Trend of the thought counts

The earlier official Indian thinking comprised making India powerful and influential. The motivation, apart from advancing India, included creating awe in others -- the true connotation of the word commonly used: Gaurav. Natwar Singh takes cognisance of the new setting in which India has to operate, with two other major nuclear powers nearby, the relations with which were, and largely are, prickly. His proposal is for harmonising their relationships for common advantage.

What is a common nuclear doctrine for the three powers? Narrowly, it may mean each will cooperatively define the essential principles governing its Nuclear Deterrent: when will it be used, against whom, and whether it will be used preemptively or subscribe to 'no first use' notion, and so forth. All this defining is meant primarily to create trust in the other two nuclear powers. Implied in it is another notion that creating trust in others, especially neighbours, is necessary; the emphasis is on the pacific intent of the three nuclear powers vis-à

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

-vis one another. This essential confidence has to be willed and worked for so as to be demonstrable; it would logically follow from the closeness in concepts and actions. For, an axis of three can also be aggressive in motivation. That this is not the case has to be made obvious.

Harmonising nuclear policies of three powers is a huge task. See the widely different circumstances -- political, economic, and outside pressures -- in which each has developed its nuclear weapons. China's nuclear capabilities, obviously, were and are aimed at coping with the enveloping US and Russian pressures without forgetting Japan. It did not have India or South Asia in its mind. Pakistan had had no one in mind except India. India's bomb was unrelated to any specific threat. India had the capability of fabricating atomic weapons in the 1950s but did not weaponise until 1974. The world still thinks that India's 1974 PNE was, somehow, in pursuit of knowledge, but the stated motivation was no more than national greatness. This writer suspects that the PNE bomb was related to the vicissitudes of relations with Pakistan. But once India had the bomb, the latter acquired an autonomy of its own and created an influential body of beneficiaries of the huge expenditures -- a development that is universal.

The nuclear arsenals of China, India, and Pakistan were meant for different purposes. Nuclear weapons being an inseparable part of each country's foreign policy, the effort to evolve a common nuclear doctrine approximates to harmonising the three foreign policies. While it is a huge task, it has still to be attempted. Nothing is more important for all the three peoples than to be assured that they will not be victims of an atomic attack. But that requires not attacking one another -- with any weapons. There is no way to prevent a conventional war becoming a nuclear one. That will require growing harmonisation of their politics as well as foreign policies.

Saying this is simple. Doing it is not. Each state has its interests -- political and economic. Each has a vision of what it wants. Which is where the Devil resides. Acquiring power and influence by a nation -- superficially non-controversial -- can involve putting others' interests at risk. Up to a point, it is a zero sum game: a nation's influence can mean, and often does, others' interests being subordinated. We in Asia have experienced the phenomenon, for a foreign policy grows out of the politics of dominant elites. It is not mere logic chopping that starting from the desired common nuclear doctrine and working back to how it can be achieved, one finally lands at the task of actually harmonising -- in broad essentials -- the main thrusts of the three sets of political and economic policies. Which is no bad thing and which is why one says that harmonising nuclear policies can only be the start of a noble process. It is this trend of thought that appeals.

One is aware that Natwar Singh has been criticized mainly by the MMA, a part of ruling establishment really. The gravamen of their argument is that the Manmohan government is raising irrelevant, and impractical issues in order to sidetrack the core problem of Kashmir. Islamabad establishment shares Prof. Khurshid Ahmad's views.

For its part, the Pakistan government is playing its realpolitik hand competently. It says it is happy that the new government in Delhi is committed to the Jan 6 Peace Process; it is ready to engage with it at an early date. But it also sends other signals: while President Musharraf shows an amazing degree of impatience about talks, he goes on making radical proposals like cutting nuclear forces to half, if India also does so. Other members of establishment are also proposing solid-seeming CBMs; Sardar Ahmad Asef Ali, a former foreign minister, has proposed as many as six treaties, presumably comprising Pakistan's idea of Nuclear Restraint Regime.

But that is one side of the coin. Security establishments of both India and Pakistan are acting on the time-honoured dictum: talk softly but carry a big stick. Pakistan fired two Hataf V (Ghauri) missiles to remind that Pakistan is not an inconsequential state. It has also been talking of buying more modern aircrafts and to modernize the navy. Local versions of industrial military complexes, largely bureaucratic in India and Pakistan, have no reason to worry: arms race is still going on and realpolitik reigns. India is also keeping its powder dry: it is inducting two more types of missiles (including Agni) in addition to ongoing build up. The arms race in South Asia continues to enrich those who always benefit from an arms build up. Peace makers, please remember.

The officials in this country fail to notice that this realpolitik -- despite several wars and half wars and several near bankruptcies of the state -- has led to what or where? Well, it has achieved nothing unless we define 1964, 1965, 1971, 1999, and 2002 as worthwhile victories. Each war was a setback: adopting a purely military approach vis-à-vis a big, more populous, more technologically developed and richer state with bigger armed forces and more atomic bombs is bad politics. Pakistan needs to adopt a more political approach. However hard it may be, it has to seize the high moral ground and fortify itself with the political (non-violent) support of not only Kashmiris but also fair-minded Indians.

Even if Islamabad wins the verbal agreement of the South Bloc about the centrality of the Kashmir dispute, what does it hope to gain? The Indian state is still determined to keep the real estate of the J and K State as its own. It has proved that it will do what it takes to maintain the status quo and it has a credible deterrent. What Pakistan could not win on the battlefield, it cannot take through negotiations. The point worth repeating is that classical realpolitik is now a hindrance to whatever solution may have to politically emerge. A political approach that eschews violence is necessary.

If realpolitik of carrying -- i.e. threatening with -- a big stick does not help, a paradigm shift is inevitable. All that was disfavoured earlier -- a lot of people-to-people contacts, wide-scale cultural exchanges, free and preferential trade and economic and political cooperation with India -- may now be a must. The fact is blindingly clear: there is no hope of wresting Kashmir from Indian control by using our conventional and nuclear deterrent. If Kashmir's status is to change, it will be with the concurrence of authority in India. Islamabad has to engage the common Indian for that because India is a democracy. Maximum intercourse of peoples is sure to effect a change in political attitudes all round. The interplay of political forces will produce an eventual solution of Kashmir that will last.

Reflex action of looking for hidden meanings in each New Delhi stand needs to be eschewed. Doubtless we all should keep our ears and eyes open to hidden meanings of what political leaders say; there often are hidden meanings in what they say. But this nonstop exercise of finding an implied meaning can be useless if one continues to wear old blinkers and which make people incapable of appreciating the significance of changes that have taken place in India. A center-left government has taken over by defeating the Hindutva-favouring right-wing government. Natwar's idea of looking to the future and setting a new course to evolving a new consensus among China, India, and Pakistan is a sharp departure from what BJP looked kindly on.

The differences in viewpoints in India need to be appreciated. The BJP school of thought had parted company with what was Nehru's legacy to India: not to attach itself to any superpower. BJP, for the first time, plumped for an alliance with the US; to it the US -- and Israel -- were a benign force in Asia. It instantly approved the US in its War on Terror -- and offered all logistical support in its War on Afghanistan. The BJP government looked kindly on all US actions in, and designs on, the Middle East, Gulf, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and probably what it may be planning vis-à-vis Russia, China, Korean peninsula, Japan, and Taiwan.

Natwar Singh does not seem to share that outlook. He seems to be perturbed by American supremacy over all of Asia, especially its modus operandi of unilateralism, preemption and control over sensitive raw material sources. An evolution of strategic consensus among China, India, and Pakistan would tend to undo much of what America is trying to do in Asia. That leaves out Japan, Russia, and the Koreas. Some day they too will have to be brought into an all Asian understanding. However, Natwar's outlook is a part of Nehru's legacy. His objectives appear to include a multi-polar and truly free world. One wonders how much support he will have from his own security establishment. Anyway one would like the Chinese and Pakistanis to seriously engage the Indians. The issue needs to be debated openly among the peoples.

MB Naqvi is a leading Pakistani columnist.