Anwar Ahmad

Their anaemic economies are haemorrhaging to fund the mobilisation of their over-sized war-machines. Their soldiers stand ready to wreak havoc on each other, the slightest error could incinerate their hapless people. The world is worried that a nuclear cataclysm could befall their countries, already among the world's poorest and most populous. Circumstances placed Pakistani President Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee "in the same country, the same city, the same hotel." But they did not talk!

This obscene absurdity, the bane of Indo-Pak relations, has made a mockery even of nuclear deterrence. When Pakistan followed India into the nuclear abyss, experts had consoled the critics that there was a silver-lining to the dark cloud looming over South Asia. An Indo-Pak war, they said, was now ruled out and, therefore, there will be cost-saving as conventional arsenals are slashed.

This fond hope foundered at Kargil as the "limited-warriors" occupied centre stage. The real benefit of nuclear weapons, went the revised wisdom, was that these would deter a full-scale war. But for Pakistan's Kargil climb down, this theory would have been exploded in 1999. It has been now.

With the two armies in eyeball contact, the warplanes, warships and missiles deployed, the new optimism is that even a full-blown war can be fought without bringing in the nukes. India, says its defence minister, remains committed to its no-first-use promise and Pakistan, he hopes, realises the consequences of initiating a nuclear strike. Yet, his prime minister says Pakistan will become another Afghanistan, India will use every weapon to destroy and defeat the "invaders" and the world mustn't blame it!

He was speaking in Lucknow, we are assuaged, which is his hometown and the capital of Uttar Pradesh where the ruling Bharatya Janata Party faces a make-or-break election in mid-February. But he is no political rookie, nor a mindless zealot. Premier Vajpayee is said to be a dove among the hawks, a voice of sanity, even a statesman by the reckoning of his Pakistani bugbear. In the twilight of his life, he has seen how easily and completely insanity can seize the sub-continent.

Yet, he can so easily mouth a doomsday prognosis. What, then, of the hawks itching to finish Pakistan off? Who will think of the consequences? And, when? There will not be too many of us left the day after. Nor, indeed, any need to bother.

Pakistan is grappling with dilemmas of its own. If the first-use option is ruled out, the wisdom of swallowing India's Pokhran bait is undercut. How, then, will its strategists justify the billions spent on what has turned out to be worse than a white elephant? Can this, then, be a justification - or the compulsion - to get "value for money" by striking first? If not, then, should Pakistan let the superior Indian numbers prevail in a conventional war? Or, wait until almost all is lost before unleashing the nukes to take the enemy down with it?

It is, indeed, a no-win desperation. Yet, there is a surprising calm among the people. They have no nuclear shelters, nor any hope of surviving India's nuclear strikes. Yet, they are going about life with an eerie sang-froid. It flows partly from the ingrained eastern fatalism - what will be, will be.

But many actually see a gallows relief in a nuclear wipe-out. Since the nukes will destroy everyone, what's to worry about? The problem arises when some in the family are killed and others spared to suffer the pain. Death isn't a problem here, survival is and the nukes promise to take care of that. Not that people would not like to live. They most certainly would. But if they must die, then its easier to die together. Could this dark logic compel the military, if it cannot stop the enemy, into a collective kamikaze strike?

Another reason for the stoicism is the conviction that Pakistan's Kashmir cause is right, but the rules of the game have been changed after September-11. The weak, no matter how righteous their cause, now have no right to resist. As the American-Israeli-Indian arrogance underscores, they must submit and lose self-esteem, or die. These two unpalatable choices nourish the counsel of despair and vengeance - take the enemy down as well.

From despair and vengeance emerges terrorism, Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga reminded her SAARC colleagues at Kathmandu. So, she echoed the pervasive view, addressing the causes of terrorism is more important than hunting the manifestation. Coming from her this advice was specially weighty, considering how terribly her country has been bled by the Indian-initiated Tamil insurgency and that she almost lost her own life to a suicide bomber.

She could easily have joined the current frenzy of "damn the cause, kill the symptoms." But she did not. Her advice, though, will not change the BJP's course. It wants Pakistan to fold its hands, not extend one even in friendship, and purge the 'K' word from its psyche.

Given the US control of Pakistan's sea and air-space, few in Pakistan believe that India could have raised the stakes so high without a US nod. In deference perhaps to the services still being rendered, Uncle Sam preferred not to be seen as leaning too heavily on the dutiful "friend." But with India snarling at the borders, it can appear to be counselling Pakistan to save it from Armageddon. It could even "favour" the suicidal "friend" by taking out its "strategic assets" and, thus, saving it from incineration.

Even without such a grand plan, Pakistan has everything to lose in a war. Its best case scenario is to fight the much larger foe to a standstill without triggering a nuclear holocaust. But the economic cost of that could push it under. Already, the signs of an economic revival have wilted, if not withered.

India, too, will bear a heavy economic cost with or without a major war. But it can withstand the blow, especially since poverty and starvation are excluded from the equation. To this extent, it is a winner already - though, as the former Indian defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadev warned, the final US script on Kashmir may surprise both India and Pakistan.

This imponderable aside, most neutral observers agree that Pakistan has done enough against the militants to indicate a policy-change. The BJP can, therefore, proclaim victory and milk it in the tricky UP polls. Perhaps the fly in the ointment is the continuing violence in occupied Kashmir. Pakistan can feel vindicated because, with every inch of the LoC now crawling with Indian soldiers, there can simply be no infiltration. The insurgency is either indigenous, or the Indian army utterly incompetent.

Neither scenario can be palatable for the BJP and, unless the militancy wanes noticeably in the coming weeks, it may have left itself with no option but to strike out at Pakistan. Irrespective of whether the conflict is confined to Kashmir and its outcome, the momentum against militancy built up in Pakistan will then be lost.

Even if India can maul the Pakistani army sufficiently to discredit it out of power and bring in pliant politicians, the militant genie could still escape the bottle. Neither the remnants of the army nor the public opinion would then back a crackdown on them. If India can "cut Pakistan to size" yet again, the resulting uncertainty may not necessarily deliver the objective of neutralising Kashmiri insurgency. In fact, India could end up facing a far more virulent militancy across a far longer border or, if it chooses to occupy more land, over a far greater area. Finally, who can predict where the fragmentation domino will stop in the fragile sub-continent?

Reason, therefore, suggests that there is not much more for India to gain from war-mongering. It could even lose some of its gains. But when it comes to Pakistan and Kashmir, reason takes a back seat. Thus, even a sage like premier Vajpayee wants Pakistan to shed its "anti-India mentality" before talking of friendship. Such moral outrage at what, India says, Pakistan is doing to it in Kashmir is as astonishing as it is galling for Pakistan. Considering its own invasion and vivisection of Pakistan in 1971, can India really believe that Pakistan owes it a debt of gratitude?

Even so, Pakistan has outgrown the 1971 trauma. It is now mature enough to realise the unbearable cost of continued conflict and confident enough to express flexibility on Kashmir. But India will not budge because it has not only lost the military battle in Kashmir but also the hearts of the Kashmiris. In Pakistan it finds a convenient whipping boy.

The writer is a freelance columnist

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