The Taliban had been handed over some areas in Pakistan legally, such as the Swat valley. In the areas close to the border with Afghanistan, the writ of Islamabad never ran even in the past and the people there show a closer affinity with the fundamentalists.

The Taliban march towards the hinterland of Pakistan has also begun. Southern Punjab has long been home to many ‘celebrated’ Islamists who revere the likes of Osama bin Laden. The so-called elite in Punjab and Sindh is reportedly worried about the intrusion of the Taliban in their palatial homes. They have a good reason for this fear. Their government has just played another charade with them by declaring that the Taliban have ‘withdrawn’ from Buner, 100 km from Islamabad, because of the threat of military action.

That claim sounds hollow for two reasons. One, most Pakistan watchers are of the view that the Taliban have not really went back into oblivion or melted into the crowds in Swat, their strongest fort, but only retreated into the nearby mountain heights. A strange claim made by some officials in Pakistan is that the Taliban from Swat has gone back from Buner but the ‘local’ Taliban still roam the streets.

What really is in doubt is the will of the Pakistani establishment to fight the Taliban, the cancer that the US says will devour it if it is not killed now. A thing that many may not have noticed is that throughout the recent drama about the arrival of Taliban in certain ‘settled’ and other parts of Pakistan there was no credible army action to push them back. If there was, it was only a retaliatory one by Pakistan army after its men were killed by the Taliban or other militants. Even more intriguing was the fact that the military action, few and far between as it may have been, came at the army’s own initiative. There was no report that the civilian government in Islamabad has ordered action and the army has responded to it.

But it could not have been otherwise when the army in Pakistan has always remained above the executive and has never taken orders from the civilian government. If anything, the army dictates certain policies to the civilian government, particular the India policy.

The army’s interest in arresting the march of the Taliban must be very narrow because there is an overwhelming support in the Pakistani military set up for the fundamentalist outlook of the Taliban type forces. At least from the days of late Zia-ul-Haq, there has existed a clear nexus between the army and the Mullahs.

Most analysts seem to agree that the Taliban may not really be interested in running the day-to-day affairs of Pakistan; they are more keen to see the country shed its few pretensions to modernism that the fundamentalists say are inspired by western values. This is an arrangement that suits the army as well as the so-called civilian leaders as both will retain the lordship—at least on paper—over a geographically defined territory.

In the spirit of give-and-take, the Taliban might even allow the rulers, civilian and uniformed, to maintain a façade of a regular civilian government, which, of course, will look the other way as the Taliban gradually convert the country into a Sharia heaven.

For India, Pakistan became a Taliban haven long ago. After all, what does a ‘Talibanised’ Pakistan mean to India? Large-scale infiltration of jihadis and a government in Islamabad that believes that ‘democracy’ is for infidels and the latter must be wiped out to herald ‘peace’ on earth.

Only the blind, deaf and mute in India will believe that Pakistan will stop infiltration of terrorists it trains into India. It did not do so in the past when it was under the direct rule of the army, and it will not do so in future as it clashes with its ‘bleed India’ policy.

Saquib Moinullah Shah, a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist, a Pakistani national from its NWFP region, captured in Kashmir, is the latest Pakistani to confirm that the army in the land of the pure aids and abets the infiltration of terrorists after they are given arms training that lasts from 18 days to 90 days. His arrest was reportedly a mater of huge concern for the Indian security set up. That may be the usual media hype because there was really nothing in his disclosure that was not known to the Indian security forces, or, for that matter, the Indian government.

Even the recovery of loads of arms and ammunition during the course of the operation that led to the arrest of Shah and killing of some of his companions could not have been a surprise. The ‘heavy ordinance’ that this particular group of over 100 Pakistani terrorists carried consisted of 30 AK-series rifles, 480 grenades and 13,000 rounds, 32 kg of explosives, five grenade launchers. That does not sound like a heavy load for a group of 120 that included ‘guides’ and people who cut through the snow to clear the path for the march of the terrorists.

The surprise is the fact that Pakistan continues to send large groups of armed men with impunity into India. The captured terrorist has said that the Pakistani army provided them cover while they were crossing over into India.

His ‘confession’ cannot be dismissed as a lie because Indian security forces have plenty of ‘pictorial’ evidence to prove that the Pakistani army backs and pushes the terrorists into India. The Pakistanis could not be oblivious of the fact that the spy cameras will detect the entry of the terrorists into India. If they still keep pushing them in, it shows that, for India, Pakistan will remain—well, Pakistan, an implacable foe. A Pakistan more formally under the Taliban will be no different.

The danger from the Pak nukes falling into the hands of the Taliban will increase, but for India this danger has existed from the time Pakistan embarked on the nuclear path with blessings from the US and China. There is no reason to suspect that India will not be able to handle that threat merely because it comes from a different form of ‘government’ in Islamabad.

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