Two countries with a common and ancient civilization, India and Pakistan, celebrated 60 years of independence from colonial rule this week. At the time of independence, both countries were in danger of collapsing from internal and external threats. This greatly influenced both countries' subsequent turn toward centralism - in India's case, statism, and in Pakistan's case, army rule.

For four decades, both statism and army rule seemed irreversible. This was despite failures across the board: In both countries, territory was lost and the economy stagnated. Resources were spent on developing nuclear weaponry and on dealing with the Kashmir insurgency, which was fostered by Pakistan and repressed by India. What was left was often wasted through corruption. By 1990, it was common for Pakistan to be labeled a failed state and India, perhaps more damningly, a failed democracy.

Pakistan's army and feudal landlords, who shared political power via an informal coalition throughout the first 40 years, deserve most of the blame for Pakistan's failures. They carved up the economy among themselves, and let the poor survive by growing food and providing simple services to the rich. India's greater failures hid these strategies from national or global attention. Pakistan even overtook India for a while until Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's nationalizations of the 1970s brought them on par again.

Pakistan, a day older than India, but with an even younger population, seems to have aged more poorly over the past two decades. As the Indian economy picks up speed on the back of the 1991 reforms, India is on its way to becoming a global player in services and acquiring as formidable a reputation as China for job creation. The IT sector alone creates three new jobs every minute of each working day. In the four statistics that really matter - literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality rates and the female-to-male ratio - only in the last does Pakistan perform better than India and that, too, marginally. In the others, it is substantially worse.

There is no single reason for Pakistan's poorer performance. It turned as reformist as India in the 1990s. This has benefited some parts of its economy. For instance, the country adds over 2.5 million new cell phone users each month, or 1 for every second of the day. Though below India's rate of 2.7 new cell phone users per second, it is a much better ratio to the population.

Religious fervor is often accused, but has not - in either the subcontinent's history or in Pakistan's shorter one - been a barrier to development. Despite incidents such as led to the recent siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad, theocratic parties have never received more than 15 percent of the popular vote - and that was three decades ago. Evidence within all the countries of South Asia provides proof of the proposition that the poor, regardless of faith or ethnicity, seek the means of development, particularly the acquisition of education. Muslims are no exception to this proposition. For instance, the first administrative district to reach 100 percent literacy in the subcontinent was the Muslim-majority district of Malappuram in the Indian state of Kerala.

Finally, one cannot simply blame performance on Pakistan not being a full democracy. The world abounds with more failed than successful democracies, while China provides the most stunning counterexample of a successful dictatorship. Pakistan's current state of governance - in which the military, the courts and parliament share power and the press is relatively free - has been achieved through decades of negotiation and may well be the best framework given its current stage of political maturity.

Yet, there is one difference that may be the real reason for Pakistan's backwardness, and it is now becoming evident - again, by comparison with India. It is linked to bad governance but does not always follow from the democratic tradition. The difference is, in a word, freedom. India provides a good example: The government used to decide how resources were spent, leaving citizens with few choices on careers, education and lifestyles - on participation in their nation's growth. Since the 1990s, the Indian state has worked hard to give its citizens more freedom. The result is an invigorated India.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has moved slowly on freedom. The state has withdrawn from the economy, but now grants favors selectively to the private sector, with the inevitable corollary of massive corruption and loss of freedom of action.

This suggests that Pakistan is only a crucial freedom step away from success. In reality, the immediate future does not look promising because the country's citizens do not have the political will to achieve real change. It is a sad commentary that Pakistan's choices for the next cycle of political rule look like bad ones: the continuation of the present system of quasi-military rule or its replacement with the destructive feudal forces that Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif represent. Surely, Pakistan's citizens deserve much better - something worth pondering as their nation celebrates turning 60.

Reprinted with permission by The San Jose Mercury News.

The probability of a nuclear weapon one day going off in an American city cannot be calculated, but it is larger than it was five years ago. Potential sources of bombs or the fissile materials to make them have proliferated in North Korea and Iran. Russia's arsenal remains incompletely secured 15 years after the end of the Soviet Union. And Pakistans nuclear technology, already put on the market once by Abdul Qadeer Khan, could go to terrorists if the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, cannot control radicals in that country.

In the same period, terrorism has surged into a mass global movement and seems to gather strength daily as extremism spills out of Iraq into the rest of the Middle East, Asia, Europe and even the Americas. More nuclear materials that can be lost or stolen plus more terrorists aspiring to mass destruction equals a greater chance of nuclear terrorism.

Former Senator Sam Nunn in 2005 framed the need for Washington to do better at changing this math with a provocative question: On the day after a nuclear weapon goes off in a American city, "what would we wish we had done to prevent it?" But in view of the increased risk we now face, it is time to add a second question to Mr. Nunn's: What will we actually do on the day after? That is, what actions should our government take?

It turns out that much could be done to save lives and ensure that civilization endures in such terrible circumstances. After all, the underlying equation would remain a few terrorists acting against all the rest of us, and even nuclear weapons need not undermine our strong societies if we prepare to act together and sensibly. Sadly, it is time to consider such contingency planning.

First and foremost, the scale of disaster would quickly overwhelm even the most prepared city and state governments. To avoid repeating the Hurricane Katrina fiasco on a much larger scale, Washington must stop pretending that its role would be to support local responders. State and local governments--though their actions to save lives and avoid panic in the first hours would be essential--must abandon the pretense that they could remain in charge. The federal government, led by the Department of Homeland Security, should plan to quickly step in and take full responsibility and devote all its resources, including those of the Department of Defense, to the crisis.

Only the federal government could help the country deal rationally with the problem of radiation, which is unique to nuclear terrorism and uniquely frightening to most people. For those within a two-mile circle of a Hiroshima-sized detonation (in Washington, that diameter is the length of the Mall; in New York, three-fourths the length of Central Park; in most cities, the downtown area) or just downwind, little could be done. People in this zone who were not killed by the blast itself, perhaps hundreds of thousands of them, would get radiation sickness, and many would die.

But most of a city's residents, being further away, would have more choices. What should they do as they watch a cloud of radioactive debris rise and float downwind like the dust from the twin towers on 9/11? Those lucky enough to be upwind could remain in their homes if they knew which way the fallout plume was blowing. (The federal government has the ability to determine that and to quickly broadcast the information.) But for those downwind and more than a few miles from ground zero, the best move would be to shelter in a basement for three days or so and only then leave the area.

This is a hard truth to absorb, since we all would have a strong instinct to flee. But walking toward the suburbs or sitting in long traffic jams would directly expose people to radiation, which would be the most intense on the day after the bomb goes off. After that, the amount would drop off day by day (one third as strong after three days, one fifth as strong after five days, and so on), because of the natural decay of the radioactive components of the fallout.

More tough decisions would arise later. People downwind could leave their homes or stay, leave for a while and then come back or leave and come back briefly to retrieve valuables. The choices would be determined by the dose of radiation they were willing to absorb. Except in the hot zone around the blast and a few miles downwind, even unsheltered people would not be exposed to enough radiation to make them die or even become sick. It would be enough only to raise their statistical chance of getting cancer later in life from 20 percent (the average chance we all have) to something greater--21 percent, 22 percent, up to 30 percent at the maximum survivable exposure.

Similar choices would face first responders and troops sent to the stricken area: how close to ground zero could they go, and for how long? Few would choose to have their risk of death from cancer go up to 30 percent. But in cases of smaller probabilities--an increase to 20.1 percent, for example--a first responder might be willing to go into the radiation zone, or a resident might want to return to pick up a beloved pet. These questions could be answered only by the individuals themselves, based on information about the explosion.

Next comes the unpleasant fact that the first nuclear bomb may well not be the last. If terrorists manage to obtain a weapon, or the fissile material to make one (which fits into a small suitcase), who's to say they wouldn' have two or three more? And even if they had no more weapons, the terrorists would most likely claim that they did. So people in other cities would want to evacuate on the day after, or at least move their children to the countryside, as happened in England during World War II.

The United States government, probably convened somewhere outside Washington by the day after, would be urgently trying to trace the source of the bombs. No doubt, the trail would lead back to some government--Russia, Pakistan, North Korea or other countries with nuclear arsenals or advanced nuclear power programs--because even the most sophisticated terrorist groups cannot make plutonium or enrich their own uranium; they would need to get their weapons or fissile materials from a government.

The temptation would be to retaliate against that government. But it might not even be aware that its bombs were stolen or sold, let alone have deliberately provided them to terrorists. Retaliating against Russia or Pakistan would therefore be counterproductive. Their cooperation would be needed to find out who got the bombs and how many there were, and to put an end to the campaign of nuclear terrorism. It is important to continue to develop the ability to trace any bomb by analyzing its residues. Any government that did not cooperate in the search should of course face possible retaliation.

Finally, as buildings and lives were destroyed, so would the sense of safety and well-being of survivors, and this in turn could lead to panic. Contingency plans for the day after a nuclear blast should demonstrate to Americans that all three branches of government can work in unison and under the Constitution to respond to the crisis and prevent further destruction.

A council of, say, the president, the vice president, the speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate, with the chief justice of the Supreme Court present as an observer, could consider certain aspects of the government's response, like increased surveillance. Any emergency measures instituted on the day after should be temporary, to be reviewed and curtailed as soon as the crisis ends.

Forceful efforts to prevent a nuclear attack--more forceful than we have seen in recent years--may keep the day from coming. But as long as there is no way to be sure it will not, it is important to formulate contingency plans that can save thousands of lives and billions of dollars, prevent panic and promote recovery. They can also help us preserve our constitutional government, something that terrorists, even if armed with nuclear weapons, should never be allowed to take away.

William J. Perry, a professor at Stanford, and Ashton B. Carter, a professor at Harvard, were, respectively, the secretary and an assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration. Michael M. May, also a professor at Stanford, is a former director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce its new class of Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development. This year's fellows - 27 outstanding civic, political, and economic leaders from 22 countries in transition - have been selected from more than 500 applications.

Fellows's Biographies

David Abesadze, Republic of Georgia, is the head of policy analysis division in the Political Department of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is also an assistant professor of social and political studies at Tbilisi State University, where he teaches a graduate course on the politics of development. Through the SSFDD program, he hopes to broaden his theoretical knowledge of development by examining influential works in the field, and to explore how case-specific methodologies and policies have been used to solve development problems.

Huda Ahmed, Iraq, is the 2006-07 Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow of the International Women Media Foundation at M.I.T., an intern at the US National Public Radio, and also a reporter for Knight Ridder in Baghdad. Prior to joining Knight Ridder, she worked as a reporter for The Washington Post in Baghdad, and translated for both The Daily Baghdad Observer and Al Jumhurriya Daily under the former regime. Ahmed's s work has ranged from portraying the heart-rending struggles of women and children in war and politics, to documenting human rights abuses by police and occupying forces. At SSFDD, she is interested in learning more about international conflicts, international law, human rights reporting, media and cross cultural research.

Jafar Alshayeb, Saudi Arabia, is the elected Chairman for the Qatif Municipal Council and a regular political commentator for many local and international media channels. He sponsored the "Tuesday Cultural Forum," a weekly gathering of community leaders and activists that promoted dialogue on social and political issues. Alshayeb, a founding member of human rights and NGOs, has also led charity foundations and youth programs dedicated to social development, and participated in the National Dialogue Meetings in Saudi Arabia. Through SSFDD, he would like to explore new ideas and exchange experiences in the fields of social development and democratic transformation.

Dr. Abduljalil Al Singace, Bahrain, is the media director of the Bahrain Academics Society and an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bahrain. Abduljalil co-founded the Movement of Liberties and Democracy (HAQ), where he is responsible for media communications, human rights reports, and the establishment of relationships with international organizations. At SSFDD, Abduljalil is interested in learning more about the use of media in democratic development.

Dr. Donya Aziz, Pakistan, is a member of Pakistan's National Assembly and the joint secretary of the country's majority party, the Pakistan Muslim League. She currently serves as the Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Population Welfare, and sits on various National Assembly committees including defense, health and foreign affairs. During her time at SSFDD, Donya hopes to learn more about how she can contribute to a future where Pakistani women are able to fully exercise their democratic, political, and professional rights.

Dr. Mohammad Azizi, Afghanistan, is the economic adviser to the Embassy of Afghanistan in Tokyo and the chairman of Center for Policy Priorities (CFPP) in Afghanistan. As a human rights activist and advocate for the empowerment of people in public decision-making, he frequently delivers lectures on international economics, public policy, and macroeconomics and received the Most Active Young Afghan award in 2005, by the New York- based organization Afghan Communicator. Mohammed is particularly interested in democracy promotion in Afghanistan.

Kingsley N. T. Bangwell, Nigeria, is the founder and executive director of the Youngstars Foundation, an organization mobilizing youth participation in democracy and development in Nigeria and Ghana, where his most recent undertaking was a three-part youth training project on good governance and civic participation in several provinces across Nigeria. In the past, he has served as the Nigerian representative in the World Youth Alliance and as a consultant for the British Council on a youth publication project, which he co-authored. He intends to discover the best ways to foster active youth involvement in good governance and political participation in fledgling democracies.

Alina Belskaya, Belarus, was forced to flee her country under threat of imprisonment for her involvement in demonstrations against the authoritarian regime of A. Lukashenka. In Belgium, where she currently lives, she works for the German Marshall Fund on issues related to the Euro-Atlantic integration of Belarus and the wider Black Sea region. A member of the Crisis Management Initiative, she also sits on the board of the Youth Atlantic Treaty Association. Alina would like to learn more about the role of NATO in democratization and the role of grass roots movements in improving socioeconomic conditions of communities.

Jay P. Chaudhary, Nepal, popularly known as Jay Nishaant, is the television producer and host of the TV program Tatastha Tarka (the "Independent Argument"). This weekly political and current affairs talk show on Nepal's largest private sector channel, Kantipur Television Network, is one of the most widely viewed prime time talk shows in the country. In the past, Jay has implemented several democracy promotion programs in Nepal as Manager of Media and Democracy Projects of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. Jay is interested in learning more about how to sustain a grass roots movement to institutionalize democracy in Nepal.

Garrett J. Cummeh III, Liberia, is the director of the Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL), a research-based local advocacy NGO, dedicated to promoting the tenets of transparency and accountability. Since 2004, he has worked on transparency issues by forming the Campaign Monitoring Coalition (CMC), which carried out the first ever Campaign Finance Monitoring in Africa, during the 2005 transitional elections in Liberia. He is presently the Executive Secretary of the National Coalition of Civil Society Organizations in Liberia. During the SSFDD program, Garrett would like to learn more about post conflict governance and rebuilding, as well as strategies to strengthen Liberia's compliance with and implementation of measures against corruption.

Maria Eismont, Russia, is the director of the independent print media program of the New Eurasia Foundation. The program aims to increase the quantity and quality of independent newspapers in Russia's regions. In an effort to improve both business and editorial practices of the regional press, this program provides training and consulting to the staff of independent regional newspapers. Previously, Maria worked as a journalist in several Russian leading publications and covered the regions of Chechnya, Kosovo, and Central Africa for the Reuters news agency. Maria is interested in learning and sharing information on developing a free press.

Rabih El Chaer, Lebanon, is the advisor to the minister of public works and transportation and counsels on public policy, crisis management, legislative proposals, image building and political strategy. As a human rights activist, Mr. Chaer founded the Maharate Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting freedom of expression and media accountability in the Arab region. He is a regular contributor to An-Nahar, Lebanon's leading Arabic language daily newspaper. Rabih has been a regular guest on television news programs since 1993 and is known for his outspoken advocacy of democracy, freedom and political reforms. At Stanford, he wants to gain more substantial knowledge of US electoral campaigns, political party organization, and lobbying.

Safinaz El Tarouty, Egypt, is an assistant lecturer in the Political Science Department of the British University in Egypt, and a researcher at Partners in Development (PID), a think tank where she organizes forums on various aspects of constitutional reform in Egypt. Her Master's thesis was the first academic study on the issue of reform within the National Democratic Party in Egypt and her current Ph.D. dissertation at Cairo University examines the social changes and transformation in Egypt's ministerial elite. Safinaz is particularly interested in issues dealing with political parties, elections, women electoral participation and judicial supervision of elections.

Iulian Fruntasu, Moldova, is the Director of European Initiatives Program of the Soros Foundation-Moldova, which provides assistance with the implementation of the Moldova Action Plan in grant-giving to operational projects. He was also a former diplomat involved in arms-control issues and a member of missions of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia. As a noted author of several books and articles, he is known for his insightful political commentary on democratic development and international relations. Iulian is interested in exploring issues dealing with development and democracy assistance and internet media regulations.

Giao N. Hoang, Vietnam, is the vice director of the Center for Legal Research & Services, senior lecturer at Vietnam National University Law School, and chairman of the Center for Research and Consulting on Policy, Law, and Development. He teaches public international law and human rights law and researches issues related to the rule of law and reform in Vietnam. He manages about thirty projects to promote the rule of law, good governance, and democracy at the grassroots level in over twenty provinces in Vietnam. He comes to SSFDD hoping to learn more about the relationship of political parties to governments in democratic countries and how to prevent parties from abusing the government's power.

Franck Kamunga Cibangu, DRC, is a human rights and humanitarian law activist currently based in Kenya. He is the director of the Droits Humains Sans Frontières NGO, and coordinator of the Africa Democracy Forum, a pan-African network of 300 NGOs and activists working together on democracy, governance, and human rights. He also does research for the United States Peace Institute and the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa, and is a member of the Steering Committee of the African Migration Alliance, which focuses on migration issues in Africa. In the past, he has served as legal adviser at the Independent Electoral Commission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His areas of interest for SSFDD include judicial training in electoral systems, conflict resolution, and human rights advocacy.

Maina Kiai, Kenya, is the first chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, an independent state institution established by the Parliament to lead in the protection and promotion of human rights in the country. From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Kiai was the Africa Director for the International Human Rights Law Group in Washington, DC. From 1999-2001 he was the Africa director of Amnesty International in London, UK, which he joined from the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, and NGO where he was executive director. Mr. Kiai was described by the New York Times as Kenya's leading human rights activist in 1997. He hopes the summer program will assist him in developing strategies for effective redress and promotion of human rights, and advancing the development of independent media.

Hasmik Minasyan, Armenia, is the Policy Officer of the 'Right to Be Heard' Program of Oxfam GB, where she works on issues related to poverty reduction. As part of this position, she coordinates the Civil Society Partnership Network, a network of twenty-six NGOs working on poor development in Armenia, and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) Armenia National Coalition. In 2006, she organized the MDG Celebrity Concert, which mobilized more than ten thousand people. Her primary interests at SSFDD are the development of civil society and democratic political institutions in transitional countries.

Yang Peng, China, is the general secretary of the China Center for Public Policy in Beijing and the director of the China Beijing Enterprise Culture Institute. A highly accomplished scholar, he also helped to promote civil rights protection activities and has become one of China's most important democratic intellectuals. He was also the chief designer of the Alxa Ecological Protection Association, now the largest and most influential environmental NGO in China. He is interested in peaceful democratic transition problems and design of democratic institutions.

Aasiya Riaz, Pakistan, is joint director of Pakistan Institute for Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), an independent research and training institution strengthening democratic governance in Pakistan. She was also a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy where she worked on subjects such as US think tanks and civil-military relations. Aasiya has worked with the mainstream press and electronic media in Pakistan as well, as serving as the editor of the international monthly magazine Pakistan Calling. During the SSFDD program, she would like to focus on strengthening democracies in transition and civil-military relations.

Kate Sam-Ngbor, Nigeria, is the public policy advisor of the Rivers State government. She was instrumental in the design of the popular "Democracy and Good Governance" pilot program by USAID, which played an influential role in the eventual return of democracy to Nigeria. A journalist by trade, she was the chairperson of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists and later the chairperson of the Nigeria Union of Journalists. She has also founded and/or helped to organize a number of NGOs on topics from sustainable development to women's rights. She comes to SSFDD to learn about judicial integrity, respect for the rule of law, freedom of the press, among other interests.

Zvisinei Sandi, Zimbabwe, is a lecturer at Masvingo State University and founder and secretary general of the Senior Society for Gender Justice. She is a journalist and an academic who has worked for the state-controlled Zimbabwe Newspapers Group and later for the independent Financial Gazette. She hopes to use her time with SSFDD to become a more effective human rights advocate and observe the approaches different countries take to the teaching of democracy, good governance, and the rule of law.

Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine, is the director of the NGO Kyiv Media Law Institute and a lecturer at the School of Journalism at the Kyiv National University. As a member of several governmental advisory bodies and the secretary of the Public Council on Freedom of Speech and Information, Mr. Shevchenko has drafted a number of influential pieces of legislation that have became laws in Ukraine. He looks forward to the great opportunity of establishing professional relations with his counterparts from other countries as well as experts on democracy, economic development and the rule of law in transitioning economies.

Majid Tavallaei, Iran, is the managing director of Nameh Research and Information Institute, which aims to provide novel approaches to achieving non-violent transitions for a democratic Iran. As the editor-in-chief of the monthly journal, Naameh, which the Islamic Republic of Iran has banned, he has contributed over 40 articles on pertinent social-political issues in Iran. He is also one of the founding members of the Iranian People's Liberation Party (IPLP), a social democracy platform that promotes new civic movements. He hopes his time at SSFDD will help develop further his understanding of effective political activism.

Vera Tkachenko, Kazakhstan, is a lawyer and currently a candidate for an MSc in Criminal Justice Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. For the last 6 years, as one of the regional directors of the international NGO Penal Reform International, she has been working on criminal justice reform issues in Central Asia. Her main interests pertain to the effective development of criminal justice systems with sustainable institutions, traditions and legal frameworks, and mainstreaming and actualizing the legal reform as part of a broader democratization process.

Roya Toloui, Iran, is a clinical pathologist, feminist, journalist, and human rights activist from Kurdistan, Iran. Roya has promoted social activism through the Kurdish women's magazine, Rasan, as editor-in-chief and the Kurdish Women Supporting Peace and Human Rights in Kurdistan, as a founding member. She was arrested on August 2, 2005 for her outspoken criticism of the authorities and upon her release on bail she fled to Iran and sought refuge in the United States. In November 2006, she won the Freedom of Expression Award from international PEN and OXFOM/NOVIB. During her time at SSFDD, Roya hopes to join other activists to form solidarity and support in the struggle for democracy.

Dr. Hossam Youssef, Egypt, is a Commissioner Judge at the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court. He is also a Lecturer at the Cairo University School of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law and Contracts under both the American and Egyptian legal systems. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors at The Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority, and is a Legal Advisor to the Egyptian Minister of Petroleum, advising the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum on oil and gas concessions. At SSFDD, Hossam hopes to learn more about how the mechanisms of the American legal system are used to protect human rights and preserve the rule of law.