Nuclear Option - A Dialectical Approach

Indo-Pak vendetta of nuclear arms race has turned full circle. The 'nuclear cat' is out of the bag and the Government and the people are engaged in ecstatic jubilation's over a one-up reply of five Indian nuclear explosions with six by Pakistan. The moment of time chosen by Pakistan for the nuclear tests seems to have been done out of sheer desperation with utter disregard to the hostile climate of international opinion obtaining in the world.

For countering Indian nuclear capability, one is at a loss to perceive any difference in the realities of today and of 1974 ,when India carried out her first nuclear explosion. The question arises: if we had acquired this capability many years ago, why we did not carry out a test earlier because India had already done it in 1974. It would have been quite in keeping with the international norms to do so, during the cold war days, particularly while the US was held hostage, during their involvement in Afghanistan? I, precisely, do not know the date on which we acquired the capability. If it was not there till very recently, we could still have waited for a more opportune moment. After all from 1974 till 28th May 1998, for 24 long years India did not drop any nuclear device on Pakistan. What then was the hurry, at this crucial point , when the national economy is already at the verge of insolvency and the western world is poised to impose crippling economic sanctions, to go about nuclear rattling?

During the course of his declamation, on the national TV network, in mitigation of Government action, the Prime Minister indicated the outline projection of his impending National Agenda Package to survive international sanctions. He also, briefly, mentioned the projected austerity measures in offing and the dire need for generation of an enduring spirit essential for self reliance and the inevitable sacrifices appended with that. Expression of such pious wishes by the executive head is all very well for public consumption but their conformity to the material realities is a different matter. Like wishes never become horses, similarly austerity measures don't pay off unless underpinned with self example. Mere shifting the venue of the PM Secretariat, with real and industrial estate activity going on as usual, is hardly an enviable self example.

In a democratic dispensation, genuine legislation is one thing, but manipulation of constitution, against the spirit of the constitution, misusing brute majority, is the trait of dictators. Emergency has been imposed in the country selectively to accomplish a high handed act of freezing the foreign currency accounts of the people. The Government has contemplated to simply print the currency relentlessly and pay off the equivalent of the amount of foreign currency to the account holders. What about the multiple negative fallout of such a desperate measure? A measure, which, ironically, has been struck to destroy a monitory reform whose architect was also the same individual, during his previous stint as prime minister. The declared aim of the reform, at that time, was to attract investments, both foreign and domestic. How will, the faith of the foreign and domestic investors be restored for a promising future investment in Pakistan, merits some plausible explanation? The other adverse fallout would be an unbearable loss of real value of the domestic currency and the consequential recession and price hike. Besides, myriad intangibles influencing the calibration of faith of the people in the economic future of the country, as a result of extreme injudicious measure, cannot be measured precisely straight away, which will keep unfolding through the entire process.

Nations with pride and self esteem, irrespective of the quantum and quality of their national resource base ought, always, be self reliant and dependence on foreign aid and loans is the trait of only lowly people. What magic the Government will apply to accomplish the transformation of the nation to a proud and self reliant outfit, over night, is hardly perceptible?

Will the Prime Minister shed off his ambivalence and make the members of his parliamentary party, including himself and his family members, to pay off defaulted loan? Will he stop expansion of his real and industrial estates and concentrate on affairs of the state instead? Will he discontinue the drama of accountability of Benazir. Zardari and company and bring all the proclaimed wrong-doers to book and also re-appropriate the plundered national wealth back to national exchequer? Will merit ever have merit with him or is he capable of doing away with nepotism and cronyism? Will he recall his major decisions, undone by himself halfway or even before taking off (on use my counting those). Will he recount some of his unimaginative and thoughtless reforms, like the supply side conceptual framework of the fiscal strategy, debt retiring scheme, spot checks by accountability teams and personal attendance of telephonic complaints by the Prime Minister, Chief Minister and Government of the provinces etc., that proved as utter failures or abandoned midway because of being naive.

Can he resist the pressures of religious and ethnic polarization and assure the international community that Pakistan is a civilized society and that things like ethnic and sectarian strife have no place in this country?

There are no two opinions that the Government arrived at the most difficult decision of our national history, to go for a nuclear bang, under an extreme mental stress generated by myriad pressures of multiple expediencies. The volumes of condemnation spoken and written against the Indian nuclear explosions of May 11-13 by all segments of Pakistani nation, in itself, bear a testimony to the fact that any contribution in promoting nuclear arms race, particularly after the termination of the cold war period, is the most detestable undertaking against the race of human species.

A very difficult question: will he vow to set his, at least, economic priorities right and stop squandering away borrowed funds with exorbitant markups? Could he get over the motorway syndrome and also resist the obsession of new Air Terminal Complexes etc.? Only time will tell. Unfortunately as an answer to the foregoing inquiries, his track record points to the contrary.

Most of the credit for this decision, should go to the journalist community, who, instead of counseling the prime Minister on the dialectical and philosophical aspects of the great task before him, extended their unanimous approval for an earliest explosion with street rhetoric and trite cliches and platitudes. The future historian will judge it as he may. But one inference is easy to draw that Pakistan's considered reply to Indian explosions, was founded on petty prejudice and false national vanity, prompted by sub-mundane expediencies.

Had there been some taller historical figure at the helm of affairs in Pakistan, the decision would, most unhesitatingly, have been on the contrary. The deed is done. The clock is ticking fast. Events will move at a breakneck speed. The picture will start crystallizing in a matter of days and monthsÑnot years. Callous forces of history are frantically engaged in framing their decision. Why quarrel over the mundane surmises. Wait Adieu; till then.