If there were a nuclear Doomsday Clock for India and Pakistan, we would
have to advance its hands by two minutes. After the Pakistan coup d’etat,
it would show three minutes to midnight. The clock, whose concept was
invented by peace-minded atomic scientists to warn humanity of the gravest
threat to its existence, has registered many nasty advances since 1974 in
South Asia, especially with the nuclear tests. Kargil took it forward by
two minutes: India and Pakistan exchanged veiled nuclear threats at least
13 times during the conflict.

With the coup, a crucial assumption about the low likelihood of an
India-Pakistan nuclear exchange has broken down - namely, the integrity of
the establishments of the two countries and their ability to take rational
decisions about the life and death of millions of people. The coup has
exposed the fragility of the Pakistan establishment. Generals who can plot
against one another (as ISI chief Khwaja Zia-ud-din did against Gen Pervez
Musharraf) and overthrow elected government, can also overturn norms of
rational conduct. They can invent threats, panic, or pull the nuclear
trigger to assert “national pride”, or in pre-emptive “self-defence”.

This should induce salutary sobriety in Indian responses to the events in
Pakistan. Instead, our policy-makers and -shapers have gloated over them,
indulged in self-congratulation over the strength of Indian democracy, and
ridiculed Pakistan and its people. Beneath their declared willingness to
deal maturely with all regimes in Pakistan, whether civilian or military,
lurk many Indian suspicions and calculations. The main calculation is how
to use Pakistanís present crisis to court Washington through slogans such
as fighting “cross-border terrorism”.

Our Foreign Office did India no credit by pooh-poohing Pakistanís
unilateral troop withdrawal from the international border, and summarily
rejecting its offer of an “unconditional”, “results-oriented” dialogue. In
today’s situation, tension defusion and dialogue resumption are so
important that it really does not matter whether Gen Musharraf’s intentions
are sincere, or whether the pullback extends to the the LoC in Kashmir. Any
pullback is unreservedly welcome and in our own interest. New Delhi would
have heightened its stature and won the Pakistani peopleís goodwill by
making a positive response. Instead it has chosen to be petty and
strengthened the view that, led by a traditionally anti-Pakistan party, it
is not interested in conciliation.

Some of our Pakistan-baiting analysts have argued that the coup is no big
deal: military rule is the normal or “natural” state of Pakistan, and the
army merely acted as the guardian of the Two-Nation Theory. This analysis
ignores the many steps - wobbling, and indecisive, yet definite and
numerous - that Pakistan has taken towards democratisation during the past
decade. It makes light of the evolution of civil society: 1999 is not 1958
or 1977. The analysis portrays misgovernance as fundamental failure of
democracy itself. Rather than deal with the roots of the crisis in
leadership failure, it makes sweeping generalisations about the unviability
of the Pakistani state.

This view is mistaken. It assumes that once a state is founded on religious
identity, it is doomed to remain so forever. Historically, this is belied
not just in “ìChristian” or “Buddhist” societies, which have evolved into
broadly secular systems, but also in “Muslim” Iran, Iraq or Turkey. Iran is
an excellent contemporary example. Twenty years after the Islamic
Revolution, it is transiting towards a pluralist, liberal democracy. A
usual premise beneath Pakistanís “unviability” is that Islam and democracy
are mutually incompatible. This is communal nonsense. Secular democracy is
not about capturing a particular religion in politics, but about basic
separation between all religions and politics. If mainly “Muslim” Turkey or
Bangladesh can sustain democracy, so can Pakistan.

In Pakistan, the army did not intervene because Mr Sharif was jeopardising
the Two-Nation Theory. A different conflict was at work. Mr Sharif tampered
with the military line of command, creating resentment. This surfaced
during Kargil. His decision to withdraw the mujahideen further sharpened
tensions with Gen Musharraf. His more recent meetings with some Corps
Commanders precipitated the final act: mid-air dismissal of Gen Musharraf
and attempt to prevent his aircraft from landing at Karachi. The coup was
largely reactive.

The backdrop to all this was Mr Sharif’s 31 months-long feudal-style rule,
which lost him all credibility. Mr Sharif undermined all institutions and
made a mockery of governance. His Cabinet did not meet for a whole year.
The National Assembly did not pass a single legislation under his rule.
Crony capitalism reached new heights as the economy went into a tailspin.
The breakdown of public services was total. The army was drafted to collect
electricity and water bills. Little wonder, then, that three-fourths of
Pakistanis polled by Gallup shed no tears for Mr Sharif, although
three-fifths want civilian democracy.

Pakistanís 140 million people have lost democratic rights, the Constitution
stands suspended, and the military is back overtly interfering in public
life after 12 years. Pakistan seethes with severe economic inequalities and
low growth, intense regional-ethnic tensions and rising fundamentalism.
Both the Pakistan People’s Party and Muslim League have been tried twice,
and found wanting. There is no democratic alternative on the horizon.
Theses recent events are a terrible setback for the Pakistani people. We
must sympathise and solidarise with them.

The Pakistan crisis comes in conjunction with the swearing in of a hardline
right-wing government in India, and a global setback to nuclear
disarmament. Mr Vajpayee belongs to a viscerally anti-Pakistan political
current which believes in Akhand Bharat. Such currents in India and
Pakistan have fomented exclusivist nationalism, militarism and jingoism.
These, in turn, promote mutual hostility. This vicious cycle is part of
what is the world’s longest-lasting hot-cold war. It must be broken. The
BJP-led government is least equipped - and least willing - to do so.

After the 1998 nuclear watershed, India-Pakistan relations have decisively
changed. Two months ago, India ignited a new nuclear arms race by
publishing a “draft nuclear doctrine”, which calls for a huge, open-ended,
triadic arsenal. Pakistan will try to match this. Even China is
re-evaluating its nuclear posture. All this is likely to further stoke
militarism in the region.

Global developments have been equally dismal, especially the U.S. Senate’s
rejection of the CTBT. The treaty cannot come into force for a couple of
years. This takes the pressure off India and Pakistan to sign it. Although
the CTBT does not prevent nuclear weapons manufacture, it will create
conditions conducive to restraint. Absent restraint, India and Pakistan
will persist with their nuclear preparations. The CTBT failure signifies a
larger setback under the Republican Right. The whole agenda of nuclear arms
reduction is liable to suffer, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (which
bans full-scale ìStar Warsî) get jeopardised. This could lead to a collapse
of the post Cold-War momentum in favour of nuclear abolition. This will
strengthen hardline mindsets everywhere, including South Asia.

All this underscores the perils of India’s myopic and mean-spirited
response to Gen Musharraf’s offer of unconditional dialogue. India is
missing the chance to effect mutual disengagement. Pakistan is bursting
with tension. It is in Indiaís own long-term interest that it does not
disintegrate. We do not want a Nuclear Somalia at our doorstep. Making a
dialogue conditional upon withdrawal of support to ìcross-border terrorismî
is a retreat from the Lahore process. Questioning Pakistanís intentions on
this score leaves New Delhi vulnerable to the charge that its own
intentions are not honourable. Did it not do “bus diplomacy” mainly to
appear reasonable to the world after the nuclear tests?

Our policy-makers are today repeating the grave error they committed for
one and a half decades by refusing nuclear restraint talks with Pakistan.
They branded all its seven different proposals on this as “insincere”.
Their calculation today is a devious one. Some of them see in the coup an
opportunity to trap Washington in its own rhetoric of democracy and raise
the pitch of ìcross-border terrorismî. New Delhi is looking at Pakistan
through the prism of Indo-U.S. relations, thanks to its deplorable agenda
of establishing an exclusive strategic relationship with Washington.

This diverts attention from our democratic priorities. Given our
institutional erosion, corruption in public life, growing elitism in
economy and society, and subversion of norms of Cabinet functioning, our
democracy too has become vulnerable. Its health, while far better than that
of Pakistanís, cannot be taken for granted. Democracy has to be nurtured
carefully. We should not be smug about it. The main reason the Indian
military has not meddled with civilian authority is not that this society
is inherently resistant to militarism, or that its army comes from a
different tradition than Pakistan’s. Our military understood long ago as
did the rest of our Establishment that in a plural, diverse society, you
cannot sustain any institution unless you take the bulk of society with
you. Insofar as political leaders perform well, they can do this. Their
increasing failure to deliver should worry us.

We must remember and Pakistan is an extreme-case reminder that democracy is
not about elections and majority rule alone. It also involves fundamental
liberties and freedoms, legal entitlements, robust representative
institutions, separation of powers between them, free debate, an unshackled
media, and institutionalised mechanisms to promote accountability. When
these are weakened, democracy can erode, even collapse.(end)