“THE Government of India has been watching with concern the spiralling violence in Balochistan and the heavy military action, including the use of helicopter gunships and jet fighters by the Government of Pakistan to quell it. We hope that the Government of Pakistan will exercise restraint and take recourse to peaceful discussions to address the grievances of the people of Balochistan.” —Indian statement

For sheer audacity, this takes the prize. The smugness it reveals is extraordinary: that India can get away with anything, which, given the situation in Pakistan today, may not be all that farfetched an assumption.

This transparent attempt at mischief, however, goes far beyond the mere display of cheek. It is also a sharp slap in the face of those efforts the government has been making, indeed the agile somersaults it has been executing, to placate India these past two years, beginning with that amazing joint statement signed by President Musharraf and Prime Minister Vajpayee in Islamabad on January 6, 2004.

In this statement, which must be one of a kind in diplomatic practice, Musharraf gave his personal assurance that territory under Pakistani control would not be used for “terrorism”. The fruit of ‘back-channel’ contacts between the two countries, a greater triumph India could not have wished for because it lent credence to Indian charges that Pakistani territory was indeed used for “terrorism”. Such slips nations alive to their interests usually don’t make but we did, and for no quid pro quo.

Nor was this all. Pakistan kept up a sustained effort to address Indian concerns, climaxing with Musharraf’s April 2005 unsolicited visit to India during which he waved the peace flag as never before. The hope implicit in all this mumbo-jumbo was that India, somehow, would reciprocate and that there would be some movement on Kashmir.

Anyone with half an eye on subcontinental weather could have told the Kissingers from the Pakistani side involved in these efforts that unilateral concessionism would lead nowhere, and that Pakistan was entertaining false expectations. But the Kissingers remained un-persuaded. The results are there for all to see.

Despite heroic efforts to clap with one hand, Pakistan has got nothing in return, with India not conceding an inch on Baglihar, Sir Creek, Siachen, what to talk of Kashmir. Now, to crown everything, this statement. Pakistan has responded with a verbal rebuke. But the question is whether it is in a position to reinforce verbal dismay with anything more meaningful.

Another round of the ‘composite’ dialogue between the two countries is set to begin on January 17. Judging from the record of the last two years, this one too promises to be an elaborate exercise in futility.

So what should be Pakistan’s response? A more robust response to India would be an acknowledgement of foreign policy failure, a luxury the military government can ill-afford at this juncture when it is tied up on so many other fronts. We can be sure the season of one-sided concessions has come to an end. At least this cup is full and there is not much more that can be poured into it. But at the same time, we can bet on it, there won’t be an admission of having been wrong vis-a-vis India. The mess we are making for ourselves. Decry Indian fishing-in-muddy-waters as much as we like, it is hard to escape the fact that our internal mess — starting from Waziristan and not ending in Balochistan — is what has permitted India to issue such an incendiary statement.

Let us not forget that the opposition parties — the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, as fearsome a paper tiger as we are likely to get — called upon the international community a few days ago to stop the Pakistan government from carrying out military operations in Balochistan. If we must hand the audacity prize to India, the stupidity prize comes to us. The ARD is incapable of doing anything on its own but it calls for international interference in our internal affairs. And then we talk about national sovereignty. If nothing else, India can cite the ARD move as justification for its own statement.

The ARD should be taking out million-man marches against the confusion being let loose by the military government. It should be showing leadership and forging unity in its ranks. It should be thinking hard about its participation in the present sham of a system. (Imran Khan has a point, and a powerful one at that, when he says it is time to quit the assemblies and pull out of this system.) But the ARD has no business calling upon the international community to concern itself with Pakistan’s domestic affairs.

Whether fires rage in Waziristan and now in the Kohlu agency of Balochistan, and whether the entire country is in turmoil because of the mistimed controversy over the Kalabagh dam, we have to get it into our skulls that these are our internal matters, to be sorted out by us and no one else.

Pity the Pakistani people, capable of so much (their response to the earthquake a proof of that) but thwarted at every turn by their circumstances. With an inept government and a bankrupt opposition — indeed looking at the farce going by the name of Pakistani politics it is hard to decide who is worse, Musharraf or his opponents — where are they to turn?

Even so, this conclusion must be inscribed in granite: the task of rescuing Pakistan from the consequences of the folly of its leaders must, at all times, remain a Pakistani undertaking. It was the people of Pakistan, first and foremost, who in their undirected, unguided tens of thousands responded to the earthquake. It must be and, God willing, it will be the people of Pakistan who sort out the political confusion besetting their homeland.

Although, it must be said, they will arrive at this goal sooner if they can somehow get a new cast of characters on the national stage. Even a cursory look at the Musharraf order and one has no hesitation in becoming an instant champion of democracy. But a hard look at the PPP, PML-N and the country’s blessed maulanas and the temptation to become an instant convert to Stalinism is irresistible.

I can’t say for sure but maybe Musharraf has done the country an unwitting favour by raising the dam controversy. Before he put his hand in this hornet’s nest, the entire country and the entire political class seemed to be on a diet of sleeping pills. The discontent against the Musharraf order was of a general, unspecific character with no storms breaking on the national horizon. All at once the country has been plunged into a fever of alarm and anxiety.

Remember the Chinese line during the Cultural Revolution: “There is great disorder under the heavens and the situation is excellent.” Disorder and tumult have their creative sides and maybe in this sense the present sense of disquiet and anxiety in the country has its creative uses. What seemed immobile and fixed before is now in a state of flux. Two months ago the present order seemed safe and secure. Now it looks precarious, perched on a volcano.

Maybe all this is exaggeration: romantic daydreaming, armchair revolution stoked by the warmth of a winter fire. One thing, however, is for sure. The state of the nation is not good — there being near-unanimity on this score by now — and the present system of governance, dedicated to nothing higher than the perpetuation of one-man rule, is only making it worse. If anything calls for a change it is this situation.

But whence the relief, whence the balm on the nation’s wracked nerves? Whence a surer hand on the tiller? Whence the future that Pakistan deserves and its more concerned citizens crave? Urgent questions but very few answers.