M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — A millennium ago, when
Muslim armies began succeeding in defeating their Hindu rivals, such victories
came despite the latter's greater opulence. A contributory factor was caste.
Only certain "high-born" groups were permitted to bear arms in
defense of the state. Their number did not exceed 9 percent of the total
population. Had a more equitable social structure been in place, India's
history may have been different.
It was only in the 1960s that democratic
elections became the instrument through which the "backward castes"
were able to claim equal rights with the rest. Ironically, since that time a
new caste system has arisen, again one that denies upward mobility to those
condemned to second-class, or worse, status. This is the international nuclear
order implemented through the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which
permanently restricts the right to possess nuclear weapons to only five
countries -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.
Since then, Israel, India, Pakistan and now
North Korea have emerged as de facto nuclear weapons states. Of these, Israel
has not thus far tested a nuclear weapon, although it has clearly had access to
the technology needed to build a stockpile of them. Of the other three,
Pakistan and North Korea are both authoritarian states known to have
proliferated both nuclear as well as missile technology, and to have secured
the know-how for developing both from third countries.