Thus, the ‘solutions’ that are being pushed are liable to turn out to be merely pro-forma. Others are liable to be worse. One of the problems always is that those who have a particular thing make themselves believe that that thing will turn the trick. Those who have superior technology think that technology will solve the problem — witness Iraq. Those who have money think that money will solve the problem: announcements from Washington suggest that $750 million are to be pumped into the NWFP and FATA to ‘develop’ them; as Jagmohan has documented in the case of Kashmir, as K.P.S. Gill has pointed out in the case of left-wing violence and other insurgencies, we can be certain that the funds will end up with the terrorist groups and will finance the insurgency further.

The other nostrum — ‘modernise madrassas’, introduce science, computers, English — will fare no better. Quite the contrary. As Ajai Sahni writes, such steps will only help close a ‘competence-deficiency’. Today the would-be graduate of these institutions has some difficulty, for instance, in blending into the country he is tasked to target. Having been taught English, being familiar with science and modern technologies, he will be all the better able to use those technologies, he will be better able to blend into western societies for carrying out the operations for which he has been primed.

Hence, there is every likelihood that pseudo-reforms will be pushed, and little likelihood of the fundamental reforms that are required. At each turn, the latter set of reforms will be begun nominally, and soon postponed to the indefinite future. And every step that will be taken to put existing realities to work will only reinforce the current configuration.

... contd.