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A Q Khan's utterances meant to provoke India, feel experts

The rattling of nuclear sabre by Pakistani scientist A Q Khan on Thursday, is designed more to provoke India into stating its actual intentions on the question of exploding an N-device, feel defence analysts.

The Pakistani scientist has said he needs only a nod from his Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief to go ahead with nuclear weapons: "We are ready to carry out a nuclear explosion anytime, and the day this political decision will be made, we will show the world," he is reported to have told the Pakistani media.

He has also claimed that Pakistan is in the process of developing Ghazni, a 2000-km long range ballistice missile that outstrips the recently tested Ghauri.

Though the Indian government has yet to react to such hawkish sentiments from across the border, it is felt that this 'posturing race' could lead to the renewal of a shrill phase in the subcontinent's history.

"Everybody knows we have exploded a device in Pokhran in 1974. But one explosion does not mean that you can do it whenever you want to. We have to be ready with the weapon system," former chief of army staff, General V N Sharma told Rediff On The Net.

Defence experts also rule out the possibility of an arms race between India and Pakistan, since both the sides have already acquired the weapons, either through smuggling or from indigenous sources.

What had reined in the two countries was the non-proliferation regime strictly enforced by the US. The latter appears less keen on reading the riot act over the question of proliferation, possibly because it feels it would not make much of a difference if the countries state their capabilities when they already have it.

The question then is, why did Pakistan make the revelation now, and not earlier? The answer seems to lie in the hawkish posture adoped by the Bharatiya Janata Party on defence issues. Experts feel the intention might be to be one-up on India and announce the nuclear capabililty earlier than the new, hawkish government in New Delhi.

General Sharma is of the opinion that the Pakistanis have been at the job of making the N-bomb immediately after the 1965 war. "We have known it for the last 10 years but did not retaliate fearing the Americans. The Americans's intention -- and for that matter the whole western world's intention -- is to equate us with Pakistan so that our predominance in the area need not be acquiesced," he says.

He also contends that there is a China-Pakistan axis working against India, a threat which can be countered only through strength.

And strength obviously means weaponisation and deployment of proven missiles like Prithvi and expediting the Agni programme.

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