US think-tanks have been simulating a new India-Pakistan conflict for years. In almost nine out of ten cases, the outcome is nuclear

Spare a thought for the Taj Mahal. The wondrous 17th-century monument to love shines like a beacon on moonlit nights, making it an incongruous and conspicuous landmark at a time when India and Pakistan are poised for war. So the Taj is to be covered with camouflage cloth as a precaution against Pakistani air raids. But if there is a fourth war between the two siblings (even after Tony Blair's peacemaking mission to the Indian subcontinent), more than the Taj Mahal needs protecting. The likeliest end to such a conflict would be a nuclear exchange. This cataclysmic risk is almost taken for granted in Pakistani military circles. And it is also the conclusion reached by various military thinkers and strategists in the United States.

During the past two years, US think-tanks have conducted a number of studies simulating a new war between India and Pakistan. In these "war games", military commentators and academics play the parts of leaders on each side. In almost nine out of ten cases, these simulations end with nuclear war. Indeed, the current escalation of tension - with nuclear missiles deployed on each side and Indian warships moving close to Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and only port - is a carbon copy of standard war-game scenarios that end with a nuclear exchange.

The cold-blooded rationale behind this scenario goes something like this. India, the fourth-largest military power in the world, with armed forces twice the size of Pakistan's, could outgun its neighbour. Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan's main cultural centre located relatively close to the border, are particularly vulnerable. To save these cities, Pakistan launches a nuclear strike. Precisely because neither side has very many nuclear weapons, there is a strong incentive to launch the first strike. It is simply a case of "use it or lose it".

The rhetoric on both sides hints at these possibilities. When Pakistan's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, warned India that "any misadventure" would result in "tremendous casualties", he was clearly referring to the nuclear endgame. India's foolishly hawkish defence minister, George Fernandes, replied: "Pakistan would be finished. We could take a strike, survive and then hit back." Because of the paucity of their nuclear arsenals, neither side is restrained by the certainty of mutually assured destruction (MAD). Instead, jingoistic lobbies on both sides indulge in macho posturing which betrays a complete disregard for the destruction and suffering that any nuclear exchange would inflict upon their peoples.

Relations between the two neighbours deteriorated after the attack on the Indian parliament in Delhi on 13 December, in which 14 people died, including the five suicide attackers. India blames the attack on the Kashmiri militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba and is accusing Pakistan of sponsoring terrorist groups. It has demanded that Pakistan take harsh measures against them. Already, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, a leader of Lashkar-e-Toiba, has been arrested.

That Pakistan's intelligence service has been supporting and encouraging the Kashmiri militants is no secret. Together with the al-Qaeda terrorists, the militants have been trained in the religious seminaries of northern Pakistan, which have become the bedrock of fundamentalism in the region. If General Musharraf is serious about his promises to restore a moderate Pakistan, he will have to close down the religious seminaries.

Behind the warmongering on the other side lurks the Hindu nationalists' dream of a pure Hindu India - "Akhand Bharat" - where orthodox "Hindu Dharma" is the creed of all, and where everyone - women, the untouchables and other "lower" caste groups - knows his or her place in society. Above all, the dream is of an India free from the "Muslim invaders".

Since the ascent to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party, numerous attempts have been made to write Islam out of India's history books. If the valorous high-caste Hindus had been true to their creed, these revisionist texts suggest, they would have destroyed the Moguls, defeated the Muslims, and driven out the British with blood and chivalry.

The BJP Hindu government has projected the nuclear tests of May 1998 as signs of Hindu reawakening. Nuclear weapons are being romanticised as symbols of indigenous Vedic strength and virility, whose purpose, as the home minister, L K Advani, has declared, is to "teach Muslims and Pakistan a lesson". Little wonder that the openly nationalist prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, views the current crisis as an opportunity to settle old scores. First he talked of crossing the border into Pakistan to destroy the terrorist camps. Then he wanted to emulate "Bush in Afghanistan" or "Israel in Palestine". Now he has moved most of the Indian army, complete with nuclear missiles, to the borders of Pakistan. Yet Pakistan is in the "nuclear club", and India must learn to treat its neighbour as an equal partner.

Indian officials who talk of "whacking Pakistan" as though it were on a par with insolvent Afghanistan or the helpless Palestinians risk making a devastating mistake. And the Hindu chauvinist fantasy of "finishing Pakistan" is just that - a perilous fantasy. Moreover, India cannot duck the Kashmir issue for much longer.

Kashmir, even more than the Middle East, looms as the next world-shattering conflict. As an overwhelmingly Muslim province, Kashmir should have acceded to Pakistan. But its Maharaja Hari Singh, ignoring the wishes of his people, preferred to side with India. The accession to India, as spelt out by the last British governor general, Lord Mountbatten, was to be the subject of a free and impartial plebiscite; but India has systematically refused to hold a referendum - despite various UN resolutions. Today, India and Pakistan divide the control of Kashmir between them - though the Muslim population of Kashmir has been rising against Indian occupation for decades. Since the early 1990s, India has stationed up to 700,000 troops within Kashmir to try to quell the rebellion.

Given that independent observers have documented countless atrocities carried out by the Indian military against the Kashmiri population, it seems disingenuous of India to pretend that the crisis in Kashmir is the work of terrorists, or of a covertly hostile Pakistan.

The Kashmiris, I suspect, do not want to be governed by Pakistan, any more than they desire to live under Indian rule. And indeed, it is about time that the two feuding subcontinental siblings took seriously the idea of an independent Kashmir. Discussion of reuniting the country as an autonomous buffer zone might offer a way out for everyone. This way, the two neighbouring states could channel some of the millions they spend on their military arsenals to meeting the needs of their citizens.

The lustrous glow of the Taj Mahal - the mausoleum built by the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal in the northern Indian city of Agra - illuminates the shared history of the peoples of India and Pakistan.

A Muslim monument in an Indian city, the Taj remains a stunning testament to mutual cultural influences; these influences must not be camouflaged. Lasting peace on the subcontinent depends on recovering the dynamism that used to characterise this complex fusion, not obscuring - or, worse, obliterating - it with rabid nationalism.

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