Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1998, Pages 16-17

Three Views

MUSHROOM CLOUDS OVER SOUTH ASIA

A Pakistani-American Physician

Pride and Prejudice, and Pakistan's Last Chance

By Dr. Mahjabeen Islam-Husain

To think that nuclear tests would occur in Third World countries, and fascist regimes would make nuclear war a foreseeable event in our lifetime, is a large and very bitter pill to swallow.

There was much ado about the “colossal failure” of the CIA, but how does one neatly explain American foreign policy “being asleep at the switch”? The failure of the CIA is tagged to a shortage of staff as well as India’s colossal deception. Something beyond “nuclear pride” appears to have overcome Indian officials, who said publicly that Indian deception was better than American detection!

None other than the Indian ambassador to the United States continued to reassure America just a few days before the event that India would not test. Sweet-talking Indians had led America to let down its guard, and the cloudy days of May and the convenient posting of the worktimes of America’s spy satellites on the Internet clinched the deal ever so smoothly. Then, one fine day, a country of unimaginable destitution was a declared nuclear power.

That deception is the modus operandi of India rings as true today as it did in 1947, when talks regarding the division of India into Muslim and Hindu majority states were under way. At that time the British were (as they still are) inclined toward the Hindus, instead of maintaining the requisite impartiality. (How much Jawaharlal Nehru’s alleged affair with Lady Mountbatten had to do with this remains unclear.)

The stern leader of the Muslims, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was also sweet-talked into believing that an equitable partition of India would occur. When this was not forthcoming and Sir Cyril Radcliffe drew an unjust line across Muslim majority states, giving half of each of them to India, Jinnah said, “Even if it is a moth-eaten truncated Pakistan, we’ll take it.”

For many single-minded Hindus in India, despite the passage of 50 years, Pakistan’s existence is unacceptable, and they work toward their dream of “Akhand Bharat ,” a united India.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was created in the 1920s as the political wing of the paramilitary group Rashtriya Sewak Sang (RSS), which had been created to do for India what Mussolini had done for Italy. The writings of its founder, Madhav Gowalkar, are very instructive: “The non-Hindu people in India must learn to revere the Hindu religion. They may stay in the country only subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving nothing.” From the same mindset he also wrote in regard to the extermination of the Jews of Europe: “Germany purged its Semitic raceô.National pride at its highest has been manifested here.”

India is currently headed by a party whose doctrines bear a spine-chilling similarity to those of Adolf Hitler. Central tenets include racial purity, Hindu supremacy, ultra-nationalism and blind violence.

So it was not just the CIA that was lulled into blissful ignorance. India’s diplomatic duplicity made U.S. foreign policymakers inattentive to the BJP’S written manifesto.

The first priority on the BJP’s “to do” list after attainment of power was to go nuclear. This was done with such singularity of purpose that experts believe that developed nations would have had to scramble to do the same thing the BJP government did in only two months.

And guess what the next priority is? Well, of course, it’s flushing out dissidence in Kashmir and taking over Azad Kashmir, the part that is under the protection of the Pakistani government. That now the stakes are higher, actually nuclear, is not an incidental but deliberate fact, covered over poorly by contradictory statements by India’s regime.

Mahatma Gandhi’s soul must have convulsed in Richterian scale proportions, not just at India’s nuclear testing but at the exultation over it by India and his own great-grandson, Tushar Gandhi. Since Gandhi preached nonviolence, and India has forever harped on this, it appears that the BJP is unable to devise a public rationale for why it went nuclear.

Hindu supremacy and the “Akhand Bharat” dream would be unwise reasons to present to the world. So sometimes it is China, at other times it is Pakistan, and yet at other times it is for peace!

In all the media reports I perused it appears that the primary reason was pride. Despite its massive population and the democracy that it is, Indians felt that the world neither noticed nor respected them.

There also seems to be the impotence connection. Freud may have been right after all—the pathologic sexuality of a nation’s leaders have colored their actions to the point that they’re now playing with the biggest gun of them all. In fact, an Indian leader proclaimed that now “the world” knew that Indians were not eunuchs. “The world” also knows, however, that India is the second most populous nation in the world, making impotence seemingly an unlikely national affliction.

Then we have beleaguered Bill Clinton. He seems to be spread in so many directions, so thinly, that I have now begun to feel for him (figuratively speaking). He must be credited with trying to convince the G-8 to take India’s nuclear testing seriously, and to punish it with more than lip service. It’s so easy to jump up and down about peace, and yet when the time came to deliver, the world was looking the other way.

The U.S. sent Assistant Deputy of State Strobe Talbott to persuade Pakistan not to test. Pakistan recommended Iraq-like sanctions on India, but America swiftly ruled this out. Dehydrated carrots like, “If you don’t test we might give you your F16s and reverse the Pressler Amendment” were dangled.

Sen. John Glenn, an old foe of Pakistan, seemed to have nothing whatever to say when India tested. But when Pakistan followed suit, Glenn called it a “massive setback” and a “tragic blow to world peace.” Individuals so obviously lacking a sense of fairness should not be in legislative positions, where they have the power to influence history in a very negative fashion.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his advisers had waited for a time for world action. History must record that there was no world action.

What does a nation living next to a fascist, fanatical neighbor bent upon its destruction do? Wait for Uncles Bill (Clinton) and Tony (Blair) to protect it? Especially when both have a poor track record? India has twice the conventional weapons capability, and could easily walk into Pakistan if it chose to do so. Going nuclear was unnecessary for India but hardly for Pakistan.

Having mentioned the similarity between Hitler and the BJP, I cannot ignore the strong concordance between the actions of Israel and India. Israel does not follow U.N. resolutions in terms of a Palestinian state, and routinely, almost eagerly, uses terror and force to impose its will.

India was instructed by the U.N. in 1948 to conduct a plebiscite in Kashmir, so that the will of its now 3 million inhabitants is implemented. In fact, the Muslim majority state of Kashmir should have gone to Pakistan at the time of partition, but Indian greed and British indifference forked it over to India.

The results of a plebiscite now would be entirely predictable. The majority of Kashmiris would opt to leave India, as quickly and cleanly as possible.

But India will not permit such a plebiscite except under durress. Instead, Indian military and police forces terrorize the innocents of Kashmir, burning homes with people still within them, while exterminating the males of Kashmir. And the world watches—uncaring, impotent or both.

Not only is Pakistan’s reaction in kind to India’s nuclear test understandable, it is entirely justified. Hopefully even John Glenn, will remember that India started all things nuclear first in South Asia.

But it’s done and lamentation alone will do nothing. As very well put by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek, the genie is out, and efforts to thrust it back in are wasted energy.

Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif appeared the statesman in his somber announcement speech, whilst India Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was at the pinnacle of brash boastfulness. The contrast may represent not only the course each nation has taken so far, but also the one it will adopt in the future.

Signing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is meaningless as far as India is concerned, for what is it that will ensure that India will stand by its signature? Its track record of following U.N. resolutions? Its recurrent record of deception and backstabbing?

The world must work to stabilize nuclear arsenals, for the greatest tragedy would be if either side would press the button without meaning to, based on misinformation or rabid impulse.

Even though placing sanctions on countries that test is written into federal law, sanctions would be counterproductive. Again well put by Newsweek—there is nothing like a starving nation having nothing to sell but The Bomb.

Equitable treatment of all nations is also mandatory. Israel must shelve its ambiguity and accept its nuclear might. Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician, remains in solitary confinement on charges of treason. Treason in Israel’s language is giving a press interview revealing the nuclear capability of Israel.

As very well stated by London columnist Gwynne Dyer, the people of India must democratically remove the BJP, a party that seems to be leading India straight to hell, and that will pull all of South Asia along.

The most vital issue, however, is the situation of Kashmir. If the world does not deal with this flash point—deeply, seriously and realistically—our lifetimes will afford us the opportunity to witness a full-scale nuclear war.

As for Pakistan, this is indeed its only chance to shape up. Corruption has bled Pakistan dry. From personal agendas Pakistanis need to graduate to national ones. Pay taxes, at least. For years the disarray in Pakistan has been an ideal substrate for a revolution. It is logical to assume that this would be an Islamic one. But there is no unifying religious entity to bring this about.

Like a true Muslim country, Pakistan’s people are divided into numerous factions. The example of Iran does not apply, for there the ayatollah or religious leader has to be followed, as is mandated in Shi’i law. With Pakistan’s burgeoning unchecked population, and all foreign aid cut off, thumping patriotic chests is only rhetoric. Expatriate Pakistanis must open accounts in Pakistan, and attempt to compensate Pakistan for affording them the education to be productive members of other societies.

Since Pakistan already has been operating under sanctions, the belt will be only a little tighter. This may well be a blessing in disguise, affording Pakistanis the opportunity to transform rhetoric and patriotism into action. If this does not occur, India will not have to resort to complicated conventional and then nuclear war. Walking into a country that is ravaged, destitute and in economic collapse will be as easy as it is for you and me to pick up milk at the gas station drive through.