The urban middle classes, which welcomed Musharraf as a saviour, has become increasingly critical. The two main political parties, the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League, which had remained sullen in the early years of Musharraf, have galvanised themselves into drafting an unusual joint charter for democracy for Pakistan. Keen to hold on to his uniform, the main source of his power, as well as the President’s post, for which he must be re-elected next year, Musharraf appears determined to appease the regressive forces rather than the democratic and modernist political forces at home.

India will surely be concerned with the fact that Musharraf has chosen to deal with the Baloch nationalist cause and a former top establishment figure like Bugti, who was Senator, Interior Minister and Governor of Balochistan, with extreme force while meekly surrendering to the Taliban and the religious extremists in Waziristan. New Delhi will also have reasons to worry about the impact of the fire in Balochistan on the stability of South West Asia. Although sparsely populated, Balochistan is a large territory that connects the sub-continent with Afghanistan and Iran.

Failure to address the aspirations of the Baloch people has also complicated the Pakistani plans to exploit the geo-economic significance of the province. All projects to bring natural gas and build energy pipelines from either Iran or Central Asia into Pakistan and India depend on peace in Balochistan. The unrest in Balochistan, which holds considerable reserves of gas, has come to highlight the absence of a genuine framework of federalism in Pakistan. Islamabad’s effort to develop the Gwadar port on the Makaran coast of Balochistan with Chinese assistance has also ran afoul of Baloch national sentiments.

... contd.