India and Pakistan have banged their way into the foyer of the exclusive nuclear club though the existing members refuse to admit them on the ground that the admission deadline is past. But the fact that today there are 7 nuclear weapon States and not 5 cannot be denied.
The question is having exhibited their possession of nuclear weapon technology and even of some proto-weapons, which the world had long suspected and recognised, having given rise to mass euphoria - to the point of jingoistic hysteria – where do they go from here?
The Sub-continent stands at a historic crossroad. Will mutual distrust and suspicion - a lingering after-effect of the Partition and the wars over Kashmir and Bangladesh, the unfading remembrance of Ghauris and Prithvis, with the persistent clamour for the restoration of Muslim rule, on one hand and for Hindu dominance on the other, will India and Pakistan opt for Mutually Assured Deterrence or translate the balance of terror into MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION? Will the two countries under the overwhelming shadow of nuelear weapons come to terms and resolve the outstanding problems and convert the Sub-continent into a Zone of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation? Or, will the rulers continue with their military games to the neglect of the basic needs of their people - nearly 1/5 of the human race - for a life of dignity, rather than of deprivation?
Psychopathology of Hindu-Muslim Tension
The Partition did not solve the Hindu-Muslim problem; it merely internationalised it. In a Hindu- Muslim riot or even in an ethnic outburst anyone who has witnessed the brutal use of a knife or a fire arm or an explosive, anything that comes to hand, in a fit of frenzy and fury, can also visualise India and Pakistan using nuclear weapons against each other. It is this psychopathology, the possibility of irrational behaviour without cost calculation, unlike the behaviour of the super-powers even at the height of nuclear confrontation, that turns South Asia today into the most sensitive region with a very low ignition threshold and terrifies the world into imagining its possible conversion into a nuclear arena.
A New Dimension to Plight of Muslim Indians
Ever since India and Pakistan adopted a policy of confrontation, one in the quest of hegemony and the other, of parity, all initiatives aimed at promoting economic and cultural relations and even human contact and information flow have floundered on the shoals of mutual distrust and suspicion. Development of missile technology have brought both countries within deadly range of each other. And now both threaten to fit their missiles and even bomber aircrafts with nuclear warheads. In Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan trains, arms and infiltrates armed militants, many of them, non- Kashmiris. Pakistan admits moral and diplomatic support to the 'Tiberation' movement, though it does not commit itself to independence for the State. India accuses Pakistan of waging a proxy war in the State and its ISI of spreading a network of saboteurs all over the country.
This situation and the resultant tension are of utmost concern to the Muslim Indians because confrontation with Pakistan is invariably translated into communal tension and violence against them.
There may have been reasons to suspect the loyalty of those Muslim Indians of the 1947 vintage who had agitated for the creation of Pakistan with a misplaced sense of self-sacrifice for the cause of Muslim solidarity. The vast majority of the Muslim Indians today know nothing of Pakistan, have played no role in its creation, regard Pakistan as no more than another Muslim state, realise that their future lies in India and in India alone, that the Muslim world can be of no help to them in solving any existential problem they might face. They have no extra-territorial loyalty. Yet day in and day out, they are looked at with suspicion, treated with hostility and their institutions - the Masjids and the Madarsas - are regarded as the dens of the ISI. The higher the tension rises, the angrier is the Hindu Indian and the sorrier is the plight of the Muslim Indian.
The nuclear tests have added a new dimension to his plight.
One must sadly admit that jingoistic vocabulary of the leaders and the irrational euphoria of the masses - celebrating their own impending doom like a bunch of cackling chicken on way to the slaughter-house - leave one with nothing but despair.
Mutual Fixation
One must also sincerely admit the limited security perception of India and Pakistan. Right from 1947, they have armed themselves against each other, first, with conventional arms of the Second World War vintage, then with increasingly sophisticated weapon systems - defensive and offensive - to the delight of the arms dealers from the West and the East. They have a fixation with each other; they are not worried about the nuclear threats posed by the USA or Russia, for less that by UK or France. To rationalise its debut as a nuclear weapon state the Indian leadership and establishment have began speaking of the nuclear threat posed by China.
But who believes them? So far they had ignored the Chinese dragon breathing down their neck. Pakistan has become a client state and India, despite the bashing it received in 1962, never whispers of regaining Aksai Chin which forms 17 per cent of the original territory of the State of J&K, while making a prestige issue, an ideological issue, of the Valley which forms only 9 per cent. Indian and Pakistani missiles and deep penetration aircrafts are deployed and targetted against each other, not against Peking or Moscow or Washington. Their armies stand face to face, in alert, across international boundary as well as the line of actual control in Jammu & Kashmir. Their school children are fed on distortions and taught to look down the other with contempt if not to hate it. Their politician promote their future by pandering to hostile sentiments and promising thousand year wars, till humiliation, past or recent, are wiped out!
Therefore, any assertion that the nuclear weapons are meant to meet other eventualities is poppy cock and hardly credible in the eyes of the world.
Already Muslim fanatics in Pakistan dream of restoring Muslim rule over India and Hindu fanatics in India of conquering Pakistan and establishing Akhand Bharat by force of arms. A Hindu from Abu Dhabi non-chalantly writes to me of first destroying en masse the Muslims in Pakistan, then pushing the Muslim Indians en masse into Pakistan and destroying them! He also writes of his desire to recite the Vedas on the banks of the Indus. A Pakistani journalist sees the Bomb as the glory of Islam and threatens India with the combined might of the Muslim world - led by the only Muslim nuclear weapon state, Pakistan.
The fanatics on both sides call their bombs Hindu or Muslim. But they forget the Bomb has no
religion; it only extinguishes life, all forms of life, poisons the environment, the human habitat. Kills without exception, without distinction as to religion or race or language.
People of Sub-continent Largely Ignorant of Nuclear Peril
The people of the Sub-continent having encased death and destruction in the Second World War are indeed unable to visualise what the 'day after' would be like in a nuclear war. The governments and even the political parties have done little to inform and educate them on the horrors of a nuclear war. Denied knowledge and first hand experience, they can be misled by the fanatics and the merchants of hatred. The realisation of the awesome power in the hands of Man to destroy the planet made the two superpowers climb down their nuclear war-horse and today they are committed, at least in principle to nuclear disarmament. Will a nuclear stalemate between India and Pakistan also make the Sub-continent a safer place to live in?
Will the politicians and the people on both sides realise that geographically situated as they are with a common wind and water system, next door to each other, neither will emerge as a victor in a nuclear war, no matter who strikes first and who lives to make the reposte and the second strike! These terms - so dear to a war strategist - make no sense in our geographic setting. Will the politicians then act as builders and not as destroyers of their countries? Will they eschew the false exhortations of patriotic favour, national pride? Will they show the wisdom inherent in a 5000 year old civilization to see through the nuclear 'Maya' and change the direction of the ship of state, away from doom and destruction to life, liberty and happiness for their people
Nuclear Bomb Cannot Settle Territorial Disputes
If the politicians listen to the inner voice, the voice of conscience they will know that the nuclear bomb does not solve any territorial problems. If Kashmir question is the core of Indo-Pakistan hostility, then Pakistan cannot take the Valley by threatening the use of or actually using the bomb; India cannot silence the Kashmiris demand of self-determination. And certainly no sensible Kashmiri would risk the Valley being reduced to a scorched cinder.
Nuclear Weapon - A Satanic Fabrication, Per Se Evil
Indeed the nuclear bomb is evil incarnate, a Satanic fabrication. Its testing, its manufacture and its stock-piling are all directed against the common interest of humanity, its possession, itself, is a crime against Humanity, against Man , against Life. It must be destroyed before it destroys Man and human civilisation.
Nuclear Warfare is Immoral
All religions and moral system permit as vicarious responsibility of the non-combatants in a war. Modern war, specially a nuclear war, is not waged by combatants against combatants but largely by combatants against non-combatants. How can any strategic doctrine morally justify the destruction of millions of people with their habitant and all that they have built over it through centuries of toil. Modern war waged by amoral rulers is absolutely immoral as it targets the common man for no fault of his but that he was born where he was ..in the enemy territory. Such a war is utterly un-Islamic, un-Christian, un-Hindu.
The Balance Sheet
Once the euphoria dies, India will realise that the Kashmir issue has been de factor internationalised, that the doors of the Security Council have been barred in its face, that the demons of jingoism and chauvinism have been released and have taken possession of the soul of the nation, that its development has been decelerated by sanctions and the slow down in the inflow of foreign aid and investment.
And what has it gained? A sense of glory, a qualification to enter a club which it had long denounced and condemned as a den of vice and inequity!
India's Moral Authority Lost
India had long preached total nuclear disarmament, from a high moral pedestal. Having joined the Satanic Club, it has already fallen off the pedestal. If it undertakes mass production of nuclear weapons and inducts them in its armed forces, its voice will fall on deaf ears. But the socialist Defence Minister of India considers weaponisation inevitable and is pining to deploy them!
Where Do They Go from Here?
India and Pakistan can yet rise to the occasion and regain moral authority, by entering into a bilateral agreement permitting mutual inspection of nuclear facilities and placing a moratorium on the manufacture and deployment of nuclear weapons, guaranteeing no first use against any one, giving the P-5, the nuclear weapon States - a time limit to agree to a time frame to prohibit all types of nuclear tests and the production of nuclear weapons strategic or tactical - and to destroy their nuclear stockpiles within a foreseeable period of, say, 10 years.
India and Pakistan should also enter into serious negotiation on the Kashmir question and resolve it in the common interest of the people of the Sub-continent, recognising the ethnic dimensions of Kashmiriyat and, therefore, respecting the aspiration of the Kashmiris to be the master of their own house under the joint umbrella of India and Pakistan.
Having unilaterally announced moratorium on further tests, India and Pakistan should undertake confidence building measures such as mutual and balanced withdrawal from the borders, joint patrolling of the border zone to stop trans-border terrorism, advance information on troop movements, scaling down the level of confrontation in Siachen and elsewhere. They may even sit down to discuss phased limitation of conventional arms.
India and Pakistan may also revive the Agreement of 1950 on Minorities and enter into agreements on trade and. investment, cultural exchange and flow of information.
In case the nuclear weapon States agree to make a concerted and sincere move towards total nuclear disarmament and propose a universal no-first-use agreement as well the security of non-nuclear weapon states during the interregnum, India and Pakistan may offer to sign the CTBT.
What is done cannot be undone but a challenge can be turned into an opportunity. India and Pakistan can, if they overcome their war psychosis and adopt a policy of restraint, yet jointly regain the moral high ground and play their due role to save humanity from going over the nuclear brink.
Declaration of pious intention will not restore moral authority. All nuclear weapon states routinely renounce the first use of the Bomb against any other State; they also swear by peaceful intent and proclaim from housetops that they do not intend to use the Bomb, except in self-defence, presumably when they face a nuclear attack. But the button may be pressed in confusion, in nervousness, in a moment of madness or uncontrollable fury.
The people of the Sub-continent must rise to stop manufacture and deployment of nuclear weapons and through self-denial light the path of nuclear disarmament. 'This is what human security demands. This is what the land of Buddha, Nanak and Gandhi deserves.
New Delhi,
1 July, 1998
