In fact, the process of crumbling seems to have already started. As well-known author Ahmed Rashid has said, the situation in Pakistan is “dire” because the radicalization of society after Salman Taseer’s murder has become “hugely disruptive”. Yet, the government appears helpless before the fanaticism, which has now infected large sections of the middle class, while the army remains “hypnotically obsessed” with India, as foreign secretary Nirupama Rao has noted.

As the extremists become bolder with the government’s retreat and the marginalization of the liberals, their first interest will be to take control of Pakistan first before spreading their jehad outside its borders. By the time the army wakes up to the grimness of the situation, it may be too late in the sense that much of its energies will be spent in checking the militants. It will not find it easy, however, to do the job with any degree of efficiency.

The reason is that, first, it will be hamstrung by its long association with anti-Indian terrorist outfits and, secondly, by the possibility that the jehadi orientation in the military’s own ranks will hinder an all-out offensive against the bigots. To quote Rashid again, the army is currently “deeply concerned” about the Taliban’s “increasing power”, especially because of the fear that sympathy for the militants “are penetrating the security services”.

What the resultant volatility will imply is that neither the terrorists nor the army will have much time for India. They will both be too preoccupied with filling the vacuum caused by the government’s decline to carry out another 26/11. Their preoccupations will not only be with India, but also with the changing scenario in Afghanistan, where the scaling down of the American ground presence will make them pay greater attention to formulating their future strategies. Again, as a result, India may experience a period of respite, however brief and filled with tension.

Pakistan’s breakdown will mean that China will have to reassess its policy for the region. It will have to rethink its present line of militarily and psychologically boosting its all-weather friend and needling India. If Pakistan starts to fall off the map, Beijing will realize that not only will its six decades of using it as a counter-weight to India come to naught, the chances of the terrorists infiltrating Xinjiang to join their Muslim Uighur brothers in their uprising will increase. And if China is forced to crack down on the Uighurs in its usual brutal fashion, its relations with the terrorist-friendly Pakistan Army will come under strain.

The latter, too, will have to reconsider its options. For a start, Pakistan’s decline may lead to even greater strikes inside the country by the American drones than at present. With the growing clout of the terrorists and marginalization of the liberals, Washington will be less worried about anti-American sentiments being spread by the air raids. This will mean that the Pakistan army will no longer be able to contemplate any act of adventurism vis-à-vis India a la Pervez Musharraf’s Kargil incursion or a wider conflict.

The main concern in such a situation where Pakistan will become another Somalia is the fate of its nukes. But it is fair bet that the Americans will take them out before the conditions deteriorate beyond repair. Israel, too, may play a surreptitious part in such an operation. Notwithstanding the inevitable turbulence, Harold Gould of the Center for South Asian Studies in Virginia University, has said, “let the holocaust happen”, but only keep its effects confined to Pakistan. For India, a state of lawlessness in the neighbourhood will be an unsettling experience, not least because there is bound to be a refugee influx because of the turmoil, as from East Pakistan before the creation of Bangladesh.

But, as in 1971, New Delhi can facilitate the process of another partition of Pakistan along the lines suggested by a former US ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill. His idea was that the US should focus on reviving the Northern Alliance of the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, which was once a powerful force under Ahmed Shah Massoud before he was killed by the Al Qaeda in 2001, and let the Pashtuns control the areas in the south on both sides of the Durand line. The only problem is that the violent upheaval will mean the destruction of Mohenjodaro and other ancient sites of the Indus valley civilization, which marked the dawn of Indian civilization. (IPA Service)