The fierce rivalry between India and Pakistan would be amusing had it not extended to military affairs and over the past week to nuclear weaponry and maintaining the balance of terror, writes Rahul Bedi from New Delhi.
The one-upmanship that extends into the daily lives of people on either side of the border with equal vehemence, led Pakistan to carrying out six underground nuclear tests in response to India's earlier five. And, in response to India, saying it too would arm its long-range missiles with a nuclear warhead capable of penetrating deep inside enemy territory. Thereafter, the Indian Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, challenged Pakistan's claims saying it had conducted two and not five tests on Thursday which were no match to India's nuclear devices tested on May 11th and 13th.
"We have got some information that in fact there may not have been five tests," Mr Fernandes said in a television interview today. "Everything that we have learned about their nuclear tests shows that they are nowhere near where we are." Indian federal security agencies challenged Pakistan's claim to conducting six tests, too. They said Indian monitoring stations had registered three and not six "seismic signatures" after the Pakistani tests. So far, India and Pakistan have competed with one another not only in acquiring better and bigger missiles, tanks and fighter aircraft, but also in playing superior cricket and hockey, growing sweeter and bigger mangos, producing better music and television programmes and even entertaining and dressing better than those across the border.
The suspicion and disdain the two military and political establishments have for one another is shared by their citizens who were once part of the same country before being partitioned in 1947. "Tensions arise from being the same," said Mr Rakesh Luthra, a barrister in Delhi, whose family migrated from Lahore in Pakistan.