Nuclear tensions in the sub-continent are now down a couple of notches and some semblance of normalcy has returned. But, even at the peak of the crisis, few Indians or Pakistanis lost much sleep. Stock markets flickered, but there was no run on the banks or panic buying of necessities. Schools and colleges, which close at the first hint of a real crisis, functioned normally. We saw the crisis as more of the usual, with the rhetoric just a bit fiercer.
The outside world saw it in very different terms-as a potentially suicidal struggle between two nuclear armed states, inexperienced in the practice of nuclear brinkmanship. Foreign nationals streamed out of both countries. They may have been right to do so.
In a public debate in Islamabad on the eve of the Pakistani nuclear tests, the former chief of the Pakistan army General Mirza Aslam Beg said, "We can make a first strike, and a second strike or even a third." The prospect of nuclear war left him unmoved. "You can die crossing the street," he said, "or you could die in a nuclear war. You've got to die someday, anyway."
Across the border, India's Defence Minister George Fernandes, in an interview with the Hindustan Times, voiced similar sentiments: "We could take a strike, survive, and then hit back. Pakistan would be finished." Indian Defence Secretary Yogendra Narain took things a step further in an interview with Outlook magazine: "A surgical strike is the answer," he said. But if that failed to resolve things, he said, "We must be prepared for total mutual destruction." Brahma Chellaney, a hawk whose feathers caught fire during the Kargil war, demanded that India "call Pakistan's nuclear bluff."
Pakistan and India are making history in their own way. No nuclear states in the world have ever engaged in such rhetoric. The fear of mutual destruction has always put sharp limits on the tone and volume of nuclear shadow boxing. So, what accounts for this extraordinary difference between us-Pakistanis and Indians-and the rest of the world? What makes us such extraordinarily bold nuclear gamblers, playing close to the brink?
In part, the answer is that India and Pakistan are largely traditional societies, where the fundamental belief structure demands disempowerment and surrender to larger forces. A fatalistic Hindu belief that the stars above determine our destiny, or the equivalent Muslim belief in qismet certainly accounts for part of the problem. Conversations often end on the note "what will be, will be," after which people shrug their shoulders and move on to something else. Because they feel that they will be protected by larger, unseen forces, the level of risk-taking is extraordinary. The fact that people travel at all on the madly careering public buses of Karachi or Bombay, which routinely smash into and kill pedestrians, is good evidence.
But other reasons may be more important. Close government control of national television, especially in Pakistan, has ensured that critical discussion of nuclear weapons and nuclear war are not aired. Instead, in Pakistan's public squares and crossroads stand fibre-glass replicas of the nuclear test site. For the masses, they are symbols of national glory not death and horror.
Nuclear ignorance is almost total, extending to the educated. When asked, some students at the university in Islamabad where I teach said that a nuclear war would be the end of the world. Others thought of nukes as just bigger bombs. Many said it was not their concern, but the army's. Almost none knew about the possibility of a nuclear firestorm, about radioactivity, or damage to the gene pool.
Because nuclear war is considered a distant abstraction, civil defence in both countries is non-existent. India's Admiral Ramu Ramdas, now retired and a peace activist, caustically remarked recently, "There are no air raid shelters in this city of Delhi, because in this country people are considered expendable." Islamabad's civil defence budget is $40,000 and this year's allocation has yet to be disbursed. No serious contingency plans have been devised, plans that might save millions of lives by giving information about non-radioactive drinking water, escape routes and so on.
Ignorance and the consequent lack of fear make it easier for leaders to treat their people as pawns in a mad nuclear game. How can one explain Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's recent exhortations to his troops in Kashmir to prepare for "decisive victory?" His nuclear brinkmanship has been made possible by influential Indian experts seeking to trivialise Pakistan's nuclear capability. Such analysts have gained wide currency.
The reasoning of the "trivialisation school" goes as follows: Pakistan is a client state of the US and Pakistani nuclear weapons are under the control of the US. Hence, in an extreme crisis, the US would either prohibit their use by Pakistan or, if need be, destroy them. At a meeting in January in Dubai, I heard senior Indian analysts say that they are "bored" with Pakistan's nuclear threats and no longer believe them. K Subrahmanyam, an influential Indian hawk, believes that India can "sleep in peace."
Indian denial of Pakistani capabilities is not new. Two months before the May 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, as part of a delegation from Pugwash (an international organisation of scientists concerned about nuclear war), I met with Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral in Delhi. In response to my worries about a nuclear catastrophe on the subcontinent, he assured me-in public and privately-that Pakistan did not have the capability to make atomic bombs.
Pakistan proved the doubters wrong. Forced out of the closet by the Indian tests, Pakistan's nuclear weapons gave the country a false sense of confidence and security. This encouraged it to launch its secret war in the Kargil area of Kashmir. In fact, this war will be seen by historians as the first that was initiated by nuclear weapons. Although India wanted to respond, the existence of Pakistan's deterrence limited its options.
Then came 11th September. In a global climate deeply hostile to Islamic militancy, new possibilities opened up to India. Seeking to settle scores with Pakistan, India now began to consider strikes on militant camps on the Pakistani side of the line of control in Kashmir. To sell this to the Indian public, denying the potency of Pakistan's nuclear weapons was essential.
But to challenge a nuclear Pakistan requires a denial of reality. It is a big leap of faith to presume that the US has either the will-or power-to destroy Pakistani nukes. Tracking and destroying even a handful of mobile nuclear-armed missiles is not easy. During the Cuban missile crisis, the US Air Force could not ensure more than 90 per cent effectiveness in a surprise attack against the Soviet missiles on the island even though it had aerial photos of the missile locations and its planes were only minutes flying time away. More recently, in Iraq, US efforts to destroy Iraqi Scuds had limited success. There is no precedent for one country trying to destroy another's nuclear bombs. And 100 per cent success is required-one remaining nuke could unleash catastrophe.
Fight or flight? Biological evolution has programmed us for two elemental responses to external threats. Without fear there is no flight, just fight. But the brave are doomed. Ignorant and fearless, India and Pakistan could still add a frightening new chapter to the nuclear deterrence textbooks.
