The non-proliferation quest

Now most Pakistanis will read in this a scarcely hidden threat to their own status of being the world's seventh Nuclear Power. In the short run, it is unrealistic to expect the US to round on such a useful and obedient ally as this country. This felt threat no doubt issues from, and strengthens, the aggravated paranoia from which most Islamic ideology lovers suffer. But over the longer term, there are serious issues that have not received adequate thought vis-à-vis the nukes in South Asia. The Pakistan-India hostility has created mind sets that end up promoting virtually unstoppable nuclear WMD proliferation. No one knows how to resolve this conundrum.

Indians' well known position is that India is a great power and must acquire all the attributes associated with great powers: huge military power, nuclear weapons and a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. It has built perhaps the fourth largest military machine, may be third largest, with the ability to project power far from home and of course nuclear weapons that have been under contemplation since at least the mid-1950s. But there is a fly of notable size in this ointment: it is Pakistan. Indians affect to be horrified to note that anti-Indianism is the guiding philosophy of most military-dominated governments in Islamabad.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Everyone knows why Pakistan resents India's drive for power. They usually attribute it to the Kashmir dispute. No doubt Kashmir dispute's exigencies, especially the Indo-Pakistan wars, have aggravated the hostility and the differences. There is another factor that most Pakistanis do not clearly recognise: it is their historical assumptions and attitudes. Led by their Ashrafia (elites), even common Muslims think that they are the legatees and offsprings (through religious faith) of the Islamic conquerors, Sultans and Great Moghals. The foreign-origined Muslim Ashrafia was treated in Medieval India with much respect and honour. The common Muslims -- converts from the Hindu society, mostly lower caste -- tended to equate themselves with Muslim rulers in the quest of advancement in life. That inherited trait of taking the Hindus for granted and the feeling of superiority over them took the form of rivalry of 'Muslim Pakistan' with 'Hindu India'. This dated mind set has played much unnecessary mischief.

Why one has brought this up in a piece about the evolving international situation is to underline the complexities of South Asian situation with two rivals' unabating and competitive nuclear build up. Most recent CIA report on nuclear proliferation has named Pakistan, India, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria and Sudan among countries with an active WMD and missiles programmes. Seen in the context of American power, actions and resolve, it is of utmost urgency that India and Pakistan got their act, including fresh thinking on the nukes issue, together. Or, the US will deal with them separately. What this can imply should not be too difficult to imagine even for pragmatic politicians and bureaucrats who are now relying on their current relationship with the US.

Specifically, they should have realised the nature of the emerging world order that is resulting from the current and presumably impending actions of the US. The latter can turn to Iran or North Korea or even Syria next with its philosophy of preemptive military or other action in the supposed pursuit of non-proliferation. Let's leave the futile speculation about the relative 'merits' of Iran or North Korea as the object of next US aggression to American officials. What is important for South Asians is to appreciate the broad contours of the international order, or lack thereof, at the start of the new Century that the US government's leading lights regard as America's Century.

The stated aim of fighting proliferation of WMD does not forbid the US from continuing to pursue its other objectives such as strategic advance or economic advantage. The two can be combined. Look at the way the Iraq operation is going to be beneficial to the American (and even British) economy by the rebuilding of the devastated country and the profits of American companies exploiting the world's second largest reservoir of hydrocarbons. The geo-political benefits are immense. That may probably help non-proliferation objective to some extent. But it will establish the absolute supremacy of the US which has a settled policy that it will not let any other to surpass it in military power. Unipolarity, with all its advantages to the US, is to remain the outstanding feature of the world situation in years to come.

Where do India and or Pakistan fit in this less than brave new world? Insofar as Pakistan is concerned, its military-led elites have already decided to become 'bag carriers' of the United States; this nation will do what American tell it to. This is seen by Pakistani generals as an insurance against aggression from India. Insofar as BJP-led India is concerned, it has jumped on to the American bandwagon -- chiefly to neutralise Pakistan's imagined advantage. The rest of the world, including Americans, see a very dangerous South Asia with its ongoing nuclear and missile races superimposed on a conventional build up. It is perhaps the only place where two sets of hawks sing praises of nuclear WMDs -- that scares the hell out of others.

Both India and Pakistan are constantly in need of foreign support to their respective stances. But whoever extends support to either does so for its own sake -- in pursuit of its own objectives and interests. What no one in India's or Pakistan's political class is thinking happens to be the most natural -- the cheapest and most beneficial -- option of effecting a reconciliation between the common peoples of India and Pakistan, from the grassroots up. This will of course require Pakistanis to give up those unreal and foolish but inherited assumptions of superiority over Hindus. And the Indians too will have to appreciate that greatness of a nation does not grow out of the barrel of a big gun; there are many other fields where greatness idea can usefully be chased such as intellect, culture, traditional arts and crafts, sports and so forth.

Anyway a vital requirement is to see with clarity the characteristics of the new world order and to see how shall we -- the Indians and Pakistanis -- fare in the emerging order. Specifically, they have to realise how cynically pragmatic the US governments are and how soon they change their partners and friends. See the rapidity with which the US downgraded the UN -- in fact undermining it --, became veritable enemies of Monsieur Jacques Chiraque and Herr Gerhard Schroeder, forcing a split in Atlantic Alliance and EU itself. Such audacious unconcern with the icons of a gone by age needs to be studied with care by governments and intelligentsia of South Asia.

Two specific facts in South Asia have to be grasped: One, although India is certainly a large country, has a longer shore line and a bigger population entitling it to a bigger and larger military role in the world and more influence. But Indians are dogged by Pakistanis who insist on keeping up with the Indian Joneses in some fashion. Right or wrong, Indian nukes cannot but terrify most Pakistanis. It is also obvious that Pakistani nuclear WMDs mounted on missiles cannot but cause a matching mistrust in India. There is no way of overcoming this mistrust, as one has essayed to impress in this space. A resolution of this problem lies only in (a) total destruction of the nuclear weapons; and (b) a thoroughgoing reconciliation between the two peoples, indeed of much of South Asia, in which there is total transparency and cooperation in all matters, including military. There is no other way. It is an iron necessity, however unpleasant and difficult to relish by some.

It is easy to be pessimistic about the prospects of India and Pakistan in the emerging world situation, as indeed one has noted in this space so many hurdles on the way to their friendship. But let no one forget the thousand and one commonalties between India, on the one hand, and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, on the other. And Indo-Pak rapprochement -- the need of which is enhanced in the new world order -- can be best anchored in a South Asia, that is reconciled within itself, such as EU became the best way in which France and Germany could finally bury their hatchet. That is a better way to face a unipolar world.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.