I MAY have mentioned this story before, in which case I apologize. Not for repeating myself, for where would journalism be without the occasional dose of repetition, but for optimism. The timing of the story was not right, if it has been used before. The moment to tell that story is now.

The most famous, and the most romantic, of the Crusades was the five-year duel between the Islamic coalition of Saladin (it was a coalition: some of Saladin’s troops came from as far away as India) and the Christian alliance under Richard II of England (England; Britain did not exist in the 11th century). Some of the romance about that contest is true.

During Richard’s last, and most desperate battle, when he was outnumbered, surrounded and surprised by Muslim forces and fought back like a lionheart, Saladin was watching the ebb and flow of the day from a mound. At its fiercest moment, Richard was unhorsed and therefore at the mercy of the Muslims. Saladin told his brother Malek, who was beside him, to take the two best Arab horses he had and give them to Richard immediately. A king as brave as Richard, said Saladin, should not fight without a horse. That gesture saved the lionheart’s life.

On the other hand, the story that when Richard and Saladin met, Richard cleaved a block of iron with his sword and Saladin, in response, threw up a silk scarf and sliced it with his scimitar is absolute junk. Not because either of them may not have been able to cut iron or slice silk but because the two never met formally. Richard always wanted talks with Saladin, and even insisted on them. But Saladin assigned all negotiations with the Christian king to his brother Malek. His reason was splendid: after kings meet, he said, they should never again have a reason for war.

Moral of the story? No matter what US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, US secretary of state Colin Powell, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and about three thousand other dignitaries who have visited India and Pakistan ever since the two threatened to blow each other up say, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf should not meet until they have decided that they will not attempt war under their watch. We cannot expect more. We should not expect less.

President Musharraf has created the conditions for another dialogue with a remarkable speech that will enter the history books of Pakistan. And remain there, at least until some successor tries to erase it, just as General-President Zia-ul-Haq tried to erase Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s speech at the opening session of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. The pairing is not accidental. The two speeches, both made without a text, both offered from the heart and mind, sought to set a course for their country that was sane, that was rational, that was modern and that could have prevented so much of the tragedy that has overtaken a country that the two men were privileged to lead.

Ever since Pakistan was born it has been searching for a destiny through the muddled confusion of some criminally exploitative leaders, with the uncertain help of an ideology that eluded concrete definition. Jinnah was so specific that he stunned some of those who sat there listening to him. If Pakistan’s leaders worked for the masses instead of themselves, he said, and if they treated all citizens, whether Hindus or Muslims, as equals, then, said Jinnah, there would come a day when Muslims would cease to be Muslims and Hindus cease to be Hindus in the political sense, and Pakistan would have unity as well as prosperity.

Jinnah’s vision died with his death. General Zia’s censors sent out word to newspapers not to mention this speech in any of the traditional articles that would be written on Jinnah’s birthday. Their idea of Pakistan was darker; they wanted an exclusive zone that would become a haven for various kinds of Jihad. The kalashnikov was the sword of their permanent war; and there was no space for the pen, except as a regressive weapon for fundamentalist indoctrination.

In his first remarks after becoming Chief Executive of his country, literally out of the blue, President Musharraf made it a point to mention the Turkish patriot who had saved his nation from dismemberment by the victors of the First World War, and then dragged it (sometimes with excessive force) into a modern political culture.

When Jinnah was in self-imposed exile in London in the first half of the 1930s, he too discovered Kemal Mustafa Ataturk, through a biography titled Grey Wolf: An Intimate Study of a Dictator by H.C. Armstrong. According to Stanley Wolpert’s biography of the founder of Pakistan, Jinnah told his sister Fatima that if he ever got as much power as Ataturk he would westernize Indian Muslims. Westernize is not an accurate description of what Jinnah was talking about; he meant “modernize.”

The two do not have to be synonymous, and so much confusion arises because they are misinterpreted to mean the same thing.

As President Musharraf hinted without expanding, the Islamic world was not westernized when for 600 years it transferred technology to Europe. His next sentence was sardonic and went something like, “Abhi jo haal hai, aap jaante hain.” The speech was important not as course correction for relations between India and Pakistan, but as course correction for the president’s own country.

The first can follow from the second. But in both its dimensions, it was a speech that perhaps could only have been made by a man secure not only in his convictions but also in his authority. In other words, in the context of Pakistan, a leader of the armed forces.

The Pakistan army, like any other institution, lives partly on self-comforting history. Its formative memory of India is denial. (The BIA was some 2.5 million strong at the height of the Second World War, and 400,000 after demobilization. Pakistan got 140,000 troops; India the rest.) The security of Pakistan has been its elemental, and justified rationale. But it also, from the very beginning, confused that legitimate with a touch of illegitimate bravado that confused defence with offence, and justified protection to cross-border manoeuvres, whether in 1947, 1965 or through the 1990s.

There was an implicit signal in President (or should we call him General here?) Musharraf’s speech that that phase was also over. The Pakistan armed forces would defend their borders to the last inch, as they are oath-bound to do, and no more. The rest, including the dispute over Kashmir, will be left to governments, rather than the armed forces. This again is a significant difference and will be a hinge factor in Indo-Pak relations once India is convinced of its bona fides.

Evidence will come with time. Not too much time, but not too little either. The positioning and repositioning on critical issues is not over yet. The India-Pakistan equation is both too murky and too emotional to be washed clean by one speech, however sincere it might be.

There is also a paradox that needs to be flagged. President Musharraf combines in his person the roles of head of government and de facto (not de jure) Chief of the Army. The differing lines of policy between the government and the armed forces on a matter as sensitive as Kashmir can be merged into one as long as the current dispensation lasts.

But is this dispensation now going to be permanent feature of Pakistan’s polity? How does this square with the need for democracy, which every leader of a coup pays lip service to? Or is the Ataturk model going to be followed rigidly, where modernization will be controlled and implemented by military officers who are beyond the reach of public opinion? Popularity is a fragile fact, and therefore accountability is critical to long-term stability.

If President Musharraf is true to his dream for his country, then he must also appreciate that this dream can be best protected by the goodwill of the people, and such goodwill can only be sustained through the democratic process. Pakistan cannot become a model, modern Muslim country without democracy, can it?

This means that either President Musharraf will have to participate in that process to get the sanction of the people or cede power. The difficulties of both options do not need reiteration.

Of course temptation will sing its songs, and the lure of getting elected prime minister (Benazir Bhutto?) across the table from unelected Presidents is a familiar one. But Islamabad may not be big enough for both.

President Musharraf has made an important and symbolic decision about the future of Pakistan’s democracy by reversing separate electorates in which only Muslims could vote for Muslims and Hindus and Christians for their own community candidates.

The Jinnah of Pakistan would have approved, even if the Jinnah of India based his whole battle on the separation of electorates.

DURING the last three months or so Americans of various ethnic origins — European, black, Hispanic, oriental, Arab, and others — have been appearing on the television screen, each one of them proclaiming: “I am an American.” Never before had I seen anything like it. Why is it happening now? Well, because America may be hit again.

Moreover, it is waging a war abroad that will call for sacrifices on the part of its people. Americans are being asked to recall their “pledge of allegiance,” which says they are “one nation under God, indivisible,” and they are being urged to stand united in the face of adversity, for in unity lies strength.

I concluded my last article in this space (January 20) with the observation that we must build national solidarity in order to be able to resist Indian pressures. That we are short of it is evident from our regional, ethnic, linguistic, and sectarian divisions, which often make us fight and kill one another. The enterprise of building solidarity is complex, but that does not relieve us of the responsibility of undertaking it.

Let it first be noted that national solidarity has never consciously been adopted as a worthy objective either by governments or by any important political party, notwithstanding the “bureau of national integration” during Ayub Khan’s rule. Few, if any, have wanted to talk about it beyond denouncing separatist movements in some of our provinces.

In the philosophic or ideological context, nationhood and nationalism, focused on a specific territory, were held to be repugnant to Islam by several influential Muslim thinkers, including Allama Iqbal (in his poetry) and Maulana Maududi. The fact that in his celebrated work, ‘Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’ (English prose), Iqbal endorsed territorial nationhood and nationalism in countries where Muslims formed the majority of the population has remained hidden from many of his admirers. The prevailing argument in post-independence Pakistan posited that the Muslim people’s common allegiance to Islam was a strong enough glue to bind them together as a community.

In fact, Islam has performed no such function — as shown by the dismemberment of Pakistan in December 1971 and insurgencies from time to time in other parts of the country — because the allegiance to it has been infirm and partial for many hundreds of years and is likely to remain that way in the foreseeable future.

The task of building solidarity requires, in the first place, identification of the issues that divide Pakistan and then to see how they may be resolved. Regions and provinces are the same in our present context. Ethnicity and language coincide and, for facility of reference, let us call this factor ethnic. There are rivalries between the provinces, but ethnic divisions exist within each one of them: Saraiki and variations of Punjabi in Punjab, Urdu-speaking “Mohajirs” and Sindhi-speaking “natives” in Sindh, Pushto-speaking Pakhtoons and Hindko-speaking non-Pakhtoons in the NWFP, and groups speaking Pushto, Balochi, and Brahui in Balochistan.

Except in the case of Sindh, ethnic divisions have not produced violent conflict within the provinces; clashes between the Pakhtoon and Baloch groups in Balochistan have been infrequent and minor. More than physical violence, absence of solidarity has meant alienation of groups of people from one another and, more important, from Pakistan, expressing itself in separatist movements.

Alienation does not develop as a result of an individual’s own personal experience alone. The ordinary Sindhi peasant has most probably never travelled beyond his own “taluka” or district, and the likelihood is that he has never given much thought to whether and how Punjab may have deprived Sindh of its due share of the good things of life.

Alienation comes more notably to the “counter-elite” in various spheres, especially the political, and they are the ones who spread it among the lower echelons. They feel alienated because they have been excluded from the process of disbursing societal resources and assets. Their alienation becomes more intense when, having stood up as opponents of the ruling elite, they are suppressed in various ways, including harassment, torture, and detention. The deprivation of the local and provincial counter-elite increases proportionally to the centralization of authority and power in a state.

The remedy then lies in instituting genuine democracy accompanied by decentralization of the political system. Decentralization will open up political positions at the sub-national-levels to which the local elite, short of national level standing, can aspire. Democracy will allow the counter-elite to contest for power and exercise it if they win. If they lose, they can try again later. In the meantime, they retain a measure of importance and efficacy: they have some followers; they address public meetings, give interviews and issue statements that the newspapers print.

Even as members of the opposition, they are not entirely without influence: they are often in a position to embarrass the ruling elite, who may deem it prudent to listen to them on occasion. In addition, if they and their constituents receive equal treatment under the law in pursuing higher education, the professions, employment, government contracts, and opportunities in business and industry, they will all form an attachment to the political system and to the country. Even as counter-elite they will be patriotic Pakistanis, seeing Pakistan as a positive good.

The smaller provinces in Pakistan have always complained that, because of its preponderance in the central government, Punjab has taken more and allowed them less than their due share of the national resources. It may be difficult to name the specifics of this alleged exploitation, but we all know that the Punjabis and the Urdu-speaking persons dominated the public services not only in the national but also in all of the provincial governments for a long time. Until the advent of the PPP regime in 1972, many of the middle-ranking police officers and civil servants, not to speak of heads of various departments, in Sindh were Punjabis and Urdu-speaking individuals.

A word about the interaction of the Urdu-speaking people with the “native” Sindhis may be in order. They and the Punjabis will contend that they filled most of the higher positions in the public services of Sindh because duly qualified native Sindhis were not available. They will argue also that Sindhi feudal lords were chiefly responsible for keeping their people in a state of educational deprivation and incompetence. One may respond to this argument with the observation that since they, along with the Punjabis, operated the government of Sindh as well as the one at the centre, they should have done something to abolish feudalism-as the Indians and East Pakistanis within Pakistan did — and taken other appropriate steps to advance the native Sindhis to higher levels of competence, let us say, comparable to their own.

Since 1972 the native Sindhis have been taking their share of public authority and power in the province. In the process the Urdu-speaking people have had to lose some of their earlier predominance and, as a result, relations between the two groups have been marked by tension and periodic eruption of violent conflict. The realization has to grow and take hold of minds that Sindh, like the other provinces, belongs to all the people (native Sindhis, Mohajirs, Pathans, Punjabis, Balochis) who live on its territory, and that all of them must have equal protection of the law and equal access to opportunity.

Punjab is the largest of Pakistan’s provinces in terms of population, and its people have the largest share of positions in the institutions of the country’s governance-parliament, bureaucracy, armed forces, and even the judiciary. Punjab must then also bear the largest share of responsibility for preserving Pakistan-not by coercing others to remain in the federation but by pulling them closer together in a fraternal union. Punjabi politicians and civil servants must remain aware of their obligation in this regard, start talking about Pakistani nationhood and patriotism, and take other relevant measures in all departments of public life. In the distribution of national resources they should be more on the giving than on the receiving end.

Efforts to promote national unity should extend to the cultural sphere as well. I heard some years ago that the Oriental College in Lahore had begun teaching Hindi and Sanskrit. Good idea, but it is an even better idea to teach Pushto and Sindhi in Punjabi schools, not so much to ease communication between the Punjabis and others but as a way of showing respect for the Pakhtoon and Sindhi cultures. In the same vein one might ask what would be wrong with introducing Sindhi, Pushto, and Balochi words into Urdu instead of burdening it any more with Arabic vocabulary.

I have discussed sectarian conflict in this space before and should not repeat what I have already said. Suffice it to say now that sectarian violence will intensify the more the state links itself with the enterprise of Islamizing the country. The present government is distancing itself from that goal and it is possible that the measures it is taking against religious bigotry and extremism will go some distance in mitigating sectarian conflict.

Lastly, one may want to caution that none of the above ideas will work unless governments in Pakistan acquire at least moderate levels of competence, honesty, and integrity. In the short run citizens will distinguish between their country and the political system under which they live. But if that system operates as an agency of plunder and repression, unresponsive to the citizen’s needs and aspirations for a very extended period of time, as has been the case in Pakistan, the distinction the people once made between the country and its political system will begin to fade, and their alienation from the system may be transformed into alienation from the country itself.

THE madressah and jihad, and the nexus between the two, are a source of turbulence at home and many apprehensions abroad. It is unfortunate for the two institutions, which once stood for learning and endeavour in the cause of justice, to have become synonymous with bigotry and terror.

General Musharraf, impelled by his own conviction (which did not find full expression for 27 months) and external pressure, has now launched a campaign, as The Economist put it, to bring Pakistan from the fast approaching status of a failed state, a pariah nation, to align with the international mainstream.

The essence of his January 12 address was to reform and not let loose or close down the madressahs and wage jihad against the evils of poverty, illiteracy and injustice and not take up arms in the wars of others. In Afghanistan when Muslim clans were pitched against some others, also Muslim, the people and clans were pitched against some others, also Muslim, the people and clerics of Pakistan should have been conciliators rather than partisans.

Interestingly enough, Sindh’s religious affairs minister who belongs to a lineage of muftis made haste to agree with Musharraf. How one wishes he and other exponents of jihad had done so before thousands died and millions became homeless. Wali Razi and others should have spoken before Maulana Soofi Mohammad led 10,000 men, some too old even to walk, into Afghanistan under a hail of cluster bombs. Perhaps the soldier-champion of jihad, Hamid Gul, should have taught them before they went how to bring down the bombing aircraft miles up in the air with their country rifles.

Now that the second jihad, what the president called the bigger jihad, to rebuild Afghanistan from rubble has started, the larger participants in this gigantic effort are those to whom jihad is no different from terror. The leader of the Muslim world and custodian of its holy places has donated $20 million for the rehabilitation of 26 million war-weary, wretched Afghans.

A prince of that kingdom had offered half that sum to super rich New York for the destruction of its trade centre. Jihad doesn’t mean goading the ignorant and poor into death. It demands of the rich to spend their wealth to save, as the president said, the poor from hunger and the weak from violence.

The holy Prophet (PBUH) pronounced Hazrat Usman protected against all punishment in the hereafter when, instead of fighting in a battle, he donated his wealth towards it. President Musharraf was right in asking the maulanas what money they had donated or exertions made to mitigate the sufferings of the Afghan people. He was also right when he said only Maulana Edhi had. And Edhi is really not a maulana, just a social worker or his organization an NGO which the maulanas so much loath and lampoon.

The rule the president has laid down that no individual or party will use the soil of Pakistan to wage a war against others is not just prudence but also a rule of Islam. Jihad is not included among the five basic tenets of Islam which are obligatory for the Muslims to follow individually. Jihad can be decreed only by the government (or caliphate) of the day as a collective obligation of the citizenry.

It is not an atrocity but a cam