A peacetime increase in annual national defence spending by 28.2 per cent as has been announced by India is not something that one encounters too often. In fact, such a phenomenal piece of news cannot but make one sit up and wonder why on earth, contrary to the best advice ol welfare economists of the world of whom India has the cream in Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. the agenda for social sector's growth was sacrificed at the alter of a hyped national defence requirements. The all-time high defence allocation in the Indian budget for 2000-2001 cannot be explained away in terms of any serious threat perception India might have vis-a-vis Pakistan which dlscernably possesses smaller armed forces and armouries of conventional and nuclear weapons than India does. The disparity there stands amply illustrated by the vety fact that India’s projected increase of 13.5 billion dollar under the single defence head equals the size of Pakistan's national budget for the last fiscal.

The attribution of the hike to the dire need for strengthening India's military intelligence net work in the context of the glitch over Kargil sounds like a rhetorical overkill at best or an outright excuse at worst when one considers the stupendous size of the defence allocation.

It is surprising that the BJP-led government in India deemed it fit to raise the defence spending that much despite being caught in a whirlpool of mounting deficit financing largely caused by the incompetence ol public sector enterprises.

India's higher defence allocation being ostensibly made on grounds of threat posed by Pakistan and other strategic considerations might prove to be counter-productive in the end: first, this is certain to impel Pakistan to increase her defence expenditure leading up to an arms race in South Asia both in terms of conventional and nuclear weaponisation programmes: secondly, there is bound to be a lessening of the sense of security among smaller nations of South Asia with a concomitant pressure felt by them to increase their defence expenditures as well; and thirdly, it could spark an arms race not merely straddling our region but going well beyond South Asia to encompass some other regional powers.

We have no hesitation in saying that the present Indian government has betrayed a certain lack of responsibility and sagacity by increasing its defence allocation on such a scale. If Pakistan cannot match such Indian expenses on defence as indeed it would be hard-put to do. then she is likely to latch on to her nuclear options with an attendant increase in the very perception of the threat that the present Indian government is touting as the reason behind the higher spending.

The supremely worrying prospect for South Asia* is that the SAARC process might well be set back by the new spate of belligerence being spearheaded by a surge of self-righteous national chauvinism. Our impassioned appeal to all concerned is this: please, by all means, save the SAARC spirit.”