In South Asia, the main arguments fall in the following categories. India says it needs them to show to the world that it is a world power that should have a seat on the Security Council, that should be taken seriously in the world and that should be taken at par with China. Pakistan says that it needs them to protect itself from India and to have some form of parity, in power terms, with the much larger India.

Then there are a host of smaller arguments too. Nuclear capability shows technological capability, it shows advancement in science and technology, and it can have spillovers in other areas of science, technology as well as industry.

But do any of these arguments make any sense? Will India be taken more seriously if it has nuclear capability? But India has had them since 1974, if the world was not taking it seriously even then, what will change now? India is a one billion strong large country with tremendous potential and actual achievements in all areas of human endeavour. Whether it is pure science (the Nobels that Indians have won bear testimony to that), technology (India’s IT industry and heavy industry), social science (again look at the number of academics India has produced), commerce and trade, religion or the arts (Indian cinema, sculpture), India has made worthy contributions in all fields. This is more than enough for anyone to take India seriously. A gadget, called the nuclear weapon, and one that has the power to kill millions, can evoke fear in others but not awe or respect. In fact, the immorality of the implicit or explicit threat involved in keeping this weapon, can only reduce respect, it cannot increase it. 

The same is true of Pakistan. The world will not think of us any differently if we have this weapon. Since 1998 we have only added to our isolation by keeping this weapon, it has not endeared us to the world in any way. The bomb also does not convince anyone in the world about our scientific ability or technological advancement.

This is fairly old technology (the bomb has been around since 1940s), and more importantly, the modular nature of technology allows us to do something more advanced in one field without similar progress in a broad spectrum of fields. Our human development indicators show, much better, where we actually stand.

We do not think of these issues in an organised, cool and detached manner. We entangle the issue of nuclear weapons with patriotism. The Prime Ministers have been quoted as saying that “only a traitor of Pakistan will freeze or downsize the nuclear programme.” This is, to say the least, a strange thing to say for surely the nuclear programme is not an article of our faith, and the programme is for us and not the other way round.

A good source for all of these arguments, and more, is Out of the Nuclear Shadow, edited by Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian (Oxford University Press, 2003). The editors, established names in this area, have brought together a very nice variety of articles on the issue of the nuclearization of South Asia. We hear enough jingoistic talk; this book gives us the other side. And with the likes of Eqbal Ahmed and Amartya Sen colouring its pages, the book is a must read. It also has an excellent article by Arundati Roy on “The End of Imagination”. Such is truth regarding the nuclearization decision.

I think most people will agree that nuclear weapons, which target civilians by hundreds of thousands, poison the earth and the surroundings, are difficult and costly to build and maintain, have a tendency to have costly accidents and so on, are a weapon that the world can do without. I think that most people will agree that if we can have a nuclear-weapon-free world that would be better for all. If they allow this, then the position of the existing countries that have stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and these include most of the developed countries, comes out in very poor light. They, and here India, Pakistan and even the aspirants have a point, are not in a position to tell the rest of the world that they should not have these weapons. But this does not mean others have a “right” to develop these weapons either. The “rights” based talk does not make sense here. If someone is doing something that is morally objectionable and odious, it neither gives the others the right to do it, nor does it make it a better outcome for the world. So India and Pakistan should not base their decision on “rights”. There are no rights to nuclear weapons.

India and Pakistan can point out the hypocrisy in the position of these other countries, and then say that they are making a “strategic” decision to have nukes because of this. But it is, as mentioned above, a “rights” issue. On strategic grounds let us look at the decision of India and Pakistan to have nuclear weapons. India wanted to be taken seriously in the world, and has justified its weapons on the basis of possible threats from Pakistan and of course China. But none of these reasons seem to be valid. We have already said that countries are not taken seriously due to nuclear weapons; they are taken seriously on the basis of their overall development, economic excellence and overall position in the world order. Look at China and Japan. India’s relations with China have improved tremendously and are not a source of the kind of threat that should have forced India into nuclearization, and Pakistan could never have threatened India to the extent that it would need nuclear weapons.

Pakistan has cited India as the main reason for its 1998 explosions. This position needs more careful consideration. It is true that Pakistan lives in a relatively hostile environment and needs to have reasonable level of protection. But does this mean that we should have the ability to destroy almost all of South Asia? That is the question. By having the capability of destroying Delhi, Bombay and some of the other larger cities, what does Pakistan want to stop India from doing? The general impression is that if Pakistan’s existence comes under question, and our back is against a wall, we might threaten to use these weapons or actually use them. This sort of strategic thinking is very iffy. In game theory, the way to rigourously analyse such situations, such games are usually characterised by multiple equilibria and these tend to be very sensitive to the assumptions one makes. In this case we seem to be assuming that even in these dire straits we will have the ability to launch a nuclear response, the other side would not have taken out these weapons already, that the world will sit quietly by and watch us die and kill lots of the “enemy” too. Change these assumptions a little and we could have a very different result. What makes us think that we will ever be in that tight a situation, and even in such a situation the rest of the world will just let us drift towards a nuclear holocaust?

Then there are the arguments that nuclear weapons provide deterrence. This too is very iffy. We did not have a war with India for 30 years even though we did not have nuclear weapons and they had exploded a device in 1974. But even after our explosions in 1998 Kargil did happen. So where is the evidence for deterrence? Even the Cold War does not give us any comfort on this count. We cannot say that the USSR and US did not fight due to nuclear weapons. There is no counterfactual possible here.

There is definitely resistance to thinking against doing away with nuclear weapons. Part of it might be genuine, but a lot of it is also drummed up jingoism and misplaced patriotism. Strong interest groups have a stake in keeping these weapons and in trading on the constituency of fear. Needed are clear thinking, and a consensus at the level of the society on this. We should be thinking about what we need to do multilaterally in world fora, bilaterally in talks with India and unilaterally, for ourselves. We should keep in mind that nuclear weapons have a cost too. They are expensive to build, expensive to maintain, and have a certain probability of costly accidents. Should poor and developing nations, like India and Pakistan, be really in this game?

But cost aside, the main argument that India and Pakistan need to flesh out is the reason for these weapons. There is no moral justification for these weapons, for us, or the rest of the world. What we have to think about is if there is a strategic justification for them and if that is really there. The usual discourse says there is, but most authors in the Out of the Nuclear Shadow book think there is not. We need to hear them too to make up our mind more dispassionately. Only then will India and Pakistan, together and even unilaterally, move forward on this issue.

This article was originally published at the IAEA Bulletin

On an personal level, Muslims in the West faced with this issue find themselves increasingly embroiled in proxy wars in the shape of dinner-table skirmishes. Are Islamic schools better for our kids? Is Hijab mandatory or optional? Should there be dance and music in our parties? Is it all right to have a Christmas tree in your house? What is wrong with giving a nice little card to your wife on Valentine’s Day? Should my next house be Sharia financed? Should my steak be Zabihah? Is it alright to sent kids to Church schools? On the surface, these arguments are a petty waste of time. On a deeper level, they struggle to answer a fundamental question haunting Muslims in the West. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, the Islamic injunctions for at least some of these issues are clear-cut. However, the problem is not the lack of knowledge about different injunctions. Gone are the days when you had to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles on a mule’s back to meet a teacher in remote accesses of foreign lands. The problem then is the willingness to learn and acceptance of the basics – or lack thereof. For some Muslims who are very thankful to be away from their dreary homeland lives, Islam very frankly, is becoming a liability that is not worth risking their jobs and lifestyles. Therefore, through denial, dissent, or doubt they are looking for alternatives and posing this problem in this way has ceased to be of any practical value. For most of us, the main question is this: do I leave my religion back home, as I go out to work? Is my religion a matter of personal choice? For obvious practical reasons a lot of moderate Muslims, find this paradigm shift quite appealing. What is wrong with doing what the Romans do while in Rome they ask? Is it not enough to be a good human being? God’s mercy would take care of the rest. At least we are not hurting anybody like the terrorists. Without going into its merits or demerits, this Muslim variant of Humanism is clearly another idea borrowed from the West. It stands on the pillars of acceptance of Humanistic ideals as well as revulsion to a carefully crafted caricature of Mula who is a corpulent, turbaned, belching, and bearded creature with a sword in his hand and a queue of concubines following him. However, its deeper implications are far reaching for in it is the implicit notion that being a good Muslim and being a good human being are two different things. A “good human being” is a welcome addition to the Western work force while a “good Muslim” is a gadfly to other fellow Muslims and downright dangerous to the Western ideals. In a post 9/11 either-you-are-with-us-or-against-us world, solving this predicament has become increasingly expedient.

The West went through the throes of this dilemma a few centuries back and out of it were born the twins of democracy and pluralism. It did not come easy though. It took two bloody revolutions and countless lives to settle the issue and no wonder the West jealously protects its Lockean ideology that is still warm with the blood of its ancestors. For Muslims this issue is still very much unresolved. The debate rages on while Muslims are torn between the ideas of Khilafat, kingdoms, military rules, dictatorships, and democracy willingly or by fiat. For the intelligentsia it is a matter of life and death, for the rulers this genie has to be kept hermetically sealed. The masses who are entangled in a struggle of survival by and large consider this discussion an intellectual luxury and a desolate outpost. For an outside observer it paints a picture of a psychotic Muslim society with multiple personalities. Its deeper implications are even more ominous. There is already an orchestrated chorus of voices in the West that staunchly believes that Islam is not compatible with Democracy (read: rationalism and tolerance). By this, I mean mainstream Islam and not radical Islam that is uniformly despised. More and more Muslims are starting to believe that too.

The crux of the argument is this: does everything in life fall under the canopy of religion (Islam in our case) or do we compartmentalize our lives between rationalism as our guide in daily lives and revelation our teacher on Fridays only. A few centuries ago, the West grappled with the same issue against the backdrop of the French and American revolutions. The West made up its mind and since then has moved on. From the Western perspective, Muslims need to go through the same evolution if they are serious about establishing tolerance, democracy, and pluralism in their societies. From an Islamic perspective, the whole argument is spurious and not even congruent with Islamic culture. Who is right? Only time will tell.

Since then a lot has been said for and against this premise. Amartya Sen a Noble Laureate and an economist who is best known for his work on welfare economics now joins the fray. In his recent article in Slate he argues that the original premise by Huntington is faulty and human beings should not be viewed with the narrow vision of religious affiliations alone. For example he says:

“A person belongs to many different groups, of which a religious affiliation is only one. To see, for example, a mathematician who happens to be a Muslim by religion mainly in terms of Islamic identity would be to hide more than it reveals. Even today, when a modern mathematician at, say, MIT or Princeton invokes an “algorithm” to solve a difficult computational problem, he or she helps to commemorate the contributions of the ninth-century Muslim mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, from whose name the term algorithm is derived (the term “algebra” comes from the title of his Arabic mathematical treatise “Al Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah”). To concentrate only on Al-Khwarizmi’s Islamic identity over his identity as a mathematician would be extremely misleading, and yet he clearly was also a Muslim. Similarly, to give an automatic priority to the Islamic identity of a Muslim person in order to understand his or her role in the civil society, or in the literary world, or in creative work in arts and science, can result in profound misunderstanding.”

He then goes on to attack Huntington saying that:

“The difficulty with the clash of civilizations thesis begins with the presumption of the unique relevance of a singular classification. Indeed, the question “Do civilizations clash?” is founded on the presumption that humanity can be pre-eminently classified into distinct and discrete civilizations, and that the relations between different human beings can somehow be seen, without serious loss of understanding, in terms of relations between different civilizations.”

He is concerned that putting people into such rigid and reductionist classifications not only is a logical fallacy but also hampers dialogue and interaction between the factions concerned. It also overlooks internecine differences within different groups. All this is assuming that there is no conscious or unconscious effort to misguide people. Take for example the case of Lt. Gen. William Boykin. (3) He says:

“Religious or civilizational classification can be a source of belligerent distortion as well. It can, for example, take the form of crude beliefs well exemplified by U.S. Lt. Gen. William Boykin’s blaring – and by now well-known – remark describing his battle against Muslims with disarming coarseness: “I knew that my God was bigger than his,” and that the Christian God “was a real God, and [the Muslim's] was an idol.” The idiocy of such bigotry is easy to diagnose, so there is comparatively limited danger in the uncouth hurling of such unguided missiles.”

Sen is also sharp enough to point out that on the part of the Muslims and especially the militants there is some philosophical confusion. They confuse Islamic identity with Muslim cultural identity. His recommendation is that Muslim society should not only concentrate on the Islamic aspect of its civilization but also on its science and arts which it should be duly proud of. He cites example of Saladin whose strong Muslim identity did not come in the way of appointing Maimonides as his personal physician.

Overall his article is a cry for the need for primacy of reasoning and logic over blind factional (especially religious) allegiances. It is also about how the world should be as opposed to how it is right now. For now it seems that Huntington’s argument carries a heavier historical weight. It remains to be seen whether the future vindicates Sen’s argument or not.

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Notes:

(1) The Clash of Civilizations is a controversial theory in international relations popularized by Samuel P. Huntington. The basis of Huntington’s thesis is that people’s cultural/religious identity will be the primary agent of conflict in the post-Cold War world.
Huntington’s thesis was originally formulated in an article entitled “The Clash of Civilizations” published in the academic journal Foreign Affairs in 1993. The term itself was first used by Bernard Lewis in an article in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly entitled “The Roots of Muslim Rage.” Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

(2) “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” (quoted from “The End of History”, 1989).

(3) The general gained some notoriety for his comments in 1993 during the Somalia war popularized by the movie “Black Hawk Down”. Common Dreams website has this to report about him:

Yet the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army’s top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian … and the enemy is a guy named Satan.”

Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”

Read the full article by Amartya Sen here.

Folk Marxism looks at political economy as a struggle pitting the oppressors against the oppressed. Of course, for Marx, the oppressors were the owners of capital and the oppressed were the workers. But folk Marxism is not limited by this economic classification scheme. All sorts of other issues are viewed through the lens of oppressors and oppressed. Folk Marxists see Israelis as oppressors and Palestinians as oppressed. They see white males as oppressors and minorities and females as oppressed. They see corporations as oppressors and individuals as oppressed. They see America as on oppressor and other countries as oppressed.

You can access the article here?
For a slant on the Palestine-Israel relations see here?