Is there no invention in us, nothing remotely akin to imagination in the power corridors of the Islamic Republic? These are not irrelevant questions considering our national propensity to walk, every five or ten years, the same paths that have been trodden so often before.

Can the nation not be spared the referendum whose finer points are currently being considered? It's not a very original idea. In varying forms of absurdity it was tried by those two 'avatars' of Pakistani nationhood: FM Ayub and Gen Zia.

As legitimacy-conferring devices referendums are beloved of military strongmen. So easy to fix, their great virtue lies in their one-sidedness. An affirmative answer to a question trickily worded means a mandate for the strongman in question.

The 1984 referendum conducted by Gen Zia was in a class of its own. An affirmative question regarding Islam meant that you were supporting Zia as president for the next five years. More embarrassing than the loaded question, however, was the dismal turnout. When Gen Zia appeared on television to thank the nation for the trust reposed in him (some joke this), he had to reach more than once for his handkerchief to wipe his nose, the first time he appeared so nervous on camera.

Gen Musharraf's wizards want to spare their hero the same embarrassment. So, from what one hears, they are trying to word the questions to be asked more intelligently. Do you support the action against extremism? Are you for stabilizing the economy and protecting the 'reforms' already initiated? If you do, Gen Musharraf will be president for so many years. So much for our powers of invention.

Nothing of course will affect the main chance. Barring divine intervention, Gen Musharraf is going to be around as president for as long as he fancies. Or for as long as the winds hold up for him. This much we know, this much has been declared, by none other than the Generalissimo himself. The only thing remaining to be settled is regarding details and methodology. How to make the referendum exercise look respectable and not the farce to which it could so easily descend?

The will of the Pakistani people is not being consulted. It is being anticipated. Anything less that a 97% 'yes' turnout is unlikely. So here's a safe bet: if and when a referendum is held - assuming of course that better sense does not prevail - Gen Musharraf will touch the same heights of popularity President Hosni Mobarak of Egypt regularly does in his elections.

This was the man - Gen Musharraf, that is - who was considered without ambition when his loyal generals, now scattered here and there and no doubt thinking wanly of the vicissitudes of fortune, seized power for him on that action-filled evening of October 12, 1999,(how long ago that seems). To anyone who cared to listen, his aides would say that the General would depart at the appointed time. But what is the appointed time? Not long ago it was three years, thanks to the indulgence granted by the Supreme Court. Now with the knives being sharpened for the referendum it appears to be stretching into the remote distance.

But if not Musharraf, ask the middle classes, who else? Surely not a return, they exclaim in horror, to those inept titans, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif? On these middle class guardians of the national interest, the institutional argument is wholly lost.

Gen Musharraf's person is not the point. Although a dictator, he is a relaxed person who has presided over a relatively benign dispensation. The canard being spread by some Pakistani newspersons in the United States that his regime is preparing to tighten the screws on the press is based on no evidence. The press has been more free under Musharraf than at any time during the last 40 years. While being critical of what is wrong, we should not be stinted in our praise of what is right.

Pakistan's predicament centres around the failure to preserve or create enduring institutions. Every five or ten years we find our political system derailed. Then we have to begin from the beginning, preparing for a journey that never seems to start.

This is Pakistan's special curse, immobility, remaining fixed to the same spot. Ayub's problems 40 years ago, those of Yahya and Zia later, are the same problems which haunt Gen Musharraf today. How to acquire the fig-leaf of democratic legality? How to hold 'safe' elections without the outcome spinning out of control? How to make democratic form co-exist with authoritarian substance? Times have changed, the world has raced ahead, but Pakistan remains stuck in the past, the same ghosts sitting at its table.

Not that Pakistan itself is a benighted place, condemned to confusion and darkness. In many respects (the odd church incident notwithstanding) we are better off than most countries around us, including the country with which we compare ourselves the most: India. There is poverty here but compare it with the poverty to be found in India and Bangladesh and if we are not totally bereft of heart or judgement we'll be grateful for the land we have, with all its headaches and problems. We are carrying the burden of over two million Afghans, many of whom have merged seamlessly into our society. Bangladeshis come here to seek employment. And while millions of our compatriots in their turn have gone abroad to seek greener pastures, for them home will forever remain Pakistan.

If there be people who are inclined to question the genesis of Pakistan, let them take a fresh look at the communal carnage in Indian Gujarat. If anything puts fresh emphasis on the two-nation theory it is the organized massacre of Muslims there.

Secularism is a concept bandied about by the Indian elite. It has done nothing to eliminate the atavistic passions which lie close to the surface of Indian life and which led Muslims to kill Hindus and Hindus to kill Muslims at the time of partition in 1947. Of course there are Muslims who have made it big in Indian cinema and the other arts. But for every Ustad Amjad Ali Khan there are a thousand if not more Muslims who live daily with the reality of communal animosity.

Leaders and intellectuals talk big. But their opinions do not affect the passions of the mob or of the lumpen elements who make up the crudity of any nation - western or eastern. More horrifying than the images of the actual carnage in Gujarat were the faces of individuals caught on camera spreading death and destruction. Study those images carefully and you will be struck by their sub-human - or, if this be too emotive a word, their under-class - quality, the dregs of humanity intoxicated by a momentary feeling of power. If such passions are on the loose, high-sounding ideals spouted by the elite classes make not the slightest difference.

Every country has its sub-human categories. But where the weight of civilization is heavy, these categories are kept in check and allowed to vent their fury in beer-drinking, football and occasional vandalism. India's misfortune is two-fold: (1) its veneer of civilization is thin, and (2) given its numbers, it has the largest lumpen population in the world. Hinduism and Hindutva are just excuses. As long as that huge lumpen mass with its prejudices and narrowness remains, any spark will start a fire.

So let us be grateful for the country we have. It is not resource-rich, this being a myth we keep repeating, but it has a few assets - principally, land, water and a people inured to privation and hard labour. If put to good use these can enable us to stand up and, in time, smash the begging bowl whose making has been thus far our most striking achievement.

No, Pakistan is not a failed state. It is its leaders who have failed it: a succession of figures who would not seem out of place in a rogues' gallery.

The sad thing is that if Gen Musharraf's referendum idea is any guide, our leaders still seem hell-bent on repeating history and putting a fresh gloss on the disasters of the past.