Summer has returned to Pakistan with a vengeance. In the blistering heat of the plains the people, misinformed and miserable, were yesterday celebrating the explosion of their very own nuclear device. India had exploded a Hindu bomb. Pakistan had countered by detonating a Muslim device. Honour had been satisfied and in the debased political culture of both countries, a culture devoid of everything except the narrowest self-interest, the pot-bellied politicians and the lean and hungry generals are busy congratulating themselves.

In India, the Dalai Lama, suitably attired in saffron monkish garb, congratulated the government for its farsightedness. In Pakistan dissent is limited to a few retired air marshals and generals. The bearded men are pleased. The Opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto had for several weeks been taunting the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, for delaying the decision to explode the “Islamic” bomb. In a speech full of passion, but devoid of intelligence, she questioned his manhood, advising people to send him bangles in the post. She demanded that “rogue nations ... ought to be taught a lesson” and called for a pre-emptive strike against India’s nuclear installations by the West. Since Pakistan has now acquired rogue status, does the same apply?

She was joined in this grotesque campaign by Imran Khan, the holier-than-thou cricketer-turned-politician. Was it sheer opportunism on his part or is it the case that he needs more patients for his cancer hospital? They live only in the present, these feather-brained men and women. They think only of the short-term. The recurring images in their dreams are dominated by power and money. We live in dark times.

What can justify the ease with which the powerful ruling elites in both countries have spent billions of dollars to inject the earth with nuclear dust? Both countries are stalked by poverty, disease, malnutrition and mass illiteracy. In Pakistan over 70% of the population remains illiterate. In many villages, on both sides of the religious divide, peasants still have to struggle hard to obtain regular supplies of clean drinking water, electricity, sanitation and medicines. In the towns the homeless continue to multiply, bereft of hope and living on the margins of society. They are all outsiders in a cruel world where the insiders make all the decisions. What will become of them? Who will defend their interests? Many years ago Benazir’s father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, predicted that if India got the bomb, Pakistan would too, “even if we have to eat grass”. The truth is that those who make the decision never eat grass.

In India all the major political parties have clambered aboard the nuclear bandwagon, desperate to show that, they too, are tough-minded realists. The right-wing government staffed by born-again Hindu fundamentalists has received backing from the Congress Party. Perhaps it will suggest that the first nuclear missiles are known as the Mahatma Gandhi missile. Add to this the sorry sight of India’s two communist parties proclaiming that the nuclear tests are “a blow against imperialism” and the sad picture is complete.

In reality, the Indian opposition is fearful of being overwhelmed by an electoral Armageddon if the ruling BJP is left alone to claim the nuclear credit. This is short-sightedness bordering on self-destruction. The problem is not that they feel their forces are slight and their political goal lies too far ahead. The fact is that they no longer have a goal.

Ten years after the end of the cold war the old scenario of two-wars-in-one - nuclear and conventional - has returned to haunt this old sub-continent. The dragon-seeds sown during the bad old days have now produced monsters that are out of control. The nuclear tests have thrown an ugly light on the more evil aspects of national chauvinism and religious identity. Each side blames the other for aggressive and brutal behaviour. Both are right.

Political pundits in Delhi and Islamabad have berated the West for its relativism and double-standards. After all why should Britain have a nuclear arsenal, but not India? It is a reasonable question. The answer does not lie in claiming that Britain and France have a divine right to nuclear weaponry, but a truly ethical example. An act of unilateral nuclear disarmament by a European power would have a much more lasting impact than all the sanctions under consideration. Sanctions, as we know from the example of Iraq, always affect the least powerful citizens the most.

The hostility between India and Pakistan has become a habit to which both the elites have become addicted. Any attempt towards a rational solution to real problems is denounced by chauvinists on both sides. Now, more than ever before, it is crucial to resolve the conflicts, real and imagined. To rest contented and say that this is how it is and always must be, might prove to be fatal.