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Editorial: Worrying over South Asia’s bombs

The world (read the West and Japan) is worried over the weapons of mass destruction accumulating in South Asia where India and Pakistan cannot give up their conflictual relationship and are ramping up their nuclear programmes. As the Washington Post wrote on Thursday, Pakistan is supposed to start “churning out plutonium for its nuclear arsenal, which will eventually include warheads for ballistic missiles and cruise missiles capable of being launched from ships, submarines or aircraft. India is designing cruise missiles to carry nuclear warheads; it is also trying to equip its Agni missiles with such warheads and to deploy them on submarines”.

On the other hand, Pakistan was celebrating the anniversary of its nuclear test of 1998 the same day, calling its programme “the safest in the world” which had provided the nation with “an unshakeable defence against any enemy”. Both Indian and Pakistani experts have debunked the fear expressed in the US and other capitals that the two programmes in South Asia are vulnerable to “theft” by “a rogue scientist or a military officer”. It is argued that any rollback of their programmes is not possible because of the national consensus behind them. Therefore it would not be wrong to say that in part their mutually hostile nationalisms are driven by their “collective pride” in these nuclear weapons.

India and Pakistan have been gradually accepted as non-Non Proliferation Treaty signatory nuclear powers. Last year the United States concluded a nuclear cooperation treaty with India allowing it to import uranium and allowing the military to draw on enriched uranium produced by eight reactors that might otherwise be needed for civil power. The world cried “foul” half-heartedly before accepting it as part of the new global reality. Another step towards the regularisation of the status of the two nuclear South Asia powers was taken this month when France agreed to supply Pakistan with civilian nuclear technology “the same way America had done to India” (that’s not possible because the Nuclear Suppliers Group is not involved in the France-Pakistan deal in the way it is solidly behind the US-India deal).

Pakistan stands to gain from this new development, which has gone without much comment internationally. The US-India nuclear deal was finalised after the 45-strong Nuclear Suppliers Group declared its approval of it. One must note here that assent to the deal was given both by China and France. China has always been in favour of treating Pakistan at par with India on the provision of civilian nuclear technology. In other words, if India is to be exempted from the NPT conditionality of signing it before buying this technology, then Pakistan should also qualify. Now France too has adopted this point of view. It is also possible that France has moved forward after realising that China will ultimately come forth for Pakistan. On the other hand, there is no bar on Pakistan signing a nuclear treaty with more than one state provided the Nuclear Suppliers Group okays it. All this goes in favour of “equalising” Pakistan with India as a recognised nuclear power.

Pakistan’s non-reconciliation with India and its reluctance to allow the freezing of the status quo delays the process of “equalising the unequals” which lies at the core of nuclear possession. India’s unwillingness to return to peace talks in 2009 is adding to the problems of an unstable deterrence which scares the world. Pakistan has been politically unstable over the past thirty years because of its efforts at living up to its status of a revisionist state. In the new millennium it has been destabilised internally by uprisings and territorial losses to terrorist militias that contain men from as near as the Gulf and as far as Algeria, to say nothing of the Uzbeks and Chechens from areas nearer the region.

But a nuclear bomb is the best bargain counter for an agreement on peace and related economic arrangements that consolidate and perpetuate normal relations with perceived enemy states. In that sense the bomb is a weapon of peace, not of war. Today, the only unchanging element in Pakistan’s strategy is the perception of India as a permanent enemy. At the same time it is accepted on all hands that India cannot attack Pakistan because of the latter’s nuclear deterrence. This deterrence, however, will not be stable as long as the two countries remain daggers drawn against each other. That is why Pakistan wants the United States and its allies to persuade India to come to the negotiating table, because that is the only way forward to achieving stability in the region. *

Second Editorial: A good decision by Federal Shariat Court

In contrast to the lashings and beheadings being meted out to innocent Pakistanis by the Taliban in the territories under their control, the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) on Thursday declared that the drinking of alcohol was a bail-able offence. The FSC has also changed the punishment meted out to drunks from whip-lashes to strokes by a stick of the date-palm tree. A petitioner had challenged the punishment for drinking, praying that flogging was an incorrect punishment. He had maintained that according to the Islamic law and the “fiqh”, a person accused of involvement in drinking could be given the right of bail.

This is a brilliant example of “ehsan” in Islamic jurisprudence, to look at the accused from a humane point of view, to take into account his social disabilities, his state of suffering in an unequal society, etc. When we look at the social matrix within which people drink we find both the poor and the rich taking alcohol. No one can deny the truth of how the law against drinking is enforced. The poor man drinking a low quality brew is caught; the rich man remains outside the reach of law. Another social aspect that no one can overlook is the use of far more lethal narcotics like heroin among the poor against which there is virtually no enforcement. There is no justice in keeping a poor man locked up for drinking while the rich man remains exempt and hundreds of heroin addicts called “jahaz” in Lahore remain sprawled on the streets of the inner city. Therefore the date-palm stick should be lightly applied. *

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