaign in the two countries since then. The
members of the current mission are to meet local citizen's groups and
organize a similar campaign in Bangladesh.
NEW DELHI
In India the Middle East is called South Asia, and the Arab-Israeli controversies that take center stage in the United States are off the front page here. That's because Indians have their own festering sore that is a year older, has caused almost as many wars, and in world terms is even more dangerous, because miscalculation could lead to a nuclear exchange.
The open wound is the State of Jammu and Kashmir, which was ceded to India
after the British partition of 1947 instead of to the Muslim state of
Pakistan because the Hindu Maharaja chose India even though the majority of
the population was, and is, Muslim. Pakistan immediately sent troops into
the territory and captured much of the high and icy northern and western
parts while the Indians hung onto the more fertile and populated south. A
second Indo-Pakistan war was fought in 1965, and there have been frequent
clashes along the 1948 cease-fire line, the last one occurring in 1999 in
the snowbound, 17,000-foot uplands of Kargil. A UN resolution has long
called for a plebiscite to express the wishes of the people, but the
Indians have insisted that all Pakistani irregulars first quit the
territory. Neither has ever taken place.
Since 1989 there has been a serious uprising among the Muslim population
against Indian rule reminiscent of Palestinian uprising. Mirroring the
Israeli experience, India's brutal attempts to squash the revolt has simply
engendered more enemies for India. Pakistan's support for the rebels has
internationalized the problem, and when India first, and then Pakistan,
both tested atomic bombs in 1998, Kashmir became the match that could
ignite a nuclear holocaust on the subcontinent.
There is, however, a third actor in the Indo-Pakistan imbroglio. It is
Pakistan's old ally China. India's entry into the nuclear club may have
infuriated the United States, which was trying to stop nuclear
proliferation, but it truly alarmed China, especially when India's defense
minister, George Fernandes, said China represented the greatest threat to
India's security. In 1962 China attacked India in two border regions and
handed India a humiliating defeat. China still sits on those captured
territories. Even worse, China is seen here as abetting Pakistan's
development of nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them.
Beyond India's perceived threats from Pakistan and China there is a
psychological factor at play. India wants to be considered a great regional
power, like China, and thinks that nuclear weapons are a way to achieve
status. Indians will point out to you that all of the five permanent
members of the UN Security Council are nuclear powers, overlooking the fact
that in the post-Cold War world, economic, technological and societal
strengths trump bombs, to which the sorry state of Russia attests.
In recent weeks tensions have lessened because of a highly successful visit
by China's number two leader, Li Peng, and a unilateral Indian cease-fire
in Kashmir, which was extended for a month last Tuesday despite the fact
that Kashmiri rebels have not stopped their attacks. Peace feelers between
India and Pakistan continue.
The United States is the only country that can influence all three players
in the Asian nuclear game, and the Bush administration could play a
constructive role in bringing much-needed stability. Bush can build on
former President Clinton's efforts to improve relations with India while at
the same time calming the fears of abandonment on the part of Pakistan,
once America's closest ally in the region.
The first thing Bush could do is put his anti-ballistic missile defense
plans on hold, because an ABM system, even if it doesn't work, would
provoke China to increase its missile strength, which would provoke India
to follow suit, which would, in turn, provoke Pakistan, and the
destabilizing regional arms race that everyone fears would be off and
running.
Kashmir is both political as well as an emotional issue, not only for
the people of Kashmir but for both India and Pakistan as well. This is
perhaps why, despite the Vajpayee's "Ramazan Gift" extending well beyond
the Ramazan and already in the third month, there hasn't been much
headway in the peace process. Kashmir was bleeding before the cease-fire
and Kashmir continues to bleed even today and all that is being said and
done vis-a-vis peace has remained confined within the rhetorical
limits. India is not ready to concede to the demands of Pakistan or to those
of APHC and Pakistan too has displayed little beyond
exercising the "maximum restraint" at the LOC. As for the Kashmiri people,
National Conference (NC) has already shown its discomfort at Hurriet's
involvement in any negotiated settlement (if there is any) and Hurriet on
its part is yet to make clear whether it is a party to the dispute or
merely a channel of communication, a mediator between India and
Pakistan.
In June 2000, when Hizbul Mujahideen came up with its cease-fire offer,
the move generated enough hopes both within and outside Kashmir. In
fact the reciprocation the move received too was satisfactory enough to
point towards the fact that all was not lost; there was still some hope
of a peaceful and negotiated settlement, provided the parties concerned
displayed their maturity and approached the issue with an open mind and
heart. But given the hawkish approach of certain quarters, the
initiative didn't last long and was aborted for
the garb of normal policing continued its counter-insurgency operations.
If the latest spurt in the custodial killings are any indication, then
it goes beyond any doubt to say that it is only the central security
forces and the army that have somewhat shown any respect for Vajpayee's
offer, while the state police has rejected it much like the militant
groups, with the only difference that latter has publicly rejected it
while the former has displayed its dis-obedience through practice.
Hurriet has all-along been demanding that it should be allowed to visit
Pakistan to consult the militant leadership there but India is
reluctant to allow them go. Why? If government of India is courageous
enough to
come up with a unilateral cease-fire and then extend it not once but
twice despite its failure to receive desired response from militants
groups, why is it not displaying the same courage and same guts in
facilitating Hurriet's visit to Pakistan? If at all the Hurriet is allowed to
visit Pakistan, what is there for the government of India to loose in
the bargain?
As claimed by Hurriet that their visit to Pakistan will facilitate the
peace process in Kashmir, why not give them a chance to prove their
claims? Or at least by allowing them go; yet another option vis-a-vis
peace can be explored. Kashmir is so complicated an issue that it can't be
solved unless approached with sufficient degree of imagination.
Recently when A G Lone was to visit Pakistan in connection with his
son's marriage there, Government of India initially displayed its fear in
allowing him go, perhaps for the same reasons they have, for not giving
the green signal to Hurriet's delegation now. But once in Pakistan, A G
Lone was not the same person who had welcomed Taliban in Kashmir.
Instead in Pakistan, Lone, not only denounced the role of foreign militants
in Kashmir but also did a lot of spade-work that has helped in
clearing the mists of ambiguities between India and Pakistan to a large
extent. In totality, Lone's Pakistan visit, if it hasn't helped India, it
hasn't done it any damage either. Thus all the fears that India had
allayed with Lone's visit proved a mere hoax and thus were proved wrong all
those think-tanks and intelligent brains in Indian policy and
bureaucracy who are responsible for sowing the seeds of such unseen and
uncalled
for fears.
In context of Hurriet's Pakistan visit, it is again the same "fear
mongers" in Indian establishment who have created such a fear psychosis in
New Delhi, that they are not ready to clear the travel documents of
Hurriet to facilitate their visit. New Delhi as well as the state Chief
Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah have been saying that Hurriet leaders are in
continuous touch with Pakistan through their embassy in India and need
not to visit Pakistan. But then every country has its High Commission
in every other country, but the why is it that people have to physically
visit places to negotiate deals and pacts. If Hurriet wants to visit
Pakistan, it must be allowed to go in the larger interest of the peace in
the subcontinent in general and valley in particular. If India has
nothing to gain out of Hurriet's Pakistan visit, it has nothing to lose as
well. Instead if the Hurriet delegation is allowed to go to Pakistan,
there is every possibility that the visit will cast a dye for some more
positive developments that will automatically follow their visit. If
nothing much, by clearing the impediments in Hurriet's visit, government
of India will be doing its bit in confidence building which will
restore peoples' faith in India that this time they mean business. Otherwise
extending the cease-fire will hardly serve any purpose if it is not
followed by the measures that will help in rebuilding the broken bridges
of faith and trust.
As long as the concerned parties remain rigid and stubborn in their
respective ideologies and standings over the issue there are little or no
chances of any headway. Instead peace has any chance only when the
concerned parties display some sort of flexibility in their approach.
Till yesterday government of India as well as all other mainstream
parties and the intelligentsia in India blamed Hurriet for their rigidity;
but now when Hurriet has shown some maturity and rising to the
occasion, expressed its willingness to sort out issues through negotiations,
government of India has made their proposed visit to Pakistan a major
stumbling block.
Despite Dr. Farooq Abdullah's crying that he is not averse to peace in Kashmir, he is yet to display in practical terms his eagerness for a peaceful and negotiated settlement, particularly if it involves Hurriet. Dr. Farooq Abdullah or his NC is a party to the dispute for they are the "elected representatives" of the people, but at this juncture he cannot claim to represent Kashmiri people. Given the fact that NC subscribes to the Indian claims and ideology over Kashmir, it is the Government of India that automatically represents him and his party. Similarly for those who subscribe to the Pakistan's claims on Kashmir, they too will be representd by Pakistan. And for Kashmiri representation, it is the people or the parties who can formulate and articulate the pure Kashmiri sentiment, they only have a right to represent Kashmir and Kashmiri people. At present juncture, NC has no problem with India neither have all other mainstream political and religious groups; therefore it is a bit premature for them to claim their pound of flesh now. Instead whenever there are any peace talks between India and the people of Kashmir, it is only those people from Kashmir who have problems with India that must be roped in for dialogue. In this context, if at all there is any group India can begin talks with, it is the Hurriet, particularly because they are yet to publicly subscribe to Pakistan's views on Kashmir. |
What better tribute to Republic Day, to the men who shaped this nation whom
we only find platitudes for these days, than to extend the cease-fire in
Kashmir? You can have the parades down Rajpath. I'll nurture the flicker of
hope in my breast the cease-fire brings. Hope for peace and an end to the
constant killing in our northern reaches. Hope that instead of an endless
war, we can buckle down to building the country our Constitution envisaged.
So yes, I fully believe we must extend the cease-fire. I am glad Vajpayee
and his government have done it and I hope they will have the wisdom and
courage to stay the course. The way I see it, this cease-fire is the PM's
greatest achievement by far. He needs to be applauded for it, encouraged to
keep it alive. And if it does lead us ultimately to a lasting peace, it
would indeed be a far finer tribute to the Republic than any number of
parades are.
Of course there are the doom-merchants on both sides, who would lose a
major reason to exist if peace came to Kashmir. That there are always
people who will violently oppose an end to hostility seems something of a
war truism to me, even if I have never been close to a war.
Which is why you find columnists frothing at a time like this. "The
fire-spitting PM," Mr Arvind Lavakare tells us, "is suddenly displaying the
meekness of the old and the infirm." And all this, because of Vajpayee's
"unilateral cease-fire against Pakistan's terrorism." Men like AL know that
if the bogey of Pakistan dissipates tomorrow, they will have their task cut
out, finding the next evil bogey.
Far easier to work us all up into hostile hysteria, to ridicule peace as
the weak-kneed effort it decidedly isn't.
Which is why, too, the death-merchants of the Lashkar e Taiyba and its
assorted cousins have stepped up their carnage: nearly 350 (122 civilians,
74 security personnel and 146 militants, according to The Indian Express of
January 25) have died at their hands since the cease-fire began last
November. For its part, the LeT knows that peace in Kashmir will render
them irrelevant, and what will they then do? Far easier to keep trumpeting
the jihad, to drive more and more ordinary youths into suicidal assaults in
the name of some always-elusive greater glory.
I want to emphasise that word "easier." For keeping hostility raging is
truly the easier, the things-as-they-are, way. There is all this macho
bluster about battle, but by now it should be clear to anyone who is
willing to think. The real courage, the real fibre, lies in bringing an end
to war that has crippled two countries, over a sixth of humanity, for half
a century.
So the real test for people who want to find peace is to ignore the
opponents. To show that they are, by definition and inclination, the
greatest threats to peace.
This is why two particular aspects of this cease-fire are so gratifying.
First, that our current army chief, General S Padmanabhan, welcomes it. On
January 12, he told a New Delhi press conference that the cease-fire is "a
good thing" and it has produced a "huge burgeoning of hope [in Kashmir]. He
hopes that the cease-fire "will lead to something more hopeful and
concrete." Padmanabhan has also spoken elsewhere about how Kashmir needs a
"political" solution, not a "military" one.
How refreshing to hear words like these from the highest-ranking soldier
in the country. I believe he says them because he recognises and agonises
over what the rest of us pay so little attention to: the daily bleeding in
Kashmir. For it is not just the occasional Kargils in which soldiers die.
Padmanabhan's brave men die every single day, as do more ordinary people
in the state. Look at it this way: if 350 have been killed since the
cease-fire began, that's almost six a day. Which means it's a good bet that
somebody died violently in Kashmir as you read these very words. If that's
the situation during a cease-fire, how much more awful must it be when
there isn't one?
It's easy to say that our soldiers are defending our borders, and because
they are, the rest of us can live the lives we choose. It's easy to applaud
them for doing their jobs so well. But how many among us are willing to
question these words of supposed glory? How many are willing to ask, why
has this gone on for 53 years? When will we measure glory not by mourning
the soldiers who die for the country, but in terms of how many live for the
country? For us? That is the spirit, it seems to me, in which Padmanabhan
spoke about Kashmir.
Second, there's an astonishingly revealing little quote I found in a Times
of India article (January 24). Siddharth Varadarajan writes that over the
last two months [the period of the cease-fire], several Pakistan-based
militant commanders acknowledged [to Varadarajan] that their movement had
indeed become weak. ... They, however, were confident that "Indian
atrocities" would solve this problem.
Think for a moment about what's being said here. According to militants
themselves, the cease-fire has meant that ordinary Kashmiris are losing
faith in the militants ("their movement had indeed become weak"). Yet these
commanders are sure that India will resume its "atrocities", which they
think will renew popular support for the militants ("solve this problem",
if you please).
To me, there couldn't be a stronger reason to keep the cease-fire going.
As people see that the violence they suffer from comes from only one side
-- the militants -- that side inevitably, inexorably, will lose popular
support. If the militants are actually waiting for "Indian atrocities" to
"solve" this problem of dwindling support, taking away even the chance to
accuse Indians of atrocities -- which a cease-fire does by definition --
will unerringly undermine them.
In short, the cease-fire is the surest way to destroy the militants.
Besides, this is really what Padmanabhan meant by speaking of a political
solution in Kashmir. By now, it should be clear: for every terrorist who
goes down to our guns, there are several more apparently willing to follow
in his footsteps, blow themselves up in a suicide attack, set off bombs in
the middle of Srinagar. How do you fight such a battle militarily?
Faced with the Hydra that sprouted two or three new heads every time he
crushed one with his club, Heracles found his answer eventually. He
"severed the immortal head ... and buried it, still hissing, under a heavy
rock" (Robert Graves, The Greek Myths). Just a myth, no doubt, but the
lesson Heracles learned in his battle is simple enough to be mightily
relevant today. Another of those war truisms: cut your adversary off at the
root and you defeat him. Chop off the militants' very reason for being --
the support they think they have among the people of Kashmir -- and we
defeat them. That, by the militants' own admission, is what this cease-fire
is doing.
Half a century of fighting fire with military fire, as we have done, has
only left Kashmir burning and bleeding. It's time to look for other
answers. Today, we have a not-so-common combination of an enlightened army
chief and leaders in both countries whose political compulsions, whatever
they are, make them think of a cease-fire in Kashmir. This is too good an
opportunity to miss. We do need another answer, yes. Persisted with despite
the peddlers of hostility, this cease-fire is that answer.
BANGALORE: The successfully tested Agni missile will be inducted into the
Indian Air Force by the year end, scientific advisor to defence minister A
K Aatre said on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters here, he said the Agni missile was now in its final
configuration and getting ready for induction. ``It is in operational
configuration,'' he added.
Asked if the Agni missile will be fitted with a nuclear war head, Aatre
said ``Obviously''.
Aatre, who is also the Secretary of the Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO) said the pilot-less Lakshya from the Air Force, the
Arjuna tank and Prithvi missile from the Army, electronic warfare equipment
meant for deployment in Kashmir and the newly developed radars will be on
display at the Republic Day parade in Delhi.
Aatre said the Aircraft Surveillance Platform (ASP) will be on flight
display at the Aero India show in Bangalore. Also on flight display will be
the Nishant unmanned aircraft.
The Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is also likely to be on flight display at
the Aero India show, but a final decision on flying the LCA will be taken
in the first week of February.
Aatre said India was looking for partnership to develop Research and
Design for transport aircraft and 100-seater passenger aircraft in the
future. Russia and some European countries have evinced interest in the
project.
India is also holding discussions with Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore
for partnership in production of transport and passenger aircraft. The
Hindusthan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will be the major player in the
develpment of these aircraft.
Aero India 2001 being held in Bangalore between February 7 and 11 will
also have a two-day international seminar on aerospace technologies -
developments and strategies.
Already, 12 Air Chiefs have confirmed their participation at the Aero
India show. Defence Minister George Fernandes will inaugurate the seminar
to be held on February 8 and 9. Air Chief Marshal A.Y.Tipnis will deliver
the address on `Trends in the Development of Air Power in the 21st century'
and former administrator of the National Oceanic Atmospheric
Administration, US Department of Commerce, Washington, D.James Baker, will
address on `Planet Earth : View from Space 2001'.
Aatre admitted that India had invited the US military establishment to
participate in the Aero India show, and had also extended an invitation to
the US Air Chief to participate personally, but the US, which has imposed
sanctions on India has refused the invitation. However, the private
companies from the US are participating in the air show.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - While the Pakistani authorities have agreed to comply
with UN sanctions on Afghanistan's Taliban militia, radical Islamic groups
within Pakistan are gearing up to launch an anti-United States offensive
against these curbs. Action will include destruction of US-based goods and
calls for a trade boycott.
Demonstrators plan on Friday to set fire to consumer goods made in the
United States, in this northwestern Pakistani city in a symbolic show of
protest to the punitive measures initiated by the UN Security Council on
the Taliban. The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami, a forum of Islamic scholars, has
also prepared a list of 28 US-made goods, including Coke and Pepsi, which
it will ask shopkeepers not to sell.
The decision was taken at a January 22 meeting of the Ulema. According to
an Ulema official, Jalil Jan, anti-US rallies will be organized across the
country. Earlier, 35 Islamic religious groups, in a rare show of unity,
denounced the UN sanctions on the Taliban. Taliban representatives also
attended the meeting, which described the fresh UN curbs as "a conspiracy
hatched by the United States, the Western world, Russia and India, against
Islam".
The UN sanctions, imposed after the Taliban refused to hand over Saudi
dissident Osama bin Laden, include an arms embargo, closure of Taliban
offices overseas and a ban on their travel abroad. The sanctions are for a
period of one year and can be renewed if the Taliban still fails to meet
the UN's terms till then.
The recent Islamic gathering was hosted by Islamic leader Samiul Haq who
is known to have close links with the Taliban. His sprawling seminary,
known as Darul Uloom Haqqania, has been one of the main producers of
Islamic religious fighters. Every year, hundreds of Taliban fighters,
including Afghans, pass out of this seminary.
The religious groups set up a Defense of Afghanistan Council, which has
been asked to devise strategies to tackle the sanctions and set up a fund
to help rebuild war-torn Afghanistan. The council will also raise funds
for supporting the Taliban militia.
Islamic leaders in Pakistan have said they will not allow UN observers to
be posted in Pakistan. "Let the Americans come to Afghanistan, then we
will see how they take Osama away," Azam Tariq Amir of the Islamic
militant group Sipah-i-Sahaba, told the conference.
"We can constitute a huge army of volunteer tribesmen through which we can
ensure that no monitors are posted here," added Qazi Abdul Lateef, a
former Pakistani lawmaker and a religious figure.
Meanwhile, others in Pakistan are opposing the sanctions, though not out
of sympathy for the Taliban. "These sanctions will add to the miseries of
poor, war and drought-stricken people of Afghanistan," said a resolution
adopted at a January 22 meeting of the Pakistan National Conference, an
alliance of minor political parties.
Pakistan's main political parties, which are said to be fighting for their
survival against the over year-old military rule, have tended to remain
silent on the issue.
Since capturing Kabul more than four years ago, the Taliban has taken
control of 95 percent of the country. Pakistan is one of three countries
to have recognized the Taliban regime, besides Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates.
(Inter Press Service)
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar met with TIME correspondent Hannah
Bloch at his office in Islamabad to discuss his country's troubled
relations with India and prospects for peace after six weeks of encouraging
developments. Edited excerpts:
TIME: A lot has happened in the past few months. How did Pakistan get to a
point where it was willing to declare a unilateral cease-fire on the Line
of Control (LOC) and encourage the participation of the All Parties
Hurriyat Conference [an umbrella organization of Kashmiri rebels] in talks
with both Pakistan and India? These things would have been hard to imagine
a year ago.
Abdul Sattar: I think we must distinguish between changes of substance and
changes of atmosphere. The Hurriyat itself has been advocating a process of
dialogue and we have encouraged them in this process. The Indian cease-fire
[against Kashmiri militants] was a good step. It was not expected by
anyone. Then we looked at what we could do to encourage further progress.
So we made our offer. We did it to try to initiate a political process, and
we are still at it. The Line of Control is quiet. The cease-fire is stable.
Efforts are afoot to begin the process of consultations. The statement by
[Indian] Prime Minister [Atal Behari] Vajpayee on Jan. 1 was extraordinary,
that Kashmir is the No. 1 legacy problem and needs to be resolved. After
Oct. 12, 1999 [when Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf took power in a
coup], the government of India not only cut dialogue with Pakistan but also
tried to isolate Pakistan and project the nation as a supporter or sponsor
of terrorism. We continued to make efforts for dialogue, but you can't talk
if the other side is not willing.
TIME: Where do you envision things going from here? What sorts of proposals
do you have?
Sattar: We've tried to avoid unproductive and sterile debates, as has the
Hurriyat itself, on issues such as the final settlement. The focus has to
be on reducing violence and repression and creating an environment for
political discussion and dialogue. We want to know from the Kashmiris what
they consider acceptable. The flower of Kashmiri youth has been liquidated
by Indian forces: the Hurriyat say 75,000 Kashmiris have died since 1989.
We have tried very deliberately and consciously to listen to the voice of
the Kashmiris. The Hurriyat has shown dedication and commitment and won
credibility inside the state. They can be credible interlocutors. They have
been sagacious in framing their views. A discussion of a settlement is very
academic and theoretical because India has to be persuaded to be part of
the settlement. This is why we say India should talk with these people. So
we hope this process will start. They [Kashmiris] don't want Pakistan or
India to talk for them, which is understandable. We are open, but will
India be open?
TIME: After the Lahore summit in February 1999, India and Pakistan sent
unofficial representatives to behind-the-scenes meetings to facilitate a
Kashmir settlement. How important is this "back channel" process to the
peace process?
Sattar: We are moving in a very transparent fashion. We have no back
channels. The back channel process has its advantages but the problem is
the other side can disown it. We hope our diplomats will become more
active. Our New Delhi High Commissioner is one of the ablest diplomats we
have. Let us begin with these professionals, let them play a role. Later on
perhaps there will be foreign secretary visits. In matters so sensitive as
Kashmir, you can't have a backroom deal. If we reach an agreement and the
Kashmiri people are not in favor of it, it will be an exercise in futility.
The process demands transparency.
TIME: As this process continues, are you concerned about a possible
negative reaction among extremists in Pakistan who don't support the notion
of peace with India?
Sattar: So long as the process remains transparent and the [Kashmiri]
representatives remain involved, there can be no allegations of a backroom
deal. No political group can argue that we've ignored the wishes of the
Kashmiri people. And there is no backroom discussion or deal with India. As
we proceed further, the Kashmiri leaders must directly involved. We don't
have an arbitrary settlement in our mind. We envisage forward movement,
step by step, with all the parties involved in the discussions so no one
will have the chance to say their views were being ignored.
TIME: Pakistan is in a difficult position, though, because on one hand,
the government talks about promoting better relations with India, but on
the other hand, militant groups supported by Pakistan can undermine the
peace process. Lashkar-e-Taiba [a militant group supported by Pakistan]
recently attacked the Red Fort. How do you reconcile Pakistan's need for
peace with its support of militant groups?
Sattar: Pakistan condemns such things [as the Red Fort attack]. India has
been engaging in a diversionary interpretation of the situation in Kashmir,
saying all problems in Kashmir are created by Pakistan. But that's not
true; there are 75,000 dead Kashmiris. The [Kashmir] movement was almost
entirely political. Then India sent in its forces and closed the political
road, leaving no option for Kashmiris but to go underground. We need to
walk backwards. There has to be a political process that generates hopes
that the freedom struggle can be waged by political means. As that road
opens, militancy should decline. It moved to a militant phase after the
political road closed. The perception that Pakistan uses militants as
leverage is not correct. The movement came about because of oppression. As
we move toward political change, I think you will see violence decline.
There are extremists everywhere and the effort should be to contain
extremism and encourage moderation, not only in words but also in deeds.
Let us hope the political process will move forward and that will be an
incentive for a decrease in militancy.
TIME: How concerned are you about the possibility of war between Pakistan
and India?
Sattar: I think we exaggerate -- and perhaps for good reason -- the
possibility of war. It should be unthinkable to have a war now that both
countries have nuclear capability. It is best not to think in terms of war
at all. Our differences have to be resolved peacefully.
TIME: In the past, that has proved difficult.
Sattar: Our problem is that these two countries never succeed in resolving
bilateral differences in negotiations. There is not one example in the last
53 years. There's something wrong! And it's India seeking constantly to
leverage power disparity in order to impose its own preferences on
Pakistan. The use of power superiority cannot lead to friendship. You have
to appreciate and accommodate each other's views. Sir Creek [in the Rann of
Kutch] remains disputed after 32 years. India and Pakistan cannot even
settle the boundary of a creek. Somehow we have to graduate from a culture
of stalemate, this constant failure to reach agreement. It is very
difficult to see how to resolve the Kashmir question. It will require
recognition that we have to break new ground. In the past, whenever we have
gotten together, we have both traded accusations. It has not been a very
positive exercise.
TIME: Are there areas in which Pakistan would be willing to compromise to
resolve the Kashmir issue?
Sattar: We've not thought in terms of compromises at all. I am averse to a
discussion of theoretical options. If we start by contemplating final
settlements, we are liable to come to the conclusion that nothing is
possible. For the time being, one is best advised not to think of a final
outcome. The logic of the situation demands a step-by-step process without
focusing on issues that are known to be divisive and on which there is no
agreement.
GENEVA, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Pakistan warned on Thursday that a proposed
U.S. missile defence shield could heighten tensions between major powers
and lead to a build-up of arsenals.
In a speech to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, Foreign
Secretary Inamul Haq said "most countries" remained unconvinced that
deployment of a National Missile Defence would enhance security anywhere.
He backed thorough debate on the issue and urged the Geneva forum to
launch global negotiations on a treaty which would ban weapons in outer
space, the "province of all mankind".
Haq also called for reaching a peaceful solution with India to their
long-standing dispute over Kashmir and for a halt to the "nuclear and
conventional arms build-up in South Asia".
His remarks drew no response from the U.S. disarmament delegation. But
India's new disarmament ambassador Rakesh Sood took the floor to reaffirm
New Delhi's commitment to dialogue on Kashmir, where a ceasefire was
renewed this week.
The five official nuclear powers (Britain, China, France, Russia and the
United States) and nuclear-capable arch-rivals Pakistan and India are among
the 66 member states of the world's only multilateral disarmament
negotiating forum.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton left a decision on whether to build and
deploy the so-called "Son of Star Wars" -- a system aimed at intercepting
incoming missiles in space which has an estimated price tag of $60 billion
-- to his successor.
President George W. Bush has signalled he will proceed with the missile
umbrella.
Haq sounded a warning against abrogating or watering down the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM), a major strategic stability treaty between
the United States and Russia which prevents deployment of ballistic missile
defences.
"Most countries, and the international disarmament community, remain
unconvinced that abrogation or amendment of the ABM Treaty and deployment
of National Missile Defences are the advisable course to enhance
international or national security," Haq told the Conference on
Disarmament.
"If one or more states decide to create 'shields' against ballistic
missiles to protect their national territory, or that of their allies and
clients, other states are likely to respond by improving and adding to
their 'lances'," he added.
Haq concluded: "Missile defences, both National Missile Defence (NMD) and
Theater Missile Defence (TMD), could therefore heighten tensions between
major powers, jeopardise the global strategic balance and turn back the
disarmament clock."
If it goes ahead with its plans to sell nuclear reactors and uranium fuel
to India, Russia will be in clear breach of its anti-proliferation promises
TO HEAR President Vladimir Putin tell it, Russia leads the world in its
efforts to rein in weapons of mass destruction and - glaring hard at America
and its proposed missile defences - to prevent a new arms race. Last year it
ratified the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty that America's Senate had
rejected, and that China's parliament is still pondering. It also
belatedly ratified the Start-2 nuclear-reductions treaty with America. And,
after a lot of American chivvying about dodgy nuclear- and
missile-technology exports by Russian firms, new export controls were
published. So why is Russia proposing to drive a nuclear-propelled coach
and horses through the guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG)
and its commitments to other members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) by selling up to four nuclear reactors to India, plus uranium
fuel for a fifth?
If Russia goes ahead, it would break no actual treaties. In 1993 the NSG,
an informal group that includes Russia and most major suppliers of nuclear
equipment, decided to ban all nuclear trade with countries that did not
have international safeguards on all their nuclear facilities, thus
committing its members to action well beyond their existing export controls
on goods that might help a country build nuclear weapons. Two years later,
most NPT members reached a similar agreement. India refuses "full-scope" safeguards, has never joined the NPT, which legally requires them, and in
1998 conducted five nuclear-weapons tests.
Russia claims that the "full-scope" rule does not apply to its proposed
sale of nuclear reactors to India, since the idea had come up in the late
1980s - that is, before the NSG ban. That is wholly disingenuous. The
contracts being negotiated break the rule. So does what is presumably the
sweetener for the deal: the supply of uranium fuel for India's Tharapur
reactor. America stopped supplying its fuel after India's first,
supposedly "peaceful", nuclear explosion in 1974; France pulled out to
comply with the "full-scope" rule; only China, outside the NSG, has in
recent years helped India find nuclear supplies it could not get elsewhere.
Fission for compliments
Part of the explanation for Russia's nuclear dalliance with India lies in
the fissile nature of its own politics. Russian firms, following up old
Soviet connections and often with the connivance of officials who are
supposed to police them, have been implicated in illegal transfers of
missile and nuclear technology to several countries. Russia's minister for
atomic energy has a foreign policy all his own: he wanted to sell laser
enrichment technology that could help in bomb-making to Iran (which has
signed the NPT but barely disguises its weapons ambitions). Already
building one reactor in Iran, Russia hopes to build more. Foreign-ministry
officials who see the dangers are overridden in the drive for contracts, as
they were recently by the arms industry's desire to sell conventional
weapons to Iran, despite Russia's promise not to do so.
In their defence, Russia's nuclear bureaucrats claim the best way to
influence nuclear programmes in countries like Iran, and also India, is to
work with them. More likely, when scientists sit down together, what gets
passed on is not restraint, but skills and know-how of direct use in
bomb-making. That is how India first got started on its bomb.
Mr Putin seems intent, for now, on making life as uncomfortable for America
as possible - in India, Iran or anywhere else. India would prefer nuclear
help from France or America, and hopes the bait of its deals with Russia
may eventually draw them in. But India could just as easily get caught in
the crossfire on this issue between the bigger powers.
If Russia is determined to go ahead, can anything be done to stop it?
Another of Russia's commercial wheezes is a plan to build an international
repository for spent nuclear fuel. Already controversial, given the lousy
safety record of Russia's nuclear industry, this could be made a
non-starter if Russia's nuclear co-operation with countries like India and
Iran causes America and others to lean hard on potential customers. But
pressure must also be put directly on Russia itself. It is threatening to
turn its commitments on nuclear export-controls into a cheater's charter.
Countries that care about proliferation should not let it get away with it.
PAKISTAN HAS been consistent in its stand that a dialogue with India
should commence at the earliest. This desire for an inter-governmental
negotiation has been expressed a number of times by its Chief Executive.
In his eagerness for a dialogue with India, General Pervez Musharraf has
offered to set aside all conditions and is prepared to commence the
dialogue process at any level, place and time. These are bold offers and
have created a deservedly favourable response in many circles in and
outside India. The Indian Government has responded by indicating its
willingness to join the dialogue process. It has demanded that violence
being perpetrated by militant groups based in Pakistan be brought down.
The possibility of a meaningful dialogue has been explored at different
levels through intermediaries and back channels. A dialogue has also been
attempted between experts in the nuclear weapons field. The experience has
revealed the enormous difficulties involved in translating the intent for a
dialogue into the content of its process.
There is no disagreement on the risks inherent in the lack of transparency
in the subcontinent on the nuclear arsenals, command and control
structures, and doctrines. The two countries had agreed that nuclear
ambiguities and risks should be addressed to avoid a nuclear conflict
between the two countries. They had unequivocally committed themselves to
a dialogue on the nuclear weapons issues through the MOU signed as part of
the Lahore Declaration. The nuclear dialogue was therefore perceived by
both countries as one which should be begun despite obstacles which were
holding up interaction on other issues.
Kargil changed the political condition in Pakistan and the new leadership
turned its face on the Lahore Declaration. In his interview to this paper,
General Musharraf clearly indicated his disdain for the Lahore spirit by
arguing that the Declaration had not laid enough importance on Jammu and
Kashmir. He went so far as to say that confidence building measures are
mere cosmetic arrangements and implied that they do not help in keeping
peace. He has apparently changed his perception in the time that has since
elapsed. In a meeting with a team of the Delhi Policy Group on January 14,
Pakistan's suave and skilful Foreign Minister, Mr. Abdul Sattar, averred
favourably on the issue. He asserted that all agreements and accords
signed by Pakistan with India were operative and affirmed his country's
commitment to them. This commitment did not, however, get demonstrated in
the nuclear dialogue which commenced the next day in Islamabad. The
obstacles to continuing a meaningful dialogue soon became apparent in the
exercise.
A nuclear risk reduction dialogue has been attempted since last year
between the Delhi Policy Group and the Islamabad Policy Research
Institute. The initiative for the dialogue came from the latter. The
dialogue was commenced after a mutual understanding that the subject be
discussed outside the ambit of the issues and conflicts affecting
relations between the two countries. This was necessary to ensure progress
by isolating the nuclear related issues from the complexities involved in
resolving other issues, especially those concerning Jammu and Kashmir. The
first meeting held in New Delhi in August last year adhered to these
principles, and proved fruitful in improving understanding and laying the
groundwork for continuing the dialogue. There was confidence built on the
modalities of the dialogue and the discipline needed to make progress on
the subject.
The meeting in Islamabad was structured on specific issues related to
nuclear risks and measures to reduce them. The subjects and issues were
mutually agreed upon before the teams met in Islamabad. The affirmation of
Mr. Abdul Sattar of Pakistan's commitment to the Lahore declaration and
the MOU was, therefore, a good start to the dialogue. The MOU had, in
fact, stated the need for a dialogue on nuclear issues with considerable
emphasis. The Islamabad dialogue from the Indian side was led on the
specific issues agreed upon in advance. On the Pakistan side the issues
were addressed mainly by senior retired members of the Foreign Service.
The Pakistani case was painstakingly built on the linkages between nuclear
weapons and the ongoing conflict in Jammu and Kashmir. It became apparent
that the resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir issue was being made a
condition for moving forward on the nuclear issue. This was also the
central Pakistani theme in an open forum discussion before a large
audience. On the other hand, there was a sizable segment of participants at
both meetings, who felt that combining the nuclear issues with Jammu and
Kashmir would derail the dialogue process.
The two contrasting positions notwithstanding, it was possible to find
some areas of convergence on nuclear issues. That this convergence could
be obtained is indicative of the possibilities and opportunities that lie
ahead. It was apparent that progress cannot be made without a
determination to seek solutions on the merits of the case. In matters
concerning nuclear weapons, merit and logic are not matters to be won from
or denied to the other. Nuclear deterrence and the risks inherent in them
have a merit and logic of their own. If a solution is to be had it can
only be through sharing the understanding and logic of nuclear weapons
risks. Adding a conditionality to reducing nuclear risks can therefore
only enhance such risks with unpredictable and catastrophic consequences.
It would appear from the meetings in Islamabad that there are two views
operating in Pakistan. There is the view that any dialogue with India must
be predicated upon obtaining concessions from it on Jammu and Kashmir. It
is the view of that major part of the establishment which interprets
India's joining a dialogue, as a sign of its compulsions in the face of
continuing conflict in the State. This Pakistani view is also connected
with a belief now being assiduously built about the meaning and relevance
of `Jehad'. The team from the Delhi Policy Group was given an extensive
interpretation of the subject in a presentation at the Institute of
Strategic Studies, whose interests would have otherwise been expected to
rest elsewhere. The notion of `Jehad' has also received a fillip after
General Musharraf chose to place an interpretation on it, in relation to
Jammu and Kashmir. This part of the establishment misses an important
point by linking `Jehad', Jammu and Kashmir and nuclear weapons. There has
been a view that Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear weapons had much to do
with Jammu and Kashmir. In other words, it intends to use nuclear weapons
as instruments to influence political outcomes. Apart from the dangerous
implications of such beliefs, the idea confirms the many fears on
Pakistan's ability to fathom the fears which should otherwise drive its
nuclear policies.
The other view in Pakistan is of those who prefer to see a focus on
economic growth and global engagement. They are aware of the damage to the
polity and international image of Pakistan by the presence of extremist
groups operating from its territory. They reflect on the meaning of
Pakistan getting recognised as the centre stage of international
terrorism. There is understanding in this element of the perilous linkages
between the economic stagnation, the Afghanistan connection of arms and
narcotics, the fundamentalist roots in the country, and the risks of
nuclear brinkmanship. This saner view also prevails in part of the
establishment, which to its credit ponders on the possible but difficult
ways out of the situation.
In Pakistan, Jammu & Kashmir has been made into an alibi for its many
problems. Even its internal challenge of militant extremism is beginning
to be viewed as a consequence of Jammu and Kashmir. The insistence on
Jehad does not make matters any easier for the Pakistan establishment to
better manage the affairs. A dialogue which is sought with India at every
level and forum gets embedded in the fixation on Jammu and Kashmir.
Unfortunately the logic of nuclear deterrence is also sought to be
distorted by the connecting them to Jammu and Kashmir. Yet the
counterparts of the nuclear dialogue in Islamabad were keen on continuing
it. It remains to be seen if future efforts at nuclear risk reduction
would be free from the polemics of `Jehad' and Jammu and Kashmir.
To ease tension, for people on either side of the LoC in Kashmir who crave
for meeting and communicating their kin, security forces are adopting
confidence building measures, writes Masood Hussain
Srinagar, January 24
In a bid to ease tension in Jammu and Kashmir, efforts are underway to
manage interaction between the leadership of the two Kashmirs divided by
the Line of Control (LoC). But there are quite a few right thinking people
who seem to be interested in bringing the two sides-separated by a most
unfortunate hostile political divide, more than the physical one
actually-closer not by opening the border but at least connecting the two
sides by telephone.
Apart from around 2,000 Kashmiri youth, mostly militants, in various camps
run by different militant outfits, there are more than 20,000 Kashmiri
civilians, who migrated or were coerced to flee across the state since
1989. There they are living the life of refugees, hardly ever being taken
care of or noticed by the United Nations Human Rights Commission or any
other world organisations who espouse the cause of the Chakma, Afghan,
Tibetan and other refugees living in exile in India and Pakistan.
These refugees have no contact with their former homes or places of
residence whatsoever. No letters, neither any telephone calls. At best,
they can get information either from professional guides who frequently
cross over the border or from newspapers which are seldom available to
them.
Communist leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami and Peoples' Democratic Party
leader Ms Mehbooba Mufti have separately demanded that the position on the
LoC be eased so that the people who have migrated to Pakistan can return to
their homes.
For the first time in the past 11 years, many Kashmiris visited their
migrated kin when they went to attend Abdul Gani Lone's son's marriage in
the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). The situation was so pathetic there,
said one of the visitors that Abdul Gani Lone had to take up the issue with
the PoK government. Lone asked the PoK government to offer the refugees
quality education if it is not able to give them a better living.
One report said that the refugees are so home sick that most of them are
ready to return if granted permission. Most of them, it may be recalled
here, have migrated leaving behind all movable and immovable property. And
most of them are doing menial jobs to sustain their families. "The only
people who are living luxurious lives are the Hurriyat representatives who
have got palatial bungalows, imported cars and mobile phones besides a lot
of clout," said an editor who attended Lone's son's wedding, adding, "In
the militant lot only those from the Hizb ul Mujahideen are better
managed."
At the marriage ceremony, said another journalist, the wife of Indian High
Commissioner to Pakistan Nambiar became an instant VIP. "Mrs Nambiar
remained almost gheraoed for the time she was there and believe me, those
who encircled her were the wives of top militant commanders. They gave her
telephone numbers of their relatives, and their names pleading that if they
seek a visa, it should not be rejected," he said.
In this environment, if the two governments provide better communication
between the people on two sides, the situation may get better with every
passing day. Perhaps this fact was understood by sections of the armed
forces posted in the border areas in north Kashmir here.
After the areas witnessed calm following ceasefire, the people are in a
better mood. Understanding that the people are craving to see their
relatives gone across the LoC, the troops have permitted them to at least
go down near small rivers separating the two Kashmirs and weave towards
their relatives living on the other side.
Reports reaching from Baramulla said that the troops have permitted the
residents of Lachipora, Gohalta, Nambla, Silikote and Kamalkote hamlets in
the Uri belt to reach the local stream that almost is the de facto LoC. On
the other side too, the people have been able to wave towards their
relatives across the divide.
Similarly, in Keran belt from where over 1,047 people have migrated so
far, the troops also permitted the locals to reach one of the banks of the
Kishan Ganga river to have a glimpse of their relatives. Perhaps this was
because of this exercise that Babu Bhat of Keran returned home after 10
years. He however was taken into the police custody immediately after he
crossed over to this side early this week.
Nevertheless, these developments are stated to be part of the
confidence-building measures started by the security forces to ease tension
along the LoC. These small gestures could actually act as beacon for
policymakers at Delhi and Islamabad.
Last fortnight when Union Information Technology (IT) Minister Pramod
Mahajan stated that he would manage the introduction of mobile phone in the
state, he was responded by a thunderous applause by a gathering watching
the formal inauguration of the state's first Software Technology Park (STP)
at Rangreth, 10 km from Srinagar. "They (authorities) were telling me that
its (mobile) introduction will increase militancy but when it (militancy)
increased without its introduction, I think it is not good to prevent its
use," Mahajan said, adding, "I am at it and very soon it will be here."
But neither the state government nor anybody attending the meeting sought
the IT minister's help in re-establishing telephone links between Kashmir
and Pakistan. The connections stand frozen for the past many years as the
security authorities believe this helps in curbing militancy. Nobody can
dial any Pakistani number ever since the Department of Technology installed
the digital Trunk Automatic Exchanges.
While militants have no problem in talking to their mentors and leaders in
Pakistan through their most modern communication systems, hapless people
wishing to talk to their relatives have to travel to Pathankot, the nearest
Punjab town, over 550 km from Srinagar. For most of the time they have to
face uncomfortable questions from the Punjab police after they find out
that the Kashmiris have made a call to Pakistan.
However, there is no problem for anyone to dial any Kashmir number from
Pakistan. Hundreds of calls from Pakistan are being made to Kashmir every
day. Militant leaders from Pakistan are able to dial the number of leaders
belonging to the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) in Srinagar, but
there is no reverse possibility. The APHC leaders in fact have to fly to
their Delhi office to have discussions with their contacts in Pakistan.
The state, it may be recalled here, got divided in the post-partition era
after the UN had enforced a ceasefire. While one-third came under the
control of Pakistan and is know as Azad Kashmir or PoK, two-third remained
with the Indian Union. Families with intimate relations got divided. They
could not maintain the ties in the subsequent decades although there were
migrations from Kashmir in 1949, 1965 and in 1971.
Besides, the state government also deported scores of families to the PoK
in its efforts to root out the pro-Pakistan elements and pro-reunification
elements in Jammu & Kashmir. However, the onset of militancy in 1989
witnessed the worst demographic upheavals in the border belt. To fight the
massive infiltrations, the security forces introduced the mechanism of
dusk-to-dawn curfew. When it failed, the 5-km security belt running
parallel to the LoC was created in which literally no civilian life exists.
Excessive measures on the part of the Indian government coupled with the
onslaught of Pakistani propaganda continued to lead to massive migrations.
While the exact number of civilians who have migrated to the other side is
not actually known, estimates put their population at over 30,000.
According to reliable sources, the PoK government is providing some kind of
relief to over 2,500 families who are putting up at Ambore, Barakote,
Kamsur, Demishi, Hir Kotli, Karka, Mamik Pian, Athmuqam Kel, and Hattian in
Muzaffarabad district. Besides, there are Kashmiri refugees in Chatter,
Khutta Plangi (Bagh), Gulpur Kotli Solhwan (Kotli) and Hajira Madarpur of
Rawalakote district. The PoK government provides around Rs 2000 per family
every month.
Although the PoK government's department of rehabilitation is supposedly
taking care of this population, the refugees are far from satisfied. The
education of the refugee children is suffering and adults lack avenues of
appointments unlike Kashmiri Pandits who are comparatively better placed in
various parts of India.
Naval co-operation between Pakitan and China is set to enter an altogether
different phase. Pakistan Navy is due to make an off-the-shelf purchase of
a frontline Chinese warship and build three more under license, Chief of
Naval Staff Admiral Abdul Aziz disclosed, and added that it wa spart of
the $630 milion nbaval modernisation programme.
The Admiral said it was cost effective for Pakistan to acquire Chinese
ships and these were ment to phase out the ageing British origin
destroyers. The programme is to be spread over 10 years.
An unnamed senior Pakistani naval official, speaking to the media in
Islamabad, said Pakistan was in the process of nuclearising its naval
force in view of the "emerging threats from the Indian naval build-up,
Press Trust of India reported.
The Admiral, however, declined to provide any further details on the
programme. He said, "In order to counter the Indian naval might, Pakistan
has been working on a plan to give nuclear teeth to the navy, which has
been beset by a resource crunch.
At a seminar in Pakistan, participants were briefed on the evolution and
organisation of Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Navy's role in nation building
and contribution towards economic development.
Speakers at the seminar included the top brass of the Pakistan Navy. They
highlighted the role and importance of the force in defending the country.
Besides, the compulsions of Pakistan Navy in the context of Russia-India
naval co-operation was brought out to bring into bold relief the
achievements and tribulations of Pakistan's naval force.
Rear Admiral Irfan Ahmad emphasised that, through the construction of the
Jinnah Naval Base at Ormara the maritime defence of the country has been
strengthened and it also opened the 800-km-long Mekran coast for
development.
He pointed out that Agosta 90-B submarine was being built in Pakistan for
which PN had already acquired the required technology from France. A week
earlier, it may be recalled, Pakistan's Naval chief, Admiral Abdul Aziz
Mirza expressed his satisfaction over the progress made in the Agosta 90-B
submarine construction project. To give greater punch to the Navy's
surface fleet, Pakistan Navy is also looking forward to acquire
off-the-shelf and also indigenously build new destroyers.
Admiral Mirza said, addressing the Annual Efficiency Competition Parade of
Pakistan Navy, in Karachi, on January 2, 2001, modern sea warfare is both
physically taxing and mentally exhausting. The hitherto unknown progress
made in the field of electronics and computers has made conflict at sea
highly complex.
Admiral Mirza said in spite of severe resource constraints and some
inherent handicaps, the Navy was making every best effort to keep itself
abreast of the ever-changing naval weaponry and equipment.
"What we lack in quantity, we endeavour to make up in quality, both
through high standards of training and by inducting hi-tech weapons and
sensors which the nation can afford," the Admiral added.
The Chief stated that the government was amply aware of the genuine needs
of the Pakistan Navy and was prepared to provide it with the best
affordable platforms, weapons and equipment.
In recent times, major naval projects aimed at the modernisation of both
aviation assets and type-21 ships had been successfully undertaken, he
announced.
DAROLI (PATIALA), JANUARY 23: Last Thursday, the gurudwara in Daroli
village in Patiala district, was converted into a place of protest. One
hundred agitated villagers met to decide their future, the future of their
land, their village. Daroli has been chosen as the site for a nuclear
power plant, and villagers have already launched a struggle to ensure the
project doesn't get off the ground.
Even as the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) awaits the final nod
from the Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) site selection panel, locals have
set up a 15-member sangharsh committee to resist any move to acquire land
for the project.
The PSEB's own site selection committee zeroed in on Daroli after sifting
through data from nine sites. According to PSEB chairperson G.S. Sohal,
"After examining several sites in the state, we have finally settled on
Daroli. I visited the village last week and an NPC team is expected to
examine the site within the next month," The team will not be examining
any other site in the state.
The village got wind of plans to acquire 2,500 acres for the project only
after Sohal's visit. "We have been hearing reports about a site near
Patran (five kilometres away) but only last week did we realise it was our
village," said ex-sarpanch Jit Singh.
That realisation spawned fear faster than you can say nuclear fission.
Alternative employment, compensation, rehabilitation became the topmost
concerns for the villagers. Almost everyone assembled at the sangharsh
committee's meeting had the same questions on their minds: "Why didn't
the government take us into confidence at any stage? Don't we have any
choice in the matter?"
"This village was settled by refugees from Gujranwala and Sheikupura in
Pakistan. When we came here, the area was a jungle. We paid the government
to clear it; a Russian firm using giant bulldozers did the work in the
1950s. We have now turned the jungle into fertile farmland and they want
us to move," says Amrik Singh, a member of the sangharsh committee.
"It is not just a question of compensation. We have built up a community
here over 54 years. Will they move the whole village together? Where is
the land for that in Punjab? And if they give us compensation what are we
going to do? Most of us are uneducated, farming is all we know," adds
Gurdip Singh.
Sohal's defense was ; the price of development has to be paid, and someone
has to pay it. "There are always some elements who are anti-development
and exploit local sentiments. Sufficient compensation will be paid. In
fact, short of shifting the site we will pay heed to whatever
apprehensions the villagers have. We hope not to include the village itself
in the project area and we can consider special facilities such as land
for land or a lump sum and one job per family," he says.
But residents point out that if they lose their land, they cannot stay on
in the village. In fact, landless labourers were among those who attended
the meeting. "We are not qualified to work at the plant. If the land is
taken away who will we work for? At least here we have a home. Moreover,
we have built on village common land and we will get no compensation,"
says Lakhwinder Singh.
Sohal admits that the lack of a resettlement and rehabilitation policy in
Punjab is a problem. "Our State does not have such a policy. If we don't
explain what we are doing people feel shunted out."
On the villagers' complaint that they hadn't been consulted, he said, "We can't start interacting without preliminary selection. Perhaps, instead
of one site, a few more should have been shortlisted. But now nothing can
be done. To start all over again would mean another two to three years and
Punjab can't wait that long for power."
THE SIGNIFICANCE of the test-firing of the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) Agni-II arises from its proposed induction into the country's defence arsenal to make it available for deployment like any other weapon of war. This distinguishes it from the missiles which had been test-fired earlier - the Akash, Trishul, the earlier Agni-I, the Prithvi - all of which were developed as "technology demonstrators" and intended to achieve a perfection to the skills built up for the design, development and production of missiles. Such technology demonstration was aimed at filling the country's defence scientists, engineers and technicians with a sense of confidence that they could take up the mass production of the missiles if the need arose. The Government's announcement that the Agni-II would be inducted into the defence arsenal takes the project a step forward.
If Agni-II could cover 2000 km in 648 seconds during which it could pick out its targets in the Bay of Bengal, it would raise questions about the missions which would be designed for it. Its elegant streamlining, to give it a very high velocity, could give only glimpses of the stupendous engineering which would have gone into giving it the capability for hitting its target 2000 km away with precision. Not to mention the miniaturisation which would have been required to ensure that the conventional warhead fitted to the nose of the missile would meet the demand to zero in on and destroy the target. The Agni missile has come a long way from the drawing board to its test-firing. The secrets of the missile arsenals which the developed countries have built up could not have for long been kept guarded from being prised open by scientists, engineers and technologists around the world. The graduation of the missiles from carriers of conventional to nuclear warheads should have made the stockpiles of the developed countries far more deadly.
India's Integrated Missile Development Programme undertaken by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) had taken up the development of only non-nuclear missile systems - Prithvi, Trishul, Akash and Agni. All these progammes have been successfully completed to ensure their induction into the armed forces. The pressure on India to indigenise design and manufacture of the components for the missiles had become quite intense in view of the U.S. having tightened restrictions on their export. The restrictions should have delayed the progress of the Agni, the Prithvi, the Satellite Launch Vehicle-3 (SLV-3) the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle, inspite of the fact that the PSLV and the GSLV have no military applications to justify them.
Exports were prohibited if the U.S. Commerce Department, which is empowered to implement the President's Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative (EPCI), suspected that the components would be used for the production of chemical and biological weapons. The sense of insecurity arising from its fears over other countries developing their missile strike capability could be readily seen from the U.S. going ahead with its own missile development and production programme under its Theatre High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) for making advanced space sensors such as "Brilliant Eyes" which can significantly enhance the coverage of both "lower and upper theatre defences" and help ground-based interceptors "provide full coverage of the continental United States", according to an official statement made earlier by an acting Director of the U.S. Strategic Defence Initiative Organisation. A great deal of the destructive potential of conventional missile warheads had been discovered with their use during Operation Desert Storm against Iraq in 1990, the Falklands conflict (1980) and the Yom Kippur War (1973) and this led to the development of a later generation of cruise missiles, TV and laser-guided and anti-radiation missiles equipped with advanced sensors for increasing their lethal power.
The non-nuclear missile systems which are now in place and ready for development during a perceived emergency are themselves highly destructive. The further induction of missiles equipped with nuclear warheads by the nuclear weapon states is the biggest menace which the world is now living with since even an accidental detonation could bring about a global inferno which even a thousand Hiroshimas could not match. Grave doubts over the safety of simply maintaining squadrons of aircraft such as the U.S.' B-52s and FB-111s, which are nuclear weapon carriers, and nuclear missile armoury and fears of accidental triggering of the weapons have repeatedly been raised. The end of the Cold War has left unsolved the problems thrown up by the missile stockpiles.
The seriousness of the accidental going off of nuclear missiles and weapons had come to light from reports - there is in all probability a greater number of unreported incidents - of potential disasters which had been luckily averted. There was a collision at sea between a U.S. aircraft carrier, the uss Kitty Hawk, and a Soviet nuclear-powered submarine way back in March 1984 though this did not result in any catastrophe. There were a number of other such scrapes. The task of defusing the stockpile of nuclear warheads remains very much unattended to - since even if the nuclear weapon states muster the will to get down to it, the dismantling itself presumably calls for technology which may not be readily available or is yet to be perfected.
According to an earlier estimate, there were over 60,000 nuclear warheads in Europe and the U.S. awaiting defusing and destruction. The status of over 3,000 warheads in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus which have seceded from the erstwhile Soviet Union is yet to be determined since it is not known whether these states accept obligations which the former USSR had agreed to under START-I and START-II with the U.S.
A persisting disaster potential resulting from nuclear weapons and missiles awaiting dismantling is the radioactive contamination of facilities and the exposure of populated areas to the same. The volume of Russian liquid missile propellants packed in the missiles is also very high amounting to more than 100,000 tonnes which are to be destroyed under the START agreements. The storage cost of these propellants is itself very heavy and and had been estimated at over $50 millions. Their destruction, assuming that it could be safely completed, has been estimated to cost $15 millions. The costs for the defanging of the U.S. non-nuclear and nuclear missile are even higher. According to an estimate made by the U.S. Department of Energy, the cost of decontaminating warhead production sites was as high as $60 billions and it was placed even higher at $155 milllions by the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment. No immediate results could be expected since the cleaning up of the contaminated earth, waterways and the buildings requistioned for missile production, nuclear and non-nuclear, would itself take as long as thirty years and the cost might actually go up to $ 300 billions.
The enormous and crazy extravagance of the building of non- nuclear and nuclear missile stockpiles has been projected in all its starkness by a study of how much even a much smaller part of the billions of dollars could have made Earth a happier planet had they been spent on the following programmes: reforesting the earth: $2 billions (cost of a nuclear submarine); providing safe water to all: $5 billions (cost of a few nuclear bombs); rollback of deserts: $2 billions (cost of a dozen nuclear tests); protection of the ozone layer: $1 billion; reduction of air pollution: $5 billion (cost of six stealth bombers); stabilisation of population: $6 billions; cleaning up hazardous wastes: $10 billions.
The fractional cost of these programmes for the implementation of which Planet Earth endangered by weapon programmes, non-nuclear and nuclear, is crying out bares the prodigal criminality of the nuclear weapon states.
THE year 2001 has started on a note of renewed endeavours to improve
relations between New
Delhi and Islamabad. While the state-level gestures, such as reciprocal
measures to foster detente
in Kashmir, have been marked by ups and downs, Track II initiatives have
assumed renewed
importance.
The Nimrana process is being resumed in a low key, but the activism of the
Islamabad Policy
Research Institute (IPRI), founded a year and a half ago, has gained a
certain momentum, with
help from Germany. An IPRI delegation went to New Delhi in August last year
and held talks with
the Delhi Policy Group, which has former Foreign Secretary K.S. Bajpai as
chairman, and Lt-Gen
(retd) V. R. Raghavan as director. The focus was on nuclear restraint and
risk reduction.
A delegation from the Delhi Study Group returned the visit from Jan 12 to
16, and held a series of
meetings with various scholars and experts, apart from holding seminars at
the Quaid-i-Azam
University, and IPRI, as well as a largely attended public seminar at an
Islamabad hotel. They also
called on the foreign office and were received by the foreign minister.
The exchanges with the Delhi Policy Group marked the return of India to the
process of building
confidence between the two countries after their nuclear tests in May 1998.
Though the documents
signed at Lahore in February 1999, during the visit of Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee, had
included a memorandum of understanding on measures for risk reduction and
confidence-building, the whole Lahore process was put into cold storage by
India after the Kargil
episode. During the suspension of dialogue even on nuclear risk reduction,
the Pakistan side
continued to work on the measures considered necessary to prevent
accidental war between the
two neighbouring countries that had tested nuclear weapons, and were
expected to display the
maturity and restraint expected of nuclear powers.
The Islamabad Council of World Affairs organized a national-level seminar
in November 1999 on
Pakistan's Response to India's Nuclear Doctrine. This was followed by an
international seminar
on Command and Control of Nuclear Weapons in February last year, jointly
with the Institute of
Strategic Studies, and with the assistance of the Hanns Seidel Foundation
of Germany. Though an
Indian expert was invited to the International seminar, he did not attend.
The Indian delegation which visited Pakistan from Delhi included, apart
from K. S. Bajpai and
Gen Ragahvan, Air Chief Marshal (retd) S.K.Mehra, former Air Force chief,
J.N.Dixit, former
foreign secretary, Rear Admiral (retd) K.R.Menon, former Chief of Naval
Operations, and Prof.
Matin Zuberi, former professor of disarmament studies at the Jawaharlal
Nehru University. Adm.
Menon has written a book on "India's Nuclear Strategy". Air Chief Marshal
Mehra and Prof
Zuberi are also members of the National Security Advisory Board.
Those who contributed papers from the Pakistan side at the two seminars on
Jan 14 and 15
included former foreign secretaries Tanvir Ahmad Khan, and Najmuddun
Sheikh, and Prof. Rifaat
Husain, Chairman of the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies,
Quaid-i-Azam University.
Admiral Menon, Air Chief Marshal Mehra, Ambassador Dixit, and Prof. Zuberi made
presentations from the Indian side. Many scholars and retired civil and
military officers took part
in discussions at various seminars.
The discussions proved valuable in view of the risks that have been created
by the accession of the
two adversarial South Asian neighbours to the status of nuclear powers. It
is customary to make a
comparison of the nuclear confrontation between the two superpowers during
the cold war with
the Indo-Pakistan standoff in South Asia. However, the situation in the
latter case is much more
dangerous. First, the superpower rivalry was largely ideological and they
never went to war,
whereas India and Pakistan have a serious territorial dispute over Kashmir
and have already fought
three wars. A more significant difference is that the US and the Soviet
Union were separated by
long distances, so that the flight time for missiles between them was at
least thirty minutes.
India and Pakistan are contiguous countries and the time difference between
launch of missiles and
their impact is only a few minutes. An additional challenge for managing
the nuclear risks in South
Asia is that, whereas the superpowers worked steadily to create confidence
and reduce risks, there
has been a regression in South Asia since the Lahore agreements of February
1999.
Several specific confidence-building and risk reduction measures were
identified at the seminars.
The most important of these are adequate communications, accompanied by
familiarity with the
language and terminology used on both sides. The two sides have established
command and
control arrangements on which information needs to be exchanged. The
memorandum of
understanding (MoU) signed at Lahore had called for measures designed to
prevent conflict by
accident or misunderstanding. Among these was an agreement to consult each
other on such
matters as nuclear doctrines, but India had gone ahead and announced its
draft nuclear doctrine in
August 1999 without any consultation.
India and Pakistan have a history of managing their security relationship
despite a clash of interests
and perceptions. The agreement, signed in 1988, not to attack each other's
nuclear installations is a
case in point. However, the attitude adopted by the BJP government has been
related to the goal of
isolating and weakening Pakistan, specially after the Kargil episode.
International pressure has
come on India to address the issues in South Asia in an objective manner,
and therefore the steps
being taken now to promote confidence-building measures are welcome, and
have drawn a
positive response from Pakistan.
When a mention is made of nuclear issues being held hostage to political
relations, the country
which has followed this approach is basically India, since Pakistan has
been keen to pursue the
CBMs agreed at Lahore which are designed to prevent the outbreak of a
nuclear conflict by
accident or because of miscalculation.
Pakistan's nuclear programme is India-specific, and it is because of
India's decisive superiority in
the conventional sphere that Pakistan cannot adopt the NFU approach. Given
the close proximity
of India and the lack of territorial depth, Pakistan's major concern would
be to reduce the risk of
pre-emptive strikes through access to advance information based on an
exchange of information
and intelligence obtained through high technology. Confidence-building and
security assurances
could be provided through such devices as separating warheads from delivery
systems, launching
procedures, double keys and placing custody of codes at a higher level. All
these measures would
have to be coordinated, and doubts removed through communication links.
The detailed discussions on the ways in which the risks of conflict could
be reduced and restraint
maintained on nuclear programmes were conducted with frankness and realism.
It was felt that
agreements already reached, such as the Simla Accord, the Lahore
Declaration and the
accompanying MoU provided an adequate framework on which to build the
structure of risk
reduction. While the ideal solution is to resolve the political disputes
that cause tension, those
problems are not amenable to an early solution. In the meantime, it is
necessary to ensure that a
nuclear holocaust does not afflict the region for want of safety measures
based on command,
control, intelligence and communications.
Certain other factors were identified that might have a stabilizing effect
on the situation of nuclear
confrontation in South Asia. One was that, given the close proximity of the
two countries, any
resort to nuclear weapons would be suicidal since the radioactive fallout
would affect large
populations in both countries. Secondly, the great powers would not remain
indifferent and
outside intervention to stop a nuclear conflict was highly likely.
The matter of cooperation between India and Pakistan on non-proliferation
issues was also
considered. There had been a shift in the US policy from pressing for the
CTBT and other
non-proliferation measures to renewed interest in developing sophisticated
missile defence systems
through NMD, and TMD. If the Bush administration went ahead to build such
systems, there
might be a chain reaction with other countries acquiring their own missile
defence which would
fuel an arms race and affect global security and stability.
So far, the West is disinclined to recognize India and Pakistan as de jure
nuclear powers as that
would be seen as betraying the signatories of the NPT. However, if India
and Pakistan can make
progress in nuclear risk reduction in South Asia, the prospects of their
acceptance would increase.
They also share other problems, including the West's sanctions policy.
Hence better
understanding between them could lead to their taking a joint stand.
The visit of the Indian delegation enabled the discussions initiated in New
Delhi on nuclear
restraint and risk reduction to advance further. As significant steps had
been taken to move
towards better relations, it was felt that rapid progress could be made in
minimizing the risk of
nuclear conflict through agreed confidence-building measures. This field
offers the best hope of
agreement and, as such, further such meetings as could help avert the risk
of accidental nuclear
conflict in South Asia are desirable.
NEW DELHI: With just days to go before its unilateral ceasefire ends, New
Delhi's fledgling peace initiative in Kashmir stands precariously poised.
Boxed in from all sides, the advocates of an extension of the ceasefire
within the government must contend with the unhelpful silence of
Islamabad, the implacable hostility of Pak-based militant groups,
divisions within the Hurriyat Conference and the growing demand within
India that the security forces be given a "free hand".
"Pakistan and the jihadi groups must realise time is running out," said
a senior official involved with the peace initiative. "If the ceasefire
cannot be extended, it will take two or three years before the opportunity
for a political approach arises again. Whether it's Musharraf or
Salahuddin (Hizbul Mujahideen leader), there has been no flexibility at
all. They are sticking to the demand of tripartite talks or nothing". He
said Pakistan should know that "we have the option of ending the
ceasefire. They are wrong to assume our initiative stems from military
weakness or fatigue."
At the same time, there is some concern that any heavy-handedness by the
security forces will cost the country dear in the long run. The recent
custodial killing of two prisoners has led to widespread public
demonstrations, and officials fear the return of the 'crowd'-largely
absent as a factor since the early 1990s-may add a new punch to the
militants' campaign.
Though there are divisions within the government on the ceasefire and the
granting of passports to Hurriyat leaders-the external affairs ministry,
for example, is wary of allowing them to go to Pakistan- institutions like
the Army and intelligence agencies, usually the most hawkish, are the ones
in favour of the peace process. "But we have to get some opening from the
other side," said the official.
On the passports issue, sources familiar with the Hurriyat's internal
politics contend that the main roadblock is the opposition of two senior
APHC leaders to the participation of Syed Ali Shah Geelani in the
delegation. "Their fear is that with Geelani going, the jihadists will
hijack the entire show," a source said. "Also, they aren't sure how the
Pakistani government will receive them. If Musharraf refuses to endorse
the ceasefire on their appeal and they come back empty-handed, the popular
allegation in the Valley that they are 'stooges of Pakistan' will get
confirmed."
At the same time, the Vajpayee government appears to be in a quandary
over the passports issue. There is, for example, a concern that granting
passports could amount to recognising the Hurriyat as the representatives
of the Kashmiris. The MEA is especially worried that a high-profile
Pakistan visit might undo New Delhi's efforts over the years to
delegitimise the Hurriyat in the eyes of the international community and,
especially, the US.
Even those in favour of issuing passports, say the main issue is peace.
"If facilitating peace means giving them passports, so be it," said an
intelligence official. "But the focus has to be on what exactly they will
accomplish over there."
The most optimistic scenario is that they could get Gen Musharraf to call
upon the militant groups to respect the ceasefire, in return for which,
Prime Minister Vajpayee would invite Pakistan's chief executive for talks.
And the pessimistic scenario? "We'll be back to the days of Robin
Raphel", said an external affairs ministry official, "with the US
promoting the Hurriyat once again".
Meanwhile, an upcoming conference to be held in Jammu will provide an
opportunity for the Union government to demonstrate its political skills.
G M Shah, the former J&K chief minister, has invited Hizb chief Syed
Salahuddin, 'Azad Kashmir' Prime Minister Barrister Sultan Mahmood, JKLF
leader Amanullah Khan and a host of Kashmiri militant and political
figures from across the Line of Control to attend a two-day Kashmir
conference on February 10 and 11 on the theme, 'In Search of Peace and
Solution'.
The others invitees are Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, leaders of the
Hurriyat Conference, and Kashmiri Pandit and Ladakhi Buddhist
representatives. The organisers hope that if Salahuddin and others want to
come from Pakistan and take part in the conference, the government of
India will grant them the right of safe passage.
Chennai, Jan 21 - The fledgling anti-nuclear weapons movement in India
crossed a milestone this weekend with the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament
and Peace (CNDP) holding its first national coordination committee meeting
here.
A protest against the testing of the Agni II missile as "the last step
before induction" of nuclear warhead equipped missiles in the Indian armed
forces also took place as a section of Chennai residents marched through the
streets, raising slogans for peace and against weaponization of the country.
"It has been officially given out that the Agni II is now the centerpiece of
the land-based part of a triad of land, air and sea-based nuclear delivery
systems to provide a minimum nuclear deterrent for India as envisaged under
the draft nuclear doctrine," the Movement Against Nuclear Weapons said in a
statement.
The Movement Against Nuclear Weapons, an umbrella forum of more than 30
Chennai-based peace organizations, hosted a two-day conference that
discussed the "Interim charter for nuclear disarmament for peace". The
charter was drafted by the CNDP at its national convention held in New Delhi
last November in which 600 peace activists, including 60 delegates from
Pakistani anti-nuclear weapons groups and peace activists from Sri Lanka,
Nepal, Australia, the Philippines and New Zealand had participated.
The former chief of naval staff, Admiral L. Ramdas, participating in the
discussion, noted that the testing of Agni II last week was a new benchmark
in nuclear weaponization in India. Going by media and "official" Ministry of
Defense reports, if the Agni II test was assumed to be as "successful", this
would be the first land-based missile with a solid fuel system, he said.
The successful use of "solid fuel" would provide an enormous advantage to
the Indian armed forces, Ramdas told IANS. Not even a country like China,
which possesses more than 15 Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs),
has this advantage, he said.
So far all nuclear missile systems across the world have been using liquid
fuels, which "cannot be kept on "hairline trigger" -- a state of permanent
readiness. These nuclear-tipped missiles are not kept loaded with the liquid
fuel. It takes at least 17 to 18 hours to load the fuel into the missile,
which entails considerable delay in the readiness to be launched.
The liquid fuel has to be taken out and replenished with new stock. This
means the fuel hold of the system would have to be cleaned before refilling,
which entails another cumbersome process.
Solid fuel, on the other hand, can be loaded and kept for indefinite
periods. Therefore, nuclear-tipped Agni II missiles would have a distinct
"military advantage" over liquid fuel-fed missiles that are being used by
all other countries, Ramdas explained.
Peace activist and CNDP member Achin Vinayak said most countries deployed
either land-based or sea-based nuclear delivery systems. Even Britain only
maintained its sea-based system and had cut its air-borne system, he said.
While many countries had the capability, Britain and France had agreed to
contain further testing of nuclear weapons while South Africa, Brazil and
Argentina had dismantled their systems. The Russian Federation countries
like Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, which possessed the largest number of
stock nuclear weapons, had also agreed to no further weaponization, peace
activists pointed out.
At a time when everyone was talking of disarmament, India was the only
country going ahead with its program to induct the "triad" system into its
armed forces, the activists said. The "Draft nuclear document, with all its
incalculable and undesirable consequences, has thus already begun. The
pretence that it was merely a document released for public debate has been
unceremoniously abandoned. The predictable reaction from Pakistan cannot
gladden aspirants for subcontinental amity," the Movement Against Nuclear
Weapons said.
The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament draft charter under discussion
included demands that India halt and roll back nuclear weapons related
preparations, halt advanced research into nuclear weapons and decide against
induction and deployment of nuclear weapons, including nuclear-tipped
missiles like Agni II.
It also called on India not to acquire and deliver nuclear weapon-specific
delivery systems (including systems like Agni II), not conduct explosive and
subcritical tests and not produce or acquire weapon useable fissile material
like tritium.
Calling for "full transparency and public accountability" on the part of the
Indian government, the CNDP demanded compensation to the radiation-affected
uranium miners of the Jaduguda mines in Jharkhand. In the "Action Plan"
discussed was support to all organizations fighting for the Jharkhand
radiation victims and support to all organizations in Rajasthan fighting
against the use of the desert as testing grounds for nuclear bombs.
The setting up of a national federation of radiation victims in India was
also discussed.
The CNDP has also decided to press for the institutionalization of the
"Nuclear Disarmament and Peace Week" from August 4-11 every year from this
year on in all schools and colleges in India.
On May 12, 1998 Australia's prime
minister said that "India's action in conducting three underground nuclear
tests is an ill-judged step." His minister for foreign affairs followed up
24 hours later by saying "I unreservedly condemn India's action in
conducting two further nuclear tests today." Then he really got stuck in to
New Delhi and pronounced that "this is the act of a government that has
the utmost disregard for accepted international norms of behaviour." This
was the strongest language used by any country in condemnation of India's
nuclear tests. But it is interesting how things change in a couple of
years.
Australia is reopening defence links with India, by sending a defence
adviser to New Delhi and welcoming an Indian DA in Canberra. Further, an
Australian warship will attend India's International Fleet Review, to be
held at Mumbai in February, and once again there will be exchanges of
officers at staff colleges. These initiatives take place two years after
total severance of defence ties by Australia because of India's nuclear
explosions.
But what has happened in the two years that have passed since the tests,
to make Australia change its mind so dramatically about India's nuclear
posture? Has there been an indication by New Delhi that it will consider
signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? Has it agreed to sign and
ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty? Has it announced that it
might curtail or diminish its nuclear weapons' programme? After all, on
May 14, 1998 Foreign Minister Downer of Australia said that "India must
immediately sign the CTBT, join the international nuclear non-proliferation
regime, and forswear forever the use of nuclear weapons." Does not this
strike you as a demand? Does it not have the air of an ultimatum? Use of
the words "must immediately" is indicative of the imperative-the
peremptory, indeed.
This is an example of a nation of substance telling another nation of
substance that its actions are "ill-judged" and that it had better look
sharp and sort out its moral and practical priorities, or, by golly. Well,
what, by golly? Well, not much, in the end.
Canberra rapidly backtracked from its initial outrage and its vivid,
thrilling condemnation of India's nuclear explosions. In spite of Mr
Downer saying so forcefully and elegantly on May 14, 1998 that "Australia
has and will continue with vigour to use regional and international forums
to make clear Australia's opposition to Indian nuclear testing" it seems
that money beats morality.
Australia did not use a single international forum to condemn India for
its nuclear tests, and a search of Parliamentary comment over the next two
years reveals little anti-nuclear fervour on the part of Mr Downer and the
Australian government in general. No longer was it necessary, apparently,
to maintain the "strong and substantive response" that Mr Downer advocated
so strongly. It seemed that India's nuclear bangs were not to be regarded
as "outrageous acts", nor that they had "potentially serious implications
for global security." India's nuclear explosions were apparently no longer
"a provocation" as Mr Downer so righteously described them on May 13,
1998. A few months later they became, in the words of Mr Nugent, a
Government member of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and
Trade, the cause of "some frost or chill in the relationship between
Australia and India."
Mr Nugent is also a master of elegant and syntactic language, and observed
that "The problem with that frost is that there is the danger that it may
do more damage to us in some ways than to India. So whilst it is right
that we express to India our disappointment and disapproval of what they
have done in the nuclear field, we will see, however, economic activity
between the two countries, and businesses continuing to trade and do
business. If we can resolve those concerns about the nuclear issue then
relations between the two countries will return to normal." But resolution
of the concerns has not taken place.
In mid-1998 Australian Senator MacGibbon, "on behalf of the Joint Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade" presented "a report
entitled Australia's Trade Relationship with India (which) endorses the
efforts of the Australian Government in promoting Australia's trade and
commercial interests in India through a number of bilateral and
multilateral mechanisms." There was a small problem, acknowledged Senator
MacGibbon, in that "Two significant events occurred during the final
stages of the Committee's Inquiry which impact on the Australia-India
relationship.
The first was the election of a new government (in India) in March 1998.
The second was the five underground nuclear tests which India conducted in
May 1998." The Committee said no more about either India's government or
the five nuclear tests, but ended its statement with the recommendation
that "The Committee maintains that Australia must continue to develop its
links west and to build on its trade and investment relationship with
India." And that was that. Nothing about India having "the utmost
disregard for accepted international norms of behaviour," as Mr Downer put
it so forcefully only a few weeks before the Joint Committee produced its
report.
Then there was India's 'Draft Report of National Security Advisory Board
on Indian Nuclear Doctrine' of August 17, 1999. This paper was produced at
the direction of the Indian Government, and "outlines the broad principles
for the development, deployment, and employment of India's nuclear
forces." Following the Report there was not a peep out of the Australian
government, which wanted India to "forswear forever the use of nuclear
weapons."
Neither was there comment from Canberra when India's Atomic Energy
Commission chairman, Rajagopala Chidambaram, stated on October 30, 2000
that "India is now a nuclear weapon state." He went on to say that "The
five carefully planned and completely successful nuclear weapons tests at
Pokhran on May 11 and 13 1998, and confirmation of design yields by
seismic, radiochemical and other studies give us the capability to design
and fabricate weapons from low yield to around 200 kilotons. That was in
May 1998, and since then a great deal of scientific and technological
development has taken place." A search for comment from Mr Downer drew
blank. There was no Australian outrage concerning India's nuclear
ambitions as described so unequivocally by Dr Chidambaram. The Indian
nuclear weapons program is off the map, off the screen, has ceased to
exist, so far as Canberra is concerned, and the defence relationship is
being re-established enthusiastically, along with some lucrative contracts
for Australian industries.
Australia's efforts to encourage trade with a large and potentially rich
country are in its best economic interests. But, all the same, one wonders
about a government that can so easily ditch a principled stance without
justification, explanation, or alteration of circumstances. If India had
made just one concession, or even a modest gesture concerning its nuclear
weapons' programme, Australia's somersault would be understandable, at
least to some degree.
But Mr Downer demanded that India "must immediately sign the CTBT, join
the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, and forswear forever
the use of nuclear weapons," none of which was negotiable. Twenty months
later, without achieving any of his demands, Mr Downer has committed
Australia to a new and closer defence relationship with India, which seems
a strange way to "send a message to other nations that might be
considering the testing or development of nuclear weapons."
To put the cap on it, the new defence relationship begins a week after
India tested a nuclear-capable intermediate range ballistic missile. This
didn't upset Australia's foreign minister one little bit, but he got a jab
in at Pakistan, all the same. On January 18, when asked about defence
relations with Islamabad, he said there were no plans to re-establish
links because of "the overthrow of democracy." So Australia does not want
to have defence relations with countries that are not democracies. Fine.
That is a principled stance. When does it withdraw its defence
representatives from non-democracies such as Vietnam, China and Cambodia?
Consistency and principle do not seem to be the rule in Canberra.
The author is a commentator on political and military affairs.
From the 1990s onwards, a remarkable transformation in the terms of discourse in which the Kashmiri liberation struggle against Indian rule has sought to express itself may be clearly discerned. The early Kashmiri independence movement, whose roots go back to the uprising against the Dogra regime in the 1930s and then, after 1947, against Indian control, saw itself principally as a nationalist struggle. From the 1930s till 1947, the Kashmiri movement, under the charismatic Shaikh Muhammad Abdullah, aimed at challenging the autocratic rule of the Dogras and demanding a proper representation for the Kashmiri Muslims in the administration of the state. In 1947, most of Kashmir came under Indian rule, and from then onwards, the Kashmiri struggle assumed the form of a national liberation movement for an independent state.
As Abdullah’s charisma gradually declined, with the failure of his National Conference to meet the aspirations of the people and in preserving the autonomy of Kashmir, a new breed of Kashmiri nationalists, disillusioned with what they saw as Abdullah’s complicity with the Indian state, emerged. The leadership of the movement was provided by young Kashmiri Muslims who had received a modern education in the colleges that were set up in the region after 1947. Their principal demand was that India should fulfil its commitments to the United Nations and allow a plebiscite to be held in the territory to enable the people to decide their own political future. Challenging the legitimacy of Indian rule, these Kashmiri nationalists advocated an independent, secular democratic Jammu and Kashmir. The ideology informing their nationalist project was that of Kashmiriyat or ‘Kashmiri identity’, which they saw as a unique amalgam of traditions drawing upon local Muslim, Hindu and other sources. The Kashmiri nationalist project was spearheaded by several organisations and parties, the foremost being the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front [JKLF], established in 1964. The JKLF demanded that the state of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed prior to 1947 be united as ‘one fully independent and truly democratic state’. It advocated ‘equal political, economic, religious and social rights ’ for all citizens in the proposed state ‘irrespective of race, religion, region, culture and sex’.1
Parallel to the rise of the Kashmiri nationalists, Kashmir in the late 1930s also witnessed the emergence of an Islamist movement. The roots of the Islamist emergence can be traced to the reformist efforts of the Ahl-i-Hadith, established in Kashmir in 1925. The Ahl-i-Hadith saw themselves as inheritors of the legacy of the Prophet and his companions, crusading against Sufism, the dominant form of Islamic expression in Kashmir, branding it as unIslamic. Given the deep-rootedness of the Sufi tradition in Kashmir, the Ahl-i-Hadith singularly failed to develop a mass following. Rather, it remained, as it does even today, a largely elitist phenomenon, with its core support base among a limited section of the urban middle classes. The Ahl-i-Hadith-style of reformism did, however, provide fertile ground for the emergence of other Islamist trends from the 1930s onwards. Islamism in Kashmir found its most vocal champion in the Jama’at-i-Islami, established in 1941 by Sayyed Abul ‘Ala Maududi, and organised as an independent organisation and political party in Kashmir in 19522 [Kashmiri nd; 1984].
The Jama’at-i-Islami Jammu Kashmir [JIJK] remained, at least at the political level, a marginal force in Kashmir till the 1980s, but with the launching of the armed struggle in 1989 it has come to play a central role in Kashmiri politics. It has forcefully sought to present the armed struggle as a jihad between Islam and disbelief (‘kufr’), thereby challenging the Kashmiri nationalists’ definition of the struggle as one between the Kashmiri ‘nation’ and the Indian state. The Jama’at sees the struggle as a war between Muslims and others, and is bitterly critical of the notion of a separate Kashmiri national identity. Rather, it insists that the Kashmiris are simply a part of the worldwide Muslim ‘ummah’, not a nation by themselves, for, according to it, Islam and nationalism are incompatible with each other. Hence, it argues, the mission of the Kashmiri struggle is not to set up an independent state, which is what the nationalists’ project is all about, but to make Kashmir a part of Muslim Pakistan.
The JIJK’s efforts at restructuring the framework of discourse within which the Kashmiri struggle sought to express itself has, from the early 1990s, been given further impetus by the growing intervention in Kashmir of Islamist groups based in Pakistan. These groups tend to see the Kashmiri struggle not simply as a jihad between the Muslims of Kashmir and the Indian state, but in far wider terms: as a ‘holy war’ between the Muslims of the world, on the one hand, and the Hindus as an entire community, in league with other ‘disbelieving enemies of Islam’, on the other. In this grand battle, national and geographical barriers are completely demolished – all Muslims, wherever they may be, are seen as being responsible for contributing in some way or the other in this jihad. On the other hand, Hindus are seen as complicit in the oppression of the Kashmiri Muslims, and hence, considered as enemies. Interestingly, the Hindus are seen as being in league with other ‘enemies’ of the Muslim ummah – the Jews and the Christian West, against who, too, a jihad needs to be waged.
This paper looks at the process from the early 1990s onwards, in which the discursive framework within which the Kashmiri struggle has thus for operated has, undergone a dramatic transformation. It seeks to locate this struggle for discursive hegemony within the broader socio-political context to see how and why the Kashmiri nationalist discourse is increasingly giving way to an Islamist one, with the nationalist goal of a free Kashmir being marginalised in favour of the Islamist agenda of incorporating Kashmir into Pakistan and establishing an Islamic state there, as a prelude to and part of a wider, global project.
We start with a discussion of the way that the JIJK has sought to present its case for a jihad in Kashmir and the arguments it has used against the nationalists in putting forward its case for the accession of Kashmir with Pakistan. We then look to the role of Islamist groups based in Pakistan in further developing this argument, taking as a particular case the Lashkar-i-Taiba or the LIT (‘The Army of the Rigtheous’), the principal armed group active in Kashmir today.
The JIJK and the Kashmiri Jihad
The JIJK was established as an independent organisation in 1952, although from the late 1930s a growing number of Kashmiri Muslims had come under the influence of its founder, Maulana Maududi, principally through his powerful writings. The JIJK presented itself as an organisation committed to establishing an Islamic state in Kashmir based on the Islamic law, the shari’at, but using democratic means of peaceful persuasion for attaining its goals. This was stressed in its Constitution, adopted in 1953. Article 2 [b] of its Constitution states that, ‘The Jama’at shall not employ ways and means against ethics, truthfulness and honesty or which may contribute to strife on earth’. Article 2[c] of its Constitution lays down that, ‘The Jama’at shall use democratic and constitutional methods, while working for the reform and righteous revolution (Constitution of the Jama’at-i-Islami of Jammu and Kashmiri, nd).
Till the late 1960s, the JIJK sought to cultivate a constituency for itself through publishing and distributing literature, establishing reading-rooms and discussion groups, setting up a network of schools all over the state, and through public lectures. In 1969, for the first time, the JIJK decided to enter the electoral fray, by sponsoring a number of candidates for the local level (panchayati) elections which were held on a non-party basis. Apparently, it was felt that by remaining outside the sphere of electoral politics, it was being rendered increasingly ineffective. It was thought, therefore, that elections were ‘the best platform to popularise the message of the movement’ [Bisati 1997]. Later, the JIJK went on to participate in successive provincial as well as general elections as an independent political party. It failed, however, to win an impressive number of seats in any election, owing both to widespread rigging engineered by the Indian authorities as well as a definite lack of enthusiasm for the JIJK’s agenda on the part of the electorate.
The last time that the JIJK participated in the electoral field was in the 1987 elections, as part of the 11 party alliance, the Muslim Muttahida Mahaz (Muslim United Front or MUF), a group of several Kashmiri parties championing the right to political self-determination of the Kashmiri people. It was widely expected that the MUF would do well in the elections and might even be able to win a majority. However, these elections, like all the others previously held in Kashmir, were marked by massive rigging by the Indian authorities, as a result of which only four MUF candidates were officially declared elected. The election results met with an upsurge of rage and opposition, with mass demonstrations being held against the Indian state for subverting the democratic process. Then, in 1988, having tired of the democratic path of seeking to win the right to self-determination, an armed struggle for the liberation of Kashmir from Indian rule was launched. Two massive bomb blasts in the heart of Srinagar, the capital of the state, on July 31,1989 heralded the launching of the armed struggle. The JKLF claimed responsibility for the act.3
The armed struggle launched by the JKLF for the independence of Kashmir found mass support among Kashmiri Muslims, disillusioned as they were with Indian rule and with the subversion of democratic institutions in Kashmir. The MUF initially hesitated in joining the armed struggle, directing its four representatives within the state assembly, including Sayyed Ali Gilani, chief ideologue of the JIJK, to retain their seats so as to be able to air the grievances of the people. However, the rising tide of the JKLF-led struggle soon proved too much for the MUF high command to ignore, and in 1989, it instructed its members in the assembly to resign and to join the struggle. The JIJK now decided to fully immerse itself in the militant movement, and in 1990 it set up its own militant wing, the Hizb-ul Mujahidin (HM) (‘The Army of the Holy Warriors’).
Given the JKLF’s immense popularity among the Kashmiri Muslims, and the mass support for its goal of an independent, democratic and secular Jammu and Kashmir, the JIJK and the HM had to struggle against great odds in putting forward their own agenda of making Kashmir part of Pakistan and establishing an Islamic state in the region. One of the major hurdles that the JIJK had to face in expanding its base beyond a narrow circle of lower-middle class sympathisers was its perceived attitude towards the popular local Sufi Islamic traditions. The JIJK, rooted as it was in a fierce opposition to popular Sufism, was seen by many Kashmiris as opposed to those Sufi saints whom they held in great respect and despite its efforts to convince people that this was not the case, the JIJK was unable to dispel the notion. Since Sufism is still the dominant form of Islamic expression in Kashmir, this was seen by many as hostility towards Islam itself. Further making the JIJK’s project more difficult for itself was the fact that although most Kashmiri Muslims were certainly disillusioned with India, it is unlikely that a majority of them would have preferred to join Pakistan instead, as the JIJK and HM advocated. To make matters even more intractable for the Islamists, was the reign of terror unleashed by the Indian armed forces, resulting in the killings of many thousand Kashmiri Muslims, among whom were several known Islamist activists and sympathisers.
Despite the immense odds that the Islamists had to contend with, from both the Kashmiri nationalists as well as the Indian armed forces, they strove, through publications, mass meetings, public rallies and the work of their activists, to convince the Kashmiris that the solution to the crisis lay in the project that they were advocating – a counter to both Indian occupation and demands for independent nationhood. In this manner, a shift was sought to be made in the terms within which the liberation struggle was being waged. Islam, not Kashmiriyat, and accession to Pakistan, not an independent Kashmir, were now presented as solutions to the Kashmir question. Such arguments now began to exercise a broader appeal, especially with the rise of militant anti-Muslim Hindu groups in India, and the subsequent large-scale killings of Muslims in the wake of the destruction of the Babri mosque in 1992. Indeed, the growing popularity of the Islamists in Kashmir and the consequent marginalisation of the Kashmiri nationalists, has much to do with the rapid spread of the Hindutva forces in India. The very real dangers that the rise of Hindutva posed to Muslim lives and identity in India, and to the Muslims of Kashmir as well, made the argument more convincing that the struggle being waged in Kashmir was one between kufr and Islam.
The Islamist re-working of the discursive framework in which the Kashmiri struggle has sought to express itself is well illustrated in the writings of Sayyed Ali Shah Gilani. Gilani has held many top positions in the JIJK and is presently the chief political spokesman of the party, besides being the current chairman of the All-Parties’ Hurriyat Conference, an alliance of 34 Kashmiri Muslim parties and organisations fighting for Kashmir’s freedom from Indian control. He is, by far, one of the most senior Kashmiri political leaders and also has the distinction of being the most prolific writer among them all.
Gilani’s major writings all date to the 1990s, a period when the JIJK had immersed itself in the armed struggle, in which Gilani himself played a key role, and for which he was forced to spend several years in various jails. Not surprisingly, Gilani’s writings focus almost solely on the issue of Kashmir’s freedom from Indian control. He devotes little attention in his writings to Islamic law, theology and doctrines, for being an ideologue of the JIJK he takes Maududi’s voluminous writings on these subjects as authoritative. Gilani’s concern is to place the Kashmiri struggle within the Islamist discursive framework. Thus, the struggle is depicted as a jihad, the goal of which is the merger of Kashmir with Pakistan and the establishing of an Islamic state in the region. As we shall see later, Gilani’s understanding of the struggle differs at some crucial points with the views of the Pakistan-based jihadist outfits, being considerably less radical.
Three features are of particular importance in Gilani’s description of the jihad. Firstly, the jihad is seen as directed against the Indian state and its agents, not against Hindus or Indians as such. Secondly, the jihad has the limited goal of freeing Kashmir from Indian control. Thirdly, the mujihadin have no intention of intervening in Indian internal affairs after the liberation of Kashmir. Once the Kashmir issue is solved by freeing the territory from Indian control and merging it with Pakistan, India and Pakistan, Gilani writes, will be able to establish peaceful and cordial relations with each other, for the root cause of the tensions between the two countries is the dispute over the issue of Kashmir.
Gilani sees the armed struggle being waged in Kashmir not as a war of national liberation, but as a jihad between Islam, on the one hand, and the forces of kufr or disbelief, on the other. He argues that a combination of various developments –India’s denial to the Kashmiris of their right to self-determination; its brutal suppression of the Kashmiri struggle which has resulted in the deaths of many thousand Kashmiris, and the rapid rise in India of anti-Muslim Hindu chauvinism – have necessitated the launching of a jihad against India. He writes that the Indian state has, by its actions, ‘proved its extreme hostility towards the religious and moral sensibilities (of the Muslims) and the tenets of Islam’. ‘Wherever and whenever the laws of Islam are held out for insult and the religious rights (of the Muslims) are trampled upon’, he says, ‘jihad becomes a binding obligation (farz) for all Muslims’. Such a situation, he says, prevails in Kashmir, and hence the call for a jihad to be waged there [Gilani 1993]. This jihad, he stresses, calls for the participation of all Muslims, not just Kashmiris. In a telephonic interview in 1992 with a Lahore-based journalist soon after his release from a long spell in prison, Gilani declared:
It has now become incumbent, in the light of the teachings of the Holy Qur’an, upon all the people of Pakistan to participate in the (Kashmir) jihad. They should now stand up determinedly and assist their Kashmiri brethren in the practical (‘amali’) jihad. This jihad is a religious duty (farz) binding not only on the people of Pakistan, but, in fact, on the entire Muslim ummat...The extreme oppression that the Kashmiri Muslims are having to face is an open challenge for the entire Muslim ummat. All Muslims must now move ahead, help the oppressed Muslims [of Kashmir] and stop the hands of the oppressors. |
Emotional slogans such as ‘Crush India!’ are neither realistic nor do they reflect the spirit of Islam. At root, Islam is based on invitation to prosperity, witness to the truth, salvation in the hereafter, protection of the truth, the ending of every form of oppression and creating understanding between all children of Adam. This, indeed, is the message of the life of the Prophet Muhammad [May peace be upon him!]. Even when the people of Ta’if unleashed a wave of unlimited oppression on the Prophet of Islam [May peace be upon him!], he did not pray to God that they should be destroyed but that He should guide them [to the right path]. This is why I believe our struggle should be geared to gaining our rights...The slogan of Islam is not one of destruction but of invitation [to the Truth], prosperity, peace and truth [Gilani 1992:227]. |
To advocate that one Muslim group [qaum] be kept apart from the rest would be against the very definition of a people (‘millat’), whose communal identity is based only on one creed (‘kalima tayyiba’),4 especially so when that group shares common ideological, cultural and communal relations with a neighbouring (Muslim) group as well as a common border...For such a group to maintain a separate political identity of its own is against the broader interests of the entire Muslim millat. |
Every president takes office believing he can set the foreign policy
agenda for his administration, only to discover that a major portion of
that agenda has already been set by the world.
The crises of the world do not take a time-out for a new American leader.
President Clinton arrived hoping to focus on domestic issues, but was
immediately faced by crises in places like Somalia, Haiti and Taiwan,
along with hardy perennials like Russia and the Middle East.
President-elect George W. Bush was confronted by the killing of the
president of Congo this week, and might see the election of a hawkish
prime minister in Israel and the crumbling of the peace accord in Northern
Ireland in his first month in office. Further down the line, Mr. Bush's
enthusiasm for a missile-defense system is certain to generate fierce
opposition in Europe and in Russia.
Much has been said, too, about Mr. Bush's inheriting the problem of Saddam
Hussein, the Iraqi strongman against whom his father went to war, but whom
he left in power. In recent years, Washington's focus has been on simply
keeping sanctions against Iraq in force over growing opposition,
especially from Russia and France.
In Asia, the first big decision, due in April, will be whether to sell
destroyers, advanced weapons and radar systems to Taiwan -- a decision
that could prompt China to respond by accelerating its own military
buildup.
Beyond that a host of other challenges, large and small, will vie quickly
for American attention. What follows is a tour of those likely to prove
most urgent.
Mr. Bush can expect a roller-coaster ride through the beautiful Himalayan
region of Kashmir to the north of both India and Pakistan, a jeweled crown
on two inseparable heads.
For a half century, both nations have claimed this land as their own and
fought each other repeatedly to prove their seriousness. Nuclear weapons
are now part of the picture, prompting President Clinton to call the
region "the most dangerous place in the world."
Right now, India and Pakistan seem in a rare conciliatory mood, moving
slowly toward informal talks about when they might have a more formal
conversation. But the mutual distrust is so overwhelming that the
roller-coaster can jump the tracks at any turn. Indeed, when they last
talked, Pakistan was simultaneously planning a major incursion into the
mountains above a vital Indian supply route.
Mr. Clinton interceded then, pointing the Pakistanis toward a face-saving
retreat.
Interventions by Mr. Bush will undoubtedly be necessary and that may be
tricky. The Indians can be prickly about what they believe to be strictly
a bilateral matter. Recently, though, they have seemed open to
Washington's maneuvering in the background -- so long as it involves
pressuring the Pakistanis and is done with the utmost discretion.
Mr. Bush will be tempted time and again to play peacemaker. India and
Pakistan are in a nuclear-arms race, though as both are impoverished and
new to the competition, the race is more of a mosey than a sprint. America
will require great effort to merely slow the development of bigger bombs
of bigger and missiles of greater endurance.
ISLAMABAD, JAN. 19. Pakistan has completed preparation for the flight test
of Shaheen II and Haider I and is in a position to conduct tests at 24
hours notice in response to the Agni-II test carried out by India.
A report in Jasarat, mouthpiece of the Jamaat-e-Islami, has said both the
missiles are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. While Shaheen-II could
match the 2,500 km range of the Agni-II tested by India on Thursday,
Haider-I has a range of 350 km.
IT's good that the guns have fallen silent along the LoC. Good too if there
is less aimless shelling on the Siachen Glacier which surely must be the
most foolish battlefield in the world.
It will be a good sign if Hurriyat leaders come to Pakistan and hold
talks with officials here and with the leaders of the so-called jihadi
organizations. But this flurry of activity should fool no one. None of it
will or can lead to a Camp David on Kashmir.
The choice in Kashmir is not between peace and war. Never was except when
impulsiveness drove Pakistan into unwinnable wars. The choice is between
no-peace and no-war. This was the situation obtaining till 1989 when the
Kashmiri people rose in revolt against India. If the current moves lead
anywhere the best that can be hoped for is a return to the pre-1989
situation, with the Kashmir problem as unresolved as it is today but with a
modicum of calm returning to the Kashmir Valley. India clearly stands to
gain from this process. What its army in Kashmir has been unable to win its
diplomatic overtures will achieve.
The question is: will the end of militancy be to Pakistan's advantage? In
other words, what is Pakistan hoping to achieve from the current illusion
of progress? Surely not a final settlement of the Kashmir dispute. There is
no shortage of fools in what passes for the Pakistani establishment -
otherwise we would not be in the mess we are - but no one can be so foolish
as to think that given goodwill and whatnot (the usual claptrap of weak or
confused diplomacy), a final settlement of Kashmir is around the corner or
is even a realistic proposition. India will never accept that and Pakistan
is not in a position to change this.
So the next question is should Pakistan still be interested in the current
moves knowing that, apart from clearing the atmosphere (a good enough thing
in itself) and dampening the spirit of jihad, these can bear no other
fruit? The answer to this question is a harsh one: even if Pakistan knows
that India is beating about the bush and has no interest in a just solution
of the Kashmir dispute, it should still go for the illusion of peace
because no other choice lies before it.
The stark truth is that jihad (a term being used loosely here) has no
future in Kashmir. This is a harsh thing to say given the blood spilt and
the sacrifices rendered but, unfortunately, all too true. A continuation of
the insurgency can bleed India, as it has done with creditable results over
the past decade, damage Indian prestige and keep the Valley unsettled. But
it cannot secure the liberation of the state. This much should be clear
from the history of the last 53 years. What the Pakistan army has failed to
secure in full-fledged battle the jihadis cannot hope to achieve with their
hit-and-run tactics.
The jihadi organizations have their strengths - otherwise the Indian army
would have crushed them a long time ago - but they also have their
weaknesses. Much like the Afghan resistance they lack unity and have no
central political organization. But this is not the point. Even if these
weaknesses were overcome there would still be no military solution to the
Kashmir problem.
It is also facile to think that jihad in Kashmir will bring India to the
negotiating table. India has always been prepared for talks on peripheral
issues, talks lacking substance and skirting the Kashmir issue. From the
current moves what we are likely to get at the most is more of the same -
another round of inconsequential talks, whether at the level of foreign
secretaries or, given luck, at a higher level. Surely the purpose of jihad
cannot be to secure such exercises in futility.
Pakistan's predicament, however, is altogether different. Far from
achieving anything, the jihadi line is creating problems for Pakistan at
home. Look, what we reaped in Afghanistan. Unwittingly and for small gains,
we entered that conflict holding on to the coattails of the United States.
For the US Afghanistan is a distant memory while for us it is a damaging
reality casting long shadows on our national existence.
Was it for drugs, guns and unwanted refugees that we fought that jihad?
What is more, involvement in that conflict nurtured the seeds of religious
militancy. The creed propounded in the seminaries which now dot the land,
and whose growth is one consequence of that jihad, may not lead to the
green banner of Islam flying over Chechnya or the Central Asian republics
but it has contributed to the spread of intolerance and bigotry within
Pakistan. Democracy already was a weak sapling. Now it must compete for
survival with more noxious weeds.
Much the same fallout can be detected with regard to Kashmir. The jihadi
organizations, exemplars of great sacrifice (let us never forget this),
cannot wrest Kashmir from Indian hands but their growing presence is
colouring the political waters in Pakistan. The political parties stand
discredited. The army is in the process of discrediting itself. The
religious parties think they alone remain to be tested and that their hour
has arrived. In elections, it is true, they stand no chance. But elections
will be of consequence if democracy returns, not as long as it is banished
and treated as a soiled commodity. Besides, the consciousness of armed
strength (for many of the religious parties have their armed cadres) lends
added strength and confidence to their voices. Is there anything more
dangerous than soldiers returning from a war, especially a lost war? On
whom will they turn their guns and anger?
Looking carefully we might just see that it is not India which is making
any concessions but Pakistan which is trying to wash away the stigma of
"cross-border terrorism" and undo the larger damage wrought by the folly of
Kargil. Because of Kargil we painted ourselves as irresponsible. Now we are
trying extra hard to prove our peaceful intentions. This has been the
history of Pakistan: plunging into adventures and then trying to recover
from the consequences. One step forward, several back.
As long as the Kashmir insurgency was largely a home-grown affair the
advantage was ours and the odium India's. But then in a replay of
Afghanistan we had to bring the Kashmiri resistance under the wings of the
ISI, which meant that the Pakistan-based jihadi organizations began
overshadowing the Kashmiri element. Added to this was the national
inability to keep a low profile when circumstances so dictated. Just as Dr
A. Q. Khan has never been able to resist the spotlights, none of the jihadi
organizations has been able to stop itself from proclaiming its deep
involvement in Kashmir.
Thus what should have remained a Kashmiri affair became a Pakistani
headache, with the international community less willing to put faith in
Pakistan's protestations of innocence. Other countries handle these things
with greater discretion. Syria never made a tamasha out of its support for
the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Somehow such subtlety has always seemed beyond
us. Then, of course, came the brilliance of Kargil which overnight
transformed the oppressor (India) into the aggrieved party.
Anyhow, the damage having been done what remains is to salvage something
>from the debris. But to repeat the earlier point, the shadow-boxing now on
display will lead to nothing. After all, since when did losers in every
sphere win victories at the negotiating table? Even so, Pakistan must grasp
the only thing on offer, the illusion of peace, and pretend that a great
diplomatic opportunity awaits it if only to turn its gaze inwards and fight
the jihads within that are clamouring to be fought.
Shouldn't we first put our house in order? We cannot make ends meet and
yet must play with lordly ambitions - nuclear status, missiles and a lot of
pretentious stuff which passes for foreign policy. Our ambitions are not
grandiose but foolish, with no connection to reality. Let us manage our own
affairs better. Let us strive to achieve political stability. Let us invest
a bit more in education and address the causes of our backwardness. Then
with what remains let us fight more distant battles.
This does not mean we give up on Kashmir. Nor does it mean we kowtow to
anyone. May the mountains come to the sea before we do that. Did China give
up its claim to Hong Kong? Has it changed its policy towards Taiwan? We too
must stick to what we believe in while at the same time keeping our feet on
the ground and recognizing that being aware of one's limitations is no
weakness and being driven by false pretensions no sign of strength.
But for this to happen the redoubts of the old thinking - the thinking
born of the Afghan involvement - must be assaulted. Within the Pakistani
establishment there are powerful elements which still subscribe to the
Hamid Gul and Maulana Samiul Haq schools of foreign policy nonsense. Unless
these elements are reduced to their proper places not much hope can be
entertained of the scales falling from our eyes.
WHERE Pakistan-India relations are concerned, nothing is ever simple or
straightforward. This is doubly true when contentious and long-standing
issues such as Kashmir are involved. The recent spate of developments on
the Kashmir front has given rise to hopes that an end to this conflict may
be finally in sight. These hopes are dogged at every step of the way,
though, by obstacles and hurdles.
The obstacles and hurdles owe a great deal to the past. Amongst them may
be included the mindsets that evolved during and after the independence
struggle and partition, the actual movement of history since, including
three wars, the last of which removed East Pakistan from the map and saw it
reborn as Bangladesh. Since 1989, the uprising in Kashmir has added fresh
fuel to the fire. Relations between the two South Asian neighbours,
traditionally rivals at loggerheads, briefly glimpsed the chimera of
normalization when Mr Vajpayee journeyed to Lahore. The more optimistic
amongst us thought that Pakistan and India had turned the corner, only to
taste the bitter fruit of Kargil soon thereafter, which proved the corner
that we thought we had turned led in fact to a cul-de-sac.
Nawaz Sharif was guilty of many sins, but it cannot be denied that his
policy on India was a departure from the traditional pattern, irrespective
of his motives, material interests or other factors. This departure in
policy proved difficult for the military to digest. After all, the military
and bureaucratic establishment's investment in the Kashmir posture over the
years is considerable. Some contend it has grown into a vested interest, in
which the budgetary and political turf cornered by this establishment
thereby, is fiercely protected at any cost and against all comers. The
inherent merit of the Kashmiri people's right to self-determination aside,
for the establishment the Kashmir policy has acquired the dimensions of a
control mechanism for pre-determining the national political agenda.
The crisis of management and legitimacy that has overtaken all else in the
life of the country has compelled even the establishment to come to terms
with Pakistan's external and internal vulnerabilities. Whether this is a
genuine change of heart in the direction of normalization through a
compromise solution on Kashmir (the maximalist position resting on the UN
resolutions having long passed its sell-by date), or is simply a tactical
position to allay the international pressures on the military regime, is a
question that can only be decided by time. There is no ignoring, despite
the apparent unanimity of the ruling military junta on the peace campaign
launched by the present regime that hawks and hardliners are to be found in
equal strenth as pragmatists within the military's top brass.
On the other side of the subcontinental divide, Mr Vajpayee has sought a
settlement of the Kashmir issue based on maintaining the status quo, with
the sweetener being concessions to the long-denied political and democratic
rights of the Kashmiri people in Indian-held Kashmir. Mr Vajpayee's policy
is by no means unanimously accepted without reservations by the hardliners
in his own government and the Indian establishment. Witness the foot
dragging on issuing passports to the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC)
delegation coming to Pakistan for talks with our government and the
Mujahideen groups here.
What we are seeing currently is jockeying for space by the various actors
in the emerging scenario of a possible slight from the battlefield to the
negotiating table. The APHC initiative threatens to leave the Kashmiri
Mujahideen out in the political cold. It comes as no surprise, therefore,
that the latter are asserting themselves through force of arms to register
their claim to speak for the people of Kashmir. The attacks on a militaray
camp in the Red Fort in Delhi, the storming of the Srinagar airport by the
Lashkar-i-Tiyyaba, and the attempted assassination of Farooq Abdullah by
the Hizbul Mujahideen need to be located within this framework. These
spectacular actions are the most recent and pointed efforts in a Mujahideen
campaign of challenging the Indian hold in Kashmir. That campaign has
included in the past as well as lately targeting of the ruling National
Conference party leaders in Indian-held Kashmir.
The result of the current string of attacks on high-profile targets, human
and material, is that the Vajpayee government has started to make noises
about reviewing its stance on the peace initiative, including the extension
of the ceasefire in Kashmir for the duration of Ramazan and then extended
for another month. It is not clear at present what impact, if any, the
review may have on the APHC delegation's visit, or on the trial balloons
being floated on both sides of the divide for visits by Indian External
Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh to Pakistan, and by General Pervez Musharraf
to India.
The peace process, therefore, is subject to stresses and strains because
of the discrete and conflicting protagonists involved in the Kashmir
conundrum. On both sides of the border, pro-settlement and anti-settlement
forces are found to be vying for their own prescriptions of how to
'resolve' the Kashmir question becoming the basis of official policy.
On our side, the pro-settlement forces include a section of the top brass
of the military (whether from purely tactical or strategic motives) and
civil society at large. The latter has been a relatively weak voice so far
on the issue, but there are sufficient indications that public sentiment is
veering round to a political solution in order for the two countries to
leave the legacy of bitterness and confrontation behind. The opponents of
any settlement short of the maximum, i.e. the exercise of the right of
self-determination, circumscribed according to the UN resolutions to a
choice between becoming part of Pakistan or India on a permanent basis,
include the hardline establishment, the Kashmiri Mujahideen groups and
Pakistani religious parties that support them, as well as a traditional
right-wing nationalist opinion.
In a mirror image of the spectrum on our side, in India we find Mr
Vajpayee and his National Security establishment prepared to explore a
settlement, although within the parameters of the status quo. Civil society
in India also remains a weak voice on the issue, although in recent years
the chorus of critics has grown. At the opposite end of the scale can be
found hardliners such as Mr Advani, the Hindutva forces, and India's own
version of traditional nationalism.
Factors helping the peace process are the realization of the Pakistani
establishment that the strategy of maximum demands is reaping diminishing
returns because of the change in the international climate, which Pakistan
cannot afford to ignore for long, given its precarious state at the moment.
When a maximum position becomes unattainable, at least in the foreseeable
future, wise leaders seek the minimum possible as a way forward from a
debilitating situation of being frozen into old postures that may have been
overtaken by time and events.
India's great power ambitions have persuaded at least a section of their
establishment that the 'irritant' of Kashmir has to be settled somehow, in
order for those ambitions to find a resonance in the international
community. An 'internal' political settlement is the preferred course for
New Delhi, but the necessity to engage Pakistan and actors other than the
relatively moderate APHC inside Kashmir have not been ruled out
categorically.
Decades of mutual distrust and suspicion of each other's motives and
intentions retard progress in the peace process. The twists and turns being
experienced in getting even the minimum initiatives, such as the APHC
visit, off the ground, should come as no surprise therefore. India can draw
some comfort, despite the pain of the recent Mujahideen raids and attacks,
from the fact that the APHC and the Mujahideen appear to have drifted apart
since the APHC delegation's visit to Pakistan was mooted.
Within the Mujahideen ranks too, close rivalry for assuming the central
role in the next phase of the struggle, including the negotiations process,
is reflected in the spiralling of attacks on high-profile targets, which
are expected to yield the maximum in publicity, even though they may be an
operational failure.
With all these odds from history and the current phase of the struggle
stacked against the peace process, what chance does it have to survive for
long and acquire a momentum? Only factors and elements that are hidden from
view may be the determinants. One can speculate that these include the
efforts of the great powers to see a settlement of the Kashmir issue in our
times. Their interest is largely economic, since the multinationals are
licking their chops at the prospect of the potentially huge South Asian
market opening up to their investments and products.
That is not a prospect that is necessarily anathema to the over one
billion people of South Asia. Pakistan in particular can look forward to
the dividends of peace. We may succeed thereby in turning the corner from
crisis to stability, provided, of course, unlike in the past, the people of
Pakistan are given their due share in the division of the loaves and fish.
Bilaterally, despite the gloominess that pervades at the moment as setback
after setback is encountered, at least theoretically both sides seem have
accepted that there is a logic to what can only be termed a historic
compromise. However, recognition of the logic is one thing, settling the
terms on which a sustainable solution can be founded quite another.
Religio-political forces in Pakistan, which have been molly-coddled by
civilian and military governments since the time of General Zia ul Haq,
constitute a double-edged weapon. On the one hand, they are propped up as
an integral element of a "national security strategy" devised to secure
some sort of military advantage in Afghanistan and political leverage in
Kashmir. On the other, they are visible threats to the fabric of democratic
government and civil society in the country. In fact, as the world recoils
from an image of Pakistan wrought by such gun-toting fundamentalists bent
on waging jehad against the West, the price of this dubious state strategy
becomes prohibitive.
Nothing demonstrates this more forcefully than the increasingly
threatening postures adopted by some such elements. Certainly, it is
questionable whether the Jamaat i Islami is within its constitutional
rights to exhort the corps commanders of the Pakistan Army to remove the
COAS from office (in effect, stage a coup d'etat). Worse, nothing
undermines the efficacy of the state or erodes the writ of law than a
policy of "selective appeasement" as demonstrated by a meeting between the
Lahore Corps Commander and the leader of the Jamaat i Islami on this issue.
Other worrying examples abound. Alarmed by the spectre of JI and other
religio-political activists rampaging on the streets, the government was
quick to backtrack on procedural modifications to the controversial
blasphemy law, in the process losing considerable credibility at home and
abroad. Yet when some minority and human rights organisations decided to
march peacefully in Karachi the other day against the excesses of such laws
and the injustice of the separate-electorate system, the police was ordered
to beat them black and blue and arrest them in the scores. If the first was
an act of capitulation disguised as a "tactical retreat" ("we don't want to
open unnecessary fronts"), the second was a manifestation of might against
right in defense of a dubious "law" and a non-existent "order".
Equally illuminating was the government's response to a threat by another
religio-political group - the Tanzimul Akhwan - to march on Islamabad and
demand the enforcement of shariah. The groveling attitude of the officials
who met with the leaders of this group, including a federal minister, and
promised all manner of concessions to them confirms our fears just as much
as it raises their hopes - demand a mile and you will be a given a yard;
and every yard is another step along the route to capturing state power.
Therefore we are not at all surprised that the interior minister, Gen
(retd) Moinuddin Haider, was told to buzz off when he ever-so-gently chided
the bearded ensemble at Akora Khattak not to perpetuate a negative or bad
image of Pakistan.
General Moinuddin Haider, like his boss General Pervez Musharraf, is among
the best faces of this regime. Both are temperate and pragmatic persons,
who prefer not to speak with forked tongues even when real politik demands
otherwise. Indeed, one of their strengths is their ability to project a
degree of sincerity or compulsion in what they do or don't do. That,
however, is precisely why they are not hot favourites with the likes of
Qazi Hussain Ahmad or Maulana Sami-ul-Haq. But the issue here is not one of
personalities. It is one of approach. If the military establishment, of
which both Generals are card-carrying members, is so dependent on
religio-political groups for its long-term (this is the critical factor)
foreign policy agendas in the neighbourhood, why should it clamp down on
its allies at anyone's insistence or instigation? The fundos know this and
have time and again shown an inclination to exploit this factor to the
hilt. Indeed, that is why it is increasingly looking like a case of the
tail wagging the dog rather than the other way round.
This could have adverse short-term consequences for national security
apart from the insidious longer-term damage to state and society. A case in
point relates to the peace process initiated by New Delhi with the backing
of the United States. We do not know whether India is sincere or whether it
is posturing. But one thing is already clear: whichever side is perceived
to sabotage the process by adopting an unduly intransigent attitude at any
stage of the game will be condemned in the corridors of power all over the
world. Thus aggressive posturing for maximum negotiating strength by either
side is fraught with risk. In India's case, a denial of visas to the
Kashmiri leaders or a continuing refusal to agree to a meeting between its
prime minister and the Pakistani chief executive, without sufficiently
valid or palatable reasons, would hurt its cause. In Pakistan's case,
diminishing returns are bound to set in if suicide attacks by the
Mujahideen continue on key military or civilian targets in India, thereby
giving India a good excuse to abandon the peace process and hold Pakistan
responsible for its breakdown. Thus the link between the Pakistani state
and religio-political elements could spell trouble for the country on more
than one count if it is not firmly calibrated. The moot question is whether
Islamabad has the will and ability to do that.
Strategists in Pakistan invariably argue against the concept of
no-first-use (NFU) of nuclear weapons. Extrapolating from NATO's policy of
first-use of nuclear weapons against the Warsaw Pact forces during the cold
war they point out that given Pakistan's conventional inferiority vis-à-vis
India, agreement on NFU would degrade the deterrent value of Pakistan's
nuclear capability. Instead, they offer a no-war-pact (NWP) to India.
India rejects the NWP and insists on NFU as a viable confidence-building
measure. It first proposed NFU to Pakistan in 1994. Pakistan dismissed the
offer, saying it did not have nuclear-weapons capability and therefore
could not talk about NFU. India invoked the offer again in May and then in
October 1998 after the two countries had tested nuclear weapons. Pakistan
refused to be drawn into the NFU "trap". The two sides have therefore made
no headway on the issues of NFU and NWP. That the offers on both sides,
despite being couched in strategic terms, are nothing more than political
gimmickry is evident from the fact that both have refused to spell out in
detail what they mean by NWP and NFU.
Essentially, Pakistan's NWP offer is a ploy to get India to agree to
no-war in conventional terms while keeping open the option of bleeding
India through low intensity conflict (LIC). India's NFU offer, basically,
is meant to deprive Pakistan of the use of nuclear weapons first into a
conflict irrespective of whether the latter's core interests are threatened
by conventional or nuclear means. However, unless the two sides wish to
remain consistently mutually exclusive, there is need to take an integrated
rather than a piecemeal approach on the two offers.
First, any discussion on nuclear capability is automatically pegged to the
idea of deterrence. Therefore, the argument that NFU would undermine
Pakistan's deterrent capability is itself considered the clinching argument
against NFU. This is simplistic. For a start, strategists continue to
disagree on what is meant by deterrence and, by extension, what kind of
capability would deter the adversary. From the "winnable" nuclear wars in
the fifties to mutual vulnerability of later years to the idea of
anti-missile defence, the deterrence paradigm has gone through various
phases.
However, taking mutual vulnerability as the benchmark of deterrence, one
could argue that those who disbelieve in NFU and rely on NATO's cold war
strategy should also be clearly arguing in favour of more tests, overt
deployment and putting in place elaborate command, control, communication
and intelligence systems. They should also spell out clearly the costs
involved in moving from developing the bomb to improving and deploying it.
If they are prepared to extrapolate from NATO's strategy, they should also
extrapolate from the costs that the US incurred and for which the figures
are now available. India and Pakistan have so far eschewed that option. In
fact, under a serious NFU commitment, that situation could be made to work
in their favour for movement on nuclear- and war-risk reduction.
The second argument relates to whether nuclear-armed adversaries are more
concerned about non-crisis stability or accidental-war stability. It is
thought that while first-use helps increase non-crisis stability, it
decreases accidental-war stability. By the same logic, NFU is thought to do
the reverse. The argument tends to look at the two concepts as mutually
exclusive. This is owed to a simple reason: the reasoning presupposes that
the relationship between the adversaries will remain constant in negative
terms and therefore to avoid a conflict it is better to settle for
non-crisis stability than accidental-war stability.
In the case of India and Pakistan, crisis stability at both ends of the
spectrum can be a dicey proposition with or without nuclear weapons. It is
within a certain political context that Pakistan looks at its capability in
terms of allowing it to fight low intensity conflicts and India dismisses
an NWP because it still thinks it could take out Pakistani capability in an
overwhelming conventional attack or pre-emptive strike. The situation is
made more dangerous by the introduction of weapons of mass destruction.
This is also why overt deployment of nuclear weapons may not increase
stability in the region, especially if no movement is made to qualitatively
change the political context that informs India-Pakistan's relations.
Moreover, unlike the superpowers, the two countries are geographically
contiguous and cannot test each other out through proxies across the globe.
In their case, the only region is Kashmir. Kargil bears that out.
Interestingly, while the NFU-NWP arguments are trotted out to serve
political purposes, the capability itself is only looked at in military
terms. The fact, however, remains that competition exists within a
political context and that political context can be made to undergo change.
This fact is sacrificed at the altar of pure military strategy.
The third argument - it is somewhat surprising that proponents of
first-use in Pakistan have so far not used this - relates to whether NFU is
operationally feasible. Going by the cold war experience it is not. While
NATO was committed openly to first-use, the Warsaw Pact was committed to
NFU. Yet, new information from the SED (Socialist Unity Party of East
Germany) archives indicates the Warsaw Pact's operational plans called for
the use of nuclear and chemical weapons at the onset of hostilities even if
NATO forces were using only conventional weapons. Extrapolating from this,
western strategists have concluded that NFU only constitutes a declaratory
posture and has no operational significance.
This argument, however, misses the essential point about NFU. Forces
employed in launch-on-warning (LOW) role cannot remain committed to NFU.
While it is now known that WP was more alive to central control of nuclear
weapons and configured its forces on that basis, it was nevertheless
disposed to LOW strategy. Therefore, the right inference from the SED
archives should have been that a force configured for quick-reaction
posture could not remain operationally committed to NFU.
Finally, a better approach to NFU, making it operationally feasible, would
be to look at the Chinese case. "China has long had an NFU policy. Li Bin,
a Chinese expert, argues that one can identify a serious NFU commitment
through a number of factors, most notably (1) the size of the nuclear
force; (2) the composition of that force; (3) the number of warheads on
each missile; and (4) the accuracy of nuclear weapons. China's ICBM
force....is not set up for a preemptive strike or first-use or even for
launch-on-warning or launch-under-attack. China has chosen a force which
may take hours if not days to get ready for launch."
China's example makes clear that NFU can be made to work operationally.
Importantly, Chinese force does not work under the constraints of
quick-reaction posture, which would have made it impossible for it to
remain committed to NFU. But it should be equally clear that the
operational viability of the commitment must be made transparent and
verifiable. If India is serious about its NFU offer to Pakistan it must
raise its salience from being a merely declaratory policy to an
operationally tenable one.
The irony here, however, is that while Pakistani analysts refuse to accept
India's offer on the grounds that it would degrade Pakistan's deterrent
capability, they go on to point out that NFU is a policy which countries
are willing to abide by only in peace time. Clearly, the argument should
either be predicated on the former or the latter premise because if it is a
commitment that would not be respected during war then it makes no sense to
think that Pakistan would abide by its commitment even after its core
interests have been threatened. Making the argument that NFU is something
carved in stone and capable of degrading Pakistan's capability and then
arguing that it is an unworkable concept is taking a contradictory
position.
The idea should be to take an integrated approach on the issue. If India
is indeed serious in making the offer Pakistan should explore the prospects
further. For instance, India could be asked to give verifiable guarantees
that it would not augment the size, sophistication and readiness of its
arsenal. It should agree to conventional force reductions and altered force
disposition through redeployment and accept a linkage of its NFU offer with
Pakistan's NWP offer.
If India is prepared to take these steps as part of an integrated approach
towards nuclear risk-reduction, besides improving the political context in
which the conflict has evolved, there should be no reason for Pakistan to
perceive the concept as shorn of operational significance. Contrarily, if
Pakistan's serious approach on the issue serves to highlight India's
political gimmickry, then it would deprive India, once and for all, of the
moral high-ground it seeks to occupy by extending the offer.
This approach would also take care of any effort on India's part to push
Pakistan into developing second-strike capability, raising for it the costs
of the capability and the need to augment its arsenal both in qualitative
and quantitative terms. It is time to make a serious move on the issue
instead of just putting it down.
China has expressed its concern over a possible South Asian arms race after
India tested a
nuclear-capable missile on Wednesday.
Beijing said it had noted the testing of the Agni-II - an intermediate
range ballistic missile which
can be fired from a mobile platform.
The missile can carry a one-tonne payload and has a range of over 2,000 km
- covering all of
Pakistan and most of China.
Pakistan reacted strongly after the missile was tested on Wednesday and
Britain and Japan have
also condemned it.
Regional stability
Wednesday's test took place as senior Chinese leader Li Peng was ending a
visit to India.
However, Beijing refused to comment on the timing of the launch.
"Like most members of international society, China hopes the South Asian
region will maintain
peace and stability and does wish to see any form of arms race in the
region," a foreign ministry
spokesman said.
The Indian foreign ministry said on Wednesday that it had informed all the
five permanent
members of the UN Security Council in advance as well as Pakistan, Germany
and Japan.
Confidence or snub?
Analysts said the fact that the test took place during Mr Li's presence on
Indian soil signalled
Delhi's growing confidence.
"The test signals India's determination to build strategic autonomy and
deter China," China analyst
Brahma Chellaney said.
India has maintained that the Agni-II is central to its plans to develop a
minimum nuclear deterrent
in the face of Chinese and Pakistani aggression.
China had reacted with alarm when India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices
in 1998.
The testing of the Agni-II also comes at a time when India and Pakistan
appear to be making
tentative steps towards resuming a dialogue over the Kashmir conflict.
Observers believe it is unlikely the test would derail the process.
"This test has to be seen in the context of the peace race, or rather peace
crawl, in South Asia,"
said Stephen Cohen of the US-based Brookings institute.
KOLKATA: The Srinagar High Court attends to missing persons cases only once
a week. This means family members of those abducted by terrorists or
'detained' by the Army have to wait several days before they can even file
a case.
"Obviously, therefore, the people of Jammu and Kashmir feel the Indian
government has ignored them and suppressed their freedom for the past 53
years. It is high time both India and Pakistan stopped behaving like
colonial rulers and allowed the people of Kashmir to decide what they
want," said editor of the Kashmir Times and senior journalist Ved Bhasin.
Bhasin was in the city on Tuesday at the invitation of the Pakistan-India
People's Forum for Peace and Democracy. Speaking at a seminar on "The other
voice of Kashmir", Bhasin said, "The government says residents of J&K are
Indian citizens yet they refuse to give Hurriyat leaders the right to go to
Pakistan to talk to leaders and common people there. Do they think every
Kashmiri is a terrorist?"
A Kashmiri Hindu, Bhasin said all troops and bunkers should immediately be
removed from Srinagar, Jammu and other residential areas. "The army is
meant to guard our borders, not camp in the city," he said.
His colleague and editor of Kashmir Monitor Zafar Meeraj lashed out at the
army and the police, accusing them of being the "worst violators of human
rights in Kashmir."
"In the last 10 years alone there have been more than 5,000 cases of men
and women who have disappeared without a trace. Most of them have not been
abducted by terrorists but picked up from their homes by the police and the
Army never to reappear again," he said.
He said the Armed Forced Special Power Act gave the army absolute power to
open fire on any individual or group, even 'suspected' of anti-national
activities. Other speakers said political parties were denied the right to
take out processions and even student meetings demanding that examinations
be held in colleges were lathicharged by the police.
Much huffing and puffing on both sides, and, at the time of writing, it is
yet to be known whether New Delhi will finally allow the leaders of the
All-Party Hurriyat Conference — the full complement — to visit Pakistan.
There is in any event a long road ahead. Why beat about the bush? The
problem in Kashmir is not on account of Pakistan and its intransigence.
The problem lies in the impossible corner we, the Indians, have played
ourselves into. The original sin lies with the Congress, and, one is sad to
say, with Jawaharlal Nehru. Sheikh Abdullah was awfully mishandled in the
Fifties; those who advised Nehru that Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad could be a
suitable person to wean away the Kashmiris from their regard for the Sheikh
were nincompoops, or worse, of the first order.
Indira Gandhi tried to correct the blunder committed earlier; she too was
soon misguided by the likes of the bumptious Arun Gandhi and the infamous
Jagmohan, the latter in particular already equipped with the frame of mind
of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The bait of being reinstalled as chief
minister won back Farooq Abdullah, but by then the populace of the valley
had been irretrievably alienated.
From the mid-Eighties Kashmir has been as good as a terrain occupied by the
Indian army; the charade of periodical elections has fooled nobody in
international circles. The cost to the nation is not just in the crores and
crores of rupees expended to guard the ramparts across the line of control:
by now it is more than obvious that it is a porous line, and infiltrators
from across the border will keep sneaking in not- withstanding the
continuous strengthening of our army, air force and security personnel and
of matériel supporting them. It could hardly be otherwise, given the
willingness, or, rather, eagerness, of the almost entire Kashmiri
population to do an evil turn to India.
Much the greater damage has, however, been rendered to India’s reputation
as a nation believing in truth and fairness. We have an extremely bad case
to plead on Kashmir and we have pleaded it equally badly. Our refusal to
abide by the half-a-century old commitment to the United Nations for a
plebiscite in the valley has exposed the extent of our hypocrisy. To
dissemble that we did not in fact agree to hold the plebiscite makes the
Indian case even worse. We have let several chances to arrive at a
denouement with Pakistan go by.
In 1972, when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was literally begging at our doors, we
could have forced him to agree to a permanent solution on the Kashmir issue
by sealing a formal arrangement along the LoC: unfortunately, the ambition
of our leaders had by then risen sky-high. We could have, between then and
the next 10 years, foisted an agreement on still-wobbly Pakistan whereby
the state of Jammu and Kashmir could have been turned into a loose
confederation with Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh as separate entities enjoying
the prerogative of extensive local self-government. But meanwhile our
policymakers had committed themselves too far to the domestic electorate:
Kashmir was an integral and inalienable part of India, and no force could
snatch it away from us.
The Congress was the first to play the jingo card; the BJP with its
ideological moorings and emotional inclines could hardly be blamed if it
exploited it to the hilt. Now there is not one political party in the
country which dares to do a reverse turn on Kashmir and yet aspire to come
to power either at the Centre or in any one state.
Even the left has learnt its lesson and would be doubly chary of abiding by
its principles in the matter of Kashmir; self-determination is for the
birds. A handful of individuals, who do not mind being ostracized, keep the
pot of Kashmiri self-will boiling, but they are by and large considered as
madcaps who need not be taken seriously. And there are enough patriots
around who suspect them to be part of Pakistan's fifth column: the ISI to
the right of you, the ISI to the left of you, the ISI in front of you.
Our politicians and mandarins will perhaps not admit the fact even to
themselves, but Kashmir has been a lost cause for the last 15 years or
thereabouts. They are prisoners of circumstances they have themselves
created. They are consequently unable to recognize the stream of advantages
that could have accrued in case they had agreed to throw in the towel at
the right time. A settlement in Kashmir would have straightway released two
to three per cent of our gross domestic product which is currently being
deployed towards defence and security measures in and around the valley.
Such a settlement would also have made it possible for us to go slow, or
even totally discard, our efforts at augmenting our nuclear capability;
thereby we would have regained some of the international goodwill we have
lost over the years.
Once the government of India were able to convince the world that its hands
are clean in relation to the valley's affairs and, at the same time, gained
back, at least partially, the trust of the valley’s population, it would
have been strategically placed to enjoy vicariously the embarrassment
resulting from the friction between the Kashmiris who wanted full
independence and those who wanted to merge with Pakistan. Then, once the
Kashmir impasse had terminated, that would immediately have led to a
refurbishing of India's secular identity: many of the fissures that impeded
the progress of the economy and the stability of the polity would have been
automatically removed. Finally, the enhanced respect India could command in
the changed situation from the international community would have gone a
long way to the re-establishment of her position as natural leader of the
developing world.
One has to be realistic. Till as long as the BJP and its cohorts are in
control of the system, it would be impossible to conceive of any radical
change in the situation; the Hindu fundamentalists would like to ride back
into prehistoric darkness on the back of the Kashmir demon. Let there be
therefore no mincing of words, to remove the BJP from political power
should be the primary objective of those who want the healthy development
of Indian society. That is going to be without question an enormously
difficult task.
Besides, that would only be the beginning. For the Congress too is also
pledged, for the present, to ditto the BJP line on Kashmir. If another
election to the Lok Sabha is round the corner — such is the impression
created by some of the signals emitted from the prime minister's house —
and the Congress wises up to the reality that it has practically zero
chance of recapturing power without both overt and covert assistance from
the left and democratic forces, a new possibility could open up. The left
could then compel the Congress to follow its own agenda. But, then, it must
have the courage of its own conviction.
The going is bound to be rough. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-Vishwa
Hindu Parishad combine has tasted blood, and it would not easily let its
prey be snatched from its mouth; it would resist, resist and resist again.
The reassuring factor though is the obtuseness of the Hindutva psyche,
itself its own worst enemy. Even if an empirical basis existed for the
allegation, was it sagacious to state it openly that the Pakistani hand had
instigated the Kathmandu disturbances?
The enemy of my enemy is my friend; in their present mood, the Nepalese
youth would only be encouraged by New Delhi’s explicitly stated accusation
to greet Pakistan with comradely fervour. And these young people, more
likely than not, are going to be the principal determinants of Nepal’s
foreign and domestic policies in the immediate period. The Indian
electorate would, sooner or later — hopefully sooner than later — realize
the consequences of letting the BJP continue in power; no question its
agenda is ruinous for the nation.
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