Finally, perhaps most optimistically, this crisis is a wake-up call for Pakistan’s elites that the whole paradigm in which they have seen Pakistan’s place in South Asia is transformed.

The nature of the crisis in Pakistan suggests that it cannot be dealt with by traditional security discourses. It is about different visions of Pakistan: this is, at least in part, an ideological war. The fallout of the situation in Pakistan will have immediate security implications. India will have to be vigilant to minimise its own vulnerability to attacks. There is not much it can do. It is unfashionable to say so. But India must keep an eye on the larger ideological war and not become focused exclusively on what has become a war of the dossiers. The fundamental issue remains the same: an obsession with a particular conception of borders, the politics of identity and beggar thy neighbour policies, have brought all of South Asia to a precarious turn. These limiting premises keep pushing us into the same cul de sac. The tragedy is that the Manmohan-Musharraf framework, one attempt to alter these premises, remained largely confined to the level of states and was never deeply articulated at the level of public opinion. That historical task will still need to be carried out; when, is not clear. Only Pakistan can save itself; but what is at stake is larger than Pakistan itself.

The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi

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