When Mohammad Ali Jinnah called for Direct Action Day, rivers of blood flowed in Kolkata in unprecedented riots. Jinnah should have been promptly arrested on charges of disturbing public peace and given a sentence of rigorous imprisonment, but he was spared.

The British wanted him for their own nefarious purposes of breaking up India. Similarly, when Mossadeq sought to nationalise the money-making oil fields of Iran, the Americans managed to have him removed and installed the Shah on the throne. But when he was ultimately thrown out, the Americans did not even have the decency to let him come to New York for medical treatment and he had to be rushed to Cairo where he died, unwept, unhonoured and unsung.

When the western powers led by the United States wanted to displace the influence of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, they financed Pakistan to train and equip the Jehadis and the Taliban to keep Russia away from access to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean while claiming all the while that it was merely trying to save Afghanistan from Communism.

A bigger lie was never said. The largescale establishment of Madrassahs was encouraged and Saudi Arabia, too, lent its financial help. Violence was supported without the slightest hesitancy; the ISI became the right arm of the CIA.

The Americans thought they were clever; but now they are paying for their sins. What one sows, one reaps. But the trouble is that India has become a victim of the ruthless Jehadis, for no fault of its own. In Pakistan Musharraf was supported with money in billions of dollars and muscle, to get rid of the very forces which he once so fondly helped raise and grow.

He, too, is paying for his folly. He has already lost Waziristan for all purposes. His writ does not run there. Waziristan has become a state within a state. And for all one knows Baluchistan will follow suit. The Baluchis hate the Punjabis.

Pakistan in the circumstances ultimately will become a state only in name, consisting of two provinces, Sind and Punjab with the loyalty even of Sind in doubt. In such a situation can Musharraf last? According to Imran Khan, the Cricketer-turnedpolitician, Musharraf will not last beyond September 2007.

According to Stephen P. Cohen of the Brookings Institute and author of The Idea of Pakistan, "the United States is paying lip service to a regime that is collapsing before its eyes and may yet turn truly nasty". As he put it, "the great danger is that this time around, Pakistan may not have the internal resources to manage its own rescue".

"And if that is the case" he added, "then, in years to come, a nucleararmed and terrorism-capable Pakistan will become everyone's biggest foreign policy problem". And who is to blame for that? Two countries; Britain and the United States which for centuries now have been using Muslims for their own selfish purposes to dominate the world. We don't have to take Imran Khan seriously.

If Musharraf goes, another Army poodle will be chosen by the US to run the country. The Americans are good at that and they will not have the slightest hesitation in either retiring Musharraf or getting him out of the way by hook or by crook, China or any other country notwithstanding.

For America what counts is American interest, not the welfare of Pakistan. Have the Pakistanis any say in this matter? On the issue of reinstatement of the virtually dismissed former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammad Choudhary, the people of Pakistan triumphed.

Musharraf was humbled to his knees. Chaudhary's reinstatement by his own colleagues by a 10 to 3 majority was egg on his face. Pakistani youth apparently are also turning away from terrorism, if a song by a group of Pakistani Pop stars that says; hamein jis naam se tum jantey ho, woh hum nahein. (we are not that by the name by which you know us), which has become popular, means anything.

But that said, the Army will just not wither away. When Frances Townsend, homeland security adviser in the Bush administration turned up the pressure on Islamabad a notch by stating that unilateral US strikes against suspected Al Qaeda or Taliban targets inside are on the table, the Pakistan Armed Forces bristled with anger.

If the USA crosses the Laxman Rekha, Islamabad will have nowhere to turn to except China which may not be over enthusiastic to help, considering that jehadis are getting active in its Xinjiang province which has a large Muslim concentration. The only way to put Pakistan in its place and reduce the all pervading power of its Armed Forces is to slowly castrate it by denying it both financial and material assistance.

Of course, one can't rule out the possibility of the Pak Army itself coming to the realisation that it was willy nilly to make way for democracy by a systematic withdrawal from politics. That, as Cohen has stated "would involve heavy investment in the quality and competence of the civilian elite".

Yet another way to bring Pakistan to its senses is to tell Islamabad that it had better accept the present line of control in Jammu & Kashmir as an International boundary and cease pestering India. The Pak Army must, after six decades, come to accept the fact that Jammu & Kashmir is a part of India and nothing can change it, now and for ever.

What keeps the Pak Army going is this refusal to accept reality. Musharraf has tried all kinds of tricks One can't blame him for that but when Pakistan comes at last to accept that neither terrorism nor efforts by ISI to break India through a hundred cuts will enable it to achieve its aim, peace may come not just to South Asia but more specifically to Pakistan itself. Simultaneously, if it wants to make its mark, it must put an end to the Mullah Raj for all time, as once Turkey's Kemal Ataturk did to great effect.

Women must be saved from their thralldom and madrassahs must be for ever closed, for Pakistan to become even a Class B power in the 21st Century. This should be a selfimposed task and not dictated by outsiders.

One does not know fully what was the nature and content of the talks held between Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf recently in Saudi Arabia but one can believe that a demand was made by Benazir that Musharraf must shed his uniform to remain President a demand Musharraf is unlikely to accede to.

Can Pakistan, in the circumstances, survive? It has two options; one to continue to be a poodle state to the United States and China and the other to come to terms with India on Indian terms. Musharraf may or may not survive having already had half a dozen attempts against his life. But whoever come to power in Islamabad, they must realise that it is in Pakistan's interest to accept India's hand of friendship and first and foremost, dismantle the ISI; ultimately to form a South Asian Federation.

That is the lesson of the past six decades of turbulent history and if the Pakistani people haven't learnt that yet, they have learnt nothing. Pakistan's future lies with Delhi and not with Washington or Beijing, a point that cannot be stressed enough.

Our peoples have lived together happily in the past. They can do just that in the future as well.

Courtesy: www.samachar.com, August 23, 2007