A group of journalists and scholars from India and Pakistan met by a lakeside in northern Italy recently to talk about a subject that is all important but little discussed back home the nuclearisation of the Subcontinent. At the austere retreat in the village of Bellagio, the participants delved into not just the nuclear threat, but also all the underlying issues related to India-Pakistan tensions which threaten to take us down the road to atomic desolation.
Because we do not talk about the threat of nuclear annihilation does not mean it does not exist, and the South Asian enemies have come closer to potential use than other adversaries in the past. The density of population in South Asia, the short flight duration for ballistic missiles, the innate solvability of major India-Pakistan problems. all point to the 'nonsensibility' of contemplating the nuclear weapon as an option of choice or of bellicosity in the Indus-Ganga plains.
And yet, it does not do to merely wax eloquent about the nuclear threat that hangs above us all. What do we do about it? Approaching the subject dispassionately, the participants at Bellagio took it as a given that the nuclear weapon is a heinous proposition, but they went further to look with clear lenses at the inter-related problems of Indo-Pak perceptions, the all-important Kashmir issue, media jingoism, nuclear contamination at processing plants, international exigencies, and so on.
When the presidents and prime ministers meet at the SAARC summit in Islamabad in early January, we are certain that nuclearisation will not make it into the agenda. We are also certain that 'civil society' does not yet have enough clout to make denuclearisation the focus of official attention. We offer this issue of Himal as a contribution on a subject that the political leaders and opinion-makers of India and Pakistan do not have too much time to consider, at SAARC summits or elsewhere. Above all, we commend the ability of the participants at the 'Bellagio Summit' to be critical of their respective governments and national situations. This ability alone will take us ahead on the path of denuclearisation of South Asia which perforce has to happen if we are rialto convert ourselves into a killing fields of millions upon millions. – editors