Author: Anita Pratap
Publication: Outlook
Date: September 24, 2001
September 11 was a humbling day-not
just for the US, but for the entire world. What was believed to be strictly
the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters and best-selling novels unfolded before
a horrified world. Reality was much more terrifying and unbelievable than
fiction and it will probably take a few years before we know whether it
was indeed the day the Nostradamic prediction of World War III began between
the Christians and Muslims of the world. But had this "act of war" been
the latest American film, we would have dismissed it as having an implausible
plot-no way a group of terrorists could have mounted such a dramatic, coordinated
strike against key targets of the most powerful country. But they did,
proving that our worst fears can come true.
And what is the worst fear that
haunts us in South Asia? A nuclear holocaust. We who express fears periodically
about such an eventuality are always greeted by the all-knowing powers-that-be
with supercilious disdain. We are dismissed as being immature, rash, ignorant,
cursed with pulp-fiction imagination. But at least now will they be humble
enough to admit that a nuclear war cannot be ruled out? All it takes is
a few determined, misguided human missiles with a mission-and there are
several in our region. In which case, the most crucial question is: what
can we do to prevent it?
First, we graduate from denial to
acceptance and start preparing ourselves. As part of the preventive action,
we have to beef up security and strengthen intelligence-gathering both
within the country and in the enemy territory. We have to cooperate aggressively
and be equally aggressive in seeking international cooperation when it
comes to addressing our threat perceptions. For instance, now that Pakistani
magazine Newsline has endorsed L.K. Advani's allegation that Dawood Ibrahim
lives in Karachi, we should be energetically seeking America and Europe's
help to pressurise Pakistan to extradite Dawood.
The attacks on the US expose a massive
intelligence failure. We Indians already know that the cia intelligence-gathering
isn't all that it's cracked up to be, especially after the way they completely
missed our nuclear explosions. But the intelligence failure is not something
to gloat about. If anything, it is a cause for great worry. If the most
powerful country in the world, with all the resources, technology and trained
personnel at its command, can have an intelligence failure of such mammoth
proportions and suffer its disastrous consequences, how effective can ours
possibly be? That's a humbling thought. We don't have the US' strengths,
but we share many of its weaknesses-as seen from a terrorist perspective.
Like the US, we too are vulnerable because we're a free country with a
diversity of population that allows foreigners to mingle easily in our
midst. We have also shown again and again-be it in Kargil or with Bangladesh-that
we are lax with security till tragedy strikes. In the aftermath of a nuclear
strike, our fabled ability to get back on our feet may be severely and
permanently crippled.
Our biggest sin is something that
we again share with the US-complacence. The fact is that with the collapse
of the Soviet Union, Americans saw the Big Foe disintegrate. Of course,
they kept talking about the new threat of Islamic fundamentalism, but they
didn't treat it with the deserved seriousness. They were complacent. And
so are we when it comes to appraising the lethal power of our enemies.We
neither take our adversaries nor the threat from them seriously enough.
We make the fundamental mistake of assuming our opponents will behave like
us. As a nation, we lack the killer instinct and thank God for that. But
it's stupid to think our adversaries won't have such instincts. And that's
why we're repeatedly caught with our guard down.
And yet, despite the best preparations,
we may still have a nuclear war on our hands. So, even as we try hard to
prevent it from happening, we've to be prepared to face such an eventuality-we
must therefore have a set of plans for a post-nuclear attack, starting
from evacuation to medical treatment to rebuilding. The reason why even
preparation is no cure for the looming threat is that there can never be
foolproof security against suicide activists. When they are willing to
die, they can inflict terrible damage. Elaborate security nets are laid
out to catch infiltrators. But invariably, such nets are ineffective when
infiltrators bomb their way through. In such case, the only solution is
to have long-term perspectives and systematically eradicate the causes
that encourage people to die for their mission. That sense of injustice
and hatred-however misguided-must be sought to be removed.
In the context of our worst nightmare,
the underlying cause that can trigger devastating terrorist strikes and
a nuclear war is Kashmir in particular, and our hostile relations with
Pakistan in general. That is why it is imperative we continue to engage
Pakistan in talks. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has drawn criticism
from many quarters-perhaps justifiably so. But it was his wisdom that forced
him to backpedal and start talking to Pakistan. The Agra summit failed
due to hype and false expectations. Pakistan may have scored brownie points.
But none of this can justify any reluctance or cooling off on our part
to talk to Pakistan. We simply have to keep talking-not from a position
of weakness because we are afraid of being nuked; not from a position of
strength because we have the power to nuke them; but from the position
of hardheaded reality because both India and Pakistan will suffer incalculable
damage in the event of a nuclear war. Neither will ever be the same again,
when and if they emerge out of the ashes of a nuclear war. The smoke has
gone, the debris has been cleared, the dead have been buried, the injured
will heal and the bystanders will go on living. But the US will never be
the same again-and it wasn't even a nuclear strike.
(The author can be contacted at
post@anitapratap.com)
