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Authors: Dilip Hiro
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weapons for the Afghan mujahedin through Pakistani armyâs Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) directorate. Reagan persuaded Congress to sanction $3.2 billion aid to Islamabad over the next six years, arguing that arming Pakistan with modern US weaponry would reduce the chance of its pursuing the nuclear option. In practice, Pakistan forged ahead on both armament fronts, conventional and nuclear.
Shaken by Indiaâs detonation of a ânuclear deviceâ in May 1974, Pakistan had initiated a clandestine program to catch up with its arch rival in this regard. Given Beijingâs overarching aim to deprive India of becoming the hegemonic power in South Asia, it surreptitiously aided Islamabad inits nuclear arms program. To this quadrilateral linkage was added another actor: Israel. Committed to thwarting the nuclear weapons ambition of any Muslim country, Israel offered to work with Delhi to bomb the Kahuta nuclear facility, located twenty miles from Islamabad and run by Abdul Qadeer Khan. By late 1982, a joint Indo-Israeli plan to raid Kahuta was hatched. During their clandestine trip to Tel Aviv in early 1983, Indian military officers purchased electronic equipment to jam Kahutaâs air defenses.
On the surface, Gandhi and Zia ul Haq maintained cordial relations. On the margins of the seventh Non-Aligned Movement summit in Delhi in March 1983, they agreed to set up the Joint Indo-Pakistan Commission, with subcommissions for trade, economics, information, and travel. This double-dealing became an abiding feature of Delhi-Islamabad relations.
The Indo-Israeli plot against Pakistan did not remain secret from the ISI for long. In the autumn of 1983 its chief sent a message to its counterparts in Indiaâs Research and Analysis Wing foreign intelligence agency. This brought about a meeting between Munir Ahmad Khan, head of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), and Raja Ramanna, head of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, in a Vienna hotel. Khan warned Ramanna that if India alone, or in collusion with Israel, attacked Kahuta, Pakistan would hit Indiaâs nuclear facility in Trombay on the outskirts of Mumbai. 7 This compelled Gandhi to hesitate. In addition, Pakistanâs ambassador in Delhi conveyed the same message to Indiaâs Ministry of External Affairs. 8
This maneuver helped Zia ul Haq achieve his twin objectives of signaling that Islamabadâs nuclear program was unstoppable, thus gaining international acceptance by stealth, and issuing a stern warning to Gandhi. She revoked her earlier go-ahead to Israelâs hawkish defense minister Ariel Sharon.
Militant Sikhsâ violent agitation for an independent homeland, called Khalistan, appealed to Zia ul Haq since it was based on religious grounds. At his behest, the ISI aided the extremist Sikhs with training and weapons. The activists of the Khalistan movement turned the Sikhsâ holiest complex, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, into an armed fortress. To destroy this base, Gandhi ordered the storming of the Golden Temple by the army in June 1984. The military succeeded at the cost of shedding much blood and alienating the Sikh community nationwide. In retaliation, two of Gandhiâs Sikh bodyguards assassinated her in October.
She thus became the second Indian leader to fall victim to violence stemming from religious fanaticism, the earlier example being that of Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, who was assassinated by a Hindu supremacist for urging the Indian government to meet its financial obligations to Pakistan.
The Race for Nuclear Arms
Rajiv Gandhi, the only surviving son of Indira, who succeeded her as prime minister, was untutored in politics or administration. Nonetheless, after his meeting with Zia ul Haq in December 1985 in Delhi, they agreed not to attack each otherâs nuclear facilities as a confidence-building measure. Crucially, though, they disagreed on the nature of their nuclear programs, both of them
Shaken by Indiaâs detonation of a ânuclear deviceâ in May 1974, Pakistan had initiated a clandestine program to catch up with its arch rival in this regard. Given Beijingâs overarching aim to deprive India of becoming the hegemonic power in South Asia, it surreptitiously aided Islamabad inits nuclear arms program. To this quadrilateral linkage was added another actor: Israel. Committed to thwarting the nuclear weapons ambition of any Muslim country, Israel offered to work with Delhi to bomb the Kahuta nuclear facility, located twenty miles from Islamabad and run by Abdul Qadeer Khan. By late 1982, a joint Indo-Israeli plan to raid Kahuta was hatched. During their clandestine trip to Tel Aviv in early 1983, Indian military officers purchased electronic equipment to jam Kahutaâs air defenses.
On the surface, Gandhi and Zia ul Haq maintained cordial relations. On the margins of the seventh Non-Aligned Movement summit in Delhi in March 1983, they agreed to set up the Joint Indo-Pakistan Commission, with subcommissions for trade, economics, information, and travel. This double-dealing became an abiding feature of Delhi-Islamabad relations.
The Indo-Israeli plot against Pakistan did not remain secret from the ISI for long. In the autumn of 1983 its chief sent a message to its counterparts in Indiaâs Research and Analysis Wing foreign intelligence agency. This brought about a meeting between Munir Ahmad Khan, head of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), and Raja Ramanna, head of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, in a Vienna hotel. Khan warned Ramanna that if India alone, or in collusion with Israel, attacked Kahuta, Pakistan would hit Indiaâs nuclear facility in Trombay on the outskirts of Mumbai. 7 This compelled Gandhi to hesitate. In addition, Pakistanâs ambassador in Delhi conveyed the same message to Indiaâs Ministry of External Affairs. 8
This maneuver helped Zia ul Haq achieve his twin objectives of signaling that Islamabadâs nuclear program was unstoppable, thus gaining international acceptance by stealth, and issuing a stern warning to Gandhi. She revoked her earlier go-ahead to Israelâs hawkish defense minister Ariel Sharon.
Militant Sikhsâ violent agitation for an independent homeland, called Khalistan, appealed to Zia ul Haq since it was based on religious grounds. At his behest, the ISI aided the extremist Sikhs with training and weapons. The activists of the Khalistan movement turned the Sikhsâ holiest complex, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, into an armed fortress. To destroy this base, Gandhi ordered the storming of the Golden Temple by the army in June 1984. The military succeeded at the cost of shedding much blood and alienating the Sikh community nationwide. In retaliation, two of Gandhiâs Sikh bodyguards assassinated her in October.
She thus became the second Indian leader to fall victim to violence stemming from religious fanaticism, the earlier example being that of Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, who was assassinated by a Hindu supremacist for urging the Indian government to meet its financial obligations to Pakistan.
The Race for Nuclear Arms
Rajiv Gandhi, the only surviving son of Indira, who succeeded her as prime minister, was untutored in politics or administration. Nonetheless, after his meeting with Zia ul Haq in December 1985 in Delhi, they agreed not to attack each otherâs nuclear facilities as a confidence-building measure. Crucially, though, they disagreed on the nature of their nuclear programs, both of them
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