Donors pledge $224 million for internally displaced people from Swat valley. Moderate Taliban express their readiness to talk, if U.S. presents them with a withdrawal timetable. And last but not the least, President Zardari and Army Chief Kayani meet in Aiwan-e-Sadr (Pakistani president's residence) and vow to extend government's writ to all corners of Pakistan.

What do all these media reports say? Pakistan is in the throes of a crisis and is making some efforts to avert it; international community is ready to help Pakistan out of its troubles; militants in tribal areas may not be as united as many observers argue; there is hope that Pakistan will be able to pull itself out of the crisis.

However, many seasoned Pakistan watchers in the neighbourhood may not agree. They argue that Pakistan is much too fragile these days to withstand assertion of militants of all hues in different parts of the country. An internally engaged army fighting its own people is not an amusing prospect, especially after being demoralised by the eight years of dictatorial rule.

Cynics also say that despite apparent consensus amongst the power elites of Pakistan today, there is not much verve left in the Pakistani Army to engage itself in a long drawn out battle with Islamic militants. As the Afghan cauldron keeps boiling and anti-U.S. feelings swell up, Taliban, if not other militants, would find the atmosphere conducive for them to operate in. Army operation against Mullah Fazlullah was not necessarily against Taliban, some analysts in Pakistan say. Fazlullah was much too self-obsessed to be liked by the people of Swat, which led to the army's success and his downfall. However, the army's claim to launch itself wholeheartedly against many other shades of militancy is very much suspect.

Moreover, popular support to army's endeavour in Swat may not entirely indicate disillusionment with militancy. An imperfect democracy, constantly bedevilled by an assertive military, tends to breed constituencies that endorse violence. In an unjust and dysfunctional system the language of force has its own relevance and justification. Pakistan has evolved into a society where the state does not have the monopoly of legitimate coercion any more. It has wilfully raised violent forces as tools of its foreign policy to contain misperceived enemies. This has backfired, but the temptation to use them remains. The reference here is to Pakistan's obsessive policy towards India in the name of Kashmir. The way Pakistan dealt with the planners of Mumbai attack, with absolute disinterest and opacity, shows that these forces may continue to receive support from sections within the military at least, to keep the issue of Kashmir alive. By so doing, the army seeks to justify its dominance in Pakistani politics.

Apart from militants encouraged to participate in jihad in Kashmir, there are others who would like to impose their version of Islam on the Pakistan state. They are intensely sectarian. They would brand all others as heretics and wish to wipe them out through force. The inertia of success in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan haunts them to this day.

Such amazing diversity of Islamic forces demands that the state, and especially the military of Pakistan, ought to understand that it cannot afford to be selective in its approach and launch operations against some while tolerate others. The military has to stop raising armed militia against neighbouring states, be it India or Afghanistan.

Interestingly, there are some in Pakistan who indulge in propaganda against India and hold that RAW, the Indian intelligence outfit has raised Baitullah Mehsud and even Mullah 'Radio' Fazlullah, with blessings from CIA. Nothing can be further from truth. After having churned out anti-India sentiments for years, the Pakistani military elite now seeks to play on   India-centric sensitivities of the  militants and would urge them to shun violence, because it is being sponsored by India. Even the militants must be amused by this.

The rot in Pakistan lies much deeper. It lies in the structural iniquities, the deep-seated class and ethnic divides and the overall unwillingness of the elite to transform Pakistan into a liberal democracy. There is a historic chance for them today because international community, including India, is now ready to help Pakistan turn over a new leaf. If it misses this opportunity, the day is not far when the white flags of Taliban will flutter on the streets of Islamabad.

At the international level, there is an apprehension that even if Pakistan does not fall victim to Islamist radicalism, it may become a failed state very soon. There are others who foresee ultimate collapse and disintegration of Pakistan. They argue that Pakistan is kept afloat on the might of the Pakistani military. But the force of Islamist insurgency all around may keep the army too over-stretched to deal with fissiparous ethnic movements (as in Balochistan and elsewhere). This may spell the doom for Pakistani state.
The doomsayers, however, forget that Pakistan does have a vibrant civil society, which has so far remained rather silent on the issue of radicalisation. However, it has the capacity to fight the menace. It has already seen the back of a strong dictator like Musharraf. It may re-energise itself to force the army to act. Only through internal pressure can one hope to make the army work. External pressure through concessional aids and doles may prompt army to exert episodic thrusts into the Taliban heartland. Such actions will disappear once the doles are withdrawn. Such action will only make the militants immune to military intervention. The world at large has to realise that it has to keep up pressure on Pakistani military to take on non-state actors of all shades even if at certain point of time they were considered strategic assets against its neighbours.

At this juncture any pressure on India to restart the process of dialogue, in spite of Pakistan's refusal to bring perpetrators of Mumbai attack to justice, will only convey wrong signals to Pakistan and especially its military dispensation, which is a state within the state. True, the civilian administration in Pakistan today is more eager than ever before to engage India; however, it is still the military which calls the shots. When Mumbai was burning, a much-startled civilian foreign minister from Pakistan was at a loss to explain it in the Indian capital. That explains the real division in Pakistan. International community needs to identify this bipolarity in Pakistan and exert its pressure where it counts the most.

Dr Ashok K Behuria is Editor, International Studies, at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

top