Did the bomb help Pakistan?
It has only protected the jehadis.
In the Dawn, Pervez Hoodobhoy demolishes the myth of perceived great benefits accruing to Pakistan vis-a-vis India, by going nuclear in 1998.
Did the bomb help Pakistan liberate Kashmir from Indian rule? It is a sad fact that India’s grip on Kashmir — against the will of Kashmiris — is tighter today than it has been for a long time. As the late Eqbal Ahmed often remarked, Pakistan’s poor politics helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Its strategy for confronting India — secret jihad by Islamic fighters protected by Pakistan’s nuclear weapons — backfired terribly in the arena of international opinion. More importantly, it created the hydra-headed militancy now haunting Pakistan. Some Mujahideen, who felt betrayed by Pakistan’s army and politicians, ultimately took revenge by turning their guns against their sponsors and trainers. The bomb helped us lose Kashmir.
Some might ask, didn’t the bomb stop India from swallowing up Pakistan? First, an upward-mobile India has no reason to want an additional 170 million Muslims. Second, even if India wanted to, territorial conquest is impossible. Conventional weapons, used by Pakistan in a defensive mode, are sufficient protection. If mighty America could not digest Iraq, there can never be a chance for a middling power like India to occupy Pakistan, a country four times larger than Iraq.
It is, of course, true that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons deterred India from launching punitive attacks at least thrice since the 1998 tests. Pakistan’s secret incursion in Kargil during 1999, the Dec 13 attack on the Indian parliament the same year (initially claimed by Jaish-i-Muhammad), and the Mumbai attack in 2008 by Lashkar-i-Taiba, did create sentiment in India for ferreting out Pakistan-based militant groups. So should we keep the bomb to protect militant groups? Surely it is time to realise that these means of conducting foreign policy are tantamount to suicide.
It was a lie that the bomb could protect Pakistan, its people or its armed forces. Rather, it has helped bring us to this grievously troubled situation and offers no way out. The threat to Pakistan is internal. The bomb cannot help us recover the territory seized by the Baitullahs and Fazlullahs, nor bring Waziristan back to Pakistan. More nuclear warheads, test-launching more missiles, or buying yet more American F-16s and French submarines, will not help.[Dawn]
The experience of a nuclear Pakistan clearly shows that the Pakistani military-intelligence-jehadi complex is a singular entity when it comes to dealing with India. In fact, it is a mutualist relationship — Jehadis are the sword arm of the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment against India, Afghanistan and NATO forces,while the Pakistan army’s nukes are the shield protecting the jehadis. That is where the perceived success of a nuclear Pakistan lies — in protecting their military-intelligence-jehadi complex against an Indian retribution.
Hoodbhoy is considered to be an Indian agent in most Pakistani circles. Poor sucker. He overstates the impact the bomb has had on Pakistan’s endemic failures. Bomb or no bomb – this state was congenitally flawed and is headed to the dustbin of history. The subject is already dead – but burying the corpse is going to take decades, during which it will increasingly stink up the neighborhood.
Unfortunately , In pakistan , public opinion hardly matters !! Additionally , the article does not call on Pakistan for unilateral disarmament , but calls on “India and Pak” to disarm !! Is this acceptable to India ? I do not think so !
Plus , will this stop the “Jehadis” from collecting money in the name of Kashmir from ordinary pakistanis on every Friday ? Or for pakistanis to stop giving Money ? I think , again the answer is a big NO .
Pakistan’s problem is its endemic dream to stand alongside India , on an equal footing !! Which is , unfortunately , in the present times , not possible .
The only treatment required by pakistan and pakistanis from india is to ignore them !! we should forget trying to engage the Pakistanis , since this gives them another excuse for striving for equality with India !! We should , in our foreign policy refuse to even believe their existance , by ignoring them altogether !! I believe that will have a greater impact since all their actions , like the news regarding sixty nukes etc etc are similar to the behaviour of a child demanding attention . The only solution is to ignore the child , while at the same time , strengthening our internal security “apparatus” under the Home Ministry which includes not only the executive structure (CRPF, BSF etc etc ) but also the command and control organisation of these forces , to make them a professional , useful element !!
The views expressed by Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy have lot of logic. There are, people, however, in Pakistan as well as in India who have a megalomaniac concept of their respective nations, oblivious of the fact that nations acquire greatness because of the values they espouse and promote. To be bigger in size like India and to be bigger in a faith like in Pakistan (what people mostly in Pakistan believe) doesn’t bestow a status of greatness. There are small nations in Europe like Austria and Switzerland who feel proud of their human values and rightly are honoured in the comity of nations as highly respected states. Not that they always have been like this. Like India and Pakistan, Austria was proud of its legacy derived from the Habsburg Empire and the Italians of their Roman ancestors. But the realities made them to come on a point where both joined hands as members of the EU and naturally are benefitting from same.
India and Pakistan can also form an economic union on the same pattern like SAARC. Unfortunately our friends in India who have expressed their opinions in comments boxes above, calling either bad names to Pakistan or wishing that it dissipates on its own, do not auger well for such people who want peace and friendship between the two countries.
But even then, it should not and will never deter the people (an endeavor the undersigned is also doing through his blog) to forge friendship between two great countries of the subcontinent, who have history to culture, music, poetry and so many other things to share and benefit.
Nayyar Hashmey
http://wondersofpakistan.wordpress.com/
Dear friends,
Ignoring Pakistan is not the solution. Whole world knows that Pakistan is a failed state and is not equal to India. Pakistan continues to trouble India through Jihadis and terror attacks. If a thorn is stuck in your foot will you ignore? You can never as it keeps troubling you. So is with Pakistan. It has to be removed at any cost. If the thorn is neglected and left there , soon it could create an apses and other complications and if your are diabetic, may even loose foot by Gangrene at a later date. So is with pakistan. India suffers like a Diabetic patient unable to enjoy or die soon. It is a complex and patheitic existance. Pakistan has to be tackled not by neglecting. There is a saying that even a small snake has to clubbed with a large a and stout stick to make sure it is dead. A blogger said it is not worth to have another large group of Muslims in India. That is true. As it is very are put into great problems by a scetion of them. Some guys want to convert India inti Da ul Islam a crazy dream for them. Solet them be happy and struggle in their country and die if they can not survive. Even Afghnaistan will not like to annexe Pakistan. It is a shit pot. You go near them it sticks to you. So better leave Pakistan to their fate and allow them to disintegrate if not today tomorrow. But they should not be neglected. They must be kept at bay and shoed around if they interfer with India. That is the lesson
Thanks
Tolerant
Actually the Pak Mil is a better multitasker than our timid Colonial wannabees: Business, Banking, Real Estate, PWHO, Missiles, Nukes, Terror, Swatting. U name it. No AWWA RTIs, no rum scandals. Money and guns and you can have it all. Way to go.
I am pretty sure that the ‘INTOLERANT’ in the garb of ‘TOLERANT’ is not the true representative of mainstream Indians’ approach. Unfortunately a patriot Indian doesn’t mean an anti Pakistani and vice versa. Unfortunately this is how the extremists on both sides of the border portray the picture and thus mar the relations between the two states.
The website says:
“Do keep the discussion civil.”
Even if.
The ” khooni rishta” may not go away. Say – Saurabh Kalia* ? Any views
on the id of which gallant subcontinental Regt’s ORs, JCO or officers did
this uncivil work ? Jedem das Seine. “Do keep the discussion mil.”
See below
—————————————————————————————
*The murder before Kargil
Public memory is short-lived.
What else can explain the fact that as we debated, discussed and disseminated news about the elections on May 15, not one newspaper, not one television channel, not one website, remembered that it was on this day 10 years ago, that Lt Saurabh Kalia and his five member team were captured by Pakistani intruders in Kargil.
These young men were subjected to brutal and inhuman torture for almost 22 days, before they were shot dead on June 6-7, and their mutilated remains returned to India.
Even as we ponder over the next government, let us take a few moments to remember their supreme sacrifice….
@amf:
The answer to your “military discussion” comes from an unlikely source here.
Dear friends,
I agree that to be a patriot in India one need not be a pakistani hater or vice versa.But people have to see the facts. We are not hating all Pakistanis. There will be surely many Pakistanis who want to build friendship with India and live in peace. But by and large the policy of Pakistan has been the hate campaign against India. Right from day one they have taken anti Indian stance and invaded India in 1948 by sending tribals. It was past long ago.The atrocities committed by the tribals and pak army can not be forgotten. It is easy to preach. They repeated the tactics one after the other three times and lost the wars. the country broke up in to two finally. India with great heart released 1 lakh prisoners without any condition to satisfy some ones ego who wanted to go down in history as a great stateswoman. If Pakistan was in Indias position they would have never handed over Indian PW and would have exchanged Kashmir for them of course after skinning many of them alive. Sadly guys do not realise that Pakistan was created on the basis of inability to live in India in a democratic set up where they feared that they would have no voice. Sadly Pakistan has been suffring dictatorships and calamities over the years and is emrging as a failed state and it does not have control over its own provinces. They have launched jihad on India unable to win wars and the aim is to bleed India continuously and braek its will. They have been piling up nukes more and more. Against whom? Surely to counter India. In such precarious situation how can India fear no threat from Pakistan whose sole aim appears to grab Kashmir and destroy India?Rather in return it is getting destroyed itself. Writing on the wall is there and it has to be read with glasses if required.However blind people can not read. They have to be told in clear terms. India has to guard itself agaisnt all external threat. Ostrich attitude does not help. Nehru did it with Chinese and Indians were whacked well in 1962.Pakistan at any time can not be trusted and history stands testimony. There may be any number of good Pakistanis in that land. But Govt policy is anti Indian and its army and ISI manage the show and power is in the hands of India haters being a national policy.They have harbored all international thugs and trrorists in the country and act as if none is there. Can any responsible governmnet resort to such tactics? As you sow so you reap. They are getting what they deserve from Taliban which they created. It is a question of time before Pakistan is Talibanised or gets disintegrated. No one will do it. They themselves would manage the show.No heart burns. Time takes its own toll.Take it easy guys
Tolerant ( Really Tolerant please)
@Tolerant
“Sadly Pakistan has been suffring dictatorships and calamities over the years and is emrging as a failed state and it does not have control over its own provinces.”
Sir, They are not a failed state:
1. They will bomb the butts off their tribals (the Brits strafed etc them
too, last century to teach them manners.) Not a difficult problem to
sort out. Ceylon similarly did it too. Technology helps too.
2. They have the most Pragmatic foreign policy, friends – Yanks,
Chinks, The Nation of Islam, The French, The North Koreans, Sri
Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bradford Londonistan. What do the Indians
have except getting asses kicked by Australians with only a weak
protest by our mens’ clothing designer wimp Foreign Minister ?
Dear Dolly Parton,
Sir,
In this aspect you are correct. Pakistan has no doubt has a different foreign policy and has made good friends with Yanks, Chinks, Bangaldeshis, Lankans, Nepalis and with all those who are not in line with India. Any one crossing India naturally gets into Pak fold. Your enemy is my friend is the usual policy and in todays world this would succeed.In fact India has no real friend in world.That is the failure of Indian foreign policy.None of the Arab stataes came to Indian rscue in all previous wars and they did not even give lip sympathy. India however dances for Arab cause every where. Probabaly Oil is the reason to make it to dance to their tune. The policy of NAM started by India resulted in thorough self screwing. Yet India continues on the same track. Aftermath of Bombay blasts exposes India’s weak foreign policy. Yet Pakistan has its own internal serious problems that they are unable to solve and no one can solve their problem. Time only will solve it. Thanks
Tolerant
@Dolly Parton
Why are you using fake names like this.
Is foreign policy the only criteria for judging a nations success.When we say ‘failed state’ it meaning starts from a nations capability to run its nation by its own elected people.This was the never the case with pak.Thats why pak is a failed state.Pak politicians or generals are hired/fired in US. Pak politicians and Generals are running pak on the false pretext that they will save its people from the ‘Aggressor India’ but what they gave was severe humiliation in 4 wars and Bangladesh.
Which foreign policy is pak using today? It is ‘Give us money or else we give our nukes to terrorists’ Which foreign policy North Korea is using? It is ‘Give us money or else I use nukes, we are the terrorists’ Pak will be friends with the likes or North Korea,China etc as they also have non-democratic military set up just as Pak. Pak is not a ‘friend’ with US it is a ‘Slave’ of US.
These are the countries who are a threat to the world peace and should be declared a terrorist state and stripped of the nukes.
Pak has been historically been used as a proxy by big powers for its own intrest.When the intrest is over they were thrown like sucked mangoes.
Example is US using pak,afghans against Russia in past. US is still using pak for its own intrest and forcing pakis to kill their own people.Now China is using it against India.
Pak has been supporting the terrorist organizations like ULFA,Naxals,Khalistan etc for years. Pak has waged proxy wars against India for decades and now its backfiring.
Pak might bomb the butts of the tribals but remember the Tribals are also bombing pak army frequently.The war has just started and even if army takes over whole area it wont win. Due to this Pak is the most dangerous country even surpassing Iraq where bombs attacks are normal thing.