Just after 1pm on 30th May last year, Pakistan's then foreign minister, Gohar Ayub Khan, declared that his country had detonated two nuclear devices under the Chagai mountains in Balochistan. Then something strange occurred. At 6pm, a spokesman issued a correction. The foreign minister had made a mistake. There hadn't been two detonations; there had been one. The discrepancy was never explained, but it did raise questions about who was actually running Pakistan's nuclear programme.
In June this year, Pakistan and India nearly went to war over Kashmir. In the course of the crisis, senior Pakistani politicians openly threatened the use of nuclear weapons. Raja Zafarul Haq, minister for religious affairs, said: "We made [the bomb] for what? It's not something sacrosanct to be kept in an arsenal... It's our duty and right to defend ourselves with all the military might at our disposal." He was cheered to the rafters in the Senate.
Western governments know that those who question the right of Pakistan and India to have-and presumably to use-nuclear weapons get short shrift on the subcontinent. "If you in the west have nuclear weapons," the argument goes, "then why shouldn't we?"
It is a good argument. But those south Asians who abhor the west's nuclear arrogance perhaps overlook a more subtle discrimination. While nuclear war in the west is considered unthinkable, the same is apparently not true in south Asia. As one western diplomat put it during the Kashmir crisis: "It sounds terrible to say, but let's face it: if India and Pakistan decide to annihilate each other with nuclear bombs, that really is their own affair."
In the past three weeks, with the re-election of the Hindu-nationalist BJP in India and the military coup in Pakistan, the risk of a subcontinental holocaust has certainly not been reduced. Little is known about the command and control structures in either India or Pakistan. In Pakistan it is not even clear who has the final authority to launch a nuclear device, or how many weapons there are (or indeed where they are). At the time of the nuclear tests Nawaz Sharif, the deposed prime minister, assured the world that Pakistan had foolproof command and control systems. On the first anniversary of the tests he told a different story-no one should worry, he said, because excellent systems were being devised.
One newspaper report suggested that in the event of a crisis and a dispersal of the nuclear arsenal, the weapons would be controlled by local commanders at brigadier level. No one close to Pakistan's nuclear establishment seems to have heard about dual key arrangements, which would require both the local commander and the central military authorities in Rawalpindi to coordinate the launch of any weapon.
So what difference, if any, does a military take-over make to Pakistan's political (and nuclear) stability? Military coups have gone out of fashion in most parts of the world, but in Pakistan the army has ruled for more than half the country's short life. No civilian government has even completed its term in office. Ever since 1988, when the dictator General Zia died in an unexplained air crash, the officer corps has watched a succession of civilian administrations lurch from one crisis to the next. The two main political parties led by Nawaz Sharif and his arch-rival Benazir Bhutto have been dominated by quasi-feudal elites who govern largely in their own interests.
Sharif's last civilian government was so weak, that earlier this year troops were forced to knock on doors to check every electricity meter in the country. The state-owned company responsible for the task was so inefficient that as much as one third of the electric power consumed in Pakistan was not paid for. The IMF insisted something be done; the army was the only organisation capable of doing it.
The super-patriots in the military are proud of the fact that theirs is the one significant national institution that works and seems to transcend the country's regional and ethnic divisions. For them, it took some forbearance to sit on the sidelines, watching a government which couldn't even collect the utility bills. Nevertheless, even a few weeks ago the army seemed genuinely reluctant to mount a coup. Senior officers admitted that the record of military governments was no more successful than civilian ones.
So why did they do it? The immediate reason was the attempt by Sharif to sack the commander of the armed forces, General Pervaiz Musharraf. His response was said to be part self-preservation and part anger at having to back down in the Kashmir conflict earlier this year. However it is not at all clear that the army was pressing for a full-scale conflict with India, and Benazir Bhutto says that the army top brass were mainly angered at being made the scapegoats for the failure of the Kashmir operation.
None the less, the 580,000-strong army is also changing. In the past, the officers tended to come from wealthy and relatively secular families. Today, the middle-ranking officers often come from conservative, middle-class families. Many are strongly religious and their faith has been bolstered by reforms introduced by General Zia. He took whisky out of the mess room and ensured that there were mullahs on hand in every military camp. It is now possible to meet Pakistani soldiers at the highest level who tell you that Islam is taking over in the west, and that martyrdom secures a place in the after-life. These may be upright, devout men-but you would not want to entrust them with a nuclear weapon.
Although the initial reactions to the coup inside the country were mainly positive, the government of Pakistan is still facing serious Islamic and nationalist challenges. These too help explain the military intervention.
But where can this country of 140m souls go? It has tried democracy, caretaker government by bureaucrats and military rule. None have provided stability, and people are all too ready to talk of a failed state. There is certainly good reason to despair about the status quo. Despite annual economic growth through the 1990s of more than 4 per cent, less than a quarter of women are literate. Civil servants and other public functionaries find it difficult to hold on to their jobs unless they are corrupt. And financial malpractice reaches the highest levels. The allegations against Bhutto and Sharif are well-known. The latter has built one of the biggest industrial empires in the country on the back of politically influenced-and unpaid-bank loans.
Getting a case through the courts can take years, and even if you succeed there is no guarantee of justice. Sharif's troubleshooter, Saif-ur-Rehman-himself a bank defaulter-recently boasted that no judge in the country would dare take a decision which went against the prime minister's wishes. A series of Supreme Court decisions indicate that he was right.
Other state institutions are equally moribund. The central board of revenue, for example, has never successfully prosecuted anyone for non-payment of tax. Only 1 per cent of the population pay income tax. From 1994-97, Sharif paid just ?7.
In mosques up and down the country there are mullahs who think that they have the answer to Pakistan's ills. And some Islamic militants have links with the intelligence agencies and factions in the army. The mujahedeen who were occupying the Kargil heights during the Kashmir crisis were using army maps, and making trips to Pakistani army officers to get their orders.
Historically, both military and civilian governments have courted the religious lobby. But Sharif was threatening to go further than any of his predecessors. Last year he proposed that Islamic Sharia law should become the law of Pakistan. The measure was blocked by the Senate, but would probably, have gone through early next year.
Pakistan's secular elite has often raised fears about an Islamic takeover, and those fears have, so far, proved unfounded. Even now the possibility of being taken over by a Taliban-like organisation seems alarmist. But each year the religious schools turn out tens of thousands of young men who have learnt the Koran by heart-and little else. In the past, these militants devoted themselves to pushing the Soviets from Afghanistan and trying to do the same to the Indians in Kashmir. When they turn their attention to Pakistan itself, there will be trouble.
The other challenge to Pakistan's stability-under military or civilian rule-lies in the outlying provinces: Sindh, Balochistan and Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). All three resent the dominance of the fourth province, Punjab, and Sharif was seen as a classic Punjabi, insensitive to the demands and concerns of the other provinces.
Many people living in these provinces have almost nothing to do with Pakistan. They pay no tax and receive almost no benefits from the state. Local tribal chiefs live like kings in their own areas. Take Nawab Akbar Bugti, a 72-year-old man who has governed his 400 square miles of Baloch desert since he was made chief at the age of 12. The Nawab lives in a fort with 30-foot-high mud walls deep in the desert; he is the undisputed master of all in his territory. He says that his 200,000 people prefer to rely on him than on the government-and he is right. Each day 30 or 40 people gather in his fort for the daily legal hearings. The Nawab or one of his close relatives judges cases on the spot. (Difficult cases are decided by fire. The suspect is required to walk on burning coals. If within 24 hours blisters appear on the soles of his feet then he is guilty.)
The British imperialists found it difficult to control the Bugtis-and so does Pakistan. There are more than 1,000 frontier troops-many stationed on top of a hill which overlooks the Nawab's fort. They peer down observing what he is up to. But they never dare intervene. "I have been a Bugti and a Baloch for centuries," he says, "and a Muslim for 1,400 years. I have been Pakistani for 50 years." He rates it a poor fourth.
The depth of the country's splits are reflected in the National Assembly. Sharif's Muslim League has drawn nearly all its strength from Punjab. Its main opponent, the PPP, has 18 MPs-all from rural Sindh. Meanwhile almost all the MPs from Balochistan and many from NWFP have all been calling for more or less autonomy.
The world has already witnessed one nuclear state disintegrate. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the governments of central Asia and Ukraine were persuaded-with the help of US pay-outs-to send their nuclear weapons back to Russia. But in the event of Pakistan disintegrating there is reason to doubt that the local feudal leaders would be so accommodating.
There is also concern that Pakistan might sell its nuclear capability. It has a $30 billion foreign debt and there are persistent rumours that the Saudis are looking to buy. Earlier this year a senior Saudi official was shown around Pakistan's nuclear facility at Kahuta.
For all these pessimistic possibilities, we should not forget that there was not a nuclear war in the subcontinent this year. Some people argue that the existence of proven nuclear capabilities in both India and Pakistan deterred an escalation of the Kashmir conflict.
But even if the subcontinent has passed its first test of the nuclear age the risks remain big. The west used to see Pakistan's survival as essential both to the stability of south Asia and as a counter to the Soviets in Afghanistan. After the coup it may wake up to the fact that Pakistan's viability is still essential to global security.
