Pakistan is a frightened state. It is frightened because it is hardly a state. Forget the fact that Islam could not keep in its religious fold, East and West Pakistan together. The day Bangladesh was born in 1964, MA Jinnah’s theory that Hindus and Muslims formed two separate nations died a natural death. In recent months the Two-Nation-Theory (TNT - a very apt acronym) has been further blown to pieces. Islamabad’s writ does not run in North West Frontier Province. As of now that same writ does not run in Balochistan either. Pakistan accuses India of supporting the Balochi independence movement. But the 29 year old Bramdagh Bugti, a grandson of the murdered 79-year old Nawab Akbar Bugti, ex-Chief Minister and Governor of Balochistan brushes aside the allegation saying it is meant to discredit the indigenous Baloch struggle for independence. The Nawah was killed, assassinated is the right word, in a military operation ordered by the former Musharraf regime.

The Balochs have not forgotten that. To mark that killing, on August 29, the third anniversary of that murder, the Baloch people went on a rampage, blowing up several gas pipelines and electricity pylons. Ten people were killed. Earlier in April this year, the Islamabad regime had ordered the abduction and subsequent murder of three more important Baloch leaders with massive following, including Ghulam Mohamad Baloch Chairman of the Baloch National Movement (BNM). The decomposed bodies of these three men were discovered a few days later. This led to a massive reactive killing by Baloch insurgents of Punjab settlers in the province, mostly school teachers and government officials. Islam, to be sure, is not a unifying force as Jinnah believed. Many other forces come in the picture like ethnicity, language, dress and deportment, The Baloch insurgents, according to Pakistan‘s ‘Daily Times’ have warned fellow Balochs to give up their jobs in the Pakistan Army, the Frontier Corps and the Police. According to ‘Daily Times’, the underground Baloch Republican Army recently kidnapped 22 policemen in Nasirabad District and killed them. Efforts made by the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to pacify the Balochs reportedly have failed: though three armed Baloch groups had unilaterally announced a cease-fire. In recompense they asked the withdrawal of Pakistani Security Forces from Balochistan release of ‘hundreds’ of political workers and ‘missing persons’ and an end to the construction of military cantonments in Balochistan, of which there apparently are several. More, Baloch activists burnt Pakistani flags and hoisted their own flag of an independent Balochistan over major educational institutions.

The underground Baloch groups have threatened to kill anyone who removes those Baloch flags or even resumes singing the Pakistani anthem at schools. It is in this contest that one must view the latest Indian government reports articulated by no one less than Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh,  that India must watch out for renewed jihadi attacks from Pakistan, Islamabad obviously wants to divert world attention from the grim situation in Balochistan and shift the focus on Kashmir. Nobody is fooled. Pakistan as a state is now reduced to a joke and it speaks for the fears of the Pakistan Army that it may be subjected to an Indian attack and therefore has to increase its nuclear arsenal. Not surprisingly It has also been modifying US supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles for use against land targets in India, in clear violation of the US Arms control Export Act.

The United States has also accused Pakistan of modifying American Made P-3C Orion aircraft for land attack missions, yet another violation of US law. But Obama is not willing to face the truth and the Pakistanis are cashing in on the US President’s weakness. The more the prospects of a complete collapse of the Pakistani state, the more likely it is that Islamabad will target India, the one country that it hates beyond all reasons. And India must be ready to face Pakistani lunacy. It should not surprise anybody if Pakistan, in a desperate measure to save its face and the disreputable ideological base for its very existence decides to attack its neighbour in sheer despair. One must remember what Jinnah pompously declared in August 1946 that ‘we shall have India divided or we shall have India destroyed’.  Jinnah, wherever he is, surely must be weeping to see that in the last sixty odd years it is Pakistan that has got divided and it is Pakistan, again that is on the verge of being destroyed whereas India is thriving.

That is Divine Justice with a vengeance. There is no way anybody - whether the United States or China or even Saudi Arabia - can save Pakistan. It is presently on a self-destruction binge from which there is apparently no going back. History and the natural demands of time, demand the collapse of Pakistan as an unnatural state that has no place in any map. Jinnah’s Two Nation Theory was an anachronism in the first place and was an unjustified imposition on South Asia. Now that is being exposed. All that India can do now is wait and see. Pakistan’s days are numbered and the United States has just no idea how to react. It needs Pakistan’s help very badly but the latter is not in any position to provide it. The United States is damned if it continues to give Pakistan both military and economic help; it is equally damned if it doesn’t. And Islamabad knows that only too well and is cashing in on America’s dilemma.

But is the final breakup of Pakistan in India’s  interests? Won’t a  broken Pakistan be a greater menace to India with a likely exodus of many Muslims back to their ancient homes they once left in search of an Islamic paradise? There are many in Sind who have never been accepted and who would, given a chance, be happy to return to India, just as those Bihari Moslems living in despair in Bangladesh, unaccepted and unwanted. Pakistan is an unnatural state and should, in the first place, never have been created. It was a monster state created to cater to one man’s ego supported by Britain and the US for their own strategic needs. India must now be on the alert. It must now plan it own strategy on how to handle a Pakistan that is slowly but inevitably crumbling. Pakistan was created in a hurry. It is now breaking up for all the world to see. Does India have a plan to face an emergency that is unrolling right in front of its eyes? Think it ever, Prime Minister. The next quinquennium would be the most dramatic in South Asia’s history.