End the zero-sum game

The short answer to these questions is quite obvious: No! Unless, of course, India and Pakistan can bring themselves to address, for the first time, the reality of their bilateral relationship, and the reality of the new context in which it has to work itself out.

The major powers have responded to our tests not with reference to our respective concerns but according to their own agenda. What was always known to their elite decision-makers that the peace of the subcontinent was at best fragile has now become known to their general populace. It has entered their public policy debates and has reinforced the perception that a nuclearised South Asia has become the most hazardous flashpoint in the world. This is why we are listening to a new catechism. It reads: Thou shalt never be admitted to the club of recognised nuclear weapons states. Thou shalt sign and ratify the CTBT without condition.Thou shalt join discussions for a FMCT. Thou shalt join the NPT as it is and as thou wert.

Thou shalt not test, be it missile or nuclear device. Thou shalt not nuclear-tip thine missiles. Thou shalt not export or transfer technologies, weapons or components that could make other miscreants in thine own image.These are the concerns of the world. We may strike moral, legal or chauvinist postures. But these shall provide the context for the strategies we must adopt in the post-Pokharan/Chaghai era. There is no escaping them not just because they are backed by power but also because they constitute the basis for our mutual security as neighbouring nuclear weapons states.Needless to say, we have no intention of reversing the clock. Virginity whether nuclear or conventional once lost is irretrievable. So too is nuclear innocence. We no longer have the luxury of determining policy on the basis of nuclear illiteracy. Our decision-makers, intelligentsia and masses must acquire an essential knowledge of theimplications of neighbourly nuclear animosity and understand the need for codes of conduct and survival.

Hence all the talk about unilateral moratoria, no first use, confidence-building measures (CBMs), no-war pacts, risk reduction, hotlines, permissive action links, command and control systems, time buffers, computer simulations and, of course, seminars, workshops and interfaces.

But all CBMs require a context of understanding and a climate of good faith. Otherwise, they will comprise just another set of zero-sum stratagems and will be seen as designed only to steal a diplomatic march. Merely to refer to the catastrophic consequences which CBMs are designed to avert without seeking to build up the necessary climate of mutual understanding and trust will doom the whole CBM exercise, however urgent, to futility.

Developing this good faith means taking an honest look at our relations over the last 50 years and asking ourselves why we have armed ourselves so fiercely and maybe uncontrollably against eachother. Oh, ho! I can hear my Indians friends exclaim, here comes the K-word! The supposed root of all evil between us and the magic mantra for the solution to all our problems!Yes, my dear Indian friends, here indeed does come the Kashmir dispute. We need not dwell on its origins or its settlement, on which we have no hope of agreeing anytime soon. But we can and should agree on one thing: that this is the one issue that comes between us and our shared desire and need to reach out and build a new relationship based on a myriad indissoluble links.

We have a choice. Either we continue to make Kashmir the symbol of an insurmountable political, philosophical and civilisational divide or we recognise that it is imperative to move towards its settlement. This choice is now imposed upon us with greater than ever clarity. Do we have the vision, the wisdom, the courage, the commonsense, the decency and the practical genius to make the correct choice? Will we negotiate our nuclear context with inappropriate attitudesand failed approaches? Or will we summon the collective capacity to do things differently?

Two things need to be done. One, to address the consequences and concerns that stem from our having proclaimed our nuclear capability. Two, to address the Kashmir dispute, which will impede our ability to negotiate our nuclear context. If we are unable to make progress on these matters in discussions among ourselves, how can we credibly tell the rest of the world it has no business concerning itself with the futility and sterility of our dialogue?

We really have no right to be stuck on modalities indefinitely. We have no right to play zero-sum games forever. We have no right to think that we can set aside, freeze or forget the one issue that has set us apart all these years and which can yet again threaten the peace between us in a new, alien, incomprehensible and infinitely more dangerous nuclear context. History suggests that we may need the help of mutual friends in this regard.

To refuse it while knowing thedismal prospects of progress in exclusively bilateral talks is to insist on policy paralysis. Over the past fifty years we have both paid a high price for this, even if at times we have suggested to ourselves that it was worth it. Over the next fifty years the luxury of such self-delusion will simply not be available to us.

Excerpted from an address at the India International Centre, Delhi.

The writer is High Commissioner of Pakistan in India