ONE can hardly recall extended periods of time when the government of the day, or those opposed to it, did not claim that we were going through a crisis. Some of these crises were real: for instance, the massive influx of refugees following independence, the Indo-Pakistan war of l965, the revolt against Ayub Khan in the fall and spring of 1968-69, the civil war in East Pakistan and the war with India in 1971, the uprising against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto following the elections of March 1977, Ziaul Haq’s intense persecution of political opponents soon after his seizure of power on July 5 of the same year, and intensification of hostility in relations with India from time to time.

With a war going on in neighbouring Afghanistan we are once again confronting a crisis. What kind of a crisis is it? In economic terms, it is a generalized crisis that affects us also. The global economy was approaching a recession that the terrorist attacks of September 11 have hastened and deepened. America, the power that is making war in Afghanistan, is in grave economic trouble.

Shoppers are staying home, industries are discharging hundreds of thousands of workers, tourist resorts and hotels are deserted, and several airlines are going bankrupt. Pakistani industries and businesses are also said to be losing orders and suffering other disadvantages (higher insurance and transportation charges, etc.). On the other hand, Pakistan expects larger inflows of foreign funds that may ease its overall financial situation.

The crisis we face is mainly political. America is waging war in Afghanistan for the purpose of overthrowing the Taliban, eradicating terrorist camps, and capturing or killing Mr Osama bin Laden and his associates, along the way, if it can. The reaction of many Pakistanis to these goals is ambivalent at best, and that of religious conservatives wrathful. It is made ever more adverse because, like other wars, the American war in Afghanistan is killing, and will continue to kill, hundreds of non-combatant civilians. The war causes additional anguish because it is sending new Afghan refugees into Pakistan. The government of Pakistan has not only endorsed the American operation in principle, it is actually supporting that operation in several ways.

The anger of those Pakistanis who are incensed at the happenings in Afghanistan is directed as much against their own government as it is at the United States. The demonstration of this anger is being planned and guided by the Islamic political parties, including the JUI led by Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani (who, for no known scholastic reason, is now being referred to as “Allama”). The Islamic parties have a measure of support in some other quarters such as the PML (NS).

It is generally conceded that the government of Pakistan is pursuing its present course of action because it has had no other option. But the want of an option makes no difference to the pro-Taliban forces. Their political mentors were opposed to General Musharraf’s government even earlier, and its alignment with the United States has given them additional weapons with which to attack it.

They order strikes to shut down the country’s economy that is already ailing. Their followers attack the person and property of those who do not heed their call. Participants in the rallies and demonstrations they organize not only shout anti-American and anti-government slogans, they burn vehicles (even the ones that are parked), break store windows and in some cases plunder them, and engage thousands of security personnel to keep them from doing more damage than that which they are already doing.

One doubts they expect that their protest will make the government fall or force it to change its present policy. They may simply be venting their anger at the impending collapse of their own programme which they had been following for many years and the prospect that they may soon be left with nothing to do. Whatever their reasons, the huge disruption of public order they are causing forms the crux of the crisis we have on our hands at this time.

Some politicians and journalists have been urging General Musharraf, since long before the events of September 11, to associate leaders of the country’s major political parties with his government. Ms Benazir Bhutto and her assistants in the PPP and some of the PML notables have repeatedly called for a “broad-based” government to run the country until the elections, scheduled for October next year General Musharraf has consistently rebuffed these proposals. But the idea is gathering momentum again, now aided by the argument that it will help pacify the pro-Taliban groups and defuse the crisis they have created.

It is probable that the proponents of this idea are not thinking of the larger Islamic political parties (JI, JUI, and JUP) as participants in a reconstituted government. These parties would be hypocritical in the extreme, and they would lose their standing entirely, if they joined hands with the present government unless it agreed to abandon its current policy with regard to the United States. It is in no position to do so but, for the sake of argument, if it were able and willing to change its stance, why would it need the support of these parties? The crisis of public tranquillity would abate, but it would then be replaced by crises of heightened economic adversity, hostility of the world powers, and general international isolation in dealing with which the Islamic parties could give the government no help whatever.

It is being said that General Musharraf may accept a few nominees of pro-government political and religious parties in the central and provincial cabinets. If so, it will merely be an exercise in what is called “window dressing.” Since the parties concerned are likely to be insignificant, their representation in government will make no ameliorative impact on public peace and order. Nor will it convince world powers that we have moved from a military to a political government. They are much too shrewd not to be able to see through this smoke screen.

Let us now turn to the possibility of inviting Benazir Bhutto to a cooperative relationship with the government. What would its terms be? She will surely demand that all on-going court cases, and those currently contemplated, against her, her husband, and party dignitaries (Jehangir Badar and others) be annulled. After the loss of esteem it suffered as a result of the “deal” it made with Nawaz Sharif, can the government accept Ms Bhutto’s demand without inviting widespread public ridicule and condemnation? Moreover, won’t it then lose all moral ground for continuing the accountability enterprise? Consider also that even a partial acceptance of her demands may be challenged in the courts, and the challenge may be sustained.

Let us now go a step beyond the legality and morality of this issue. Assuming that Ms Bhutto does not demand posts in the central and provincial cabinets for herself and her party people, and assuming that she is content with being left free to mobilize her supporters for the next elections (which may or may not take place on the appointed day), what kind of posture will she adopt? Will she support Musharraf’s domestic and foreign policies in her campaign speeches, and can she do this without sounding weird or, more likely, as his lackey? But if she chooses to criticize his government, she will add to his difficulties and possibly incline him to reverse his decision to have allowed her back into active public life.

More important than any other is the question of what she can do to pacify the current volatile situation created by the pro-Taliban forces in the country. Anxious not to appear naughty to western governments and the media, she has already endorsed General Musharraf’s decision to support America’s anti-Taliban drive. She has done this in interviews with officials and journalists abroad. But can she deliver a convincing, let alone a resounding and inspiring, speech along these lines outside Mochi Gate in Lahore or from a similar forum in Peshawar and Karachi? One doesn’t so.

She has no influence with the Islamic parties and there is no way she can persuade them to change their posture. Indeed, her association with General Musharraf will only increase their alienation from her. What else can she do? Will she, for instance, organize her own PPP processions and rallies, shouting pro-government slogans, to counter those of the Islamic parties? And, what if the two sets of rallies unleash violence upon each other and push the country into the throes of a civil war?

The idea of Ms Bhutto’s association with the present government, in hopes of promoting the national interest, is dysfunctional and fraught with hazards. At this point, suffice to say that, for the most part, the same holds for Mr Nawaz Sharif and his faction of the PML. General Musharraf’s government will have to find its own means, and determination, to restore public order. Its task is helped to some degree by the fact that politicians, other than those of the Islamic parties and elements within the PML (NS), are not actively opposing his Afghan policy even if they are not going out of their way to mobilize support for it.

THE violence against the Christians in Pakistan is not a new phenomenon. It is as old as the country itself. The massacre at a Bahawalpur church mass last Sunday has only given it a new dimension in savagery and cowardice.

The London-based British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia recalls how a tribal contingent, the mujahideen of the time, on the way to Srinagar on October 27, 1947, murdered the Mother Superior of the St. Joseph’s Convent at Baramula, her four assistants and Colonel Tom Dykes and his wife Biddy who intervened to save them.

General Menezes, an army historian, later wrote: had the raiders not paused at Baramula to indulge in an orgy of pillage and plunder, Srinagar, which they had planned to reach on October 26 would have fallen. In panic the hitherto undecided Maharaja acceded his state to India and a Sikh battalion was flown in to save Srinagar.

The account may be somewhat biased, but such was the costly and bizarre beginning of violence at a Baramula convent which showed up at a Bahawalpur church 54 years later. The ghastly diversion of the avenging zealots of today may be less costly but there still is many a Srinagar to be lost. After all, East Pakistan too was lost amidst pillage and plunder.

The new Punjab governor, just because he is new, ordered the arrest of the mass murderers of Bahawalpur within a week. An old hand at it would have given 24 hours. The governor has also promised swift and exemplary punishment for them. That does not lie in his domain. It is for the police to catch the murderers and then to produce evidence, for the lawyers to marshal arguments, for the court to acquit or punish, followed by appeals or petitions for mercy. The people bereaved have not seen all that happen over the last many years. For the Christians of Bahawalpur, the gory drama may be over, but the grief and pain will linger.

Now, after the so-called devolution no one even knows who is responsible for law and order. The Punjab governor assures the Nazims it is they. But for that they have only his word. The law is incomplete and ambiguous. The reality on the ground is different. The president telling the Nazims that they will have “overall supervision of the police” does not remove the ambiguity either. The police are either a department of the district like the other 13 departments or they aren’t.

To see the likely fate of his quick-fix approach, Gen. Khalid Maqbool may recall the records of some past attacks on mosques and other places of worship similar to that of Bahawalpur church. He would discover to his dismay that despite sterner directions from on high, no attacker was ever arrested and brought to trial, much less given exemplary punishment.

For governor Maqbool’s convenience here is a case in which the victims were also Christians — for him to find out what came of it and where it now lies. In May of 2000, some masked men stopped a bus carrying the female employees of a factory back to their village near Ferozwalla, not far from the provincial capital.

They raped eight of them who were Christian and spared two who were Muslim. The message that went across was that the modesty of a Christian girl and the honour of a Christian family mattered less than that of a Muslim and, further, that the rapists could escape the long arm of the law and the vengeance of the wronged Christians but not that of the Muslims. They were right. The rape case was registered by the police but only after the government issued a direction days later on the persuasion of a Christian welfare organization. Some of the accused were arrested.

It is left to the governor to find out what has happened since, for there has been no press report, or at least not significant enough, to attract notice. What is certain is that if at all they were tried, the accused escaped the sterner punishment under the Hudood laws, for the victims and witnesses were all females and Christians to boot.

The killings of Bahawalpur and the blockade of the Karakoram Highway, both happening last week, represent the rock-bottom of lawlessness in the country and the inability of the successive governments to check it. Promises are made and directions are given only to tide over the grief and anger arising out of such happenings.

The move by armed tribesmen in the northern tract comprising parts of Malakand and Hazara Kohistan to force their way into Afghanistan became inevitable once the government, intimidated by fundamentalists, conceded for that area a code of law and system of justice different from those in the rest of the country. They interpret it to justify taking up arms in a cause they consider just, and to obey the commands coming from the mystical righteous chief of the Taliban rather than from their own erring government.

This attitude is dangerously akin to treason for it calls into question the territorial sovereignty of Pakistan. The armed lawlessness there one day may engulf the contiguous areas and ultimately the whole country. In fact, defiance by some religious parties is already open, only arms are concealed and their arsenals, perhaps, are smaller. Sadly, the government is once again pussyfooting rather than punishing the challengers of its authority.

Such appeasements have entailed a heavy price in the past. The Bahawalpur massacre is its latest proof of it. Violence against the minorities springs from the laws and political system which discriminate against them. The problem is aggravated by an administration and judiciary which are either afraid of the fanatics or are in cahoots with them.

The law enacted in Ziaul Haq’s time, ostensibly to enforce Islamic values, and deterrent penalties are used only to harass religious rivals and minorities. Death for blasphemy and life imprisonment for defiling the Holy Quran are frequently invoked. Some are done to death before trial, others suffer long incarceration awaiting trial deliberately delayed.

Just one instance from the report of the Human Rights Commission: three Hindus were killed and five of their temples vandalized in Dalbandin-Chaman when an illiterate woman was suspected of distributing sweets wrapped in a paper on which Quranic verses were printed. Four Hindus were charged with defiling the holy Quran but no Muslim was held liable killing three Hindus. An inquiry was ordered. That was a year ago. Nothing about it has been heard since. A retired chief justice is the governor of the province.

The power and importance of a citizen lies in his vote. Of that the minorities have been deprived through an insidious system of separate electorates. The councillor or nazim, or a member of parliament or a minister from Bahawalpur, when there is one does not feel concerned about the welfare and safety of the Christians there because he does not need their votes. Their own representative elected through Christian votes from all over the district or the province cuts a lone, pathetic figure elsewhere. What Col. Tressler could do for them from Islamabad or by visiting them when 16 of them were butchered is a question that General Musharraf needs to ponder.

He did not restore the joint electorates nor provided safeguards against the misuse of Islamic penal laws (both legacies of the Zia era) only to appease the extremists. The result is the rise of a militant minority which dominates the streets, dictates to the government and now threatens to avenge the death of innocent Muslims in Afghanistan by killing equally innocent Christians in Pakistan.

The Bahawalpur massacre is a signal to the government to correct the flaws in the laws and political system in the remaining few months of its existence and transfer power to the parliament and thereby from the militant minority to the elected moderate majority.

NOTHING has changed at Heathrow airport except the scowl of a security guard with a beard from Hollywood’s central casting, eyes borrowed from a B-grade movie, and an attitude that is from honest, genuine, home-grown, indigenous stupidity. So far all the checkpoints of one of the world’s busiest airports, manned by government, have been cool, professional and cheered up by a little smile at the end.

After the breeze the barrier. This man is not government; he is airline security, outsourced, standing at the boarding gate of the Virgin flight from London to Boston (Boston!). He looks at my Muslim name on the passport and shuffles his shoulders in what Bertie Wooster would have called a marked manner. He clearly believes that his moment in history has arrived. Open your bag, he orders.

Decision time. Glare back? I put my bag in front of him and turn my back to chat pleasantly with the slightly-embarrassed Virgin (or not) ground stewardess who has welcomed me pleasantly enough. Keeping my role model in such circumstances, Bertie Wooster, firmly in focus, I babble about why I was the last person to board: didn’t ummm hear the announcement, was trying Internet in the lounge which did not work, confused Gate 34 with Gate 4 before being rescued, all of it partially true. Defeated by my chatty indifference, the Guardian of the West returned my passport with limp hand and limp eyes, unable to understand why a Muslim travelling to Boston should not want to blow himself up. In all fairness I should add that I had taken the precaution of disguise. I was wearing an elegant silk tie. When has anyone wearing an elegant silk tie, with a Windsor knot, ever hijacked anything? I challenge you to find a single instance.

My preassigned seat on flight VS011 is occupied. Two Asians, presumably wanting to travel together, and perhaps attracted by the extra legspace in the front row, have trespassed on one of the seats. The upper class is full and they try to postpone the inevitable with bluster. There is nothing like having the law on your side to get your way. In a few minutes a friendly voice informs us through the intercom that anyone in the economy section of the aircraft who wants to stretch out and sleep by lifting the armrests dividing seats is welcome to do so. There are enough empty seats. This is the second law of travel in the post-September 11 era. The ladies and gentlemen on company expense with laptops are edgy in the crowded front, as they have to go where they have to go. Those who travel for pleasure are taking their pleasures at home.

From the sky America looks serene, beautiful, rich, imperturbable. New England is as rich and serene as America gets. Boats skim past rocky outcrops that guard the north Atlantic coast of God’s preferred continent, confirming the Brahmin status of Boston. The serenity is infectious. A mild flutter interrupts the mood as we land from over the sea. Please keep your passport in your hands for inspection at the exit. This is obviously a new security procedure. No problem. A large policeman with an Irish twinkle glances at my three-tier passport and asks what I do. Sir.

Journalist. He beams. This is unusual. Journalists are not always considered good news. About ten feet away, a large lady at immigration is not so sanguine about either journalists or Muslims. She takes only a few seconds to make up her mind after tapping my name on her computer. “We may have to ask you a few more questions. Sir.” They never forget the Sir. Decision time again. The options juggle through my mind. How should one respond? Grovel? Rage? Try the sniffy is-this-the-America-I-once-knew tactic?

I finally do what comes automatically. I shrug and say sure. A fleeting vision of interrogation cells appears in the imagination but reality is better. We stop at a vacant stand-up counter. Nothing so dramatic as a padded cell. When you are reconciled calm prevails. I take a seat on the bench and open a copy of Spectator. Soon, a thin-faced policeman fills the space at the counter and examines my passport which has been put into a plastic bag with gingerly fingers. I stick to the Spectator. From behind me my friendly Irishman suddenly reappears to tell thinface with a big grin: “He’s all right. He’s reading the Spectator.”

Thinface replies with a smile of his own, and all is right with the world again. I ask my personal Irish saviour how he reads the Spectator in Boston. On the Internet, he explains grandly.

So now you know what to do on your next flight to Boston. Wear a silk tie with a Windsor knot at Heathrow and read the Spectator in Boston. If the first doesn’t save you, the second will.

Winter, said the television weatherwoman on Thursday morning, was due in three hours. They can get very specific on American television in their constant search for the truth. Such experts are encouraged of course by the fact that in three hours everyone will either forget, forgive or simply not care.

If this was the end, summer was saying goodbye like a diva at the top of her form, dressed in the plumes of Paradise. The sun was softened and melted over the streets, complementing the cool breezes of impending change. The local citizens were out enjoying the sun in the afternoon, unhurried and gossipy. Boston has the intimacy of a small town and the confidence of a large city. The placid Charles river bisects the city, nursing the world’s most famous educational institutions on one side and commerce on the other.

When I leave Boston to travel north towards Dartmouth and New Hampshire, the world along the way has become a dance. How many colours are there in brown? In red? In russet? In yellow? In green? In orange and lilac and peach? The trees along the road and across the hillside are an endless feast as they burst into colour before the monotone of winter — a riot, a whirl, an impossible orchestra conducted by nature in some frenzy of joy. If one has to die then this is the way to go. This is the last burst of colour even as the leaves begin to fall and branches turn bare to take the weight of snow on their thin limbs; soon, all will be white on the frozen ground and dark grey against the freezing sky.

I am a guest of Dartmouth College and put up at the campus hotel, Hanover Inn. A Halloween pumpkin sits on the reception; America brings in winter with a great, eerie, fun, foreboding festival. There is a fire in the lounge, and impressive books wait for readers with time. Charm and hospitality are all around you. My mobile has stopped roaming, unable to pick up a local host, which adds significantly to the peace. At the lecture I deliver in the afternoon, the students are less generous than the sprinkling of faculty and guests interested in a particular understanding of the history of Islam and South Asia. This is as it should be. The report in The Dartmouth (America’s oldest college newspaper, founded in 1799) about this talk is remarkable for its accuracy and concise perception. Sadly none of these brilliant young men and women will become journalists. They want to conquer Wall Street instead.

The train taking me south starts from a track-level platform at White River Junction, in Vermont, across the water that forms the border with New Hampshire. It stops at similar sidewalks to pick up Real America from its small towns, and take it to New York, a city that belongs as much to the rest of the world as it does to America. They say that New York has become a kinder, gentler place since September 11, when the contestants of its permanent rat race sat back to consider what exactly they were racing for. Three thousand divorce applications were withdrawn within twenty-four hours of September 11. New York has taken another look at the mirror and found, at least for a while, the family.

The first important bulletin I get from the local war zone — and in this city, it means the economic battlefield — is that the United States has begun pursuit and assault against the economic routes of terrorism. Trace the money and get your man. Sounds sensible. The talk shows are full of this second conflict now that the bombing of Afghanistan has slipped into a repetitive mode with not much forward action. How many times can you say that America launched its heaviest raids on Kandahar today? Television also needs visuals. Between the Pentagon and the Taliban, there isn’t much footage available.

A government type in suit and tie appears on the screen to discuss the money supply lines of the enemy. He seems particularly interested in a transaction called “HowAllah”. I wonder what God has to do with money-laundering. The expert notes that “HowAllah” is an established Indian practice; this is the way Indians transfer their money illegally and, amazingly, they put nothing down on paper. He looked both bemused and perplexed. It was then that the rupee dropped.

“HowAllah” was not a nefarious Islamic fund-transfer ritual practised between conspiring mullahs. He was talking about “havala”, that old and familiar method by which loaded Indians fund their needs and pleasures abroad despite the fact that you cannot officially convert the rupee into dollars for such purposes. Now, this is a great story. The United States is going to solve a problem that the government of India has tried to solve for decades and quietly given up on. The FBI is going to pulverize those networks. I can hear the sound of chattering teeth from Kolkata to Mumbai via Delhi. We could see the emergence of a new Indian economy, thanks to the FBI, which already has offices in India, incidentally.

I always knew it would take nothing less than a world war to tackle the moneybags of India.