SHARAD C. MISRA

IT’S NOT A QUESTION OF WHETHER INDIA OR Pakistan will actually use the bomb, but of recognizing situations that can lead to the use of such weapons. Every Indo-Pak war has come at a time when there has been an internal power struggle in Pakistan. Since both countries now have democratic governments, the risk of war may have been reduced–democracies don’t often fight long wars against each other. On the other hand, with a fundamentalist Pakistan and a Hindu nationalist government in Delhi, one wonders how long such a balance of terror will hold.

SARVESH PRASAD

AS A SOVEREIGN NATION, INDIA HAS THE same right as the United States to conduct its security policy as it deems fit and without interference from others. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s election manifesto stated clearly that it would test nuclear weapons were it elected to office. It was foolish of American strategists to think it would not. The United States has 10,000 nuclear weapons and continues to refine them with subcritical tests while destroying barely a few hundred older weapons a year. At that rate, the United States will still possess more than 5,000 advanced nuclear weapons in 2025. India has not waged war with other countries as each of the P-5 nations [the five permanent members of the Security Council] have. Nor did India trade in slaves (as the United States did), brutally colonize other nations (as Britain and France did) or commit genocide on its own people (as Russia and China have done). For the nuclear-bloated P-5 nations to castigate India and Pakistan for nuclear testing is, therefore, a disgrace.

MINHAZ MERCHANT

IN SAYING ““INDIA NO LONGER LEADS AN anti-American “Non-Aligned’ movement,’’ your writers equate nonalignment with anti-Americanism. But nonalignment remains the base upon which the pillars of Indian foreign policy stand. India always maintained that nonalignment was neither anti-American nor anti-Soviet: it simply permits India to communicate with other nations on an equal footing. India’s prime ministers–from Jawaharlal Nehru through Inder Gujral–have all adhered to this concept. As for the U.S. official who claims that Pakistan’s Ghauri missile is ““from North Korea’’ but the Indians ““still think it was Chinese,’’ the Ghauri, also referred to as the Hatf V, may be similar to the North Korean Nodong, but its prototype Hatf III was a close variant of China’s M-9 ballistic missile. In fact, the Ghauri is widely considered to be entirely Chinese-made. The Pakistan-China-North Korea relationship, where transfers of missile technology and materials are concerned, thus weighs heavily on the nonproliferation agenda and on security in Asia.

G. STEPHAN

I DETECTED A STRONG UNDERTONE OF cultural imperialism in your report ““Why Only a Bomb Would Do.’’ Your writers said, ““India and the United States inherited … the decencies of English governance.’’ In what form did the ““decency’’ of English governance manifest itself when the English colonized the New World, India and South Africa?

RANDA HAMMADIEH