Lakshman, the Times of India's very popular cartoonist, said a mouthful on the Indian explosion of a nuclear device when he had his Mrs. Common Woman character telling her husband, "The P.M. must be really relieved! Pakistan and China have been put in their place. Now only Jayalalitha must be taken care of.'' Jokes apart, there is a body of opinion both in India and elsewhere that the successful test explosions had strengthened the BJP- led coalition considerably because mass reaction in India favoured what has been done in the teeth of predictable fury both in the West, Japan and in China and Pakistan closer home.

The 'brown bomb', after all, has invoked a sense of national pride in India's undoubtedly high scientific and technological capability and given most Indians a warm "we can do it'' glow. In fact, some Colombo based Indian correspondents told Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar at a Foreign Correspondents' Association (FCA) luncheon on Friday that they had a few congratulatory phone calls from Sri Lankan friends. Despite natural apprehension that Pakistan may reply in kind and that our part of the world would become that much more dangerous to live in, there are Lankans who do applaud hi-tech achievements across the Palk Strait.

Both Pakistan and China have reacted angrily, most so Pakistan. Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan, who is on record saying that the Indian actions, which pose an immediate and grave threat to Pakistan's security, "will not go unanswered.'' The big question now is just how Pakistan will reply. The instant reaction in Islamabad clearly indicates that if the big powers do not react strongly enough, and U.S. sanctions alone will not do according to Foreign Minister Khan, Pakistan may follow India's example and become a declared and active nuclear power. All that would mean that the whole world and not this region alone would become much more dangerous for mankind.

Understandably, Japan, the only country ever to suffer nuclear bombing, reacted with grief to the expansion of the nuclear club from five members to six. The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two cities flattened by U.S. nuclear blasts at the end of the last war, as well as some in Tokyo took to the streets. There were reports that Japan was pondering massive aid cuts that can run as high as a billion dollars. Ukraine, which gave up all its nuclear warheads to Russia two years ago, recalled the Chernobyl nuclear tragedy in condemning India. A foreign ministry statement talked of the suffering of its people from "terrible nuclear contamination'' and urged that no demand for defence and security justified the carrying out of nuclear tests.

Colombo's reaction has been muted. Although we cannot forget the role that India played in making the monster that is the LTTE, relations between Sri Lanka and India have never been better. Good relations with India must be the cornerstone of Sri Lanka's foreign policy. The most recent extension of the ban against the Tigers by two years, announced after the explosion, is a fresh reminder of the reality. There is no doubt that the period when New Delhi and, more so Madras, permitted the LTTE to stage and base from Tamil Nadu is now a closed chapter and whatever co-operation we need today to subdue LTTE terror is ours for the asking.

Similarly, Pakistan and China whom Prime Minister Vajpayee has not named but unmistakably identified in his letter to President Clinton as the cause of India's security concerns which pushed it to go nuclear, are our very good friends. They have never in their history done anything that is inimical to Sri Lanka. In fact, they have been steadfastly available at times of need in our contemporary history. Thus it is not surprising that Colombo's carefully crafted two paragraph statement has been an understatement. When an Indian correspondent on Friday told Foreign Minister Kadirgamar that Sri Lanka's statement was not very clear, he smilingly responded that ``statements are made not to be very clear.'' That is what diplomacy is about.

Colombo has expressed its "deep concern'' and indeed could do no less. It hardly needs saying that the whole world must strive towards global disarmament and total nuclear disarmament. Given the current state of play that appears to be almost an impossibility in the short and medium-term, it is more likely that the present six nuclear powers may grow rather than reduce. Indians will have a natural counter to western critics who protest India's new capability by saying that it is easy for those who are already armed with nuclear weapons to pontificate on others acquiring a similar capability in furtherance of their own defence. But that argument could equally well be used by Pakistan if it chooses to react to what India has done by doing likewise.

The world and South Asia have been left with another harsh reality that we must now live with. Mr. Vajpayee talks of an "covert nuclear power'' (meaning China) on one border and accuses this power of materially assisting another neighbour (Pakistan) to become a "covert nuclear weapon state.'' Given our own relations with all concerned, it is natural that the stance taken by Colombo has been what it is. But nobody can be happy about what has happened. Not even Jayalalitha.