ALI SUKHANVER

Once my grandma baked a cake, covered it with a lid and put it in the kitchen window for drying. I still remember her crying, “Be vigilant, the rats might drag the cake to their hole.” Now, when I am a grown up man, I hear the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”grandpa’ crying, “Be vigilant, the terrorists might run away with your nuclear program.” I feel a strange similarity between the cake and the nuclear program; both easily approachable; cake for the rats and nukes for the terrorists. The cake could never be stolen by the rats; how could be the nukes. God knows better why our sympathizers are so much doubtful about our abilities regarding the security of our nuclear program. They feel that we are innocent children, holding a toy in our hands and any one might snatch and run away with it .To be very honest and straightforward, the nuclear program is the most precious asset for the people of Pakistan. It is just like a dream based on hope and life. We, the Pakistanis know very well how to take care of our dreams.

It is a common feeling among the people of Pakistan that all US worries about the insecurity of our nukes are in fact nothing but a desire of taking hold of them. The US authorities are very well aware of the reality that in the presence of the nuclear assets, it is almost next to impossible to cause any damage to the federation of Pakistan. Apparently they have no excuse for getting control of these assets but one; the danger of going these assets into the hands of terrorists. So the whole of the US team is busy in preparing a stage where it could perform a play, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Pakistan’s nukes at stake’. Further more an ear-piercing hue and cry that Pakistan is continuously adding to its nuclear ability is also a chapter of the same bed-time story book. As reported by the New York Times, in confidential congress briefings, members have been told by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen that despite being racked by an insurgency, Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal, raising doubts on Capitol Hill’s proposed military aid of billions of dollars being directed to Pakistan’s nuclear program.

However some officials inside the Obama administration are in favour of Pakistan’s act of adding more to its nuclear force. They think that that Pakistan has been compelled to spend heavily on new nuclear arms because on the other hand its longstanding rival India is continuously increasing its nuclear assets under American support. Whatever Pakistan is doing with respect to its nuclear program is nothing but a reaction to the Indian nuclear program. The apprehension that Pakistan’s nuclear assets could go into the hands of the terrorists is simply Indian propaganda to defame Pakistan as a falling state. The purpose behind is to divert the international attention from the internal security threats that India has been facing since long.

For the time being, let us suppose that Pakistan’s nuclear assets are in danger; this danger is only from the extremist groups limited only to a very small portion of the tribal areas. It is also a day light reality that these extremist groups are facing a stern opposition from the local people as well as from the security agencies of Pakistan. The Pakistan army launched a military operation in the tribal areas to wipe off all these terrorists a few weeks back .The operation is still in process and it is being predicted that very soon the game will be over and the terrorists shall either leave the land or stop their activities. After that there would be no threat to Pakistan or its nuclear assets as proclaimed by the western thinkers or the Indian conspirators; but what about the terrorist groups operating in India? Are they never going to target the Indian nuclear assets?
India is afflicted with countless insurgencies. More than 55 per cent of its geographical territory is under the control of insurgents and separatists.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ From devastating protest against Indian atrocities in the Indian Occupied Kashmir to the always crushed Northeastern states and from the Sikh Khalistan movement to the leftist Naxalite separatists and above all the Maoist movement; innumerable terrorist groups are striving to get their aim. All these groups have their individual grievances with the central government of India and most of them are demanding a territory of their own. Northeastern India nurtures at least 50 separatist movements, out of which, the most prominent and oldest one is the Naga militant group also known as National Socialist Council of Nagalim. However, the most serious threat to Indian national security as pointed out by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is the Maoist insurgency .The prime minister called the Maoist movement ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by India.’

The western media portrays the Taliban as a group of Muslims having a very strict and extreme type of thinking. According to the western media, the Taliban are not a tribe or generation but a school of thought. It means every where, in every religion, a school of thought which promotes extremism must be called the Taliban. Extremism is not only limited to the Muslims. We see that even in the Hindu society, there are so many religious extremists who demand the expulsion of the Muslims and the Christians from the Hindu society. The burning of mosques and churches and killing of innocent Muslims and Christians in India has now become a matter of routine. Just look back at the Indian newspapers of 25th August 2008, reporting the Orissa massacre “A mob burned down a Christian orphanage in eastern India on Monday, killing one woman. The mob beat up a priest, drove children away and set the orphanage on fire in Orissa state, trapping the 22-year-old woman. The woman was found burned to death inside one of the rooms,”

A new book, Kandhamal: a Blot on Indian Secularism by Anto Akkara, investigating the anti-Christian violence that exploded across India’s state of Orissa in 2008 has shown that the Hindu extremists deliberately planned a campaign against the state’s religious minorities. During the spasm of bloodshed that followed, an estimated 5,000 homes and a number of churches were destroyed. Most of the destruction came in the neighbourhoods through which the funeral procession had marched, and the victims were primarily Christians. The concluding remarks of the author are enough to show the real face of the so called secular India, “I think the ashes in Kandhamal are not of the churches or of the Christians there; the ashes are the ashes of Indian secularism.” The behavior of the Hindu extremists is altogether similar to that of the Taliban in Pakistan. If Taliban are a threat to the nuclear assets of Pakistan, why not these Hindu extremists are a threat to the Indian nuclear assets?——–END

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