A MILITARY government has been in power in Pakistan now for over two years and two months. In this period, neither in the life of the common man there has been any economic relief nor has the situation of law and order improved. In police stations and kutcheries bribery is still rampant.

At this critical juncture when the rulers seem to be in total control, I would like to address them because this is my country too. No doubt, events have placed them as the most powerful and supreme class in the country. There is no potent threat to their government, specially when they also enjoy unqualified support of the US and the western world.

Yet, I feel that they stand at a defining moment in our nation’s history. They have two paths to follow, each of them can change the destiny of Pakistan in a manner that our next generations will either remember or condemn the choice. One path is whether they see the future political dispensation through the prism of their institution’s corporate interests and the other is whether they choose to make purely our national interest as the basis of their future political steps.

Before I present an outline of the salient features of the two choices, I would like to indicate the context and criteria that will shape the future of our nation. Their future actions will be judged by history on the basis of meeting these criteria. The first reality is that the twenty-first century marks the beginning of a “knowledge and information revolution era” in which democracy has been recognized as inevitable for the progress of human societies.

The second reality is that the concept of national security and economic development without a strong human resource base is a mirage. Human development requires resources, which are tied to the economic growth rate. In our region India is maintaining 6 per cent growth rate, even Bangladesh has attained 6 per cent growth level but we have fallen from 4.2 per cent GDP growth (last year of the PML government) in 1998-99 to 2.6 per cent in 2000-01 (second year of the military government). For eradicating poverty and illiteracy, and maintaining a strong defence, attaining a 6-7 per cent GDP growth platform has become a national imperative. Is higher growth possible with shrinking investment base? Can investments be attracted in a politically unstable and uncertain environment?

The third reality is that without a strong federation economic development becomes meaningless. The 1973 Constitution is the last chance for holding our federation together. Will unconstitutional one-sided amendments in the Constitution make the federation stronger?

The fourth criteria is safeguarding the five strategic interests of Pakistan, which have remained largely in military’s control. They are defending national sovereignty, rejecting Indian hegemony, maintaining nuclear capability, solving the Kashmir dispute, and securing western borders through friendly Afghanistan. It has been proven now that pure military handling of these vital interests has not yielded the desired results.

The fifth imperative is restoring respect and protection of the national institutions, parliament, judiciary and executive including the armed forces, without which no society can aspire to be called democratic and civilized. History will judge the present government’s actions on meeting the demands of the afore-mentioned national objectives.

If the present rulers decide to make the corporate interest of the armed forces as the basic factor in charting the future course of action, the result would be monitoring and control of elected parliament through National Security Council (NSC), giving discretionary powers to military nominated president to dismiss elected government and the parliament through making unconstitutional amendments, providing constitutional and legal cover to military intervention in civil departments, engineering the polls to get dummy, favourite, and obedient type of representatives elected, ensuring elimination of political opponents and genuine democratic leaders through disqualifications and selective interference in the election process.

The second path before them is to make the national interest the sole criterion for future plan of action. This option entails that instead of sliding the country into the path of controlled democracy for the third time, a way would be found for giving Pakistan a genuine democracy. Instead of imposing an unconstitutional body like the NSC, the Cabinet Defence Committee should be made the focal point of joint military and civilian policy interaction and formulation through a permanent secretariat, corruption and misuse of authority should be curbed within the national institutions (by making the parliamentary institutions stronger and effective), instead of one-sided amendments in the Constitution through ordinances a package of political and constitutional reforms for a responsible democratic order should be developed with the consensus of the political parties and presented before the new parliament for approval so that the Constitution doesn’t become controversial.

A framework for civil-military relations should also be chalked out to stop future military interventions in the political process so that both military and civilian leaders can work in their designated domains, and instead of picking favourite and obedient type parliamentarians genuine and representative political leadership should be allowed to emerge. Elections held with the objective of eliminating certain political parties and leaders through disqualifications and use of administrative machinery, will give birth to a new political crisis.

The political forces left out will form an alliance to challenge the new set-up from day one; therefore, an independent and effective Election Commission is a prerequisite for fair and free elections to win confidence of all parties. The appointment of chief election commissioner and members of the commission in consultation with the major political parties of the country can be the first step in this direction. The commission should be given necessary powers to oversee the administrative machinery during the election process.

The Constitution should be restored with the announcement of the election schedule, and General Musharraf should announce that he will not pre-determine his role, otherwise the credibility of the whole electoral process will be undermined. This path is difficult, as it demands that we all look beyond our personal interests and power, but this alone can save us from repeating our past mistakes.

The tragedy of history is that no one learns from history, whether politicians or generals. In the past, two very strong military rulers, President Ayub for ten years and President Zia for eleven years, tried to plant the seeds of controlled democracy in Pakistan but both failed. Their systems and philosophies also disappeared with them.

The military establishment has failed successively to obtain desired and “positive” results in the elections. The results of 1970 elections came out as a surprise, in 1988 all efforts to contain Ms. Benazir Bhutto failed, in 1993 the promises with Mr. Hamid Nasir Chattha couldn’t be fulfilled, and in 1997 Mr. Nawaz Sharif’s two-thirds majority was also not a desired outcome.

On top of all this, if the present government carries out an impartial assessment of its performance it will find that despite making the army a frontline department in every walk of life, whose implications are beyond the imagination of the army leadership, the desired outcome couldn’t be achieved in the last two years despite having sweeping powers.

The economic recession has worsened, the crime is on the rise, unemployment is galloping, the much publicized devolution system has failed to make any visible or invisible impact on the lives of the people, even the campaign for punctuality in the offices and cleaning of streets have run out of steam, the monitoring teams have become part of the present administrative system and culture.

Can the government claim any miracle it has performed in the last two years that the democratic governments were not letting happen? As a matter of fact, our national sovereignty has never been under so much stress as it is now. When any government becomes internally isolated, then its dependence on external forces increases sharply. It is for this reason that the present government is sustaining itself on the IMF and US supplied oxygen.

In the light of the above facts, if the government still desires to follow the first path, then it doesn’t need to ask anyone. After approval of the corp commanders forum it can proceed with its scheme without any worry. But, if it wishes to take the latter path then it needs to reassess its plan of action. There is a choice to be made whether the military and its crony politicians should alone underwrite the process for restoration of the Constitution and democracy in the country or the whole nation should subscribe to it.

Now when the timeframe given by the Supreme Court is coming closer, there is a historic opportunity to unite the nation. A process of “grand national dialogue” should be started in the country, in which all political parties, including PML-N and PPP, representatives of judiciary, military, bureaucracy, business, and the media should be invited. In consultation with these groups a “national agenda” of political, social, and economic reforms, code of ethics, and targets for the next ten years should be formulated with consensus. This agenda will provide us a vision and a sense of direction for future because nations can’t go anywhere if they don’t know where they are heading.

On March 23, 2002, the day when in 1940 our founding fathers gathered in Lahore to set a future direction and goal for the Muslims of South Asia to win a separate homeland, in a national ceremony representatives of all political parties and other groups should sign a “declaration of national reconstruction”, to which all governments in future will adhere. This would be the beginning of the process of national reconciliation and solidarity. It will unite the whole nation.

If we continued to follow the path of conflict, our destination will not be progress but further destruction. If politicians and the military continued to play each other down, both will lose. National harmony and unity are prerequisites for reconstruction and progress. This process will heal the wounds of the past and also allow an honourable exit to the military. Otherwise our journey in circles of controlled democracy will continue resulting in a Martial Law and a new general in about a decade’s time.

For any patriotic Pakistani, the divide between institutional interest and the national interest is very artificial because the real interest of any institution can only be served by furthering of national interests. Therefore, the true corporate interest of the military is also in a strong and stable Pakistan, free from the power games and treacheries of the past. And finally, let’s not forget that the national interest can only be safeguarded by the nation as an entity not by one leader or any one institution.

Never have the opportunities been greater than they are in the world today. The challenge to us is to unleash the collective energies and competence of our nation towards nation-building and progress by creating a stable political and democratic environment now.

The writer is a former MNA and deputy chairman, planning commission.

IT was after a lapse of two years that the SAARC heads of state and government met at Kathmandu, with the South Asian horizon darkened by war clouds.

The Indian troops numbering 300,000 have moved into the forward areas poised for an attack on Azad Kashmir, Sindh and Punjab while 60,000 Pakistan troops are deployed astride the Durand Line, reinforcing the US expeditionary force engaged in the mopping up operation against the remnants of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.

Another 35,000 Pakistan troops are reportedly escorting three thousand American troops in north-western Pakistan busy in the witch-hunt of fugitives from Afghanistan. If war were to break out, Pakistan will send its troops from the north-west to the vulnerable eastern front.

Pakistan’s foreign minister has left New Delhi in no doubt that his country may have recourse to nuclear weapon to thwart the onslaught of the Indian juggernaut. There has been continuous exchange of fire across the LOC and the India-Pakistan border.

This was the moment for the SAARC leaders to quit quibbling on the admissibility of contentious issues and take immediate steps to de-escalate the rising tension in the region in order to avert the impending nuclear war. The SAARC Declaration enjoins upon the nuclear states in particular to work for nuclear disarmament in the context of complete and general disarmament on a universal basis. In fact, what is needed at the moment is the denuclearization of the South Asian region where two rivals have built up nuclear arsenals and are trading threats of nuclear exchange.

It may be recalled that the SAARC nations were so alarmed after the nuclear test explosion by India and Pakistan in May 1998 that they condemned it. Taking cue from this, the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan agreed to take immediate steps to reduce the risk of accidental or unauthorized nuclear war and “discuss concepts and doctrines with a view to elaborating confidence building in the nuclear and conventional fields aimed at prevention of the conflict”.

This was reiterated in the joint statement of the two governments and the memorandum of understanding signed at Lahore on February 21, 1999. According to para 3(a) of the joint statement, India and Pakistan foreign ministers were to meet periodically “to discuss all issues of mutual concern, including nuclear-related issues”. The two sides met at Agra during the last summer but could not make any headway and have not met since — thanks to New Delhi’s intransigence.

Jaswant Singh and Abdul Sattar met on the sidelines of the Kathmandu summit for ninety minutes after Pervez Musharraf’s dramatic handshake with Atal Behari Vajpayee. This is one advantage at least of summit diplomacy that those who are not on speaking terms have to talk to each other. It is indeed regrettable that the Indian leadership is not prepared for formal talks unless Islamabad fully complies with New Delhi’s conditions which are in the nature of an ultimatum.

The Kathmandu declaration recognizes the value of informal consultations in promoting mutual understanding among member states, a far cry from the SAARC addressing the contentious and bilateral issues as demanded by Gen. Musharraf. It seems that India is strongly opposed to any amendment to Article X(ii) of the SAARC charter that taboos any reference to ‘bilateral and contentious’ items.

On the other hand the declaration vows to join the NAM in pressing for the reform of the UN charter aimed at the democratization of the world body.

How can SAARC justify its call for the reform of the UN when it does not permit similar reform of its own charter? The ASEAN Regional Forum permits its members to discuss bilateral issues with each other.

The Declaration has added a new dimension to the 1987 SAARC convention on the suppression of terrorism by referring the Security Council Resolution 1373 — a veiled attempt by New Delhi to equate Taliban with the Kashmiri resistance. It is indeed amazing that no reference was made to state terrorism although the convention expressly mentions “terrorism in al its form and manifestations”.

The human rights organizations have recorded massive violation of rights in Kashmir by the Indian occupation forces which should be taken into account while implementing the provisions of the convention. If Jaish-i-Mohammed and Lashkar-i-Tayaba could be declared terrorist organizations without any conclusive evidence why can’t India be held responsible for directly perpetrating state terrorism in the occupied territory despite overwhelming evidence? If SAARC condemns the Kashmiri resistance and omits blatant massacre of the Kashmiris by Indian troops, the organization will be guilty of adopting double standards and will lose its high moral ground.

The considerations of realpolitik dictate the member states to initiate mutual confidence-building process through adoption of concrete measures but so long as one side is opposed to tackling the core issue that has bedevilled their relations for over half a country, there will neither be any progress towards disarmament nor alleviation of poverty for the simple reason that the meagre resources will be diverted towards the purchase and production of military hardware.

Unfortunately, the SAARC has so far adopted an ostrich-like policy by shutting its eyes to the festering disputes in the region.

For the implementation of the convention on terrorism, it is imperative that there should be a meeting of minds among its members on its definition otherwise they would not sign extradition treaties without which the fugitives cannot be handed over to any state. The international law on extradition exempts political offenders. There is a tendency among certain states to use the Security Council resolution on terrorism to suppress dissent and human rights. India’s anti-terrorist law is case in point. It gives the occupying Indian army absolute power to detain the militants in Kashmir and deny them the opportunity of a fair and open trial.

One may well ask: whether the extra-judicial killings, disappearance of persons in the custody of security forces, the demolition of homes and the burning down of bazaars by the Indian army and the security forces constitute terrorism. If so, why shouldn’t the SAARC heads of state and government take notice of it? It is indeed double standard on the part of the international community to act against the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament building and blame Pakistan for that on the one hand, and keep silent on the ongoing murder, rape, arson and desecration of places of worship by the Indian occupying army, on the other.

Clearly this kind of state terrorism comes within the purview of the SAARC convention on “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations”.

There is a touch of irony in the Declaration’s emphasis on facilitation of intra-regional movement of persons in view of New Delhi’s severance of communication and travel by land and air between India and Pakistan.

Moreover, the deployment of troops and the military manoeuvres along the borders do not facilitate travel as envisaged by the Declaration. The SAARC has done nothing to halt the arms race in the region except passing resolution on disarmament. Therefore, the talk of social charter and economic union sounds wishful and unrealistic.

WHAT is it about Japan that every few years, someone, somewhere in Pakistan comes to the conclusion that the answer to our problems lies in Sushiland? In the late sixties, a certain commissioner of Lahore tried to mow down the trees of Gol Bagh to make way for a Japanese rock garden. His inspiration for this Attila the Hun deed came from a tour of Japan which he had recently undertaken.

Had it not been for Sardar Muhammad Sadiq’s campaign and its revolutionary slogan - ‘At least leave our trees alone’ - one large green patch of Lahore would have turned into solid rock. Commissioners no longer exist, the post having been abolished by Danial Aziz “Gorbachev”, the “Amreeka-palat” son of the delightful Chaudhri Anwar Aziz, the patron saint of Shakargarh and environs, who said after resigning from the government of M.K. “jo-na-janay” Junejo in 1987. “I am happy I have got rid of my tedious responsibility.”

Newspapers report from Lahore that district nazims, district coordination officers and other district officials will be given month-long training in Japan to “equip them with expertise in the affairs of the newly established district governments”. We further learn that the federal government has struck a deal with a Japan-based NGO which will impart free training to these government functionaries, “including nazims, DCOs, DDOs and EDOs”.

Had they not run out of letters of the alphabet, the list would no doubt have been longer. The decision to ship these gents - and what ladies there be - to the land of the rising sun and the falling Yen is said to have been taken for the “orientation” of district governments to enable them to properly manage development and welfare projects in their districts.

The officer log who — Gen. Naqvi or no Gen. Naqvi, “Gorbachev” Danial or no “Gorbachev” Danial — never wish to be left behind when it comes to an on-the-house trip to Japan or even the Devil’s Island, are in on the do as well. A search is also on for “female nazims (nazimas?) and lady councillors”. This is good news because it may finally enable us to have our own Madam Butterflies.

The Punjab government, quick to act in such situations, as opposed to rebuilding washed away roads or equipping unequipped hospitals, is said to have rushed a list of the lucky Japanwalas (and walis) to the federal government which, no doubt, is now sifting through the one million sifarshi “chits” that have been TCSed to Islamabad the Beautiful where wild boars roam the streets on winter nights and can be seen during the day, it is whispered, occupying state offices. The National Reconstruction Bureau is also said to be in on the act. Someone said (such whistle-blowers should be sent to Mazar-i-Sharif) that we have reconstruction when there has been no construction.

Somewhere in the 1980s, my good friend Dr Akbar S. Ahmed spoke to a gathering in Islamabad that included a faultlessly dressed Sahibzada Yaqub Khan with all his fourteen languages on the tip of his tongue, about the need to turn Pakistan into Japan. After reading about the event in the day’s papers, the Japanese ambassador in Islamabad suffered a fainting spell from which only the smell of raw fish was able to bring him round. He immediately sought a meeting with Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and asked what Japan, a good friend of Pakistan, had done to serve as Dr Ahmed’s model. While it is not known what Gen. Zia said to the envoy, it was reported that His Excellency came out beaming. The general did indeed have the gift of making people believe that he agreed with them when he did no such thing. That is one reason he lasted eleven years.

I suggested at the time that instead of making Pakistan like Japan, it may be a better idea to make Japan like Pakistan. It was, after all, well known that the Japanese were bored with making electronic gadgets, motorcars and sea-going vassals. They had also had enough of precision, keeping face and wearing masks when travelling on public transport with a cold. Some among them had started wondering if they were missing out on such pre-industrial pleasures as hunger, disease and illiteracy, which was precisely where Pakistan could come in. The world’s first case of reversal of technology transfer.

What will we need to turn Japan into Pakistan?

First of all, we will have to step up the export of our illegal immigrants to Japan. Pakistan’s expertise in this area is now acknowledged worldwide. What is more, it requires no capital investment on the part of the government which, given our fraternal and loving ties with the IMF, is not on the cards anyway. We could also solve the Afghan refugee problem by putting all those men and their goats in large ships and pushing them in the general direction of Japan.

Everyone knows that the housefly and the mosquito, both native to our country and the most loyal of its denizens, are practically unknown in Japan. We have got to infest Japan with both the fly and the mosquito to make it into another Pakistan. Fly and mosquito-gathering centres, run by district nazims and nazimas, would need to be set up and the catch ferried to Japan on C-130s (but without the mangoes). Formal release of these pests should take place from the top of Mount Fuji to the heart-warming strains of the national anthems of the two states.

Japan has to be rid of its obsession with hygiene. Municipal corporations with proven dirt and garbage infesting record, such as Lahore, Sialkot, Gujranwala and Lalamusa, should be physically removed to Japan so that Pakistani and Japanese cities can truly become sister cities. Given three weeks, there is no question that our municipal corporations would be able to replicate gaping manholes, open running gutters and mountains of uncollected garbage from Tokyo to Okinawa. The Pakistan Public Works Department should also be shifted to Japan to ensure that no road remains without potholes and no public building is repaired.

The Japanese attach great value to silence. This could be rectified by exporting every truck with pressure horns and Ataullah Issa Khelvi tapes playing full blast all hours of the day and night. Thereafter nobody would be able to get a full night’s sleep from one corner of Japan to the other. If trucks fail to do the trick, some of our mullahs who are in the Nobel Prize class when it comes to screaming into microphones, should be rushed over to complete the job. The Japanese phone system could also be rendered inoperative by transferring staff from the PTCL to Japan Telecom.

Japan’s public transport system could be Pakistanized in no time by dispatching a large contingent of Pakistan Railways engineers and traffic officials. Once that is done, no train in Japan would run on time and no public bus would go more than a hundred yards before breaking down and emitting enough smoke to bring back memories of Hiroshima.

Our Civil Aviation Authority should be able to guarantee one week after taking over the Japanese aviation system that no aircraft takes off or lands in time. To make sure that no public servant in Japan ever gets paid on the due date or ever receives a pension, the Accountant-General of Pakistan and his boys would need to be given just two weeks in Japan. The Pakistan Post Office should be able to ensure that few letters get delivered. In any case, Japan has no street numbers so the job should be easy.

To supervise this project, the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) which has been under cover all these years as the District Management Group should be resurrected and let loose on Old Nippon. The Service will do to Japan what it has done to Pakistan.

LET it be stated straight-away that for the sensible citizen there is some relief and reassurance in the government’s promise to tackle religious extremism with a firm hand. The sad part of this story is that this bit of light has dawned on the present rulers after so much damage already sustained at home and embarrassment abroad.

The issue of the Sipahs, Lashkars and Jaishes has been repeatedly and pointedly raised in these columns. Over and over again the attention of the interior minister was drawn to the extraordinary situation of there being so many organized armed groups in the country, where under the law and the fundamental law (Constitution) there was room for no more than one National Army under the Army Act.

It was repeatedly pointed out that these armed groups were existing and operating in an audaciously open and explicit manner. There have been occasions when these groups have abruptly snubbed the government authority. In Karachi, one of these armed groups virtually threw out district officers who wished to enter the premises where they were holding a demonstration. It was near the Civic Centre. The government swallowed the snub, although this was pointedly reported in some newspaper comments.

Also pointed out time and again was the lurking danger in the deeni madaris and the manner in which many of them had virtually become the nurseries from where the Taliban drew their trained personnel. It must be said for the Sipahs, Lashkars and Jaishes, etc., that they made no bones about what they were doing. A good deal of their activity was in the open, sometimes brazenly so. But the government looked the other way.

Adding insult to injury, one heard some ministers actually paying tributes to the “services” these madaris were rendering to the cause of “education.” What “education” and what “services” the madaris have been rendering is now in front of us. Despite public outcry, no worthwhile effort was made to look into the operations and funding of these organizations so manifestly irreconcilable with not only law but also the interests of the state itself. No one ever cared to pry into their funding.

As the deeni madaris multiplied, so did the population of the extremists that these institutions were producing. A direct result of this proliferation of graduates from the deeni madaris was the mushrooming of the mosques. These two are related phenomena. The graduates of the deeni madaris can only become mosque mullas. The more mullas in society, the more mosques you must have to provide work for these people who can do nothing else in life.

At one time the minister of the interior gave the people to understand that there would be a sort of census or survey of the mosques, their sectarian affiliations and, one inferred, also the sources of their funds and pattern of administration. It was also explicitly stated that abuse by mosques of their sound amplifying devices would be brought under some discipline. There is no evidence any steps were taken in this direction. Every mosque, even the tiniest of them, has four loudspeakers in the tiniest of communities. A mosque in complete wilderness is not a rare sight either.

What ought to cause profound disquiet in the mind of a normal citizen is the tendency of having mosques named and dedicated to sects. Thousands of mosques in Pakistan today are not open houses of prayer for all who wish to pray. These are bastions of sects and places where parochial and sectarian sentiment is developed into militant dogma. How one would reconcile this with the genuine concept of a mosque in Islam is hard to see. But that is how it is now. Surely the government cannot be unaware of all this.

Even more worrying is the proliferation of the so-called religious parties. According to one estimate we may now have 80-plus ‘religious parties.’ All of them claim to have a monopoly on the message of Islam. How believers in one God, one Prophet (PBUH), one Book can have so many ‘parties,’ each claiming to have the final word? We have the strange phenomenon of a combination of these religious parties under the label of Yekjeheti Council, meaning unity. But all members of this council insist on their separate identity. What sort of ‘yek-jeheti’ is this, pray?

During the last some years, these religious parties have not only proliferated in number, they have been operating with exaggerated bravado. Their fund-collecting has been intolerably aggressive, intimidating and threatening to reluctant subscribers. The sermons in the mosques have been explicitly pungent, menacing and their effect on society has been dangerously divisive.

You do not need extraordinary wisdom to see the causes and factors behind the sudden rise in sectarian killings and terrorist violence. There is no way to hide the terrible truth that few, if any at all, of the sectarian and terrorist killings have been successfully investigated and the killers brought to book.

Many mistakes have been made. Our approach to this twin menace of sectarian and terrorist violence has been squint-eyed, when not downright wrong-headed. Prejudice and superstition has displaced common sense in our view about faith. The deeni madaris have been the real source of this disorientation in society. It must be added that the governments down the years have acted no more boldly than scared rabbits.

The use of the prefix of Maulana and Allama is by now a huge but entirely unamusing joke. Millions of people in Pakistan insist upon being accepted as Maulana or Allama and parading as men closer to divinity than humble humanity. We know how and when a person becomes a doctor, or lawyer, or accountant, or pilot. What do we know about how so many people have become Maulana or Allama?

Now that the government has been persuaded (or obliged?) to act, let it plan its course with courage and ensure consistency in doing the job. In the very first place it should be understood by all in this country that there is room for only one Army and that is the Pakistan Army. All organized armed groups, whether belonging to political parties or sectarian organizations, stand outside the pale of law and the Constitution of this republic. They should stand automatically banned, for that is the unquestionable requirement of law.

All assets of such armed groups should stand forfeited to the state forthwith and the leading figures in these groups be brought to book under law. No concessions here. This is something the government is bound by law to do and do without hesitation or reluctance or fear. Failure to do this would be tantamount to undermining the Constitution. In that case, one should think there would be something for the higher judiciary to do as the custodian of the Constitution.

Action must be instituted to bring the deeni madaris within the mainstream of the education, culture and administration of the country. Here again, if there is evidence of any wrongdoing, it should be dealt with under the law. Some of these institutions are believed to have enormous assets in cash and also, as generally suspected, arms. These should stand confiscated.

There is no room for divisive sectarian political parties in the garb of religious piety. As a matter of fact, there is a strong case for compulsory registration of all entities intending to play the role of ‘parties,’ directly or indirectly, in the life of the country. Every public entity must have a registered public status and image.

It needs to be clarified that we are initiating this effort to tame and eliminate sources of sectarian and terrorist violence because we have come to believe, however belatedly, that this is the need of the moment. This has absolutely nothing to do with the noise and fury worked up by our good neighbours. Of terror, India has at least as much as we have. Perhaps more.