IS there no getting out of the world of make-believe in which we live, a world in which pious intentions pass for action and fantasy for reality? Anyone with eyes to see can make out that our external posture is overextended and our internal policies do not make sense. As a nation we are bereft of a sense of direction and yet think we are embarked on a course which in the fulness of time will lead us to the promised land.

Of course our people are not without talent. Of course they are hardworking and require only the right touch for their energies to be released. All this is true but it is also true that there is so much about us that just does not look right and which indeed conveys the impression that while much of the world is racing ahead, mastering new concepts and new technologies, we are caught in a time warp and stranded somewhere in the past. The traffic on our roads, the chaos at our airports, the lethargy and procrastination of our bureaucracy, the muddle-headedness of our rulers, are just a few of the testimonials to our national condition.

Of the countries in our neighbourhood only one has the distinction of looking worse than us: Afghanistan, whose warring factions have bombed their once peaceful and tranquil country into the 18th century. The others are not without their problems. Poverty and disease in them are rampant. But, if I am not overstating the case, they exude a sense of purpose and direction while we do not.

As for India, much as we may abhor the notion, it is forging ahead on many fronts. It has invested in its education and is now reaping the rewards of this policy. By contrast, what a wreck we have made of our education system? The poor pick the weeds of vernacular education while the well-to-do are just not interested because their offspring have their eyes on foreign shores.

While there is poverty at the bottom, the Indian middle class has come of age. The market that this creates for industry is huge. No wonder India is attracting foreign investment in a big way. Above all, there is a sense of political freedom in India which makes their media bold and vibrant and gives to their political discourse a confidence not to be found on this side of the border.

None of these achievements has given India the speed or dash of the tiger. It is moving along at the pace of a bullock cart but it is moving in a certain direction and although the journey may be long and arduous, there is a sense in India of a final destination. Not so here, which is why the question we most often ask ourselves is not about our journey's end but whether there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Let us by all means compete with India. Let us not forsake the people of Kashmir in their hour of suffering and distress. But at least let us have the sense to see that it is not only in tanks and warplanes that we have to match India but in the two things that in this day and age matter the most: education, for without it a country's foundations are built on sand, and political liberty which alone can lend a sense of dignity and strength to a people.

Why do our high officials behave so cravenly in front of foreigners, especially if they happen to be white? Because they lack inner confidence. Why is Indian television so much better than ours? Because it operates in an environment of freedom. Why don't English dockers or New York cabbies take nonsense from anyone? Because they have been used to social and political freedom for a long time.

If we want to put flesh on our rhetoric we have to change our attitudes. And to begin with we have to discover the holy grail of political stability so that once and for all we get over this destructive and soul-destroying thraldom to military rule. This will not, overnight, make our politicians virtuous or exemplary keepers of the national flame but it will make at least one distinction clear: that the defence of our national frontiers, no mean task, is the job of our soldiers while the management of national affairs has to be left to the representatives of the people. Mixing the two will no longer do. In fact, as we have seen so often before, mixing the two is a recipe for disaster.

The question is how is this to be accomplished? Not by any rider on horseback because great as our fascination is for heroes - Salahuddin Ayubis, Ataturks and de Gaulles - we must after 52 years come round to the realization that our soil is not propitious for the sprouting or cultivation of mythical heroes. It is with mortal figures that we must make do.

Firstly, then, on its own volition, because no one else can compel it and certainly not Pakistan's bankrupt political parties, the army must perform a supreme act of self-abnegation. Sheathing its sword it must go back to barracks. This has never happened before, the relinquishing of power seldom being a voluntary affair, but this must happen now if the soul of this country, tormented by nightmares and spectres, is at last to know some peace.

Secondly, the army having decided to conduct an orderly retreat - an orderly retreat, it must be remembered, being the most difficult operation in war - it must impose a political solution incorporating a few salient points. (1) The purge of the most corrupt political elements so that the political landscape is cleared to some extent of the foulness which litters it. This can be done in an arbitrary, Ayatollah Khalkhali-like, manner without an excessive care for legal niceties because time is of the essence. (2) The immediate holding of fresh elections. (3) Transfer of power to elected representatives, in whatever guise or colour they come. (4) The appointment of President Rafiq Tarar as Rector of the Islamic University in Islamabad. (5) To loud acclaim, General Pervez Musharraf's unanimous and uncontested election as the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Leaving aside canal desilting and district monitoring, the corps commanders should be concentrating on this agenda which, provided the will and heart are there, can be fulfilled in two or three months' time. As for General Musharraf's seven-point agenda, it can be left as a guiding beacon for the next government. Should it come to that, it can even be made a part of the Constitution. Over the years our lawmakers, forced to bend to the prevailing winds, have done worse than this. The appointment of the service chiefs can be made a presidential prerogative. The president, however, should not be able to dissolve the National Assembly. One last thing. Pakistan Television, which has led many a ruler astray, should be made an honest woman of: its state of concubinage should finally come to an end.

The new democratic republic that thus emerges from its cocoon can be monitored by the army so that the politicians of the new dispensation remain on the straight and narrow. Other countries have had transitions from dictatorship to democracy: Greece, Spain, Portugal, to name only three. Making a success of these transitions required, in equal measure, forbearance and restraint from the representatives of the old order and wisdom and vision on the part of the standard-bearers of democracy. With a bit of effort there is no reason why we cannot do the same. Even if in the past our standard-bearers have been soiled figures (Benazir and Nawaz Sharif) there is no reason we should not be able to improve upon them.

Before we can teach the Indians a lesson, we have to put our own house in order. At present our affairs are in a mess and what is worse, no one who matters seems to have the remotest clue about how to go about clearing this mess. The way the army is going about it will only make things worse: affect its professionalism and make the return to democracy more painful.

There is nothing novel or brilliant in what I have said. It is just common sense, and common knowledge, arising for the most part from our own experience. How many times must it be said that we have tried military rule on three occasions previously and each time the country has had to pay a heavy price for it? How long must we keep on repeating the same experiment, how often tread the same well-worn path?

Meanwhile, let there be no mistake about it, the world and even the region are racing ahead leaving us far behind. What, essentially, is Clinton telling India and Pakistan? That we must be sensible and solve our problems not through pretending that they do not exist but through dialogue. When it comes to Pakistan India has blinkers on its eyes. Viewing the Kashmir problem rationally seems impossible for it. But we have blinkers on our eyes regarding a greater number of problems, both external and internal. In the overall competition for the irrational stakes then we seem to have the edge over India.

General Musharraf still has time to carve a niche for himself in our history. Although disenchantment with his rule has already set in, there is still time to make amends and strike out in a new direction. But only just because the shadows are lengthening and any more delay will only drag the present team into deeper waters, making a return to the shore all that more difficult.