Beena Sarwar: Just to add to that. In most of Pakistan, Taliban are not at all popular. People of Pakistan do not adhere to Taliban’s brand of Islam. There is widespread resentment and disagreement with them. The problem is that our army has always been indoctrinated to fight with the Taliban, with the jehadi forces which have now morphed into Taliban. To make a u-turn now is a bit of problem.

Saeed Minhas: This monster has been growing up in our backyard for the last 30 years. We were calling them the Mujahiddin, the liberators with the American backing us. In the process, our land has become a land of proxy wars. We are fighting all sorts of wars -- the intra-religious war within Islam, Chinese and American wars of strategic interest, etc. We are getting punches from all sides and sometimes we don’t know who is hitting us or why. The majority of people are not against the liberal forces. They are actually against Talibanisation of the state, state institutions. But unfortunately our state has been complacent, successive governments, especially.

You in India are lucky to have a stable democracy. Every second year we wonder whether we will have a mid-term poll or military intervention. When that sort of situation emerges in a society, that society becomes depressed. And when we are depressed we cannot find a solution. Our leadership, the political leadership specially, has got so much stick from around the world. But the chief of army staff and the chief of ISI, are now at least saying that they are not supporting the 30-year old mantra of what is called the `ISI agenda’ of pan Islamism or spreading Islam. At least the top leadership is saying it is no more with that. For 30 years, these people have been living with that agenda -- we can’t root it out of the entire ISI or the army within a month or six months or even six years. The army doesn’t have the vision that needs to run a country but somehow it is the only institution in Pakistan which is intact -- at the cost of all the other institutions. It has sapped the energy of all the other institutions.

... contd.