Ranjit Devraj:

Not only are the year-old peace talks between India and Pakistan floundering but the South Asian neighbours are also steadily increasing their nuclear arsenals, warn leading physicists on both sides of the common border.

R Rajaraman, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Jawaharalal Nehru University, is in agreement with visiting peace activist and physicist from the Qaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pervez Hoodbhoy. Both say India and Pakistan had been beefing up their nuclear arsenals and delivery mechanisms even while they were engaged in a “composite dialogue” aimed at building peace that started in January 2004.

Both South Asian countries declared themselves as nuclear powers in 1998 and within a year came close to testing their weapons on each other after skirmishes at Kargil which saw the use fighter aircraft and the Pakistani and Indian navies in battle manoeuvres. In 2001, an attempt by a suicide squad to blow India’s parliament, using a car bomb, led to India mobilising 700,000 troops along the border. The Indian troops were prepared to attack Islamic militant camps in Pakistani-controlled areas within Kashmir amidst threats and counter-threats that nuclear weapons would be resorted to. Deft diplomacy, however, by the US helped defuse what easily might have been a nuclear holocaust.

“What should be done is to reduce the testing of missile and fissile material,” stressed Hoodbhoy. Instead of spending money on glaringly neglected social sectors like education and health, both countries have been busy acquiring sophisticated weapons systems or building them. In what seems like a new edition of the Cold War, India has in collaboration with Russia built supersonic guided missiles and acquired frontline Sukhoi fighters while Pakistan is awaiting delivery of F-16 fighters. Neither Hoodbhoy nor Rajaraman were prepared to accept the idea of nuclear weapons acting as a deterrent and say that there is every possibility of nuclear war breaking out between India and Pakistan because of an irrational decision or even by accident.

Confidence in the progress of peace talks were shattered by a dispute that arose earlier this month over the sharing of the waters of the Indus river and its tributaries that were supposed to have been settled decades ago by the 1960 Indus Water Treaty. After joint inspections, a Pakistani team said that a 450-watt hydroelectric dam being built at Baglihar on the Indian side of the LoC in Kashmir violated the treaty and Islamabad announced that it would seek the arbitration of the World Bank. But the Bank doesn’t seem to want to get involved in the dispute.

With more than half-a-century of war and diplomacy failing to resolve the dispute over Kashmir, leading analysts have been calling for fresh approaches to the long-festering problem. “People-to-people contact, including student exchange programmes, demilitarisation in the area and the softening of borders should be encouraged first,” Hoodbhoy said. The future of the peace talks now hinge on meetings between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Shaukat Aziz on the sidelines of the SAARC summit scheduled to be held from Feb 6-7 in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka. — IPS