AFTER the fall of Kandahar though the United States-led international coalition may (or may not?) have succeeded in combating its perceived Taliban problem, Pakistan’s own Taliban problem has gravely aggravated. Estimates of course vary but there is hardly any denying that we end up with millions of Afghan refugees who only have arms, if nothing else, in their utter destitution. We would be deceiving ourselves if we think that this mass of idle refugees in their desperate state is something we can live with in peace and security.

In the rise, as well as fall, of the Taliban a succession of governments in Pakistan have been very closely involved. Our involvement without the people’s consent began with Ziaul Haq’s unwarranted plunge into the United States’ war against the (late) Soviet Union. It continued by stealth right up to the end of the second government of Nawaz Sharif (October 12, 1999).

This involvement not only continues but has become vastly more complicated. Nobody in this country can possibly claim to know when this may end and in exactly what. In Islamabad there are any number of wiseacres who have been proclaiming over all these years that they were the authors of Zia’s Afghan policy. Until only yesterday, a number of foreign service officers and generals of the army were claiming the credit for spawning and espousing the Taliban creed and cadres.

Where do we stand and where do these wizards stand today vis-a-vis the Taliban? Indeed, where do the Taliban stand? As a matter of fact, we are entitled to address the same questions to the presidents of the United States from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush. All of them have been among the authors of the blinding Taliban flash in the pan of our times. The Taliban have been fighting with stinger missiles bearing ‘Made in America’ markings — first for the Americans against the Soviets, later against their own original patrons.

Can anyone deny this fact?

This chapter of our national experience has already inflicted deep wounds all over our existence, including our national psyche. It is simply frightening to calculate the price we have already paid for the Taliban misadventure. Even more scary to visualize is the cost we are going to pay in the near future. Then, what in the long run? Thousands of Pakistanis living and working in the United States are under arrest. Many more may be under close, may be also relentless and vindictive, watch. These include students in universities all over the US. We ought to have the courage to admit that Pakistanis in the US will remain under dark shadows of mistrust and suspicion for quite some time to come, hoping nothing goes further wrong.

Even more appalling is the thought that the doors of higher educational institutions in most of the western world will be all but shut against our young boys and girls. Among those already living, working or studying in the US and west European countries, only the very lucky ones will be able to carry on. Unless a miracle happens, we may be in for a huge procession of Pakistanis, thrown out of jobs and universities abroad, returning home, deeply humiliated, profoundly frustrated and also empty-handed.

We have already seen what can happen to Pakistani banks in the US. This discrimination slapped on our banks will instantly mean a severe setback to Pakistan’s trade with the largest and most prosperous market in the world. This cannot but have ruinous consequences for our national economy as a whole. What the US is doing to us today. Europe will be persuaded to do tomorrow. It is by no means too soon for all of us to be thinking hard — here and now.

Where do we stand in today’s and tomorrow’s Afghanistan? Our single-minded and utterly short-sighted handling of the Afghan developments from day one to this day has always kept us limping on a limb in Kabul. There has never been any time when our relations with Afghanistan were normal, natural, smooth or only amiable, regardless of the character and composition of the regime in Kabul. This is true of the entire period since August 1947.

Remember Kabul’s was the only negative vote in the UN on our application for the membership of the world body. That was in October 1947 when this country was a two-month-old innocent that could not have caused the Afghans any harm whatsoever. Recall also the number of times our embassy in Kabul has been under attack as our protege, the Taliban, looked the other way. In trade talks the Taliban regime had persistently rebuffed Islamabad. Our relations with Kabul have remained bereft of even minor courtesies and gestures.

Capping this grim litany is the recollection of the rude response that Kabul made to our advice, later beseeching and begging that the Taliban spare the Buddhist carvings that had been there on the mountainsides for more than two thousand years. They went ahead with their vandalism, disregarding the entreaties of Pakistan and the sentiment of the entire civilized world. We simply have to carry the ignominy of it all because we were the only ones in this wide world to be patronizing the fanatic Taliban caboodle.

It will be difficult to forget the casual manner in which Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar dismissed this matter, saying “They (Taliban) are not afraid of us.” He had no reply when someone asked, “Then, why are you afraid of them (Taliban).” Mr Abdul Sattar may not have much of an answer to the inquiry about Islamabad’s almost obsessive fear of the Taliban. This is the question now all of us ought to be asking ourselves. Particularly the likes of Gen Hamid Gul and Mr Abdul Sattar. Why were we so scared of the Taliban? Who among us pampered them out of their mind — and for what consideration?

Only the insensitive Pakistanis will fail to worry about the damage the Taliban, or our infatuation with the Taliban, has inflicted on us. It hurts us today in the deepest recesses of our national consciousness. Far more to be lamented is the shame and resultant heartache from our reckless Taliban enterprise. This is a tragedy hardly less difficult to endure than the debacle of 1971. The injuries that we have foolishly inflicted upon ourselves in haste we have no option now but to regret and struggle hard to heal for a long time.

Our Afghanistan disaster ought to be examined by a national commission of the status of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission. One consolation at this moment is that almost all of the major self-confessed architects of this tragedy are very much around. Most of them were very voluble until yesterday, talking arrogantly to the press and pontificating ad nauseum in the national mass communication media.

Meanwhile, the government of Pakistan would be better advised to set up a high-powered committee to try to make a realistic assessment of the damage done to Pakistan’s national economy and international image. Only nitwits would complain that India is going to use all its resources to cause us the utmost of discomfort on all fronts. Of course they will. It is for us to anticipate attack and ward it off before it is launched.

We have already heard an Afghan minister-designate (of the interim administration that is to take over in Kabul on December 22) say what he has deemed fit to say about us in New Delhi. What else would you expect after the disastrous affair with the vanquished Taliban? If we know nothing better than to spot the paralyzed horse and put all our money on it, this is what we are going to get — what else?

We must settle down to undertake what is going to be the most demanding damage control and repair operation after 1971. Let us use the lessons of our own previous tragedy to guide us through this enterprise, avoiding repetition of our costly errors and greed for cash. What lies ahead is an exceedingly tricky terrain. There is no way we can live in peace inside our country — if there is no proper peace out there in Afghanistan. It is not something we can forget about and go on another long holiday from common sense and basic honesty.

We have a tragedy behind and a soul-testing grind ahead.

THE Accord cobbled together at Bonn between four Afghan groups represents an historic achievement, facilitated by the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi. A multi-ethnic government headed by Hamid Karzai, a Pakhtun from the Kandahar region, will assume office on December 22.

Afghanistan has not been an easy country to run ever since the Soviet moved into it in December 1979. Till then, the Pakhtuns, who are the largest ethnic group, had governed the country since the middle of the 18th century when Ahmad Shah Abdali established the first Afghan kingdom. The Pakhtuns were the most warlike of the Afghan people, who placed great emphasis on always carrying arms, living as they did in a tribal society in which fierce enmities and trials of strength were the order of the day. The other groups, such as Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, were comparatively peaceful people who seldom challenged the Pakhtun rulers.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 changed that in a fundamental way. The Afghan struggle, which was supported by the US and the majority of the world community, lasted a whole decade, and was waged in all parts of the country. For the first time, the Tajiks, the Uzbeks and the Hazaras were also armed and fought the Soviets, and in the process acquired a more assertive leadership.

The civil war after the fall of the Soviet-installed Najibullah regime in 1992, saw the various factions engaged in hostilities in which the ethnic divides became quite significant. Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani, a Tajik, clung to the presidency after his agreed term under the Islamabad Accord was over, doing so with the military backing of Ahmad Shah Masoud, the legendary fighter from the Panjshir valley, who was also a Tajik. The Uzbek Dostum took control of Mazar-i-Sharif. The Pakhtun Hekmetyar bombarded Kabul, which was held by Rabbani, for a year, inflicting greater damage than the Soviets ever did. Local tribal warlords rose up everywhere, levying taxes, and oppressing the ordinary people. Chaos and anarchy ruled supreme.

It was against this backdrop that the Taliban, drawn mostly from the Pakhtun area, rose up in 1994, and occupied 90 per cent of Afghanistan, taking most areas without a fight because the people were fed up with the chaos and the oppression by the warlords. The other factions formed the Northern Alliance and kept control of the mountainous north-east of the country, where they were sustained by the Iranians, the Russians and the Indians. Thought the Taliban enlisted people from other ethnic groups, they were seen as a predominantly Pakhtun group. With their religious extremism, they failed to win international acceptance, and the situation became worse when they extended sanctuary to Osama bin Laden, and his Al Qaeda followers. The attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 were traced to Osama and President Clinton rained cruise missiles on his base in Afghanistan, without hitting him.

The US government sent many envoys to the Taliban leadership to persuade it to hand over Osama, but th Pakhtun code of honour was invoked to protect their guest. Over the succeeding three years, other terrorist attacks on American targets were traced to Al Qaeda, and when the September 11, outrage this year took a heavy toll on the US mainland, the stage was set for a full-scale war on terrorism, with the largely Pakhtun Taliban targeted with Osama. The burnt of the heaviest bombardment anywhere since the Second World War was borne by the Taliban, after they refused to hand over Osama and his Al Qaeda backers during the twenty-five days that elapsed between September 11, and October 7.

Though the US president had agreed with President Musharraf that the Northern Alliance would not move into Kabul, they found a power vacuum in the capital after the Taliban retreat. They therefore established themselves there, no doubt with the encouragement of the US, whose Special Forces had joined the victors, together with British Special Air Services fighters. The Northern Alliance forces indulged in orgies of killing and revenge in the areas they occupied, and were particularly ruthless towards foreign supporters of the Taliban, who included some Pakistanis.

Certain elements of the evolving situation in Afghanistan stand out. The US military doctrine appears to have changed significantly. Initially, the US had laid great store by targeted bombing, in order to minimize civilian casualties. But as resistance had continued in the North for nearly a month, it was apparently decided to resort to carpet bombing. Given the sophistication and lethal impact of the latest bombs in the armoury of the unique superpower, the casualties must have been horrendous. Another factor in the “no holds barred” approach was doubtless the view articulated by President Bush and Defence Secretary Rumsfeld that it would be better to kill all terrorists rather than allow any of them to survive to cause future problems. Heavy US bombing of Taliban forces who were taken prisoner in Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz caused an adverse international reaction as the laws of war and Geneva Conventions were ignored.

This approach, which is being justified on the basis of the enormous hurt inflicted on the US on September 11, is apparently being continued, even after the surrender by the Taliban of their last stronghold in Kandahar. The pounding of Kandahar for nearly two months had resulted in over 10,000 dead. The unrestricted killing of hapless and long-suffering residents of the mainly Pakhtun areas is making a profound impression on millions of people worldwide, as all these events are being covered round the clock by international TV channels.

The US will remain the power of the last resort in Afghanistan, even after the military operations trail off. Till Osama and his network, and Mullah Umar are captured or eliminated, the operations will continue. In the meantime, the Bonn Accord has launched the political process, and the composition of the interim government gives the most important portfolios to the Northern Alliance. Already Rashid Dostum has expressed dissatisfaction, and there are feelings of a let down among the Pakhtuns. The newly named interior minister, Yunus Qanooni, hastened to visit India, to which the Northern Alliance feels greatly obligated. It is incumbent on the UN, and particularly on the US as its most influential member, to ensure that a truly representative set-up emerges in which all ethnic groups are adequately represented.

Pakistan has welcomed the Bonn Accord, and expressed satisfaction that a broad based dispensation has emerged. Our policy should be to wish the new government well, and to reopen our embassy, in line with our traditional policy of recognizing any legally constituted government in Kabul. Having the longest border with Afghanistan, as well as the largest number of Afghan refugees, we have the locus standi to be interested in whatever happens there. We are also uniquely placed to offer our transit facilities, and all kinds of logistic support for both the relief and rehabilitation operations that are getting under way, and for the task of reconstruction that lies ahead. The plight of internally displaced persons at the height of winter demands urgent efforts by the international community, as the lives of millions of men, women, and children are at stake. Our government and the NGOs must play their part to avert a human tragedy at our doorstep.

Western and even American analysts are also concerned over suggestions that the bush administration may expand military operations to other countries that are seen to be supportive of terrorism. Former chief of counter-terrorism in the CIA, Vincent Cannistraro, wrote in the New York Times on December 3 that the US should keep the focus on the Al Qaeda network, which will involve considerable effort spread over a long time, and over many parts of the world. He wrote this in the context of his view that Iraq had no links with Al Qaeda.

Writing earlier in the New York Times, Patrick Tyler referred to the deep reservations among US allies in Europe, in the Middle East and Russia over the advocacy of some Bush administration officials to expand military operations to the countries, notably to Iraq, to topple Saddam Hussain. Having acquired and demonstrated “unrestrained executive authority”, Bush administration officials had been issuing warnings to Iraq, which he felt might create new problems.

Apartment from raising concerns about the nature of the response to terrorism on the part of the power that sets great store by humanitarian considerations, the aggressive US attitude appears to be encouraging two other powers to intensify their military operations against the oppressed people under their control, namely Israel and India. The governments in both countries are headed by religious extremists whose repressive policy has been reinforced in the name of anti-terrorism. It is necessary to keep in view the fact that there are UN resolutions on both Kashmir and Palestine, and that the Palestinians and Kashmiris who are fighting for their rights are freedom fighters, not terrorists. Indeed, it is the governments in both cases that are indulging in state terrorism.

The rhetoric of anti-terrorism is not justified in Kashmir or Palestine, and the US, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, owes it to the international community, as well as to the oppressed people there that a just solution that safeguards the rights of the people, is found in the interest of durable peace and stability in both cases.

DURING his visit to New York, President Pervez Musharraf spared an evening to speak to a large gathering of Pakistani-Americans, many of whom had travelled long distances at some expense to hear him. The most sustained and enthusiastic ovation came when the President declared that no longer was he going to permit a tiny minority of deluded religious zealots to keep the rest of the country at ransom.

He said his priorities were clear. In his book, it was Pakistan that came first. He said for long we had suffered at the hands of unenlightened obscurantists who had their own agendas. He promised that on his return to the country, he was going to go on national television and ask the people to “rise” against these men who had no right to misuse mosques for propaganda. No madrassa that preached hatred was going to be tolerated, he said amid resounding applause.

The President had spoken in clear and unambiguous language and there were few in that large banquet hall who did not agree with him or did not want him to “get on with it”. Since his return, he has indicated clearly how he views Pakistan’s self-appointed holy warriors and what he intends to do about them. At the end of the evening, as we walked back to our hotel through empty mid-Manhattan streets, the night air felt fresher than it does in a city where most people know it is morning because the birds have begun to cough.

Gen. Musharraf’s stirring words came back to me as I began to read a letter sent to me care of ‘Dawn’ from Circle 3, Central Jail, Rawalpindi, on 8 November by Dr Muhammad Yunus. One translates from Urdu. “On 18 August 2001, I was sentenced to death by an Islamabad court under Section 295/c of CRPC. That is what these few lines are about. By the Grace of God, I come from a Muslim family of Chistian, District Bahawalnagar. My father is a hafiz-i-Quran and has performed Haj 12 times. I too have spent much time learning the Quran, the hadith and the history of Islam. By profession, I am a doctor with an MBBS degree. I moved to Islamabad three years ago. Mornings I taught classes at the Capital Homoeopathic Medical College in the city’s G-9 sector and evenings, I saw patients at a private clinic. I also have a diploma in journalism.

“On 1st October 2000, I went to a meeting of the South Asian Union, Islamabad, attended, among others, by two Pakistan foreign office officials and several diplomats. One of the speakers was a retired army officer, who appeared to be greatly upset at something I had asked during question hour and threatened me with consequences. The next day, as usual, I went to the college and taught three classes, two in physiology and one in pathology. I followed the same routine the next day. There was no incident of any kind in my class, nor had there ever been. Then things began to happen.

“Muhammad Asghar Khan, a foreign office employee, who was in my second year class — and whom I had often reprimanded for his frequent absences - wrote out an application which said that I had been disrespectful (God forbid) to the Holy Prophet, on whom be peace. He had the application signed by some of his friends and handed over to one Maulana Abdul Rauf, Amir, Almi Majlis Tahaffuz-e-Khattam-e-Nubbawat (head of the World Body for the Protection of the Finality of Prophethood). Without making any attempt to investigate the charge, the Maulana registered a case against me at Police Station, Margala, under Section 295/c describing me as a “Mirzai” or Ahmedi (which I am not). I was arrested. “There was also a demonstration against me by some students and ulema. A picture with a story duly appeared in the Urdu newspaper ‘Khabrain’ on 6 October. The Maulana’s police report said that on 2 October, I had uttered objectionable words in my second year physiology class. He later appeared as a witness. He told the court that he had not investigated the charge against me personally or heard me utter any objectionable words. However, three students testified that on 2 October, they had heard me speak disparagingly about the Holy Prophet, on whom be peace. They said after the class ended at 12.15 p.m., they wrote out a report and took it to the Maulana Abdul Rauf. However, the date on the application was 3 and not 2 October. Interestingly, the students made no complaint to the principal of the college. I was supposed to have uttered the objectionable words at precisely 12.15 p.m. whereas my last lecture always ended at exactly midday. “During the hearing, students from Maulana Abdul Rauf’s madrassa, wearing Taliban style turbans, kept demonstrating outside the court and raising abusive slogans against me. They also threatened my lawyers and members of my family. A fatwa against my lawyers was also issued which terrified them greatly. During my testimony, I denied the allegations and stated on solemn oath that neither was I delivering a lecture at the time when I was supposed to have made the derogatory remarks, nor could it even occur to me to speak slightingly of any revered religious personality. I said I was an observing Sunni Muslim and my family had been Muslim for at least seven generations.

“In my recorded court statement I said, ‘As God is my witness and as I place my hand on the Holy Quran, I state on solemn affirmation that I have always believed our Holy Prophet Mohammad, on whom be peace, to be the final prophet and I consider those who profess any other view outside the pale of Islam. Among such, I would place those who belong to the Qadiani sect, whether Ahmedi or Lahori. I said I was a citizen of Pakistan and a voter. I should state that neither Maulana Abdul Rauf, nor the investigating officials, the state lawyers or any of the witnesses were ever able to prove the charges against me in the light of the Quran or hadith. No religious authority or Islamic academic was asked by the court to record his opinion. It is evident that I have been persecuted in in the sacred name of Islam because I caused annoyance to an important person who was displeased at my question and threatened me publicly.

“The court sentenced me to death in the absence of both documentary proof and credible witnesses. My sentence is now under appeal. The conduct of Maulana Abdul Rauf was unbecoming of a true man of God. I should add that the Bahawalnagar branch of the Aalmi Majlis Tahuffuz-e-Khattam-e-Nabbuwat, after investigation, has declared me and my family innocent of the charges made against us. “There are moments when in the isolation of the jail, I turn towards God and beg Him to have His wrath visit these false and lying maulvis who, in the sacred name of Islam, destroy innocent lives.

“In the end, I would like to request President General Pervez Musharraf to delete Section 295/c from the books because this infamous law has only led to the persecution of the innocent. All cases filed under this law should be withdrawn and all those sentenced under its provisions should be set free. This law is being used to terrorise both Muslims and non-Muslims. What we have here is a symbol of religious terrorism through law.”

The letter is signed: “Living among the Believers, your sincere Muslim brother, Dr Muhammad Yunus, Circle 3, Central Jail, Rawalpindi.

THE war in Afghanistan is, technically, over. The dark episode at Qala-i-Jangi notwithstanding, the Americans are, doubtless, savouring the sweet smell of success mingled with the faint reek of Afghan carcasses. Duly ‘daisycut’, the Taliban have finally surrendered provinces of Kandahar, Zabul and Helmand, though the whereabouts of Mullah Omar and his much-sought-after guest, Osama bin Laden, appear to be something of a mystery. As expected, a slightly improbable multi-ethnic government for Afghanistan has been put together at Bonn.

Pakistan has, on the face of it, come out of the war relatively unscathed. However, attitudes generally differ in this regard. Whereas the top leadership appears to be trying to put a brave front on it (there have been serene assertions about our ‘core interests’ having been saved), the war would seem, to have opened up considerable areas of anxiety for the average Pakistani.

That the South Asian region has already been severely destabilized as a result of the counter-terrorism process set in motion by the United States and Britain, no one will deny. That it is to be subjected to further destabilisation still, in a way that may, once again, directly, and indeed negatively, affect Pakistan is also likely.

Our ‘frontline’ status (about which we never seen to tire of reminding ourselves) in the international coalition against terrorism should not serve to insulate us from reality. It should, in other words, not lead to deluding ourselves into believing that we somehow necessarily qualify, in the eyes of our senior coalition partners, the United States and Britain, as a sacred cow entitled to permanent immunity from direct or indirect punitive action arising out of the very exigencies of the coalition’s campaign itself.

In any case, international diplomacy is usually more subtly nuanced than univocal, and our fine-tuned ear should, hence, surely be looking out for ambivalence in American policy wherever it can. It is, for instance, intriguing that while, in Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin massages our national ego by theatrically offering to fast in Ramazan and then bolstering hopes of a business bonanza for us, her counterpart in India should almost simultaneously appear to be making unmistakable cooing noises in the direction of the Indians as he publicly pledges support to India against anti-Indian terrorism. (It is not the America’s first time that such a pledge has been made.)

Needless to say, from a moderate Muslim point of view, the sooner we turn our back on domestic jihad the better. What passes for jihad locally is not an edifying phenomenon. Bigoted and often sectarian in impulse, it is largely anarchist and destructive, having been inspired at some level, by a peculiar form of professional jealousy, a feeling of having, spiritually, missed the boat by comparison with our pandemically radical Islamic neighbour, Iran. We would do well to distinguish here between our local semi-underworld jihadi groups, our jihadi dons, the supernumeraries of the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad and, on the other hand, the indigenous Kashmiri jihad or the Palestinian Intifada, both of which constitute bona fide and self-sufficient liberation movements directed against brutal forces of occupation.

We should also be thinking about why, having, supposedly, outlived their use in the wake of two Afghan wars, our own jihadi organizations or militias were, nevertheless, allowed to continue to exist and, indeed, to penetrate civil society in Pakistan to the extent of posing a persistent and extremely grave threat to it. It is conceivable that they were pursuing a clandestine agenda domestically, one which had still not quite reached maturity but would have done so in time.

The question necessarily arises as to who, if such an agenda existed, its prime movers were. It would be interesting to ascertain their reasons for seeking, through the promotion of a culture of violence, this sort of intervention in the country.

We know, that democracy was to some extent, made to fail in Pakistan. The facts in this regard are on record and do not bear repetition. Suffice it to say (forgetting, for a moment, Ayub Khan’s “basic” variety) that, from the time of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto onwards, democracy has occurred more in the form of an aberration than anything else. In a context oddly dominated by power brokers, democratic power has almost invariably had to be, post-electorally, wrested rather than being simply, in the normal course, assumed. We have seen defeat unabashedly muted into victory, and vice versa, along with a host of other unspeakable electoral anomalies.

However, this is not just a Third World phenomenon. We witnessed something akin to this in the Bush-Gore election race in America last year. When, globally, the democratic concept would thus seem to have suffered a radical change but when, more importantly, democratic values themselves have changed — where form alone has to be satisfied and ritual is paramount — legitimacy would no longer appear to be of the essence.

That does not mean, though, that we in Pakistan are obliged to take this as an article of faith. On the contrary, we should be approaching the return to democracy in our country with a sense of profound moral responsibility and indeed awe. That is to say, before considering the purely mechanical modalities of transition to a democratic order, we should be reflecting on more fundamental issues of an essentially moral nature. If only because a whole nation is waiting, nervously, for its future to be settled, we should not just be debating the merits and demerits of reviving constitutional mechanisms such as Article 58 (2B-I) so much as asking ourselves if, at least this time round, we mean to be true to the democratic cause.

We might also be pondering whether the forthcoming democratic exercise will, for once, be about the people and respecting their will and providing tangible succour to them rather than about political icons who fail to deliver. An acutely recessive economy, sent further still into the doldrums by the recent war is, together with the problems of inflation and unemployment, and the social sector, health, education and the infamous infrastructure, waiting to be attended to. Setting these to rights will require more than just propagandist development schemes or doses of tired populist rhetoric. The pursuit of self-interest, at the expense of a country that has, economically, been brought to its knees, will not do either. We cannot afford a replay of that chapter of our past.

At the same time it is imperative, principally because this might help stem the dangerous sense of alienation in the country, that democracy be restored. But with one caveat. On account of a tradition of unease between our leading politicians and the military, there is no guarantee that any ‘cooperative’ democratic arrangement will actually work. History has shown that no constitutional lever alone can help. Nor is it likely that any alternative mechanism can secure democracy. Nothing short of a sincere resolve, on the part of those concerned, to go forward together, despite differences, for the sake of the larger interest, will truly succeed in ensuring that democracy does not prove our country’s confirmed casualty.