Nuclear False Dawn
Praful Bidwai
The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 16 May 2003
There is no alternative to Indo-Pak talks on terrorism, Kashmir and nuclear arms
Three events of seemingly fleeting significance, all of which occurred
within the past week, contain important lessons of lasting value for
India. These events are: the two rounds of talks held in New Delhi and
Islamabad by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, the visit to
this country of 13 members of Pakistan's parliament (first of its kind
in either country), and the fifth anniversary of the Pokharan-II nuclear
blasts.
The Armitage visit was meant to assess the state of India-Pakistan
relations and deliver two messages to New Delhi. First, the US is very
keen that India and Pakistan build on the momentum created by Prime
Minister Vajpayee's "hand of friendship" offer and draw up
confidence-building measures and "road maps" for normalising relations
and beginning a dialogue. The "road maps" are now indeed being drawn.
Second, Washington will not use its leverage over Pakistan, especially
through an economic squeeze, to ensure that Gen Pervez Musharraf fulfils
his promise made last June to end support to "cross-border"
infiltration-"permanently" and "verifiably"; "that's not my [Armitage's]
job". It is for India alone to assess whether Musharraf is delivering on
that commitment, and to respond appropriately.
This should provoke some serious rethinking in New Delhi on its reading
of the US-Pakistan relationship and hence on the wisdom of the sole
strategy it has deployed, besides threatening outright war, to deal with
Islamabad: namely, somehow try to persuade the US to pressure Pakistan
to secure a "responsible" pattern of behaviour.
Apart from being inconsistent with the principle of bilateralism which
India tomtoms, this shop-worn strategy is fundamentally sterile.
Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, it comprehensively failed to
prevent Pakistan from proceeding with its nuclear weapons acquisition
programme. No amount of hectic, expensive lobbying in Washington, no
quantity of breast-beating about the US' sale of F-16s to Pakistan-the
Indian media's single greatest front-page story of the 1980s-, nor even
amendment after tough amendment (e.g. Pressler) to US non-proliferation
and export-control laws could secure that result.
Yet, paradoxically, for one-and-a-half decades, the Indian government
persistently refused to engage Islamabad in talks on the nuclear issue.
It grossly overestimated US leverage over Pakistan, not just during the
1980s-when that "frontline" state's cooperation in training and
financing the mujahideen in their fight against the USSR was vital for
the US-, but even later. Beyond a point, New Delhi couldn't care less.
It became far more important for it that it should openly go nuclear
than that Pakistan, its main threat source, shouldn't.
At any rate, this strategy, which has long proved bankrupt, is even more
unlikely to work today. Traumatised by the worst-ever attack on its
mainland, America needs Islamabad as its "indispensable ally" in anti-Al
Qaeda-Taliban operations so badly that it is willing to gloss over
Pakistan's two-track or double standards-based approach to terrorism:
cooperate fully in fighting terrorism directed at the US-to the point of
violating domestic legal procedures while extraditing US-identified
suspects-, but covertly support the Kashmiri militants in India.
This is unsurprising. Washington itself has always had a short-termist
double standards-based approach to terrorism, dictators and tyrants
everywhere: this 800-pound gorilla is wonderful provided it is our
800-pound gorilla!
That's how America has created a succession of monsters, many of whom
turned hostile, including radical Islamist Bin Laden, Vietnam's Diem,
the Philippines' Marcos, Panama's Noriega, Angola's Savimbi, and, yes,
Iraq's Saddam Hussein. India would be unpardonably naEFve to expect a
fair, even, deal from a "strategic partnership" with the US.
It would be far more principled, prudent and productive for New Delhi to
hold a straightforward comprehensive bilateral dialogue with
Pakistan-even if that means putting the Kashmir issue on the negotiating
table. In all honesty, India cannot both cite the Shimla agreement-only
to scuttle multilateral discussion or external mediation-, and not once
discus Kashmir in 31 years. Its advocacy of bilateralism lacks
credibility when its operational strategy is centred on a third power.
That's what makes the Pakistani MPs' crossing of the Wagah border so
important. The visit is the culmination of numerous citizen-to-citizen
initiatives launched during the darkest decade of state-level
India-Pakistan relations. Its importance isn't merely symbolic.
Without first-hand exposure and personal interaction, Indians and
Pakistanis will find it hard to overcome the many layers of ignorance,
prejudice and distrust cemented in their minds over decades of
hostility, through scores of textbooks, hundreds of films and TV shows,
and countless stereotypes of one another as inveterate enemies.
That's why Indian MPs must quickly reciprocate this visit. Snowballing
people-to-people contacts will help loosen state-level gridlocks and
pave the way for bilateral talks in good faith.
To be adequately productive, the talks must be comprehensive and
include, besides terrorism and Kashmir-respectively the two states'
conflicting "core-issues"-, nuclear restraint and disarmament as well.
This would only be consistent with the Lahore summit's mandate, in which
India and Pakistan made a solemn commitment to measures "aimed at
prevention of conflict", to meeting "periodically to discuss all issues
of mutual concern, including nuclear-related issues", and to "bilateral
consultations on security concepts, and nuclear doctrines, with a view
to developing measures for confidence building in the nuclear and
conventional fields, aimed at avoidance of conflict".
There is an even more compelling reason to discuss the nuclear issue
today. Five years after Pokharan-II and Chagai, the India-Pakistan
security balance-sheet looks blotched and ugly. The two have lost, not
gained, in security and mutual trust-and in global stature. They have
been on the brink of nuclear catastrophe far too many times-during
Kargil, and then again, during last year's 10-months-long
eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation.
Millions of Indians and Pakistanis who are in no way responsible for
official policies have now become vulnerable to unspeakably devastating
attacks from nuclear missiles, against which there is no defence, civil,
medical or military. Destruction wrought by these weapons lasts for many
future generations.
India and Pakistan have become more edgy and nervous about each other's
designs and doctrines, and prone to panic. Nuclear weapons have not
induced "maturity" and "sobriety" in our leaders. Indeed, they have
promoted hubris and adventurism. The casual, cavalier, manner in which
Indian and Pakistani officials have repeatedly exchanged nuclear threats
is spine-chilling.
Nuclearisation has not expanded India's or Pakistan's room for global
diplomatic-political manoeuvre. Rather, their bargaining power has
shrunk as they have wooed the US with unwarranted concessions to somehow
legitimise and accept their nuclear weapons. Yet, they cannot possibly
reverse Security Council resolution 1172 condemning their
nuclearisation, for which coercive measures can be taken under Chapter
VII of the UN Charter. Nuclearisation has proved no invitation to the
world's High Table.
The (still-unfolding) economic costs of nuclearisation will prove
onerous. India has almost doubled its military spending over five
years-at the expense of health, education and social welfare. To acquire
a small nuclear arsenal, about one-fifth the size of China's, India will
have to spend anything from Rs. 60,000 to 100,000 crores. This could
bankrupt the government and cripple public services, spelling state
failure.
Nuclearisation's social-political costs are equally heavy. Associated
with it is legitimisation of mass destruction, militarism and
"nuclearism" (a near-mystical faith in the power of the Bomb to produce,
among other things, security). These violate elementary sanity and
reason, and corrode democracy. In the overwhelming public interest,
India and Pakistan must begin a dialogue on nuclear restraint-not to
dignify horror weapons, but to abolish them.
Copyright 2003 The Hindustan Times
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