The utter madness of it all

A month ago, on September 29 2013, and despite pressures on both not to meet, the prime ministers of nuclear-armed Pakistan and nuclear-armed India met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and discussed a raft of matters including the volatile LoC in Kashmir, Mumbai, and trade. The two elected heads of the respective governments also decided that despite the heating up of the LoC, the Directors General Military Operations (DGMOs) of both countries should meet to talk about managing the situation on the LoC.

A month down the line, the situation is as heretofore: the two officials have not met on one pretext or the other, the pretexts emanating mainly from India. Such as, for instance, insisting that diplomats from the two sides may not attend the DGMOs’ meeting. I don’t know about you, reader, but this makes no sense to me. What in the world is the harm in the same number of diplomats from both sides attending the meeting?

So, on and on we go, our two unfortunate and hapless countries making spectacles of themselves before the world like two recalcitrant young boys playing marbles and by turn, picking up theirs and walking off in a huff whenever a dispute occurs. Instead of stepping back and taking two deep breaths, and thinking seriously about how we can become good friends, for there is no other way, we pander to the hawks (and the hawkesses if I may coin a term) on both sides and indulge in self-congratulation on every little nonsensical and suicidal idea that they spout.

If the Indians applaud their now-retired but most unguided missile General VK Singh and his special ‘unit’ that funded insurgencies in Pakistan and bribed politicians in Indian Kashmir; and other army chiefs (General Deepak Kapoor) who hinted broadly at developing the so-called ‘Cold Start’ strategy by which Pakistan is invaded quickly and after receiving ‘punishment’, the troops withdraw speedily, we are besides ourselves with joy when a Pakistani ‘tactical’, i.e., field nuclear weapon delivery system is test-fired successfully to counter this ‘Cold Start’ drivel. Which is then answered by India testing one of its own.

Is there any madness above this? Quite apart from the massive expenditures of scarce moneys on these weapons of mass destruction by both sides, would Pakistan sit on its hands while this ‘Cold Start’ nonsense is being put in place? Apart from the strong and well-equipped conventional forces that we possess, do the planners of this particular insanity know just how many automatic weapons are in the hands of private citizens in Pakistan? Would they hide in their homes doing nothing while India did what it pleased? And what about our ‘tactical/field’ nuclear weapons? What if (heaven forbid) they are used? Would India not react with a strike(s) of its own, and so on, and most stupidly on both sides behaving like sub-humans until vast regions of both countries lie in ruins and nuclear winter descends, obliterating all life for decades?

And this in two of the sorriest countries, the Human Development Indices of which are among the worst in the world, India’s (136) only slightly better than ours (146) among 186 countries? Where vast numbers of humanity don’t eat two square meals a day and where the mass of the people have no access to potable water and hygienic toilet facilities and where there is no health care and where most children die in infancy? Is there any madness above this?

As I said on NDTV the other day, is the loss of a Pakistani soldier less tragic than the loss of an Indian soldier? And that was it not time that both countries stepped back from the brink, the abyss actually, and actively looked for ways in which the slaughter of our young kids, both Indian and Pakistani, who give their lives needlessly on our LoCs or borders or Siachen or wherever, is stopped? Is it not time that Pakistan and India entered the company of the civilised countries of the world, and talked about things rather than firing at each other and testing new and newer missile systems which can only spell disaster for the people of both countries?

If anyone thinks I am condoning a violent act against India that evidently had its roots in Pakistan, I am not. I refer here particularly to the Mumbai Madness after which, remember, one of our leading TV channels traced Kasab’s village and which was then confirmed by our National Security Adviser, the great gentleman General Mahmud Durrani.

While I do not condone the Mumbai Madness and hope that the accused are punished appropriately, I call upon all clear-thinking Indians to also rein in their own ‘agency’ from fomenting trouble in Balochistan through Afghanistan of which there is every evidence newly discovered. They must desist, for not only would we react strongly, it must be realised that if Pakistan is destabilised any more than it is already, India will be destabilised too.

Yes, my Indian friends, it is time that your political leadership, despite the looming elections, took Nawaz Sharif’s outstretched hand of friendship and amity, and worked with the Pakistani prime minister in lowering tensions; encouraging enhanced trade; making it easier for the peoples of the two countries to visit the other and so on.

I would also one more time call upon the chiefs of both the armies to not only have hotlines on which they speak every so often to one another, but had regular meetings. Can you believe that the (native) chiefs of the Pakistan and Indian armies have never ever met after Partition!

And, again, one more time: May I ask both countries to please, please stop the tamasha on the Wagah border every evening. It is not only against every military Manual of Drill; it is childish; it is churlish; and it is downright stupid. Let us grow up and learn to handle our beloved flags with some grace.

P.S. Some sobering statistics of casualties in some cities in case of a nuclear exchange from Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy’s Confronting the Bomb (Oxford ISBN 978-0-19-906833-3): Bangalore: Killed: 314,978; Severely injured: 175,136; Faisalabad: 336,239; Severely injured: 174,351.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2013.

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