FOR many years, successive governments in Islamabad have parroted the mantra: “Kashmir is the core issue between India and Pakistan.” But what happens when the core is shaken as severely as it was a fortnight ago? Can things remain the same?

An old friend reminded me recently of the cyclone that devastated the coastline of East Pakistan in 1970, causing up to a million casualties. The slow response from Islamabad caused a backlash against West Pakistan which saw the Awami League sweep the elections later that year. The rest is history.

Manmade disasters like the 1965 and 1971 wars both produced political upheavals in Pakistan, measuring seven plus on the Richter scale. To extend the analogy, military regimes are too rigid to absorb sharp, sudden shocks, much like the stone and block houses that were flattened in the recent earthquake. Tellingly, Pakistan was ruled by military dictators in both 1965 and 1971.

General Musharraf has made the right gesture by offering to open the border along the Line of Control that divides Kashmir and agreeing to restore telephone links. But once Kashmiris can come and go with the same ease as their grandparents did before 1948, will they be content with the status quo being restored in a few weeks? Will they accept a renewed clampdown in telecommunication links? Or will they demand union and a greater degree of autonomy from both New Delhi and Islamabad?

In another scenario, the international community could make a political settlement a precondition for the aid needed to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure. Here, Pakistan would be more vulnerable as it has a smaller economy and a bigger need for assistance. Any foot-dragging in Islamabad would reinforce the current anger in Azad Kashmir where many people feel that they are being neglected and their urgent needs ignored. This impression might be wrong, but in politics, it is perceptions that count.

Just as the movement of the tectonic plates below the mountains has altered certain features of the topography, so too have they changed the political landscape. The flood of refugees to Islamabad, Rawalpindi and other cities in Pakistan will produce an unforeseen fallout, just as the Afghan refugees did following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. To imagine that most people will stay in the biting cold of a Kashmiri winter under tents is to ignore reality. Even under normal circumstances, many Kashmiris move to the plains in winter. Now, with no work and their houses destroyed, one expects tens of thousands of the survivors to seek a livelihood elsewhere in Pakistan.

Another change in our political outlook will be how Pakistanis view the rest of the world. For a long time, we have perceived the West through the prism of historic slights and real or imagined wrongs. Each action that has impinged on the Muslim world has been weighed on the scales of conspiracy theories, and usually found to be to our detriment.

But suddenly, Americans are in our midst as saviours and friends. As Chinook helicopters fly hundreds of humanitarian missions, it gets harder for our fundamentalists to paint their pilots as villains. And as British rescue workers dig tirelessly through rubble to save a few lives, it is difficult to brand them as conniving colonists. The survivors have witnessed their selfless acts for themselves, and will no longer get taken in by our fire-breathing mullahs.

Indeed, as assistance is rushed to the quake-affected areas from across the world, paranoid ultra-nationalists like Hameed Gul will find it difficult to peddle the line that Muslims generally, and Pakistanis specifically, are the victims of a gigantic conspiracy. Victims of a disaster will accept help from any quarter; it is their rulers who can afford the luxury of picking and choosing as they are not huddling in the cold, wet and hungry.

India has responded swiftly in our hour of need. Again, this reaction has exposed official propaganda that has always portrayed India in a negative light. But do our leaders have the vision to seize the moment and build on it? The problem for both governments was always how they would sell any concessions to their respective people. Now that there is genuine sympathy on the Indian side, and gratitude on ours, could President Musharraf capitalize on these human sentiments and strive for the breakthrough that has eluded him and his predecessors for so long? In other regions, disasters have often acted as catalysts in conflict-resolution. Will the killer quake have some positive aspect? Only time will tell.

It is now a full fortnight since the earthquake struck, and many people in the remoter areas are losing patience. Although more helicopters are operating now, the aid getting through is too little, and occasionally, too late. The wounded are dying from infected wounds; soon survivors will begin succumbing to the cold. To add to their woes, outsiders have flocked to the scene to cash in on the relief effort. Horror stories are filtering out, according to which women and children are often victims of human traffickers.

Clearly, the government has a difficult task ahead in providing relief and security at the same time. Civil administration in Azad Kashmir has been largely decimated, and with so many communities still cut off, it is not easy to organize a police force. In a recent encounter in a small town, President Musharraf was told that outsiders were looting relief goods, and cutting off the hands of dead women to rip off their gold ornaments. The president advised the people to “hang these elements upside down.” While it is difficult to fault the sentiment, this is no recipe for the restoration of the rule of law.

One estimate for reconstruction is five billion dollars. It is doubtful that even a generous international community will overcome its donor fatigue and underwrite the gigantic task ahead. The PM has boldly claimed that this tragedy will not affect Pakistan’s economy. But this brave boast will be hard to live up to. If we are to restore the devastated infrastructure and rebuild the thousands of destroyed houses, it will take years and billions of rupees. Surely these resources will have to be released from other areas and provinces.

But if we fail the Kashmiri people, they will live as refugees, their anger and sense of grievance swelling like a boil that, sooner or later, bursts open and infects the surrounding flesh.