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Thursday March 28, 2024

The path to annihilation

By Abdul Sattar
January 16, 2018

Insanity seems to have gripped India’s ruling elite as it is now threatening to trigger a nuclear war in the region. The inappropriate statements made by Indian Army Chief Bipin Rawat reflect the extent of this insanity.

During a media talk last week, the general said that his force is ready to call Pakistan’s “nuclear bluff” and cross the border to carry out any operation if asked to do so by New Delhi. In another statement issued on Sunday, Rawat asserted that there is ample room to ramp-up the heat on Pakistan to cut the flow of cross-border terror activities.

The statements have disturbed a tiny minority of pacifists who live on either side of the border. But it is disheartening to see that instead of generating an outpouring of condemnation, the general’s remarks seem to have created war hysteria. Comments in the Indian media show a great deal of support for the general’s disastrous path.

Let’s dissect the contents of his statement. The destruction caused by nuclear bombs is an established fact. No man with a modicum of common sense would dare imagine a nuclear war, let alone trigger one. Pakistan’s reluctance to sign an agreement to prevents it from the first use of its strategic assets, clearly indicates that the country has no option but to fall back on these assets in the event of a conventional war, which is likely to be India’s favour owing to its numerical strength.

While we may pour scorn on Islamabad for adopting this position, would India not have adopted the same policy if it were in Pakistan’s position? We don’t need rocket science to understand Pakistan’s approach. When it comes to conventional warfare, India is far more superior to Pakistan. If a country is faced with an existential threat, it will resort to any means to ward off the danger of annihilation. This is not just the case in our country. Any country that finds itself in Islamabad’s position will do the same thing. Let’s suppose that Germany, which is the largest country of Europe in terms of population, emerges as a large military power sans nuclear weapons and declares a war on Sweden, which is far smaller in terms of its population even though it manages to acquire nuclear arms. Will Stockholm drop the option of using nuclear weapons against a powerful enemy that has an edge in conventional warfare? If a country has the option to either allow itself to be destroyed by its enemy or let itself be wiped out while simultaneously annihilating the enemy, which course of action will it take?

With regard to the Indian general’s second statement, there is no substantial evidence to indicate that Pakistan is supporting Kashmiri militants. The current turmoil in Kashmir was not triggered by Islamabad. Instead, it was brutal repression of peaceful protests by the Indian security forces that infuriated political parties and people in Kashmir. Islamabad cannot be blamed for the ruthless use of pellet guns, the imprisonment of Kashmiri political workers and the fake encounters done by the Indian forces. There is no evidence to suggest that Burhan Wani was trained by Islamabad. These are indigenous responses to Indian atrocities in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), atrocities that have not only been condemned by Pakistan but have also been criticised by international human rights organisations. If New Delhi is not involved in violating human rights, then why doesn’t it allow rights groups to visit the valley? This clearly indicates that the fault does not lie with Pakistan but with India.

Indian analysts believe that Islamabad has patronised Kashmiri militants between 1988 and 2009. Over time, the support for the militants has receded and is currently non-existent. Between 1988 and 2009, the fatalities in Indian-held Kashmir were 36,960. But from 2010 to 2017, only 1,848 fatalities were reported. Out of 47,234 terrorist incidents that occurred from 1988 until now, the period between 1992 and 1996 witnessed the highest number of such incidents (22,516). During the peak years of violence in IOK, Indian analysts were vociferously claiming that it was Islamabad that was abetting terrorists. If the support still exists, why has the level of these attacks drastically declined? It seems that General Rawat has no answer to this question. India has fenced the 550 kilometre-long border along the LoC. If infiltration through the border is still underway, shouldn’t India, and not Pakistan, be blamed for this?

Many expect peace-loving people from the region to come forward and wage a relentless struggle against the agents of destruction. Rawat should not consider nuclear bombs to be chocolate-churning machines. They are tools of mass destruction. Around 21 million people will perish with the first week of the attack owing to burns and acute radiation. Experts believe that another two billion people across the world would face the risk of starvation owing to the climatic effects of the use of nuclear weapons in the Subcontinent.

According to some independent analysts, Pakistan had an estimated 110 to 130 nuclear warheads in 2015 – an increase from an estimated 90 to 110 warheads in 2011. Pakistan’s Hatf missiles have been developed – and are still being developed – by keeping India in mind. A major attack by Pakistan’s nuclear-tipped, medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) is likely to target India’s four major metropolitan cities – New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai.

India is said to have 20 nuclear-tipped Agni-I SRBM and eight Agni-II IRBMs, with ranges of 700 km and 2,000 km, respectively. These are capable of covering almost all Pakistani cities, including Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Peshawar, Karachi, Quetta and Gwadar. However, experts have warned us that the fallout of the nuclear attacks on Lahore and Karachi would not just be restricted to Pakistan and, depending on the wind directions, could also affect both Indian and Afghan border territories.

Experts have painted a doomsday scenario in case of a nuclear war between

India and Pakistan. Environmentalists believe that between 25 and 40 percent of the protective ozone layer will be destroyed at the mid-latitudes and around 50 percent to 70 percent could be destroyed in the northern high latitudes. Massive increases of harmful ultra-violet (UV) rays would have negative effects on human, animal and plant life. These changes in the global climate are likely to shorten the growing seasons in the Northern Hemisphere for several years.

This doomsday scenario shouldn’t just prompt India and Pakistan to come together for the sake of humanity. Other states must also get involved in warding off this danger. No one should be allowed to jeopardise the lives of millions of people by issuing provocative statements.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

Email: egalitarianism444@ gmail.com