Saturday, June 1, 2002 4:06AM EDT

Speech calms fear of war

		Indian Ambassador Lalit Mansingh says his nation will not launch a nuclear first strike. Staff Photo By Corey Lowenstein

By NED GLASCOCK, Staff Writer

RALEIGH - India's ambassador to the United States said Friday that his government is prepared to use force if diplomacy fails to defuse his nation's tense standoff with Pakistan. But he pledged that India would not be first to pull the nuclear trigger.

Ambassador Lalit Mansingh, in the Triangle for a quick check-in with university educators, politicians and leaders of a fast-growing local Indian community, said it is up to Pakistan to resolve the terse border conflict by curbing terrorist attacks against India.

"It has become abundantly clear after Sept. 11 that no country in the world today can afford to be a sponsor of terrorism," Mansingh said in an interview. "The time has come for Pakistan to choose. It can't become an ally in the fight against terrorism and pretend to be a friend of the United States and, at the same time, be a sponsor of terrorism against neighboring India. So the simple solution is: Stop terrorism."

Mansingh's long-scheduled visit to promote links between India and the Triangle coincided with a State Department warning urging the 60,000 Americans in India to leave the country because of the rising risk of war. The ambassador said the warning was unnecessary.

"We have never had cases of Americans being threatened in India, so I don't think the situation justifies asking Americans to leave India," he said. "However, that's an internal process of the United States."

On his Triangle tour, the ambassador met with university leaders -- from Duke, N.C. State and the University of North Carolina -- and U.S. Reps. David Price and Bob Etheridge, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and representatives of Gov. Mike Easley. Mansingh said he wants a North Carolina delegation to visit India to explore business opportunities in genomics, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and the defense industry.

The Triangle is home to about 11,000 Indians and Indian-Americans, who account for about one-third of all Asians in the region, according to the 2000 Census. The area's burgeoning Pakistani community is thought to be only a fraction of the Indian community's size, although the Census Bureau has yet to release figures.

Leaders of both communities say they coexist peaceably, drawing on a common language, culture and culinary tastes that predated the partition of India into two countries with the British withdrawal in 1947. However, the latest flare-up between India and Pakistan has hardened the political differences among some local residents.

Members of the Triangle's Indian community greeted Mansingh Friday evening at a Cary community center, where he spoke about the conflict with Pakistan and a range of other issues dear to Indian expatriates.

He came to the area at the invitation of Swadesh Chatterjee, an influential Indian-American businessman living in Cary, who last year was awarded one of the Indian government's highest honors, the Padma Bhushan award for distinguished service to the nation in public affairs.

Chatterjee said the ambassador allayed the fears of war among many in the crowd of about 100 Indians and Indian-Americans at the Herbert C. Young Community Center.

"He calmed the community down, I have to tell you," Chatterjee said. "The community was concerned. Their brothers and sisters and parents and relatives are all there. They are all concerned about their well-being and what is going to happen. In nuclear war, millions of people can die. So they got the right facts about what is going on. There is still good hope that there will not be any war."

Uma Kant Misra, a research professor in pathology at Duke University Medical Center, came with his wife, Rama, hoping to hear that India would not provoke war with Pakistan. They liked what they heard.

"I was hoping to hear what he said, that India doesn't want a war and Pakistan is just making noise about war," Misra said. "If Pakistan pushes, India will retaliate, but India will not start the war."

However, the ambassador's comments were met with skepticism by some Triangle Pakistanis. Asaad A. Shamsi, past president of the Pakistani American Association, said India could easily avoid war with Pakistan by agreeing to a plebiscite in the disputed and divided region of Kashmir, allowing residents of the heavily Muslim area to choose to be part of one country or the other.

Shamsi, who did not attend the ambassador's speech, said India is unhappy that Pakistan has become an important U.S. partner in the Bush administration's self-declared war on terrorism, and he accused India of using that campaign as a cover to further its ambitions in Kashmir.

"India is trying to take advantage of the attention of the war against terrorism and trying to suppress a legitimate freedom movement in Kashmir and also make Pakistan come across as a terrorist-supporting country," said Shamsi, a Nortel software engineer. "Under Indian-administered Kashmir, there is no hope for the Kashmiri people there. All they want is honest elections there."

Like local Indians, Triangle Pakistanis hope their nations will find their way to peace.

"It's a very sensitive part of the world right now," Shamsi said. "My prayer is that no war happens between the two countries, and especially no nuclear solution. The U.S. needs to take a serious look at this matter and try to mediate."