It was inevitable that Pakistan's leadership would attempt nuclear black-mail as a supplement to its aggression in Kargil. The latest to resort to this tactic is the religious affairs minister, Raja Zafarul Haq. That the Pakistani bomb programme has always been India specific -- or Kashmir specific -- is no secret. As far back as 1979, Pakistani generals told Professor Stephen Cohen, a US specialist on South Asia, that their nuclear capability would provide the umbrella under which Islamabad could reopen the Kashmir issue: ``A Pakistani nuclear capability paralyses not only the Indian nuclear decision but also Indian conventional forces and a brash, bold Pakistani strike to liberate Kashmir might go unchallenged if the Indian leadership was weak or indecisive''. Pakistan assembled its bomb with active Chinese help and US connivance in 1987 and first resorted to nuclear blackmail in 1990, one year after it initiated the Kashmir insurgency. Mr Nawaz Sharif did the same in his Nilabhat speech in August 1994, while a whole host of Pakistani leaders have been rattling the nuclear sabre since May 1998 in the aftermath of the Chagai tests. The Pakistanis may now be counting on the divisiveness displayed by our political parties -- and on fears that the Kargil conflict could turn nuclear. Unfortunately, the Indian government has not done enough to reassure our own people on the issue. The Prime Minister contents himself with general statements that India is not daunted by Pakistan's nuclear threat.

If India had not gone explicitly nuclear in 1998 -- a full nine year after the assembly of the first Pakistani bomb -- the morale of the Indian armed forces fighting in Kargil would not be as high as it is today. Pakistan would have backed its aggression on the ground with a nuclear threat. A demoralised, non-nuclear Indian government would have had no alternative but to yield to Pakistani and international pressure. India's so-called conventional superiority would have been of no avail. Today, though Pakistan has succeeded in carrying out a limited but politically highly significant aggression in Kargil, there are serious constraints which are likely to prevent further escalation. No Pakistani army chief will ever give nuclear weapons to his forces for fear that a subordinate general in possession of such weapons might blackmail him. Pakistan's nuclear weapons are all likely to be in the central custody of General Pervez Musharaff and he will not dare to use them. There are a number of reasons for that. First, no Pakistani will risk Lahore and other major cities, or the country's high dams, for the barren rocks of Kargil. Second, the Pakistanis are aware that when they indulged in nuclear blackmail in 1990,the US sent in the Gates mission and warned Islamabad against the use of nuclear weapons. Surely it is not in the US interest to permit Pakistan to get away with a nuclear strike. Washington is unlikely to overlook a plum opportunity to disarm a nuclear Pakistan. Pakistan cannot afford to overlook this crucial consideration. The US capabilities for such a disarming strike are readily available in the Arabian Sea. The US will not be doing India a favour but only enforcing its own nonproliferation norms. Given all these factors, the Pakistani attempts at nuclear blackmail will have to be taken in stride and ignored.