India is now frontline State
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The most intriguing feature of this Diwali was the absence of candles on the Wagah border. The declaration of "Emergency plus" across the Radcliffe Line didn't prompt our well-heeled "Pako-philes" to show solidarity with those who are resisting General Musharraf's last ditch attempt at survival. Those who earlier signed petitions demanding the release of each and every convicted Pakistan-sponsored terrorist suddenly chose to be silent.
The reason isn't difficult to fathom. For long, Indian liberals have sought to convey the picture of a happy and hospitable Pakistan driven by a single-minded desire to befriend India and share in a common sub-continental heritage. In other words, Pakistan was painted as a normal country with normal impulses.
The events of the past fortnight have again demonstrated what seemed apparent right from the mid-1950s: that Pakistan is not a normal country, even if many of their notables do speak rather poetic Urdu. The terms "rogue state" and "criminal enterprise" have periodically been used to describe a country where gun-toting might is always deemed to be right. India's liberals have dismissed these labels on the grounds that the perverted state apparatus in Pakistan does not take into account the innate normalcy of its citizens. They are, goes a common liberal refrain, "just like us."
Perhaps that is so. Yet, the awkwardness of international relations is that it involves state-to-state dealings. On this count, the developments in Pakistan should fill Indians with utmost trepidation.
The issue now goes beyond the unlikely survival of Musharraf. The General has deceived his own people and the international community for so long that tears are unlikely to be shed if he becomes the permanent occupant of the house in Saudi Arabia now being occupied by Nawaz Sharif. The more worrying point is that Pakistani society is now pulling in two sharply different directions without democracy becoming the arbiter of this clash.
At one level are those like the agitated lawyers, students, political activists and middle class folk who would like Pakistan to be governed by a civilian Constitution and the rule of law. They have had enough of military rule and they are worried by the growing audacity of the suicide bombers. These are people we in India can relate to easily, or so we like to believe.
However, outside the gaze of the TV cameras and in the more inhospitable parts of the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, Pakistan is witnessing a descent into straight-forward anarchy. The growing success of the insurgency led by Maulana Fazlullah -- better known as Mullah Radio -- in the Swat Valley of NWFP is giving headaches to both the Pakistan Army and the US Administration. The NWFP is slipping out of Pakistani control and its fallout will be felt almost immediately in Afghanistan.
The tribal Islamists along the Durand Line don't pose the only threat. Fuelled by anti-Americanism, there is a critical mass of radical Islamists in Punjab and Sind who are waiting to link up with their ideological counterparts.
These people don't like Musharraf; they hate Benazir Bhutto; and are suspicious of Nawaz. They don't depend on mass rallies to express their anger; their mobilisation is effected silently in mosques and madarsas. They are salivating at the prospect of Pakistan becoming ungovernable, thereby giving them an opening.
The Americans won't allow the Islamists to grab control of a nuclear-weapons' state. It is certain to throw its weight behind a coalition of a section of the army and liberal democratic forces to fight the Islamist menace. In the short term, the restoration of democracy may see religious radicals getting simultaneously clobbered. Repression may even force a hard-core of Islamists to seek refuge outside Pakistan. Kashmir is certain to be a magnetic draw but there will be a significant spill over to the rest of India. Jihad, after all, has no frontiers.
The events in Pakistan may end up making India the new frontline in a growing clash of civilisations. We must be alert to the likelihood of Pakistan dumping its garbage across the border.
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