TO THE long list of its other achievements the government has added a desert trophy: its handling of the drought crisis afflicting the forgotten corners of Pakistan. If there is any close parallel to this exercise in inertia it lies in the Yahya regime's response to the cyclone which hit East Pakistan in late 1970.

While a tidal wave of death and destruction swept over the eastern wing, the military government was slow to respond, paralysed by what I can only think of as a sense of remoteness. East Pakistan and its coastal people were just too far away. Which is a bit like the Bheels of Thar and the Koochis and other nomads of Balochistan. Mainstream Pakistan passes them by. Imagine if the water supply of Islamabad were to be closed for two or three days running. The howls of anguish rising as a result would touch the heavens.

The 1970 cyclone at any rate was a sudden calamity which came surging with little warning out of the seething waters of the Bay of Bengal. There has been nothing sudden about the slow march of death across the terrible deserts of Thar and Balochistan. Its grim progress could be seen from a distance, the warning signs deciphered almost six months ago. But true to ourselves, and to one of our foremost national characteristics, we failed to lift a finger in advance. The failure of anticipation was thus complete. Everyone concerned, including the proud and independent press, closed their eyes and their senses to the impending tragedy. When it finally hit us we could only advertise our helplessness.

A belated and wet appeal for funds now? Why not three months ago? Water trains to the burning hell of Balochistan now? Why not in early spring? To be fair to the media, a trickle of reports about drought conditions in Thar and Balochistan had started coming through some months ago. But would anyone have cared about them?

Looking ahead, in any case, is not our game. When India set off its nuclear firecrackers in this same dire month two years ago, we as a nation could not look ahead two months let alone anything longer. The BJP fire-eater, L.K. Advani, had only to issue a few tough statements for the knights templars of Pakistani national security (may their repeated sins be forgiven) to be stampeded into ill-considered action. Are any tears being shed, any regrets expressed, for that supreme act of juvenile folly? Surely not. Regret for self-inflicted sorrows has always been as difficult for us as the art of anticipation.

But the connecting link between these otherwise disparate happenings remains: if we could not foresee the consequences of our nuclear anxiety how could this government, or the administrative structure of Pakistan, respond in time to the developing tragedy in Thar and Balochistan?

Even so, now that the worst is upon us and likely to last for the duration of this cruel summer, why is the government finding it so difficult to doff its ties and dark suits and get into a semblance of battle gear for the emergency at hand? True, the National Security Council is a reminder of nothing so much as a slice of Jurassic Park. True, the cabinet looks like nothing more than a breakfast table with too many eggs on it. Even so, these guardians of the national interest could try to look sprightly and alert. Instead of which every screen image of them in session gives an impression of second-rate bankers meeting in the lower reaches of Wall Street: ties, dark suits and bottles of mineral water stacked on the table.

Not that the people of Thar and Balochistan have much passion to watch television these days but the feelings of ordinary Pakistanis elsewhere might be considered. Why pour salt over them? Just consider the contrast. Raging thirst across broad expanses of desert. Cool looks, coiffured heads and bottles of mineral water back at the ranch in Islamabad. Great Hollywood copy for which reason Cecil B. de Mille would have loved it. But not smart politics. Even Goebbels, or perhaps especially Goebbels (why is he so maligned?), would have known better.

Perhaps at this point a dirge is in order for the helplessness of the Pakistani people. As opposed to the drawing room classes, the mass of the Pakistani people do not care about democracy. They are used to authoritarian ways. In their daily lives they are used to being kicked around by anyone who has authority over them. They want a semblance of good government without really knowing or realizing what good government stands for. Since there is no democracy in their daily lives (I am not counting the newspaper reading public or the chattering classes) and there has not been any for the last 5,000 years, they have always looked to strongmen to deliver them from their condition and give them an approximation of justice and order.

But this wait is now exhausted. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif put them off democracy. A succession of tinpot figures have put them off strong government. Who has caused more harm to the country? Who has more fuelled the fires of cynicism? In this competition the father-figures of authoritarianism beat their democratic counterparts hollow. Benazir and Nawaz Sharif have picked the nation's skin and done a clean job of it. General Zia, Ghulam Ishaq Khan and his bureaucratic henchmen (some of whom are re-inventing themselves as topdog columnists), and General Beg have broken the nation's bones. How to put those bones together is the national task we now face.Any genuine attempt at national reconstruction will have to consider what to do with the upper-crust denizens of Rawalpindi and Islamabad: drive them up the mountains or take them down to the sea. These two cities swarm with retired mandarins and ex-generals whose contribution to the mess we are in is second to none. Mandarins who were experts at democratic obstructionism, spymasters who did everything in the book to further poison the already black atmosphere of the capital, all now posing as bleeding-heart patriots. Even against a backcloth of surrealism such performances would be considered amazing. Not in Pakistan where political hypocrisy has been turned into a fine art.

General Karamat now emerging slowly (or is this too a feint?) from self-imposed hibernation asks an important question (in a speech he delivered somewhere): "Having been forced to take over in the national interest, should the army apologize and retreat to the barracks till the next government brings us to the brink of disaster...?"

The brink of disaster indeed. Who triggered the 1965 war? Field Marshal Ayub Khan. Who presided over the defeat of the army and the break-up of Pakistan in 1971? General Yahya Khan. Who at disastrous cost turned Pakistan into an American instrument during the upheavals in Afghanistan? General Zia-ul-Haq. Who mishandled Pakistan's role in the Gulf war? General Aslam Beg. Who failed to foresee the consequences of dismissing Benazir Bhutto in November 1996? General Karamat (amongst several others). Who helped push Pakistan into its nuclear tests in May 1998? General Karamat. Who wrote the script for the Kargil adventure? My eyes grow dim and my imagination fails me here.

To the study of the past, a past responsible for our disastrous present, we should bring if not great intellectual rigour (not to be found on our supermarket shelves) at least an open mind. In the hammam (Turkish sauna) that is the higher politics of Pakistan no one is innocent. All of us, barring the hapless masses, are equally naked. So in trying to understand the causes of things, which if we do not we will not find our way out of the woods, we must bring to the task a measure of humility. Arrogance or a sense of infallibility sits well on none of us.

Tailpiece: Many readers have written to ask where they could send money for the relief effort in Thar and Balochistan. To any convincing charity they would like to donate but not, if they can help it, to the government which (I wonder why) they do not trust. Someone - Muhammad Iqbal Noorani from Toronto, Canada - has even been foolish enough to send me a draft for Rs 50,000 which I am keeping in trust till I know where to send it. Cannot Imran Khan at least for this summer give up his dreams of becoming prime minister (he can return to them in autumn) and spearhead public relief efforts for the affected areas? Who else is there? Edhi. Who else? Hard to say.