PAKISTANIS, our government in particular, have been living in a state of denial on many issues confronting the country for long. These mainly include the threats posed to the state from within, without negating altogether the gravity of the challenges posed from outside. We come out shining while denying reality on both counts — as if they are mutually exclusive.

Firstly, one must note the withering away of the state’s writ, not only in Fata, Swat and Balochistan but all around. Like everything else that is so rotten and bad with us now, this trend could also be blamed on Gen Musharraf’s eight long years in power, and perhaps justifiably so. In the big cities crime is rampant and terrorists strike at will. The flaring up of ethnic tensions in Karachi which left a number of people dead recently, and terrorist assaults on the Sri Lankan cricket team and a police training school in Lahore in March as well as the recent bombings in Peshawar are but obvious examples.

The interior minister should know that nobody bought his claim implicating India, without naming it, of course, in the two separate incidents of violence in Karachi and Lahore. His own party — read President Zardari and no lesser mortal — had gone on record to say that Pakistan did not face any threat from its South Asian rival before the Mumbai attacks took place in November last year. There has been little reviewing of the president’s position on India even as the two countries have bickered over Indian allegations after the Mumbai attacks.

Mr Rehman Malik can only be right on India if his leader is held to be in denial of his policy statement on our eastern neighbour. Conversely, Mr Malik must be held to be in a state of denial about the real perpetrators of the terrorist and ethnic assaults in Lahore and Karachi, respectively, if he really believes that India had a hand in the violent events that rocked the two cities. As for the mayhem in the Frontier province, one tends to agree with political analyst Ahmed Rashid that the Taliban in Pakistan would be the last people India would offer any support to. The interior minister’s prognosis just does not gel.

As for Balochistan, let’s face it; it’s been a long-simmering issue. The tribal sardars there may be anti-development and responsible for the backwardness of their own people, but the same is also true for the waderas in Sindh and landlords in southern and western Punjab. While Islamabad embraces the latter (just look at the composition of the elected assemblies), it is beyond comprehension why it should single out their Baloch counterparts for censure. President Zardari’s apology to the Baloch people has been just that. No practical steps have been taken to right the wrongs done to the Baloch.

Islamabad cannot live in denial of the deep-rooted sense of deprivation and alienation in this most underdeveloped province, while people elsewhere enjoy the wealth of Balochistan’s gas and minerals. The promise made by the government to abolish the federal concurrent list and transfer fiscal control of the province’s resources has remained a promise. Decentralisation is nowhere to be seen on the government’s agenda, which was a rallying cry for getting votes. The absence of a policy on federal-provincial relations has fanned feelings of alienation among the Baloch in particular. This, as their leaders have been abducted and killed. While it is way past time to militarily and militarily alone tackle the threat posed by the Taliban in the Frontier and Fata, calming public sentiments by engaging Baloch leaders is also overdue.

Urban Sindh, too, presents a picture of denial on the part of the government. There should be no denying the fact that while ethnic tensions may not exist at the people-to-people level, they very much define the posturing of the PPP, the MQM and the ANP, whose workers have been at loggerheads with one another. The killing spree witnessed in Karachi recently in which only a handful of respective, armed party workers took part and the calls given for strike should be an eye-opener.

The government cannot afford to let Karachi descend into chaos at this politically and economically critical time. If the past is any guide, it only takes a few gunshots and bodies to wreak havoc on the fragile social fabric of Karachi. Again, there is no policy in place to tackle the challenges staring the people of this city in the face. A turf war is a political reality in Karachi and denying it will delay the process of addressing the problem. There are few signs of Talibanisation in the city, and overblown fears to this effect must not be allowed to be used to establish one party’s hegemony over Karachi, which remains a saving grace of Pakistan as its truly multicultural, multi-ethnic metropolis.

Lastly, it is the absence of governance which dogs the current dispensation. Living in denial of the many differences the coalition partners have on national and on inter-party issues has delayed the task of effective governance. One lesson that the PPP must learn from its experience of falling out with the PML-N is that reneging on promises will not win it or the country any respect. It’s time to fulfil rather than delay delivering what it promised the people, which is decentralisation of executive and fiscal powers, leading to provincial autonomy.