Author: Kuldip Nayar
Publication: The Nation Online
Date: June 26, 2002
URL: http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/260602/editor/opi3.htm
Both were well timed: the arrival
of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in New Delhi and the lifting of
restrictions on Pakistan flights overflying our airspace and the withdrawal
of naval ships. It looks as if Washington had arranged everything behind
the scenes: President Pervez Musharraf's assurance to stop infiltration
in India and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh's statement commending Pakistan's
response. But President Musharraf has not said anything beyond what he
had stated in his address to the nation on January 12.
Both sides should realise that war
is never an option. It should never be, not in the land of Mahatma Gandhi.
In the case of India and Pakistan, war is too dangerous to contemplate
because it can go nuclear. "If you drive us to the wall, we will use the
bomb," Dr A.Q. Khan warned me after disclosing for the first time that
they had the bomb. When I pressed him to elucidate his observation, he
said he had in mind India's role in the secession war of East Pakistan.
That was more than three decades
ago. Khan's words come to my mind often these days. If there is a reverse
to any side, Islamabad may use the bomb. Such a possibility is very much
there because India is superior to Pakistan in conventional warfare.
Islamabad's UN ambassador Munir
Akram has already made it clear that since they do not have the capacity
to match India in conventional force, they will depend on the bomb. President
Pervez Musharraf's horror over the thought of nuclear holocaust only deepens
doubts. His UN ambassador could not have mentioned the use of the bomb
without clearance from Islamabad. I would not be surprised if Munir was
asked to say a piece to draw the world's attention.
It is no more a secret that Pakistan
establishment had considered the use of the bomb at the time of the Kargil
war before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif flew to Washington to have President
Bill Clinton's intervention to rescue Pakistan. It is not beyond the realm
of possibility that Musharraf may use the bomb if and when he realizes
he cannot cope with India's advance in Pakistan. Whatever he says now,
he will also be under pressure from within Pakistan to perform. At one
time, Sharif did not want to explode the bomb because of the interference
which America offered but the pressure of public opinion on him was too
strong to resist.
I do not want to spell out the devastation
that the nuclear war would cause. Millions will die on both sides when
the bomb is thrown and many millions later because of the after effects.
The devastation is unimaginable. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai told
the leaders of both India and Pakistan a few days ago to visit his country
to see the destruction that the war caused and then decide their course
of action. He was talking about limited conventional war.
Gohar Ayub was the foreign minister
when I visited Pakistan after it had exploded the bomb. He kept impressing
upon me that the bomb would cause more damage to India than Pakistan. "Your
country has its population concentrated in cities, while ours is spread
out." I was so horrified over the vein of his argument that I said: "Sir,
we are talking about human beings."
If all that was required was America's
association, why it could not have been done earlier. After all, India
was to offer everything to America after the terrorists attack on New York
and Washington. Probably, Washington was not willing to go that far.
When the entire international community
is saying that Pakistan must stop infiltration and assuring us that proof
would be coming forth, we should not be giving the impression that we are
at the stage of positioning our last man before embarking upon action against
Pakistan. Home Minister L.K. Advani's statement that we should have spent
more on defence than education is only rhetoric. His statement is no reply
to the Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen who said that education would have
helped solve India's problems. Indeed, he is right. Had we concentrated
on education - 40 per cent of the country's population is illiterate -
we would have solved many of our problems.
Sports Minister Uma Bharti is another
hawk who has no control over the language she uses. Her poem to castigate
Pakistan was as hideous as the picture of her riding the shoulders of Human
Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi at the time of the Babri
Masjid's demotion. The hardliners on our side are as much bent upon jeopardising
peace as are the jehadis and fundamentalists on the other side.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's
suggestion of joint patrolling by India and Pakistan may turn out to be
a step towards de-escalation. Earlier, Pakistani columnist Dr Ijaz Ahsan,
had made a similar proposal. He said: "Pakistan should offer joint patrolling
of the LoC by Indian and Pakistani soldiers. If such a scheme is implemented,
it will be clear to everyone that no border crossings are taking place."
Rumsfeld's proposal to associate
America and Britain with the supervision of the LoC is worth considering.
No doubt, it will bring back UN observers whom we stopped recognising after
the 1971 war. That was the time when the Ceasefire Line became the Line
Of Control. But we can specify their role and indicate a time limit which
we can extend if need be.
War cannot possibly lead to a solution
of any problem, because war has become much too terrible and destructive.
If the solution we aim at cannot be brought about by large-
scale war, will small-scale war
help? Surely, it will not. Partly because that itself may lead to a big-scale
war and partly because it produces an atmosphere of conflict and of disruption.
It is absurd to imagine that out
of the conflict, the right type of forces, which are opposed to terrorism
and fundamentalism, will emerge. In Germany, both the Communist Party and
the Social Democratic Party were swept away by Hitler. This may happen
in our part of the world.
