This is with reference to the article Useful Instability (January 31) in which the author has asserted that to achieve long term stability we crave, Pakistan has to pass through an interim phase of instability in order to consolidate the gains and move towards genuine progress. And that the shortcuts taken towards maintaining stability actually undermine the desired end objectives. A decentralised Pakistan is certainly an attractive proposition in the current political chaos and polarised societal trends, where coalitions may dominate the political space. But if coalitions switch parties on a regular basis to ultimately be able to lead towards a spirit of cosociationalism, as implied by the author, then the current political regime ought to have surpassed all the previous governments. If a shared power structure accompanied by a messy situation is the long term plan that we should aim at, then how does one establish that the messiness created is of the right type? And that it is the true formula for permanent stability? In this backdrop can one assume that the six-decade long mess both on the political and economic quarters is leading to a permanently stable national climate?

It is certainly not advisable to apply the Indian political model to Pakistan as there is nothing that the two nations share apart from certain linguistic features and geographical location. Considering the current political chaos, permanent peace is greatly desirable and the concept of political tolerance through a shared power structure is certainly the need of the time, but this does not necessarily have to be reached after chaos, prolonged or otherwise. What we need are short term stability plans that would reverse the dangerously permeating wave of pessimism and gradually morph into long term permanent ones. The entire population and the well-wishers of Pakistan are certainly ready to wait, but for that they have to be given the hope that the path adopted is the right one.

LUBNA UMAR

Islamabad