The Visual appeal of the uniform

Over the centuries that armies have formed and fought, the uniform has always been an important part of history. While their styles and purposes have varied as endlessly as the passage of time and the nature of conflict, uniforms have served a number of purposes. They have been designed to intimidate enemies, maintain battle lines, identify friend and foe, or have been modified to suit a particular battle tactic. They have been designed for the splendor of ceremonial duties and made for the camouflage and deception of the sniper's stealth. Yet one aspect runs common throughout them all - their special visual appeal.

Perhaps no other era in warfare, nor any country in conflict has ever attained the dramatic visual achievement in its uniforms, as did the Wehrmacht in World War II. The military, political and civilian cultures of Germany emerged in the early 1930s outfitted in a wide array of martial accouterments under the growing power, guidance and influence of National Socialism.

By the outbreak of WWII Germany, as a nation had not only embodied the fervor of fascism in the uniforms of her armed forces, but also consummated the history, tradition and psyche of a proud and longstanding military heritage in their form, function and appeal. Few if any modern militaries so purposefully have linked the uniform to its national character. So prominent an effort was hardly able to be missed by even her enemies.

Germany's adversaries clearly took note of the attention to detail given every aspect of German military uniforms. The rather unique practice of wearing full decorations in battle drew much attention both within the Wehrmacht and amongst its opponents. How many GIs, Tommies or Red Army soldiers sought to liberate the Wehrmacht soldier of his Luger, his helmet or his iron cross? A German taken prisoner who bore the Ritterkreuz was widely recognized as an exceptional adversary.

The Waffen SS epitomized the idea of the driven, selfless and unsparing warrior. Many an Allied soldier recognized the collar patch and both dreaded and boasted of their clashes with the "asphalt soldiers" of the Waffen SS. The German helmet was and still is today perhaps the most widely recognized single uniform item ever designed. It is this awe that German uniforms elicit - with their exceptional level of attention to detail, their rich traditions, color, and variety, as well as the sinister inspiration, begrudging admiration and fear these uniforms evoked that probably draws the ranks of collectors to this unusual hobby.

Taliban Afghans destroy Bamiyan Buddhas but cry foul about Mohammed Cartoons

As was to be expected, the Danish Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy sparked outrage amongst Afghans who are starving to death, while others are, as usual, burning effigies. Their demand being that the international community respect their religious beliefs. This being the case, it immediately calls to mind how the world community stood alongside the Buddhists of the world and pleaded with the Taleban not to destroy the two Bamyan Buddhas in 2001.

Even the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - the three countries that officially recognised the Taleban - requested that the monuments be spared. Yet it was to no avail. After a month's bombardment, the statues were destroyed, though the outlines still remain. This was how the Taleban completely disregarded the religious rights of Buddhists, as well as the calls by the international community to cease the destruction of two statues that were built during the 6th century.

Japan and Switzerland, among others, have pledged support to rebuild the statues, and the remnants of them have been included in the 2008 World Monuments watch list of the 100 Most Endangered Sites. Incidentally, Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, the Taleban governor who was said to have been responsible for the destruction of the monuments, was elected to the Afghan parliament in September 2005 but was gunned down on January 26, 2007 in Kabul on his way to prayers.

Buddhists can empathise with the Afghans vis-a-vis any humiliation to their religion and their beliefs, but it does also require similar empathy from Afghans for the beliefs held by other religious groups. The Taleban cannot undo the historical damage they did in 2001 - unlike a comic or a film that can be shelved following successful protests. This is a good reminder that all of us, while upholding our faith, also need to show tolerance and respect to the faiths and beliefs of others.

We no longer discuss the future of India. We say the future is India" said the Indian Commerce and Industry Minister at the conference organized by the US-India Business Council in 2004. He predicted that India would certainly have achieved 100 % literacy, become a developed country, enjoy the same fundamentals as the United States by 2030. Clearly, many politicians and journalists have some problems with the stats! Let's go to the specifics!

The population of India was 1,100 million in 2004. It will grow to 1,450 million in 2030. The global GNI accounted for 675 $Billion in 2004. According to an optimistic hypothesis, the India GNI would attain 4,760 $Billion in 2030 (Compared to 18,000 in China). Sure, India will be a great power but certainly not a super power.

In fact, India is afflicted by over population, great poverty , and a constant risk of religious violence. We think that the influence of religion is the main cause of these problems.
According to our diagnosis, a massive investment in education is the key medicine that we must propose. Firstly, Education is the only way to favor family planning acceptance. Secondly, only mass education can alleviate poverty in getting a higher growth rate. Thirdly, education is the only way to appease religious conflicts which are increasing in the region.

The region is not peaceful. With the growing muslim population in India, religious conflicts can occur. We cannot consider this fact with benign neglect: India and Pakistan have built up a military nuclear power: In this context, the Western countries must support the friendly democracy of India. It should be the best demonstration that the world war against Islamism is not a clash of civilizations or a clash between the riches and the poor's. It will prove that it is the war of the united civilization against a single and hopelessly isolated barbarism.

DIAGNOSIS
Let's us examine the region: Geography, History, population, economy, and political situation. Our examination will take notice of three bad symptoms: over population, great poverty , and a constant risk of religious violence.


The sub continent has an area of 4.8 Million square kilometers ( USA: 9,269,000; Europe- 25 Countries: 4,150,000; India: 3 million+, Pakistan :797,000; Afghanistan: 653,000) and includes 8 countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri lanka and Maldives.

Afghanistan, Bhutan and Nepal are landlocked countries. Maldives and Sri lanka are Islands.
The region is divided into three main geological areas: the Himalayas, the Indo-Gangetic Plain, and the Peninsula. Arising in the northern mountains, several major rivers ( the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and the Indus), flow to the coast and have supported civilizations for thousands of years.

Over population.
All the quiet areas have disappeared. By 2005, the population accounts for 1478 million (453 in Europe-25; 298 in the US). Three nations exceed 100 million ( India : 1100, Pakistan: 157, Bangladesh: 141 ). The region is expected to attain 2050 million by 2030.

The growth is quite fantastic: The population has already increased three fold in 60 years! It is expected to increase five fold in one century. All these countries ( except Sri Lanka) have still high growth rates ( Afghanistan: 2.7, Pakistan: 2.4, Bangladesh: 1.7, India: 1.6 ). The fertility rates remain very high in Afghanistan ( 7.48 ) and Pakistan ( 4.27 ): It means that the growth is expected to continue until 2100 ( 409 in Pakistan in 2100 ).

Clearly the subcontinent is over populated: The density per square kilometer could attain 500 in 2050. Considering the Himalayan and the highlands, you can easily imagine the huge concentrations in the deltas and their consequences ( Pollution, traffic, rubbish, drinking water and so on ).

Economy
The big pictures
Firstly, we shall focus on India. Its GNI attains 674 $Billion in 2004.

The growth rate increased in 2003 and 2004. The 9% reached in 2003 fuelled the optimistic visions about the future. However, since 1999, the average growth rate is about 6%. It could seem a good result but it is not sufficient compared with the increase of population. As result, the GNI per capita remains low ( $620-Rank: 159 out of 208 countries. Taking in account the purchasing power parity method, the GNI per Capita reaches $3,100. Rank: 145 out of 208 in 2004).

The gross capital formation is medium compared to other Asian standards (45% in China).

The high technology exports only attain 5% of the manufactured exports. Just compare with South and North East Asia and you will realize the difference.

India has made amazing success in auto, motorcycles and apparels ( color televisions and refrigerators). At another level, the medical school in New Delhi is one of the best in the world and India could become the drug factory of the world for generics. Right now, India is also a major exporter of software services ( Unfortunately, they produce just 3 % of GDP and employ less than 0.5% of the non farm labor force!).

Great poverty
Even the business & affluent residential districts in Bombay or New Delhi are not immune to grime and filth any more. Traffic and pollution are awful. The inhabitants walk on poor pavements with dirty water, eat junk food sold by hawkers & street merchants and you meet large crowds of aggressive beggars. Today, you cannot adventure yourself in the little streets of Mumbai or Old Delhi.

It is said that the size of Indian middle class exceeds the population of the USA or the European Union. Once again, it is a hype: In fact, the "middle class" is merged into an ocean of dirtiness and poverty.

Of course, IMF and World Bank experts argue that the poverty rate dropped from just under 41 % of the population in 1992-93 to less than 29 % at the turn of the century. Sorry, I do not agree with that. I think that the negative externalities (pollution, insecurity, lack of open space ) mainly due to overpopulation have certainly outpaced the small increase of income. In fact, about 300 million Indians continue to survive on less than $1.25 a day and a majority of the population lives in utter poverty without access to health care, housing, drinking water and education. Just consider another indicator: There are an estimated 100 million child laborers in India. Many work in the informal sector in hazardous conditions, and several million are bonded laborers.

Other surveys report that the situation is quite the same in all the subcontinent. Much of the population continues to suffer from shortages of housing, clean water, electricity, medical care, and jobs. Due to poverty, the cases of suicide and Islamic madness are increasing.

India would need a growth rate of 10 % a year ,sustained over a long period for rising living standards. Unfortunately, the growth rate does not depend on wishful thinking'. A 10% growth rate ( Like in China ) is not presently feasible because India suffers of low education and bad infrastructure.

On the other hand, some experts think that a 7% growth rate could be expected for the next five years. As a result the reform lobby would become stronger and would be able to surpass leftist opposition and to reform education and the static caste system. Having more confidence, the country could reach a 8% growth rate until 2030. According to this hypothesis, the India GNI would attain 4,760 $Billion in 2030.

Regarding Pakistan and Bangladesh, the extend of Islamism will downgrade the economic prospects and we cannot extrapolate the former growth rate. We think that the future rate (2.5%) will be quite aligned on the growth rate of the population (2.4% in Pakistan)

Politics
Considering the size of the population, India is the greatest democracy in the world. New Delhi is lobbying for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. However, democratic rule is undermined by:

-Grand and petty corruption: Regarding corruption India is ranked in 71st place out of 102 countries and Bangladesh is the world’s most corrupt country!

-Civil disturbances: In Nepal, a maoist insurgency, launched in 1996, is threatening the regime. In Sri lanka, tensions between the Singhalese majority and Tamil separatists erupted into war without end. In Pakistan, the army is ostensibly helping the U.S coalition & chasing Bin Laden in the tribal zones. In Afghanistan, the situation remains unsafe.

-Religious violence: They occurred on a large scale with the partition of India. In our opinion religious conflicts are the main threat in the entire region . In fact, stability and progress toward democracy only rely on the western educated upper class in all these countries including India.

-Conclusion
We can take notice of three bad symptoms: Firstly, over population, secondly, great mass poverty , thirdly, a constant risk of religious violence. What are the causes of these symptoms?

-RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES
It is well known that People are addicted to religion in Muslim countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and and Bangladesh. In India, too, religion plays a leading role. The vast majority of Indian are religious . Cows are still free to wander at will in villages, towns and even large metropolitan areas. People frequent the temples, pray and bring offerings

-Islam
India is surrounded by Muslim states such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Muslim Mullahs and the masses suffer from schizophrenia. They continue to nurtures a world vision of an Islamic Caliphate streteching from the Phillipines to Spain, that does not correspond to reality. They have been somehow been convinced by the muslim clergy to believe that Non-Muslims such as Jews, Hindus and Christians are responsible for their failure and are secretly plotting against the Muslim Ummah. or They respond with anger and violence to any problem or issue that is dear to them instead on engaging in civilized and democratic dissent or debate

-Hinduism
The caste system and gender inequality continues to be the bane of Hindu Society. Unless those issues are addressed urgently, any possibility of real socio-economic progress remains difficult to quantify in the future.

Islam favors high fertility rates
In the three Muslim countries ( Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh ) religion bears a major responsibility in the high fertility rates. Firstly, the muslim countries led by Algeria have constantly been reluctant toward family planning and contraceptives (Conference of Bucharest). They stated that family planning was a Western conspiracy for reducing the power of the developing countries. This situation explains that the fall of the fertility rates happened later and less rapidly in Muslim countries than in no Muslim ( With similar level of income ). Secondly, many muslim religious leaders are opposed to contraceptives and this situation is not likely to improve with the surge of radical Islamism.

In the 1980, faced with the problems resulting from overpopulation, Bangladesh, and Pakistan have officially promoted Family planning. However, due to gender problem, many people tend to favor large families.

In India, the government family planning program was launched in 1950. Its results seem quite poor. Hindus complain that muslims & christians do not follow the official family planning line because of their religious beliefs. Truly, stats show that the Muslim share of population has risen from 10 % in 1951 to 15 % in 2001. As a result, some Indian leaders are calling on Hindus to abstain from birth control for preventing India to be islamized. Finally there is a race for numbers which is threatening the already fragile Indian family planning program.

The growing muslim population is not the only cause of the family planning failure. In rural areas, people still believe that a family with no sons, has no heir. In this context, families may have a lot of "unwanted" daughters before to get a son and this situation tends to favor large families: Surveys show that the couple had to have at least six children in order to have a 95 % probability of raising a son to adulthood!

It is interesting to note that the best success of family planning have been registered in the state of Kerala which had been for long a communist and atheist government. It means that poverty does not explains the high fertility rate. The success of family planning in the poor classes of Kerala shows the role played by an adequate education counterbalancing religious superstitions and outdated social practices.

-Religion favors benign neglect for great poverty.
In India, the fact to be born in a lower caste just means that you have accumulated many sins in a previous life. The fact to be poor is not an injustice. On the contrary, it is the result of the divine justice. Since people are very religious, everybody implicitly accept the caste system.
This religious belief results in a a social rigidity and a benign neglect for poor people. Firstly, you may observe that most people in power belong to the indian upper caste: The brahmin (Top rank army officers, great families, scientists and professors educated in England and so on ). In India, the upper class is a nobility (and in Pakistan too) who largely dominates parliament and the bureaucracy ( By comparison, there is no nobility in China: The upper class is moving and changing). Secondly, due to the religious background, the Indian upper class is very disdainful of poor people. They do not have any compassion and, in our opinion, this fact also explains the prevalence of great poverty in indifference.

The Indian constitution officially forbids discriminations based on caste. People say that caste rigidity is more flexible than in the past. However, the lower caste (And notably the 160 million "untouchables") continue to face discrimination.

-Religious conflicts
In Muslim countries, minorities face societal discrimination. With the fundamentalist surge, atrocities, including murder, rape, destruction of property, and kidnapping are more and more frequent.

In India, as we have said above, the majority religion favors peaceful co-existence. There are no reports of problems with the Christian minorities ( For example, in Madras and Pondichery, former french colonies). However, in spite of their peaceful feelings, Hindus are obliged to challenge the growing aggressiveness of the large muslim minority in India aively small missionary activity of Western & Vatican sponsored Christianity.

This story began with the independence. India was founded as a secular state, but the partition of British India in 1947 into India and Pakistan led to the largest migration ( or in my opinion ethnic cleansing in history. Hundreds of thousands of persons were killed and about 10 million people changed sides ( Some Muslims in India made their way to Pakistan and Hindus in the new Pakistan moved to India). However, a large muslim minority decided to remain in India .

The Congress party governed India for 50+ years. In the early 1990s, tensions between India's Hindu and Muslim communities escalated. in early 2002, a train car carrying a group of Hindu pilgrims back from the city of Ayodhya, was attacked and set on fire by a Muslim mob. At least 56 people were killed. Hindus rioted and carried out revenge attacks on Muslims. More than 1,000 people were killed.

It means that India is threatened by the huge flow of fanaticism & polarisation notably since september 2001.

WAR OR PEACE

As long as Islam refuses to reform itself, we cannot expect any solution to poverty or illiteracy. Moreover, since september 2001, the muslim populations are massively rallying behind hardline Islamism everywhere in the world. As a result, it is absolutely fruitless to make any proposals regarding the democratic future of Pakistan and its rapid descent into becoming a failed state.

Let us limit our current focus on India. Considering the diagnosis, a massive investment in education is the key to India's progress and rise as a great power in the 21st century.

Education is the only way to promote family planning acceptance. Only education can diminish religious obscurantism, superstition, and negative social behaviors which are the causes of over population. Secondly, only mass education can alleviate poverty in achieving a higher growth rate. Thirdly, education is the only way to appease religious conflicts which are increasing in the region.

Lack of education is the primary obstacle to the nation's development. The task of bringing education and infrastructures into the twenty-first century is immense. India is justly proud of its universities, pool of scientists and skilled professionals. Unfortunately, this top level framework only targets the elite. India has to educate the masses: This country needs more vocational schools and long life learning centers for adults in order to get short term results.

Once again, compared to China, the Indian results are poor.These bad figures do not only result from a shortage of public funds. Recent research shows that across India, 25 % of teachers are absent from school on any given day. That figure can jump to 40 % in remote schools. It means that more private schools ( But not religious schools ) should be implemented in order to compensate the weakness of the public sector.

Clearly, the government must free up more money for education. Since India has limited public resources, It means also a fiscal reform in order to make the upper class contributing to the education burden. Some experts (Notably IMF) use to say that the best way is to increase the current growth rate because the growth will free up the money for improving education. India needs a new educational framework based on new content and channels for delivering knowledge. This new framework based on internet and online education is already described on this site:

-Improve infrastructures
Once again, there is a huge infrastructure gap with China.
It would be necessary to launch a large investment program in roads, like the Q4, The rehabilitation of towns and so on. Such a program could bring jobs to the unskilled people who form the largest segment of the labor force. The liberalisation & success of the booming telecom industry is living proof that the government should privatize other infrastructure projects. A large part of the fiscal reform would involve making the public sector more efficient, bringing direct benefits to the poor. Of course it would imply a direct attack on of the scourge of the Indian "Babu" economy: Bureaucracy and corruption.

Bureaucracy and corruption

Let's imagine that you have fixed an appointment with an Indian civil servant. Firstly, when you arrive he is not in office. You have to wait before he or she meets with you. When you enter his office, you cannot but help noticing the fantastic pile of reviews, books, papers and rubbish.

The bureaucrats are amazingly adept at misguiding you through the bureaucratic jungle. Finally, he makes you understand that some money (Not for him but for other anonymous persons!) could ease everything!

With the legacy of the socialism, License Permit Raj, red tape, mismanagement and corruption are quite synonymous of public services. By comparison, European or American bureaucracy looks like a utopia.

Corruption has to be controlled and eliminated. The obvious remedy is to remove government from many areas of business & industrial activity and to extend the economic liberalization.

-Extend economic liberalization
For long, India has been a statist economy with import substitution just like in other undeveloped countries. Thanks to the green revolution in agriculture, it succeeded in reducing shortage of food. It benefited also during this period of a massive food aid from the US. However the economy only got poor results until the early 1980. By this time, Rajiv Gandhi introduced reforms with import liberalization and the removal of some licensing. As a result, India saw a more rapid growth than before. On the other hand, the country increased its fiscal deficit and debt.

In 1991, a more extensive reform program began with a wide liberalization notably regarding trade, finance an the private sector. As a result, India achived a better rate of growth. The software industry in Bangalore and India's success in call-centers has attracted world attention. It was the begin of the story describing India as the "next knowledge super power"!

In fact, the liberalization has just begun: Most sectors of India's economy remain shielded from global competition by high tariffs (Averaging 20% and restrictions on foreign direct investments. Moreover, labor regulations and red tape inherited from the past socialist planned economy impede the private sector. Just like the "old europe", India needs a radical deregulation of Economy ( For example, software industry and call-centers are successful because they are exempt from labor regulations).

The government is facing a political debate just like in Europe. There is no consensus on liberalization. Many indian economists believe that cutting central bureaucracy will simply add new unemployment. The electoral defeat of the last BJP government in 2004 has been interpreted as a referendum against the increasing openness of the Indian economy. It has been said that the vote revealed the popular disapproval of the privatization or the emphasis on computer science and information technology.

It means that all Indians, like in many other countries, want the broader benefit of the economic reforms. Instead of trying to become a world global trader (Like China), India would have better to focus on its huge internal market. It needs to raise the purchasing power of the poor people and the only way is to create more jobs, notably for the unskilled. The infrastructure program could bring an opportunity. It does not imply a public deficit. It just calls for a State and fiscal reform and measures against tax evasion.

You can meet many Indian policymakers (Politicians, professors, economists, scientist) in all the conference rooms of the global five stars hotels all around the world (And notably in the UN meetings). They talk at large about the sustainable development, the international cooperation, the defense of peace. They look politically correct and the audience applauds! I think that these policymakers would do better to care about their poor population. They need a more pragmatic and down to earth approach. They have to convince their population and to engage the reforms (and firstly education) that the Indian people have been waiting for so long.

WAR OR PEACE
The region is not peaceful. Afghanistan & Pakistan was and remains the cradle of the Jihad. As a result, religious violence between Hindu and Muslim could escalate on the sub-continent

The cradle of jihad
Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, the US toppled the Taliban for sheltering Bin Laden. As long as Bin laden is alive, the North Western region will remain a threat for the world security. It is difficult to understand why Bin Laden has still evaded arrest or has not been eliminated. There are two possibilities: Firstly, he benefits of many complicities among people who are in charge of the chase. Secondly, he is not any more in the tribal zone and just rests is some remote palaces of the Arabic peninsula

The biggest uncertainty is in Pakistan. Considering that 70% Pakistanis are illiterate, just imagine this nuclear country ruled by the Talibans. If they could blow up the Bamiyan Buddhas they could just as easily press the nuclear button. The present situation is fluid and extremly dangerous. The right question is : How long, can the present Pakistan government resist the fundamentalist surge ?

The Indian -Pakistan litigation on Kashmir

The separation in 1947 of British India into the Muslim state of Pakistan (with two sections West and East) and India was never satisfactorily resolved. The main litigation regards the dispute over the state of Kashmir. Despite the fact that people of both countries lived together for about thousands of years, it seems impossible to create good relations without solving the Kashmir Dispute. India and Pakistan have fought three wars - in 1947-48 and 1965 - over the disputed Kashmir territory. A fourth war in 1971 resulted in East Pakistan becoming the separate nation of Bangladesh. India and Pakistan came to the brink of war again after an attack in December 2001 on India's parliament killed 12 people. New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistani-backed Kashmir separatist militants.

Neither India nor the Global international community can consider this Kashmir dispute with benign neglect because the two nations have built up a military & nuclear arsenal: In response to Indian nuclear weapons testing, Pakistan conducted its own tests in 1998. However, The recent discussions between Pakistan and India may be a start toward lessened tensions (New Delhi and Islamabad have restored full diplomatic ties, reopened air links and resumed a bus service between Delhi and the Pakistani city of Lahore). Future relations between India & pakistan remain frosty in the immediate future

-Islamism in India
The thorny problem of Kashmir is not the only worry. With the growing muslim population in India, large scale religious violences can occur. Moreover, a growing muslim minority could campaign to secede ( With new muslim states). It represents a risk for India to disintegrate. In such a context, Pakistan and other islamic countries would support the muslim separatists. Due to fanaticism, a global war, including nuclear exchange could occur. The sub continent is the only region in the world where the nightmare of a nuclear confrontation could become a reality before 2030.

In this context, the Western countries, particularly America must support & strenghten its startegic ties with a friendly democracy like India. We cannot over emphasize the importance of forming a great international Alliance with India ( And China ) against international islamic jihad because it is the best demonstration tof the resolve that the global war against Islamism is not a clash of civilization or a clash between the rich and the poor's. But a clash of ideologies. One which h It will prove that it is the war of the united civilizations agaias buried its head in the sands and wannst a single barbarism.ts to drag its people back to the Middle Ages and the other that wants to spread the message of Freedom, religious tolerance and gender equality throughout our world.

India must work together with Japan and the Western Powers to be a force for good in South Asia and the world at large.

A Clear & Present Danger

We live in turbulent times. The present epoch is characterised by startling advances on the one hand and conditions of extreme socio-economic retrogression and distress on the other. This situation represents a severely uneven and yet deeply intertwined socio-economic development on a world scale. This has created unprecedented convulsions which are exploding right across the world.

In this post cold war epoch one of the most significant phenomena which has come to the fore is Islamic fundamentalism. There are several forms of fundamentalism linked to movements of revivalism of various religions, yet internationally Islamic fundamentalism is more pronounced and widespread. In large parts of Asia and Africa it has become the focal point of political activity in a unipolar world rapidly spinning out of control of the "sole super power" (US imperialism).

From Egypt to Algeria it has increasingly become a threat to the existing social order. In the socio-political quagmire of the Middle East it has become an increasingly dominant factor. In Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and other "Islamic" countries of the far east it has started asserting itself more vigorously in the context of the decaying social order. In the Indian Sub-continent it has surfaced in the chronic national and ethnic conflicts which have marred our progress as a nation. Its resurgence in Central Asia has created anxiety and stress amongst the regimes in Moscow and Beijing. Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are in the stranglehold of different versions of this phenomenon. Pakistan stands at the threshold of fundamentalist barbarism.

But what is Islamic fundamentalism and what are its real prospects? Although it is not a new phenomenon, in recent times it has attained a vicious and virulent character. Modern fundamentalism in reality is a reactionary culmination of the trends of Islamic revivalism in an epoch of modern world economy and politics. After the European Renaissance and fall of the 800 year Muslim rule in Spain in the late 15th century, a period of long and protracted decline began for most of the Muslim world . Due to various socio-historical factors the Islamic movement against slave society began to stagnate. The advances it made in science and technology, such as the invention of algebra, started to lose momentum and ultimately came to a halt.

This led to the colonisation of most of the Muslim world by resurgent western imperialism. The industrial revolution in Europe laid the economic and military basis for this colonisation. The rotting feudal regimes in these Islamic countries had become fetters on social development. There were several movements based on Islamic revivalism against these feudal monarchies and later against the colonial rulers.
There were some progressive elements, but based on the ideology of social relations of a primitive period in history these movements could not make much headway. Some of these movements were in the Congress of the East organised by the Bolsheviks in September 1920 at Baku, Azerbaijan. This congress was mainly anti-imperialist in content and was organised to unite and inspire the struggle, mainly against British colonial rule. With the peculiar patterns of socio-economic development in these countries under imperialist rule, it had a deep impact on the nature of the anti-imperialist movement and these Islamic revivalist movements in particular. These movements split along different ideological and methodological lines.
The Russian Revolution of October 1917 had an even greater impact on the anti-imperialist struggle in these Islamic societies. It gave a new vision and hope to the most enlightened elements even within these Islamic revivalist movements. For example, one of the main leaders of the Deoband school (a Sunni faction), Obaid Ullah Sindhi, was so inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution that he developed a passion to meet Lenin. He travelled to the Soviet Union for this purpose in 1921. Ironically the present heirs of the same school of thought are the main leaders of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and similar movements elsewhere.
Another Islamic scholar Maualna Hasrat Mohani was so inspired by the Bolshevik revolution that he moved to the left and ultimately became the general secretary of the Communist Party of India in 1924. He was a poet and a revolutionary. He went through imprisonment and torture in the struggle against imperialist rule.

Even during the independence movement against imperialism the newly emerging proletariat in these countries, together with left ideology, dominated the struggle. It is only due to the criminal role of the Stalinist two-stage theory that these movements of national liberation could not culminate in social revolutions. It was entirely possible that had the Stalinist leaders of these parties not relied on the so-called "national bourgeoisie" the whole outcome would have been different. If the Communist Parties had kept an independent class stance and adopted the policy of the united front within the national liberation struggle, this could have grown into the social revolution.

The examples of India, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Algeria, Indonesia and several other countries are too glaring to ignore. It was due to the class collaborationist policies of the Communist Party leaders, and their lack of trust in the virgin and vibrant proletariat, that these revolutions were aborted and in some cases, like Iran, these policies actually led to the imposition of Islamic fundamentalism.

In the post World War II era Islamic fundamentalism became a totally reactionary and counter-revolutionary phenomenon. It was mainly used by US imperialism to crush the left wing and progressive movements in the Muslim countries. The main current of modern fundamentalism was based on Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen (Muslim brotherhood) in Egypt and other countries of the Middle East and the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan. The Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen was founded in 1928 in Egypt by Hasan al Banna (1906-1949). Jamaat-e-Islami was a continuation of this process. It was founded in 1941 in British India by Maulana Abdul Ala Moudoodi (1903-1978). As compared to Sufism and other moderate currents of Islamic revivalist movements, the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen and Jamaat-e-Islami were of a virulent character with strong neo-fascist overtones. This led to the growth of a more fanatical version of Islamic fundamentalism in the decades to come.

In the 1950s, '60s and '70s there were strong left wing currents in the Islamic world. In Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia and other Islamic countries, there were left wing coups and the overthrow of rotting feudal/capitalist regimes which led to the creation of proletarian bonapartist, or deformed workers states. In the others there were strong waves of mass movements with left leaning populist leaders emerging on the crest of these waves. In the climate of the cold war some of these leaders even defied western imperialism and carried out nationalisations together with radical reforms. The Moscow and Peking bureaucracies did not really approve of, or condone, these acts.

One of these leaders was Jamal Abdul Nasir who became the president of Egypt riding on the wave of mass popularity. Although the bureaucracy in Moscow rejected his offer to join the Warsaw Pact and nationalise the largest economy in Middle East, he still went ahead and nationalised the Suez canal which was in stark contrast to the interests of imperialism, especially those of the British and French. This culminated in the Suez war of 1956 in which the British and French suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Nasir.

There were other similar developments in the Muslim countries, which sent shock waves through to Washington and other centres of imperialist power. One of the cornerstones of US foreign policy was to sponsor, organise, arm and foment modern Islamic fundamentalism as a reactionary weapon against the rising tide of mass upsurge and social revolutions. The Jamaat-e-Islami and Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen were singled out for the job mainly due to their viciousness and fanatical neo-fascist character. After the Suez defeat the imperialists gave top priority to this policy. Large sums of money were dished out by the special operations department of the CIA and the Pentagon. They provided assistance in devising the strategy and training of these religious zealots .

However, in these societies the fundamentalists were finding it difficult to get a base of support, as wave after wave of left wing currents swept across these countries. They had no alternative but to fall into the lap of imperialism for their survival and existence. Most of these states were also of a reactionary nature and unstable. These regimes were also heavily dependent on US imperialism to quell the mass revolt they were facing from below. Hence in several countries the Islamic fundamentalists became stooges of these feudal/capitalist states in connivance with imperialism. They carried out espionage, vandalism and the murder of left wing activists. They ransacked left newspaper offices, harassed women and carried out acts of thuggery. The vigilante gangs of these Islamic fanatics became a major tool of reaction and counter-revolution in these countries.

The next major conflict came in Indonesia, which had the largest Communist Party outside the former Soviet bloc. Again due to the absurd and historically discarded theory of "two stages" the leadership of the Communist Party went into Popular Frontism with class collaborationist policies. In spite of this the CIA could not tolerate the rising revolutionary tide from below taking place in Indonesia. This would have wrecked all their plans in the Pacific rim in Asia. It would have meant a devastating blow to their interests on a world scale. Thus in the bloodiest counter-revolution of the 20th century more than a million communists and their families were annihilated through genocide organised and planned by the CIA. Again the major tool in this operation was the Indonesian offshoot of this modern Islamic fundamentalism, the Sarakat-e-Islam party.

During the 1971 civil war in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) the terrorist outfits of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Al-Shams and Al-Badar played a similar role in league with the Pakistani army. Leading to the assassination of hundreds of thousands of Bengali left wing activists, workers, students, intellectuals and peasants. More than a hundred thousand women were raped and made pregnant. These victims mainly belonged to the JSD and the soviet (workers' council) thrown up by the revolutionary upsurge.

The largest covert operation carried out by the CIA involving Islamic fundamentalism was in Afghanistan. This began after the overthrow of the reactionary Daud regime by radical army officers through the Saur (Spring) revolution of 1978. During this operation the imperialists spent more than US$32 billion on arms, hard cash, logistical support and military efforts. But the truth is that the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1988-89 and the fall of the left wing Najibullah government in 1992 were not due to this CIA sponsored Jehad (holy war), but to bureaucratic policy bungling and internal faction fighting within the PDPA (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan).

What is happening now, and has happened in the past, in this tragic land is the direct result of US interference and imperialist-fundamentalist collaboration. The so-called Afghan Jehad has not only ravaged Afghanistan but has also become a threat and a source of instability in the whole of southern Asia. The CIA not only gave military and logistical support, mainly to the pro Jamaat-e-Islami faction of fundamentalists, but also patronised and helped to develop the production of heroin and its trade. Along with this drug running and the huge amount of heavy arms littering the whole region, the situation is pregnant with extreme dangers and unprecedented catastrophes. In the event of this civil war spilling over the borders, areas far beyond Afghanistan will be devastated.

It has become a policy of the CIA to use drugs and other forms of crime to finance most of the counter-revolutionary operations it indulges in. It instigates the vigilante gangs of criminal thugs and scum of society into all forms of crime, especially the drug trade. In Vietnam, the anti-communist guerrillas were patronised in their illegal drugs trade. In Nicaragua during the 1970s the Contras were encouraged to smuggle cannabis and marijuana in order to purchase weapons for their operations against the Sandinista regime. Similar instances can be sighted in all the proxy wars sponsored by the USA in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

This drugs policy of the USA in Afghanistan is having a disastrous impact on the youth around the world. Today 70% of the world supply of heroin comes from the Afghanistan-Pakistan Mafia nexus . The modern laboratories on the Pak-Afghan border (which convert raw opium into heroin) were installed with CIA help.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the PDPA regime in Afghanistan US imperialism lost interest in this area. Its usefulness as a front line buffer state had gone and thus they left Afghanistan to rot in the mess they themselves had created. Paradoxically, western imperialism is now using their self-created Frankenstein of Islamic fundamentalism to scare the workers and masses in the advanced countries. Since the collapse of Stalinism the western media has been waging a hysterical campaign to terrify the workers in the west and make them submit to atrocious pressures under a decaying capitalist system. They have blown out of proportion people like Qaddafi, Saddam Hussain, the Iranian Mullahs, the Talibans and Osam Bin Ladin as barbaric monsters who drink blood and eat babies. This is all being done with a specific purpose in mind. The brutalities of the Saudi and other similar regimes subservient to imperialism are criminally concealed.

This hypocrisy is openly admitted to in an article in The Independent (London, 27 September, 2000). Robert Fish while commenting on the report of Amnesty International on Saudi Arabia says the following "what Amnesty does not say - given Saudi Arabia's oil unique relationship with the United States, its political dependence on American arms in the Gulf and its fear of America's "terrorist enemies" - is that not the slightest pressure would be exerted upon its authorities to abide by human rights laws. Even when tens of thousands of American troops were based in the Kingdom after Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait discrimination against women continued unabated."

In the last ten years 28 women have been executed in Saudi Arabia officially by the religious police, six of them in the last 24 months. Hundreds of housemaids, mainly Filipinos, are raped, tortured and lashed under Saudi Islamic laws. Women are not allowed to drive, move freely outside the kingdom or receive a full education according to these laws. It is also true that most of these dictators and monsters were the creation of US imperialism. For example Osama Bin Laden was trained, sponsored and planted by the CIA itself. On 27 August 1998, in an interview with the AFP, Osama Bin Laden confessed: "I set up my first camp in Pakistan where these volunteers were trained by Pakistani and American officers. The weapons were supplied by the Americans, the money by the Saudi..."

After the bombing of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya the US fired 70 cruise missiles from the Arabian Sea at Osama's base camp near Jalalabad on the Pak-Afghan frontier. This was more of a gimmick and propaganda exercise than a serious military operation. In the Middle East the Islamic fundamentalist organisations like the Hizbullah, Hamas and others were set up by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in the 1960s and '70s . They were created to destabilise the PLO and subvert the left radicalisation within the Palestinian movement.
In spite of the propaganda campaign by the western media against Islamic fundamentalism, US imperialism continues to use these religious fanatics wherever it deems it necessary. They will use it again to try and crush revolutionary movements, another thing is whether they will be successful this time.

In 1996 the capture of Kabul was made possible after a secret deal between the US Secretary of state for South Asia, Robin Raphael, the Taliban and the military faction of the former Stalinist general Shahnawaz Tanai. This deal was fostered by the ISI. (Inter Services Intelligence, the Pakistan intelligence agency) Ironically, it was patronised in Islamabad by Benazir Bhutto. This sheds some light on her credentials as a "progressive". The money for this operation to capture Kabul was provided by the US oil giant Unocal. It is not accidental that the former US secretary of state Robert Oakley is an employee of Unocal. In the different proxy wars between imperialist states, especially the French and Americans, the Islamic fundamentalists are being sponsored and used quite conveniently by both sides. This is the case in Algeria, Sudan and several other countries. The French and German imperialists are openly hobnobbing with the reactionary mullahs in Iran, for the interest of their multinational corporations, especially those dealing in oil.

The main reason for the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism is the enormous political vacuum created by the collapse of Stalinism and the left in these societies. In the context of severe socio-economic distress, unemployment and poverty, the masses find themselves in a blind ally. The arrogance and contempt of the monarchs and dictators in the Arab and Islamic world further fuel the hatred and wrath of the masses. The historical betrayal on the part of the left parties, trade union leaders and traditional populist leaderships has added insult to injury. The corrupt and plundering democracies have increased social frustration. With no way forward some backward sections of the masses and petty bourgeoisie have started looking backwards. The strategists of fundamentalism have exploited the vices of the present leaders and system and are offering the illusion of the virtues of a distant past epoch.

The hypocrisy of imperialism and fundamentalism is very reciprocal. These Islamic leaders use the anti-IMF and anti-imperialist sentiments amongst the masses to further expand their base. The massive levels of unemployment give rise to large scale lumpenisation in society. This is capitalised on by the Islamic organisations, who not only provide weapons and money to these hordes of lumpen youth, but also give them sanctuary where they are safely hidden away from the hands of the state machine. Large sections of deprived, frustrated and bewildered youth enter into fundamentalism in the same way as many tries to find an escape in a drug dose. They cannot face the challenges, hence they try to use fundamentalism as a path into oblivion. Sooner rather than later they will have to wake up. A large number of raw youth, especially those migrating from rural to urban areas, are shocked by the social and cultural conditions they find in the cities. They revert to Islamic fundamentalism seeking piety and honesty. They try to find eternal peace in Islam to get solace for their souls and minds. But when these captives of faith face the stark reality of Islamic fundamentalism and it bares its ugly face it is perhaps too late. This comes at the point of no return. In sheer desperation they give themselves away to become fodder of this frenzy and most of them are lost from life forever . Those who survive find themselves as some of the most corrupted and monstrous creatures on this planet.

On the other hand, significant sections of the ruling class who have plundered the state and society also use fundamentalism as a shield. The majority of them are the drug barons and godfathers of black money who classically fit into this fundamentalist approach. On the one hand, they use anti-imperialist rhetoric to save their money from the clutches of the IMF, the mainstream economy and state taxation. On the other hand, they use the "fatwas" of the mullahs to justify and protect their crimes and drug smuggling etc. In countries like Pakistan this cancerous growth of the black economy has far outgrown the body of the so-called white economy. Hence this Mafia has assumed on enormous role in the economy, politics, society and the state. The main source of finance of Islamic fundamentalism is based on huge sums of money from the drugs trade and other sectors of the black economy. This process was initiated by US imperialism. Now this black economy is disrupting the functioning of capitalism itself.

In 1979 there were hardly any heroin addicts in Pakistan. In 1986 the official figure was 650,000. In 1992 it rose up to 3 million and in 1999 the official figure was 5 million. Another dangerous aspect is the involvement of state institutions in the drugs trade, especially the military. The deep penetration of the black economy into the state apparatus is leaving its mark. Some military generals are now involved in the fundamentalist operations and organisations.

The indulgence of the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) in this orgy of black economy has gone so far that it has become a self-financed organisation. A former chief of the ISI, general Hameed Gul, in an interview to Karachi based monthly the Herald, had said: "If the Marxists can have the first, second, third and fourth International why cannot we have an Islamic International brigade." Hence the operations from the central Asian republics to Nigeria, from Sinkiang (China) to Algeria and from Chechnya to Indonesia. Now Osama Bin Laden is even trying to procure nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to fight its own mentor, US imperialism.

In a society where the state has failed to provide health care, education and jobs, Islamic fundamentalism has used these deprivations to build up its own forces. With huge amounts of black money flowing in freely they have built religious schools (Madrassas) to train and develop fanatics from a very young age to become raw fodder for religious frenzy. In Pakistan the military dictator and stooge of US imperialism, general Zia-ul-Haq, instigated this process in order to quell the mass movement and left wing currents in society. In 1971, there were 900 Madrassas in Pakistan. By the end of Zia's rule there were 8,000 registered and 25,000 non-registered Madrassas!

As the state-run school system steadily collapsed, these Madrassas became the only avenue for the children of poor families to get an education. The poor families cannot feed, clothe or educate their children. They can either let their children suffer the horrors of child labour or send them to these prison houses that breed hysterical fanatics who are prepared to take human lives for causes they don't even understand.

In these Madrassas they are kept in shackles and are often subjected to child abuse by the mullahs. A vast majority of them never even get the chance to see a female human being till they reach adult life. This creates a specifically intolerant and insane psychology which is being exhibited in the streets of Kabul and elsewhere. The Taliban (religious students) emerged from some of these Madrassas in Pakistan, run by a Islamic Deobandi sect under the auspices of its political outfit, the JUI (Jamiat Ulma-e-Islam).

Another important reason for the emergence of this fundamentalism is to be found in the role played by the left leaders and democratic and secular politicians. In their attempts to develop capitalism and its political superstructure, so-called "Parliamentary Democracy", they have brought most of these societies to the brink of disaster. Misery, poverty and disease stalk the land. Their liberalism and democracy has failed to deliver food, clothing and shelter to the masses. These so-called liberals and democrats take pride in being stooges of imperialism and capitalism which only exploits the masses. The Stalinist left has followed this political discourse in search of the 'National Democratic Revolution', which was never possible in this epoch of imperialism and capitalist decay. The economy has never been strong enough, either to complete the formation of the nation state or to hold up the political super-structure of Parliamentary Democracy.

Having come to power and then failing to deliver, these "liberals" and "democrats" resorted to Islamic demagogy. Facing dissent and the mass discontent the kings, dictators and democratic leaders themselves pose as great stalwarts of Islam in a crude bonapartist fashion. They try to sway the support of backward layers of society in their favour in order to uphold their shaky regimes. But once the uprisings begin they seldom survive. The corruption and looting of these democratic rulers further strengthened the basis for Islamic fundamentalism to thrive in a milieu where the revolutionary alternative was nowhere to be seen on the political horizon.
Yet in spite of all this, Islamic fundamentalism has failed to develop a mass social base in most of the Islamic countries. In Pakistan during various elections all the fundamentalist parties put together never get more than 5% of the popular vote. They have no real plan or programme to solve the problems and crisis of huge modern and complex economies. They themselves thrive on corruption, crime and black money. Their methods of operation are fascist and barbaric. But the so-called liberals and bourgeois democrats who shout at the top of their voices about the threat and menace of fundamentalism are the same people who have created the very conditions for its existence. The main cause of their hue and cry is to get further aid from imperialism so as to prolong their orgy of deceit and plunder.

At the same time Islamic fundamentalists are further split into innumerable sects involved in internecine warfare and terrorism. The Shias cannot tolerate the Sunnis, the Deobandies cannot tolerate the Wahabis, and so on. They are also divided on the basis of different factions of black money who are at each others' throats. Even with their deep penetration into the state, once in power they have to subdue their purist utopian ideologies to the dictates of the bourgeois state. This further opens up conflicts between them, resulting in further conflagration and bloodshed.

In reality Islamic fundamentalism is a reactionary phenomenon representing a peculiar phase of a sick capitalist society, a society that has stagnated due to the organic crisis of capitalism. The failure of capitalism to eliminate feudalism and the existence of primitive forms of human society creates a breeding ground for Islamic fundamentalism. This combined and uneven development creates contradictions which provide a basis for such reactionary tendencies in a period of reaction and social crisis. Even the billions of petrodollars have not served to carry through the tasks of the bourgeois revolution, that is the industrial revolution, in the oil rich Muslim states. This shows the reactionary characters of these rulers and their historical bankruptcy. At the same time Islamic fundamentalism is a temporary and superficial phenomenon. All the efforts to modernise it have ended up undermining it. Hence the brutality and hysterical frenzy re-emerges to reinvigorate it. Its greatest enemy is history and human civilisation.

Once the working class starts to move, this Islamic fundamentalism will vanish as a drop of water vanishes from the surface of red hot iron. But if the basic contradictions and crisis of society are not eliminated, it will come back again and again in new periods of reaction. It will keep on ravaging and raping society and human civilisation until it is eradicated and the basic cause of its existence, deprivation, is uprooted. It is a peculiar manifestation of the death agony of capitalism. To get rid of this plague will only be possible when the system on which it festers is abolished. This is only possible through a nationalist democratic revolution.

The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in one of the most turbulent and disturbed periods in recent history. There is not a single region of the planet which is not engulfed in social, economic or political crisis. A new phenomenon emerged on the political horizons of most countries. In most of the "Third world," "Islamic" countries there has been a resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism. This new fundamentalist resurgence and Islamic revivalism has attained unprecedented proportions in the recent period. From the possibility of fundamentalists (FIS) taking power in Algeria, to the fundamentalists whipping up terror to assassinate Taslima Nasreen in Bangladesh, it has captured world attention. There is hardly an Islamic country where this revivalism has not become a mainstream political tendency. Its reverberations are being felt in China and it has become a spectre even in the United States where the Muslims are in a small minority. In a vacuum created by the collapse of the Stalinist left and the failure of democratic reforms, fundamentalists have a fertile breeding ground. Secondly the coming to power of the Mullahs gives the Western capitalism much lesser leverage in controlling these countries due to the fanaticism and unpredictability of these fundamentalists.

Origin of Modern Fundamentalism and Role of Western Capitalism
Modern Islamic fundamentalism was actually the brainchild of US secretary of state John Foster Dulles. In the wake of the defeat of the British and French imperialists in the Suez Canal dispute in 1956, the U.S was alarmed. The rise of Nasser in Egypt and other left populist leaders in the Middle East and other Islamic countries posed a direct threat to western and U.S. commercial interests in regard to the flow of oil. For almost three to four decades Islamic fundamentalism was nurtured, sponsored and promoted by the U.S. Although there are exceptions like the Shias in Iran. In most countries these fundamentalist organisations served as offshoots of American sponsored dictatorships and other repressive regimes in these countries. In Indonesia Sarakat-a-Islam played the role of informers and state agents in the brutal execution of about a million communists by the Suharto dictatorship in 1965.
In Egypt, Syria and a number of other countries; the Islamic fundamentalist organisations like Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen were used to destabilise the left-wing regimes. In Afghanistan they played the most vicious role. For fourteen years the Jihad (Holy War) in Afghanistan was fought as a proxy war of US imperialism and the reactionary Arab regimes. In Pakistan the main fundamentalist party Jamaat-a-Islami was the main tool of imperialism and the state to curb left-wing forces. During the martial law regime of General Zia-ul-Haq, it acted as a B-team of the state in carrying out the persecution of activists struggling against the dictatorship. They organised neo-fascist armed gangs with the sponsorship of the state to disrupt and breakup anti-Zia demonstrations rallies and public gatherings. Similar examples could be cited in most Islamic countries with US backed regimes, throughout the post Second World War period.

At the same time it would be a gross mistake to define Islamic fundamentalism as a homogeneous force. Both from the point of view of their theological foundations to their practice in politics and society, there are various strands of Islamic fundamentalism. The various sects have basic differences of a historical, regional and nationalistic nature. The sectarian conflict and dissension of Islamic theology had started from the very early days of Islam. The main sects have been the Shias and the Sunnis. But this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Islam was one of the main revolutionary movements against slavery in the last millennium. But with the accession of state power, most of the nomadic tribes turned into new ruling elites. It was this struggle for power which gave rise to various theological tendencies, which later took the form of the present day sects. At the same time, the ruling elites, to retain their power and privileges, resorted to repression and conservatism. Hence it turned the whole process into its opposite.

Socioeconomic Basis
In the last fifty years the peculiar mode of capitalist development has been mainly responsible for the socioeconomic basis which became the breeding ground for fundamentalist psychology and culture. The domination of finance capital in most of these societies failed to develop the social and physical infrastructural basis of modern industry and society. This uneven and combined development of capitalism under the yoke of world imperialism created society very different from those in the West. While there was an enormous industrialisation in these poor countries in the '50s and '60s, there was not a corresponding development of the basic facilities of clean drinking water, sewerage, electricity, proper housing, education, health facilities and other utilities. For example between 1982 and 1992, the population in Pakistan grew by 33%, while the basic facilities grew by 6.9%. On the other hand, the influx of capital had a devastating effect in the agrarian sector. As a result of this a mass exodus of population started from the countryside to the cities. But instead of the proper absorption into industry and urban society, the lack of social development created the phenomenon of a widespread expansion of shanty towns with horrific living conditions. In the initial period this rapid influx created a virgin proletariat.

The stark contradictions created by the brutal and harsh conditions as a result of the unevenness of capitalist development led to massive explosions. In the '50s, '60s and '70s, in relatively favourable international conditions there were massive movements of the newly emerging proletariat. But mainly due to the betrayal of the "Left" trade unions and political leadership (the leadership in most of these poor Islamic countries was Stalinist based and accepted the reactionary theory of two stages; first the capitalist democratic revolution and much later the socialist revolution and socialism in one country), the inevitable failure of these movements to transform society on a socialist basis led to disastrous consequences. The religious, national, ethnic, communal, linguistic, caste and other reactionary prejudices came to the forefront. On the other hand, a continual capitalist crisis and subsequent exploitation further intensified the misery. Most of these shanty towns became cesspools of dirt, disease, poverty, drudgery and prostitution. Lumpenisation, crime and gangsterism became social epidemics. Life in these urban shanty towns was worse than that of the villages. Similarly the crisis of the system and failure of the left movement had a drastic impact on the urban middle class.
The infestation of mass crime and lumpenisation created a feeling of insecurity and alienation. In the absence of a clear revolutionary alternative, this led to distress and demoralisation in certain sections of this newly urbanised population and the petty bourgeoisie. The fear, resulting from social alienation and insecurity led to piety and further reliance on religion, which further resulted in the diminution of creative labour, turning those sections of destitute and frenzied petty bourgeoisie into a subjugated mass. With the decline of creative labour, they turned into sort of robots, and tools of slave labour. A wide section of youth from rural areas which came to study in the cities was also infected by this crisis. With society giving little room to develop and move forward, the suffocation led them to move back - into the nostalgia of a fabricated history of Islamic glory, etc., taught in the syllabus of the theocratic states. The social crisis, crime, and rampant corruption developed a reaction of further crimes, lumpenisation, violence, neo-fascism and murder. The lust for power perks and privilege are an integral part of the petty bourgeois mentality. In Pakistan, the fundamentalists, led by Jamaat-a-Islami, provided all these prerequisites. Hence initially they started from students of semi-peasant/feudal psychology, which was a fertile ground for the development of fundamentalist organisations. In the mid seventies, when the PPP Government of that period failed to deliver the goods, the Jamaat-a-Islami further expanded its tentacles in the trade unions and peasantry. Since then, Islamic fundamentalism has had an impact on a minor but vital section of the urban population. Hence they became a motive force which was backed up by imperialism to repress revolution.

Ideology and Economics
The ideology, of these fundamentalist is mainly, to install an Islamic state on the basis of theology. The main stream of this ideology is based more on nostalgic examples of a nomadic society, where the highest form of economy was mercantile capitalism. Various Islamic scholars (Ulema) have tried to interpret the basic Koranic theology into the prevalent societies and economies throughout the last 1400 years. Although there are sharp differences of approach and interpretations of Ulema belonging to various sects, but there is not any clear-cut alternative to the capitalist system. A theology of more than a millennium ago can be interpreted in any direction. The capitalists and landlords have used the reactionary Mullahs to utilise Islamic theology for their class benefits, some clerics, who were radicalised during the anti-imperialist struggle in the Indian subcontinent presented a leftist interpretation of Islam. The impact of the Bolshevik revolution, even in the Indian subcontinent was enormous. During the early years of revolution Maulana Obaid-u-llah Sindhi travelled to the Soviet Union to see Lenin. In 1924, another cleric Maulana Hasrat Mohane became the general secretary of the Communist Party of India. Similarly the right-wing Islamic/Nationalist poet Iqbal wrote long poems praising Lenin and the Bolsheviks. In one of his Persian verses, he called Marx a prophet, who had a book but no prophethood. But any Islamic interpretation of modern economy and politics remains incomplete because of the materialistic nature of social, economic and political relations of present day society. On the one hand, the right of private ownership, individual enterprise and right of profit are accepted in the basic tenets of Islam. Paradoxically it also calls for equalitarianism, equality and brotherhood. In present-day economic and production distribution relations, these are insoluble contradictions.

The method to create this is Zakat, which in its final analysis is charity. Any economy based on charity cannot envisage an equalitarian and classless society. Similarly Interest and Usury is prohibited. But the existence of profit makes it irrelevant. Most banks in Pakistan and other Islamic theocratic states, name interest as profit. As far as Zakat is concerned, in Pakistan where it was pursued most enthusiastically by the Zia dictatorship and subsequent regimes, it constitutes 0.5% of the GDP. This is cosmetic in a capitalist dominated economy.
In Iran where the Islamic state was formed after a forceful bloody "Islamic" revolution, the situation has not been very different. After 25 years of the Islamic (Shias) revolution, the economy is in a mess. The oil exports , which constituted 90% of hard currency exports, now dropped to 12%. Despite continuous subsidies of basic foods, such as wheat and rice, inflation is running at some 60% a year. The burden of foreign debt is heavy. It is estimated something between 15-30 billion dollars. It is not clear whether the Iranian government has enough resources to pay the re-scheduled debt of $8 billion to European and Japanese banks later this year. Ahmedinajad and his clique are trying to abide by the IMF conditions of privatisation, deregulation, opening-up to foreign investment and trade liberalisation. However the cutting of subsidies has faced a tough resistance from the hard-line Mullahs led by Khameni. This would mean stringent measures to cut imports, which have halved during the last year. This has meant shortages of imported raw materials for Iranian factories, and items like toothpaste and antibiotics have become a luxury. Iranian society as a consequence is in turmoil. After a prolonged "external" war with Iraq and other external diversions, now the chickens have come home to roost. In the recent uprising in Qazvin, a city in Northern Iran, the armed forces were ordered to bomb the city mercilessly by air and land. This action has provoked dissension within the armed forces, which can explode in the next period. A higher repetition of the rebellion against the brutalities of the Shah is possible in the not so distant future. But above all this reflects the growing resentment and the disillusionment in society because of its socioeconomic impasse.

The experiment of fundamentalisation in Iran shows the glaring contradiction of modern economy and theological metaphysical myths. Above all the fundamental contradiction is of the crushing domination of imperialism through the forces of the world market. Khomeini once said that "we would live on goat's milk to maintain our independence." This is easier said than done. This rhetoric is quashed by the realities of present-day life. Even in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other Islamic countries, "electricity, toothpaste, antibiotics, running tap water, etc. have become an integral part of the lives of a vast majority of the population. Most of the products are produced by modern industry dominated by imperialism. About 500 American & Western corporations dominate 75% of world production directly or indirectly. A vast majority of these multinationals are owned by the big imperialist powers. The conditions imposed by the IMF, World Bank and other imperialist institutions are mainly aimed to further squeeze the economies of these poor countries to benefit world imperialism. The pain of this super exploitation is being felt by the poorer sections of these societies. There is today a much greater awareness of the atrocious role of imperialism, starting with the Shia fundamentalists. In Iran now most factions of the Islamic sects are using anti-imperialistic rhetoric to whip-up support and fundamentalist terror amongst wider sections of the population in most Islamic countries. But with an economic structure/policy/doctrine based on private ownership and the rights of private enterprise, in modern economic cycles and structure, it inevitably merges with the imperialist economy.

Hence without an irreconcilable scientific ideology of a social transformation of the relations of ownership - every economic doctrine will end-up in propping up productive and ownership relations on which capitalist - and its highest form-imperialism - are based. Under the Islamic law being advocated by the fundamentalists, the only "safeguard" against hoarding, blackmarketing, exploitation of human labour and drudgery is based on moralistic values and fear of doomsday. However the basic instincts and necessities of the foundation of an economic system based on profits makes all these "safeguards" irrelevant. In a crisis wracked society, the lust for profit undermines all these moralistic values. In Pakistan and most of the other Islamic countries this mad-rush for profits has eroded the social, moral and human fabric of society. Hence the practice of life of most small businessmen and traders becomes a double standard, deceptive and hypocritical. The domination of the financial oligarchy has crushed these moral values.
The objective realities of present-day life and dynamics of crisis ridden capitalism, makes it impossible to abide by piety and other such notions. Because the basic character of all the transactions under this system is based on cheating, deception ,corruption and looting by any means. This situation cannot be salvaged by drastic state measures, repression or any measures of draconian laws. Paradoxically repression and totalitarianism breed corruption. Hence, as experience has shown that the doctrine of "Islamic economies" is neither an alternative economic system to capitalism nor can it curb the corruption and exploitation of finance capital. Most Islamic scholars advocate that the organisation of an economy should be left to market forces. The problems of the market economy are further compounded by tax evasion and the parallel black economy of a variety of shades. The drug trade being sponsored by the Mullahs and most fundamentalist organisations is a glaring example of the double standards and the hypocritical nature of Islam as a theology and its practice as an economy. In Pakistan with the Zakat system in practice, the Shias are exempted from its payment. Hence the number of Sunnis (the majority of the population) operating their bank accounts as Shias, would be very embarrassing for those, who advocate the introduction of an "Islamic Economy" in Pakistan. The large entrepreneurs who go to all extremes - from bribery to the assumption of state power to evade taxation, how could they voluntarily pay Zakat and other taxation to run the state and society. In the final analysis, if the truth is to be told "Islamic economy" is more of a utopian dream or a theological dogma rather than an alternate concrete economic system which can replace capitalism and remove its ills.

Strategy and Tactics
The fundamentalist organisations of today are far from having remote and orthodox apparatuses and organisational structures. They use advanced computers and other technologically developed gadgets to organise and monitor their political, agitational and even terrorist activities. From modern printing facilities, to the use of audio, video techniques are now composite parts of the fundamentalist party machines in operation. Their party structures are based to a large extent on the Leninist methods of party building. They operate through conferences, congresses, central committees, executive committees, etc.; although with Islamic names. Their methods of recruitment are also similar. But their ideological foundations and operational network is mainly based on fascist and neo-fascist lines. Strong fascist tendencies also dominate their politics and agitation. This has a profound impact on their tactics evolved in their youth, students, workers, women and peasant organisations. In the last few decades they have carried out enormous intimidation, gangster and murderous tactics, especially amongst the students and the youth. To justify this violence and brutalities, they have tried to use religious prejudices combined with fear.
However in the last few years the fundamentalists in order to gain a more expanded mass base, have tried to use the stick and the carrot methods. They have tried to combine neo-fascist methods with populist demagogy in their strategy. For example, in the past, they used to prohibit musical functions and other entertainment activities. In recent times, they have themselves, used music and entertainment with an Islamic tinge in their own functions and mass meetings to give a more sort of liberal and populist image. In Pakistan, they have created front youth organisations to enhance this populist image. Although this tactical drift varies with different streams of Islamic fundamentalists, but a generalised shift to various degrees is very evident. This emanates mainly from their desperation as waiting too long, and also to fill the vacuum in society prevailing in the temporary objective situation. Their youth and other front organisations have adopted a strategy to build agitation around the day-to-day issue faced by the mass of the population. One of these main issues is the rampant crime in Pakistan. They would, for example resort to murder, dacoity, rape or any other major crime. Publicise the consolation act with the bereaved family members or friends and then launch a major agitation around the funeral or other religious customs, which are traditionally and culturally bound to the prevalent social relations. They do get an instant response when they agitate against the police and other agencies of state repression. Similarly on a wider-scale they use the rhetoric of anti-capitalist, anti-landlord slogans. To this they have now added anti-imperialist rhetoric. At the same time they use the issues of social deprivation, like water, electricity, health, education, transport, housing and sewerage.
In the 1993 elections in Pakistan: the electoral front of Jamaat-a-Islami, the PIF (Pakistan Islamic Front, formed in relation to the FIS in Algeria), used this semi-socialist rhetoric to boost up their election campaign. This ideological crusade was more in tune with National Socialism of the fascists of Italy and Germany rather than with Marxist methodology. But with the presence of the PPP in opposition and the ideological contrast between their populist tactic, socioeconomic rhetoric and theological foundations, most fundamentalist parties including the Jamat-a-Islami were trounced in these elections. However a large number of fundamentalist's votes went to Sharif's Muslim League. These tactical changes have caused splits and breaches in the Jamaat-a-Islami itself and an aggravation of the sectarian strife between different fundamentalist tendencies. However because of the deep intrusion of drug money and corruption in society, the fundamentalists could hardly remain aloof from its impact. Hence most of these groupings have become sectarian mafias. The leadership and hard core using the mosques as indoctrination centres instil religious and sectarian prejudices into the minds of very young children. That sort of teaching which is in contradistinction to the objective world, creates deranged minds and consciousness. These are reflected in psychological disorders of inferiority/superiority complexes, certain types of social and cultural deprivation and the economic woes add insult to injury. During the Zia dictatorship in '80s, the influx of heroin money gave a substantial financial backing to this practise of the Mullahs. The entry of these sectarian organisations into the Afghan Jihad (Holy War) gave them unprecedented access to weapons and armoury. One of the most resurgent groups is, the Sipah-a-Sihabah Pakistan, representing Sunni fundamentalism. Its "cadres" are mainly the product of the Madrasah (mosque school) and the aftermath of the Afghan war. With the intensification of socioeconomic crisis and a lull in the class movement, the terrorists in these organisations have become more and more fanatical. This has led to splits of about 20 splinter group in Punjab from their parent organisations. Their tactics became more vicious and indulgence in crime more deeper.
According to a report by the Punjab Home Department, the weaponry possessed by these groups, was more than that contained in the arsenals of the Punjab Police. The Sipah-a-Sihabah spends about Rupees 2.5 million on literature inciting religious hatred every month. The expenditure on arms is much more. On this background, the transformation of these organisations into criminal mafias became inevitable. The soaring unemployment and social distress gave these sectarian mafias access to a wide layer of the youth for recruitment. The emergence of Sipah-a-Muhammad represented the same process amongst the Shia fundamentalists. The rise in sectarian clashes also represents the conflict in crime, as these mafias are now involved in murder and kidnapping for ransom. In reality, religion is being used as a cover for the justification of the criminal activities of these groupings. However the primitiveness of society and the reactionary objective situation gives them a certain level of social credulity. This also reflects a generalised frustration, from which society is suffering.

Secularism/Liberalism Versus Fundamentalism
In the recent period, the western educated local media is giving more and more attention to the "menace" of fundamentalism. Large sections of the ruling classes in most third world countries are raising a hue and cry against the rising threat of fundamentalism. But in reality, the fundamentalist resurgence is the by-product of the failure of the capitalist class to carry-out its historical tasks. If we take the case of India, after almost 60 years of having one of the largest capitalist market in the world, the capitalist class was not able to carry-out a single task of the national democratic revolution to its completion. This class was termed progressive nationalist etc. by the Stalinist left for decades. Yet after all that period, the secular liberal nationalist democratic and progressive Indian capitalist class has plunged India into a cesspool of religious violence and fundamentalist resurgence. Not only that , this historically atheist class has resorted to using fundamentalism for its own vested interests.

The ruling capitalist class in most colonial/semi-colonial/neo-colonial countries have a history of using fundamentalists and other reactionary forces to undermine the class struggle and preserve their system of exploitation. In most ex-colonial countries, after so-called independence the ruling classes tried to ape the rulers of the West to carry through the national democratic revolution. Given the delay in their emergence in the historical arena, the peculiar distorted shape of the development of these economies and the crushing domination of imperialist exploitation prevented this course. In the post Second World War, in spite of a certain lull in the advanced capitalist countries a revolutionary wave raged throughout the colonial world. In some countries, like China, Vietnam, Cuba, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, etc. these movements resulted in the over-throw of landlordism and capitalism. These developments in fact cut-across the Menshevik/Stalinist theory of two stages. This theory called for the support of the so-called national, liberal, secular bourgeoisie to carry out the national democratic revolution and then at a later stage a proletarian revolution could be envisaged. In spite of unprecedented development in these societies on a national basis a total socioeconomic transformation was not possible. However big steps were taken by the proletarian bonapartist regimes in these countries. These included rapid land reforms and other steps to break the shackles of the past and the crushing domination of imperialism. This provoked a sharp reaction from imperialism, landlords and the Mullahs (in Islamic countries). The most striking example is that of Afghanistan.

In the spring of 1978 the left-wing officers, organised in the Khalq Party, took power through a bloody coup against the reactionary regime of Mohhammed Daud. They carried through this coup without the consent, information and approval of the Russian bureaucracy. It was forced to accept the new left-wing proletarian bonapartist regime as an established fact. The new left-wing regime under the leadership of Tarakai abolished the trade in women, landed estates and other reactionary traits prevalent in society. The so-called "democratic" American imperialism formed an unholy alliance with the Mullahs, landlords and other reactionary elements to start an insurgency against the left-wing regime in Afghanistan. Military and financial aid worth billions of dollars was pumped into Afghanistan to organise the fundamentalist counter-revolution. After fourteen years the regime collapsed more so from its internal contradictions rather than the Jihad (Holy War) by the Mullahs. In a spin off effect of the collapse of Stalinism in the Soviet Union most of the other proletarian bonapartist regimes collapsed in a more or less similar fashion. However Afghanistan developed into a bastion of Islamic fundamentalism in this process. The accumulation of arms, money and drug trafficking gave the fundamentalist their strong financial basis.
However, the present situation in Afghanistan shows the reactionary potential of fundamentalism. More people have been killed in the last 4 years in sectarian clashes between various fundamentalist groups than the deaths which took place in the war between the Mullahs and the ex-Stalinist regime in Kabul. These fundamentalist have turned back Afghanistan into the mediaeval ages, on the verge of the twenty first century. More than 80% of the buildings of Kabul - once a beautiful city, have been destroyed. A vast majority of Afghanistan's population lives in caves and a mediaeval existence. Now this "bastion" of the Mullahs is exporting fundamentalist mercenaries to other countries of the region. This ranges from Southern China and Kashmir to the countries of the Magreb (North Africa). A large number of religious fanatics had come from various Arab and Muslim countries to Afghanistan to participate in the Jihad (Holy War) against the infidels (communists). Now they are being sent back especially from Pakistan. But the situation in the North-Western areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan is far from any real control by the Pakistani state.
In the post Second World War period there were also movements, which did not culminate in the formation of proletarian bonapartist states. However they took the form of populist movements led by demagogic leaders, using socialist rhetoric to coincide with the sentiments of the mass movement, they came to power. In Indonesia and Pakistan the regimes of Sukarno and Z.A. Bhutto who failed to deliver the goods and fulfil mass aspirations also gave rise to the fundamentalist regeneration.

All recent history has shown that, the secular and liberal forces in spite of their hatred and abhorrence of fundamentalism have failed to curb the rising tide of religious fanaticism. Paradoxically in the wake of a revolutionary class struggle they have used these fanatics to crush these movements. Secularism and liberalism in a crisis ridden socioeconomic situation and in the sea of misery in which the mass populations are immersed are seen as vulgar absurd and obscene by the people in general. In the periods of stagnation, the fundamentalists exploit the class differences and gain support amongst wide layers of the backward masses.

In the present situation the fundamentalists are harping on their new found anti-American and anti-imperialist rhetoric. The masses are aware of the severe exploitation being carried out by the imperialist states under the auspices of the IMF, and the World Bank. At the same time, most of the "secular," "liberal" and nationalist forces are subscribing to the democratic (bourgeois) system being pursued by US imperialism on a world scale. If fundamentalism is a menace for the masses, US imperialism is not a lesser evil either. Hence to pose "democratic," "liberal" and secularist policies with the existing socioeconomic foundations as an antidote against Islamic fundamentalism is meaningless. Not only that, it can't gain a mass support to combat fundamentalism but also with the ever-increasing exploitation of imperialism, even reforms in these societies, is utopian. The oppressed masses have to face the brunt of this imperialist exploitation and not the pundits of "Democracy," "Secularism" and "Liberalism" who themselves belong to the exploiting classes, hence in the final analysis, become stooges of imperialism.

A fundamentalist accession of power for example, in Algeria, will give it the status of a serious option for certain sections of the state and the ruling class. In Pakistan the increasing pressure of the US to cut down the size of the military establishment is already creating a tension between certain sections of the top brass of the army and US imperialism, with the further increase in mass deprivation and misery in the absence of a class movement. The Benazir government can lose its popularity and mass support quite rapidly. The Right and the fundamentalists can build a mass movement at a certain stage, which could be quite reactionary in character. Although the possibilities of fundamentalists coming to power as a cohesive force through a popular election victory are remote, still they will continue to stir violence and work to destabilise the Pakistan government.

Any Pakistani government cannot do much about fundamentalism. Their social weight is mainly due to the under-development and the deteriorating socioeconomic conditions, It is this fundamental weakness of democratic liberalism, which forces any elected government of Pakistan to appease the Mullahs. Their desperate attempts at Islamic gestures & posturing in fact shows the weakness of their policies against the forces of fundamentalism. The further increase in turbulence and the increased size of the army developed by the Pakistan government, to control the situation can make things worse for it. In a conflagratory situation, if the army is used for greater repression, it can result in greater cracks in the military establishment. This can ultimately back-fire and the sections opting for a military dictatorship can gain greater support within the officer caste of the army. On the other hand, with a further enhancement of conflict between US imperialism and the army, more officers of the reactionary officer caste can move in the direction of fundamentalism. This can precipitate a bloody anti-imperialist, pro-fundamentalist coup. Such a development can also lead to a civil war - with sections of the army fighting each other. On the other hand some army generals can ape Saddam and Zia to base their dictatorship regimes on primitive sections of society using Islamic rhetoric. But the example of Afghanistan shows that such a development would be catastrophic for the whole region. Such a prospect also depends on a number of factors, and the direction of events in the next period. Hence in order to combat fundamentalism, it is necessary to attack and destroy those socioeconomic conditions in which it breeds. In a capitalist landlord set-up, it is impossible to develop economic and social foundations which can eliminate poverty, misery crime and disease. The present system can in no way provide such an economic basis which can provide water, electricity, health care, education, transport, housing and other facilities needed to transform the lives of ordinary people.

Similarly a political programme - attacking imperialist exploitation - and the drudgery of landlordism and capitalism, is necessary to seriously combat fundamentalism. Without such a thoroughly worked-out programme and a perspective for the over-throw of capitalism, a movement against such horrors, as fundamentalism, can't be built. The ultimate destination of such a movement has to be a social transformation of society. Otherwise it would mean nothing. Hence in the final analysis, humanity can only be salvaged from the menace of fundamentalism through a grass root democratic revolution. Such movements have emerged in the past, they will re-emerge in the not too distant future. What we have learned from recent history is that, the divergence of such movements, in a rotten system, on the lines of bourgeois "liberalism," bourgeois "democracy" and bourgeois "secularism" in the explosive times ahead would spell disaster. Learning the lessons of the past and the present, the historical task of today is to transform society on the lines of a democratic free market economy, which is the only way forward for mankind today

Against Nuclear Apartheid

Jaswant Singh appeared in the Foreign Affairs, September/October 1998

He was the Senior Adviser on Defense and Foreign Affairs to IndianPrime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and a Member of Parlia-ment for the Bharatiya Janata Party.

THE CASE FOR INDIA'S TESTS
While the end of the Cold War transformed the political land-scape of Europe, it did little to ameliorate India's security concerns. The rise of China and continued strains with Pakistan made the 1980s and 1990s a greatly troubling period for India. At the global level, the nuclear weapons states showed no signs of moving decisively toward a world free of atomic danger. Instead, the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) was extended indefinitely and unconditionally in .1995, perpetuating the existence of nuclear weapons in the hands of five countries busily modernizing their nuclear arsenals. In 1996, after they had conducted over 2000 tests, a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was opened for signature, following two and a half years of negotiations in which India participated actively. This treaty, alas, was neither comprehensive nor related to disarmament but rather devoted to ratifying the nuclear status quo. India's options had narrowed critically.

India had to ensure that its nuclear option, developed and safe-guarded over decades, was not eroded by self-imposed restraint. Such a loss would place the country at risk. Faced with a difficult decision, New Delhi realized that its lone touchstone remained national security. The nuclear tests it conducted on May 11 and 13 were by then not only inevitable but a continuation of policies from almost the earliest years of independence. India's nuclear policy remains firmly committed to a basic tenet: that the country's national security in a world of nuclear proliferation lies either in global disarmament or in exercise of the principle of equal and legitimate security for all.

THE TESTS OF MAY
I N 1947, when a free India took its rightful place in the world, both the nuclear age and the Cold War had already dawned. Instead of aligning with either bloc, India rejected the Cold War paradigm and chose the more difficult path of nonalignment. From the very beginning, India's foreign policy was based on its desire to attain an alternative global balance of power that, crucially, was structured around universal, nondiscriminatory disarmament.
Nuclear technology had already transformed global security. Nuclear weapons, theorists reasoned, are not actually weapons of war but, in effect, military deterrents and tools of possible diplomatic coercion. The basis of Indian nuclear policy, therefore, remains that a world free of nuclear weapons would enhance not only India security but the security of all nations. In the absence of universal disarmament, India could scarcely accept a regime that arbitrarily divided nuclear haves from have-nots. India has always insisted that all nations' security interests are equal and legitimate. From the start, therefore, its principles instilled a distaste for the self-identified and closed club of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

During the 1950s, nuclear weapons were routinely tested above ground, making the mushroom cloud the age's symbol. Even then, when the world had witnessed only a few dozen tests, India took the lead in calling for an end to all nuclear weapons testing, but the calls of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, went unheeded.

In the 1960s, India's security concerns deepened. In 1962, China attacked India on its Himalayan border. The nuclear age entered India's neighborhood when China became a nuclear power in October 1964. From then on, no responsible Indian leader could rule out the option of following suit.

With no international guarantees of Indian security forthcoming, nuclear abstinence by India alone seemed increasingly worrisome. With the 1962 war with China very much on his mind, Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri began tentatively investigating a subterranean nuclear explosion project. A series of Indian nonprolif-eration initiatives had scant impact. In 1965, to make matters worse, the second war between India and Pakistan broke out. Shastri died in 1966 and was succeeded by Indira Gandhi, who continued the fruitless search for international guarantees. In 1968, India reaffirmed its commitment to disarmament but decided not to sign the NPT. In 1974, it conducted its first nuclear test, Pokharan I.
The first 50 years of Indian independence reveal that the country's moralistic nuclear policy and restraint paid no measurable div-idends, except resentment that India was being discriminated against. Disarmament seemed increasingly unrealistic politics. If the permanent five's possession of nuclear weapons increases security, why would India's possession of nuclear weapons be dangerous? If the permanent five continue to employ nuclear weapons as an international currency of force and power, why should India voluntarily devalue its own state power and national security? Why admonish India after the fact for not failing in line behind a new international agenda of discriminatory nonproliferation pursued largely due to the internal agendas or political debates of the nuclear club? If deterrence works in the West-as it so obviously appears to, since Western nations insist on continuing to possess nuclear weapons-by what reasoning will it not work in India? Nuclear weapons powers continue to have, but preach to the have-nots to have even less. India counters by suggesting either universal, nondis-criminatory disarmament or equal security for the entire world.
India is alone in the world in having debated the available nuclear options for almost the last 35 years. No other country has deliberated so carefully and, at times, torturously over the dichotomy between its sovereign security needs and global disarmament instincts, between a moralistic approach and a realistic one, and between a covert nuclear policy and an overt one. May 11, 1998, changed all that. India successfully carried out three underground nuclear tests, followed on May 1.3 by two more underground, sub-kiloton tests. These five tests, ranging from the sub-kiloton and fission variety to a thermonuclear device, amply demonstrated India's scientific, technical, and organizational abilities, which until then had only been vaguely suspected. A fortnight later, on May 28 and 30, neighboring Pakistan predictably carried out its own tests in the bleak fastness of the Chagai Hills in Baluchistan, near the Afghan border. Suddenly the strategic equipoise of the post-Cold War world was rattled. The entire nonproliferation regime and the future of disarmament were at the forefront of international agendas.

THE FAILURE OF THE OLD REGIME
SINCE INDEPENDENCE, India has consistently advocated global nuclear disarmament, convinced that a world without nuclear weapons will enhance both global and Indian security. India was the first to call for a ban on nuclear testing in 1954, for a nondiscriminatory treaty on nonproliferation in 1.965, for a treaty on nonuse of nuclear weapons in 1978, for a nuclear freeze in.1982, and for a phased program for complete elimination of nuclear weapons in 1988. Unfortunately, most of these initiatives were rejected by the nuclear weapons states, who still consider these weapons essential for their own security What emerged, in con-sequence, has been a discriminatory and flawed nonproliferation regime that damages India's security. For years India conveyed its apprehensions to other countries, but this did not improve its security environment. This disharmony and disjunction between global thought and trends in Indian thought about nuclear weapons is, unfortunately, the objective reality of the world. Nuclear weapons remain a key indicator of state power. Since this currency is operational in large parts of the globe, India was left with no choice but to update and validate the capability that had been demonstrated 24 years ago in the nuclear test of 1974.
India's May 1998 tests violated no international treaty obligations. The CTBT, to which India does not subscribe, permits parties to with-draw if they believe their supreme national interests to be jeopardized. Moreover, the forcing of an unconditional and indefinite extension of the NPT on the international community made 1995 a watershed in the evolution of the South Asian situation. India was left with no option but to go in for overt nuclear weaponization. The Sino-Pakistani nuclear weapons collaboration - a flagrant violation of the NPT - -made it obvious that the NPT regime had collapsed in India's neigh-borhood. Since it is now argued that the NPT is unamendable, the legitimization of nuclear weapons implicit in the unconditional and indefinite extension of the NPT is also irreversible. India could have lived with a nuclear option but without overt weaponization in a world where nuclear weapons had not been formally legitimized. That course was no longer viable in the POst-1995 world of legit-imized nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the full implications of the 199S NPT extension were debated neither in India nor abroad. This fatal setback to nuclear disarmament and to progress toward delegitimization of nuclear weapons was thoughtlessly hailed by most peace move-ments abroad as a great victory.

Nor was the CTBT helpful. In negotiations on the CTBT in 1996, India for the first time stated that the nuclear issue is a national security con-cern for India and advanced that as one reason why India was unable to accede to the CTBT. Presumably this persuaded the nuclear hegemons to introduce a clause at the last minute pressing India, along with 43 other nations, to sign the treaty to bring it into force. This coercive clause violates the Vienna Convention on Treaties, which stipulates that a nation not willing to be a party to a treaty cannot have obligations arising out of that treaty imposed on it. Even more galling, this clause was introduced at the insistence of China-the provider of nuclear technology to Pakistan. When the international community approved the coercive CTBT, India's security environment deteriorated significantly.

India's plight worsened as the decade wore on. In 1997 more evidence surfaced on the proliferation between China and Pakistan and about U.S. permissiveness on this issue. During Chinese President Jiang Zemin's recent visit to Washington, the United States insisted on a separate agree-ment with China on Chinese proliferation to Iran and Pakistan, which the Chinese signed instead of professing their innocence. Both the U.S. unease and the Chinese signature attest to Chinese proliferation as a threat to India's security. After all these assurances, China continued to pass missile technology and components to Pakistan. Despite this, the Clinton administration was still willing to certify that China was not proliferating or - even worse for India - that the United States was either unable or unwilling to restrain China. As the range of options for India narrowed, so, too, did the difficulties of taking corrective action.

A FINE BALANCE
TODAY INDIA is a nuclear weapons state. This adds to its sense of responsibility as a nation committed to the principles of the U.N. Charter and to promoting regional peace and stability. During the past 50 years, India made its nuclear decisions guided only by its national interest, always supported by a national consensus. The May 1.998 tests resulted from earlier decisions and were possible only because those decisions had been taken correctly.
The earliest Indian forays into the question of nuclear disarmament were admittedly more moralistic than realistic. The current disharmony, therefore, between India and the rest of the globe is that India has moved from being totally moralistic to being a little more realistic, while the rest of the nuclear world has arrived at all its nuclear conclusions entirely realistically. With a surplus of nuclear weapons and the technology for fourth-generation weapons, the other nuclear powers are now beginning to move toward a moralistic position. Here is the cradle of lack of understanding about the Indian stand.

The first and perhaps principal obstacle in understanding India's position lies in the failure to recognize the country's security needs; of the need in this nuclearized world for a balance between the rights and obligations of all nations; of restraint in acquisition of nuclear weaponry; of ending today's unequal division between nuclear haves and have-nots. No other country in the world has demonstrated the restraint that India has for the nearly quarter- century after the first Pokharan test in 1974.

Now, as the century turns, India faces critical choices. India had wit-nessed decades of international unconcern and incomprehension as its security environment, both globally and in Asia, deteriorated. The end of the Cold War created the appearance of American unipolarity but -also led to the rise of additional power centers. The fulcrum of the international balance of power shifted from Europe to Asia. Asian nations began their process of economic resurgence. The Asia-Pacific as a trade and security bloc became a geopolitical reality. But the rise of China led to new security strains that were not addressed by the existing nonpro-liferation regime. The 1995 indefinite extension of the NPT-essentially a Cold War arms control treaty with a heretofore fixed duration of 25 years-legitlinized in perpetuity the existing nuclear arsenals and, in effect, an unequal nuclear regime. Even as the nations of the world acceded to the treaty, the five acknowledged nuclear weapons powers -- -Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States -- stood apart; the three undeclared nuclear weapons states-India, Israel, and Pakistan- were also unable to Subscribe. Neither the world nor the nuclear powers succeeded in halting the transfer of nuclear weapons technology from declared nuclear weapons powers to their preferred clients. The NPT notwithstanding, proliferation in India's back yard spread.

Since nuclear powers that assist or condone proliferation are subject to no penalty, the entire nonproliferation regime became flawed. Nuclear technologies became, at worst, commodities of international commerce and, at best, lubricants of diplomatic fidelity. Chinese and Pakistani proliferation was no secret. Not only did the Central Intel-ligence Agency refer to it but, indeed, from the early 19gos on the required U.S. presidential certification of nonproliferation could not even be provided. India is the only country in the world sandwiched between two nuclear weapons powers.

Today most nations are also the beneficiaries of a nuclear security par-adigm. From Vancouver to Vladivostok stretches a club: a security framework in which four nuclear weapons powers, as partners m peace, provide extended deterrent protection. The Americas are under the U.S. nuclear deterrent as members of the Organization of American States. South Korea, Japan, and Australasia are also under the U.S. umbrella. China is, of course, a major nuclear power. Only Africa and southern Asia remain outside this new international nuclear paradigm where nu-clear weapons and their role in international conduct are paradoxically legitimized. These differentiated standards of national security - a sort of international nuclear apartheid - are not simply a challenge to India but demonstrate the inequality of the entire nonproliferation regime.

In the aftermath of the Cold War, an Asian balance of power is emerging with new alignments and new vacuums. India, in exercise of its supreme national interests, has acted in a timely fashion to correct an imbalance and fill a potentially dangerous vacuum. It endeavors to contribute to a stable balance of power in Asia, which it holds will further the advance of democracy. A more powerful India will help balance and connect the oil-rich Gulf region and the rapidly industrializing countries of Southeast Asia.

To India's north is the Commonwealth of Independent States, a reservoir that has yet to be fully developed. The Soviet Union's successor, Russia, has considerably less international prestige. Inevitably, the previ-ously existing affiance between India and the former U.S.S.R. has eroded.

On lndla's western flank lies the Gulf region, a critical source of the world's energy. India has ancient links to the area, as it does to the former Soviet lands. It also has extensive energy import requirements. The Gulf employs Indian labor and talent. However, this region and Its neighbors have been targets of missile and nuclear proliferation. Long-range mis-siles entered this area in the mid-198os. Since 1987, nuclear proliferation in the Gulf, with extraregional assistance, has continued unchecked.

Faced as India was with a legitimization of nuclear weapons by the haves, a global nuclear security paradigm from which it was excluded, trends toward disequilibrium in the Asian balance of power, and a neighborhood in which two nuclear weapons countries act in concert, India had to protect its future by exercising its nuclear option. By so doing, India has brought into the open the nuclear reality that had remained clandestine for at least the past ii years. India could not accept a flawed nonproliferation regime as the international norm when all realities conclusively demanded the contrary.

India's policies toward its neighbors and others have not changed. The country remains fifty committed to the promotion of peace, stability, and resolution of all outstanding issues through bilateral dialogue and negotiations. The tests of May u and 13 were not directed against any country. They were intended to reassure the people of India about their own security. Confidence-building is a continuous process to which India remains committed.
India's motive remains security, not, as some have speciously charged, domestic politics. Had the tests been motivated simply by electoral exi-gencies, there would have been no need to test the range of technologies and yields demonstrated in May. In the marketplace of Indian public fife, a simple low-Yield device would have sufficed. Since that marketplace did not govern the decision to experiment, the tests encompassed the range of technologies necessary to make a credible nuclear deterrent.

JOIN THE CLUB
INDIA is now a nuclear weapons state, as is Pakistan. That reality can neither be denied nor wished away. This category of "nuclear weapons state" is not, in actuality, a conferment. Nor is it a status for others to grant. It is, rather, an objective reality. India's strengthened nuclear capability adds to its sense of responsibility-the obligation of power. India, mindful of its international duties, is committed to not using these weapons to commit aggression or to mount threats against any country. These are weapons of self-defense, to ensure that India, too, is not subjected to nuclear coercion.

India has reiterated its desire to enter into a no-first-use agreement with any country, either negotiated bilaterally or in a collective forum. India shall not engage in an arms race, nor, of course, shall it subscribe to or reinvent the sterile doctrines of the Cold War. India remains committed to the basic tenet of its foreign policy-a conviction that global elimination of nuclear weapons will enhance its security as well as that of the rest of the world. It will continue to urge countries, particularly other nuclear weapons states, to adopt measures that would contribute meaningfully to such an objective. This is the defining difference. It is also the cornerstone of India's nuclear doctrine.

That is why India will continue to support initiatives, taken individ-ually or collectively, by the Non-Aligned Movement, which has contin-ued to attach the highest priority to nuclear disarmament. This was reaffirmed most recently at the NAM minister; al meeting held soon after India had conducted its recent series of underground tests. The NAM ministers reiterated their call at the Conference on Disarmament to es-tablish, as the highest priority, an ad hoc committee to start negotiations in 1998 on a phased program for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons within a specified time, including a nuclear weapons conven-tion. The collective voice Of 113 NAM countries echoes an approach to global nuclear disarmament to which India has remained committed.

One NAM initiative, to which great importance is attached, resulted in the International Court of Justice's unanimous July 1996 declaration that there is an international obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to comprehensive nuclear disarmament under strict and effective international control. India was one of the countries that appealed to the ICJ on this issue. No other nuclear weapons state has supported this judgment; in fact, they all have decried it. India has been and will continue to be in the forefront of the calls for opening negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention. This challenge should be confronted with the same vigor that has dealt with the scourges of biological and chemical weapons. In keeping with its commitment to comprehensive, universal, and nondiscriminatory approaches to disarmament, India is an original party to the conventions against both. In recent years, in keeping with these new challenges, India has actively promoted regional cooperation-in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, in the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation, and as a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. This engagement will continue. The policies of economic liberalization introduced in recent years have increased India's regional and global linkages, and India shall deepen and strengthen these ties.
India's nuclear policy has been marked by restraint and openness. It has not violated any International agreements, either in 1974 or 1998. This restraint is a unique example. Restraint, however, has to arise from strength. It cannot be based upon indecision or hesitancy. Restraint is valid only when it removes doubts, which is precisely what India's tests did. The action involved was balanced-the mini-mum necessary to maintain an irreducible component of the country's national security calculus.

Even before 199o, when Congress passed the Pressler amend-ment cutting off economic and military aid to Pakistan to protest its development of a nuclear program, the genie of nuclear prolif-eration on the Indian subcontinent was out of the bottle. The much-quoted 1987 interview in which Abdul Qadeer Khan, the chief Pakistani nuclear scientist, verified the existence of Islamabad's bomb simply confirmed what New Delhi had long suspected. The United States, then still engaged in Afghanistan, continued to deny that Pakistan had crossed the nuclear threshold. The explosions at the Chagai Hills on May 28 and 30 testify to the rightness of India's suspicions.

After the tests, India stated that it will henceforth observe a voluntary moratorium and refrain from conducting underground nuclear test explosions. It has also indicated a willingness to move toward a de jure formalization of this declaration. The basic obligation of the CTBT is thus met: to undertake no more nuclear tests. Since India already subscribes to the substance of the test ban treaty, all that remains is its actual signature.

India has also expressed readiness to participate in negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on a fissile material cut-off treaty. The basic objective of this pact is to prohibit future production of fissile materials for use in nuclear weapons. India's approach in these negotiations will be to ensure that this treaty is universal, nondiscrimi-natory, and backed by an effective verification mechanism. That same constructive approach will underlie India's dialogue with countries that need to be persuaded of India's serious intent. The challenge to Indian statecraft remains to reconcile India's security imperatives with valid international concerns regarding nuclear weapons.

Let the world move toward finding more realistic solutions and evolving a universal security paradigm for the entire globe. Since nuclear weapons are not really usable, the dilemma lies, paradoxically, in their continuing deterrent value. This paradox further deepens the concern of statesmen. How are they to employ state power in the service of national security and simultaneously address international concerns? How can they help the world create an order that ensures a peaceful present and an orderly future? How are they to reconcile the fact that nuclear weapons have a deterrent value with the objective global reality that some countries have this value and others do not? How can a lasting balance be founded? While humanity is indivisible, national security interests, as expressions of sovereignty, are not. What India did in May was to assert that it is impossible to have two standards for national security - one based on nuclear deterrence and the other outside of it.

The end of the Cold War did not result in the end of history. The great thaw that began in the late 198os only melted down the ancient animosities of Europe. We have not entered a unipolar order. India still lives in a rough neighborhood. It would be a great error to assume that simply advocating the new mantras of globalization and the market makes national security subservient to global trade. The 21st century will not be the century of trade. The world still has to address the unfinished agenda of the centuries.