Quotes of the Day

When I made a reporting trip to Pakistan's rugged Baluchistan province in 2004, I expected to encounter strong feelings against the central government in Islamabad. Baluchistan was in the grips of a low-level insurgency, with tribesmen demanding greater autonomy for the province. Just days before my trip, a roadside bomb in the Baluch fishing village of Gwadar had killed five Chinese engineers working on Pakistan's premier development project: a massive new port. So I was surprised to see children in Gwadar playing cricket in replicas of the uniforms of Pakistan's national team. In fact, the only hostility I encountered was from aggressive undercover security agents who questioned me rudely and threatened to seize my camera.

Afterwards, a shop owner, overhearing me complain on the phone about my treatment, invited me to his home for lunch. "The army is disrespectful to us," he said. "They take away our young men and beat them for no reason. We are Pakistanis, but they treat us like foreigners." And so, in his opinion, did the central government. "None of the work on the port has gone to people from Gwadar," he added. "They are spending billions of rupees on it, but they have not even built us a proper hospital." Like the children playing cricket, he seemed to consider himself very much a Pakistani. But he resented Islamabad's heavy-handed approach and the troops it deployed to enforce its policies. I left Gwadar with new sympathy for the Baluch and their desire for more say in their affairs.

Two years later, the insurgency in Baluchistan has grown. And last week's announcement by the army that it has killed Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti is a sign that the military has failed to understand that its belligerent tactics only make matters worse. Bugti was a rebel leader and a member of an oppressive class of tribal chieftains who control much of Baluchistan as their personal fiefdom. But he was also a former governor of the province and a respected elder to many Baluch. His death, which has triggered unrest and rioting in Baluchistan, is symbolic of our government's refusal to address the grievances of large numbers of Pakistanis who feel ignored and marginalized by Islamabad's policies. The Baluch, for example, believe they do not receive a fair share of the revenues from the natural gas produced in their province.

I was originally opposed to the 1999 coup that brought the President, General Pervez Musharraf, to power. But after 9/11 and the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, he seemed to offer a steady and in some ways liberal hand during a period of great uncertainty for Pakistan. Under Musharraf, we have witnessed rapid economic growth and a soaring stock market, a liberalization of private media outlets, and the resumption of a peace process with India. But that sense of hope is now fading. One of the legacies of seven years of rule by the army chief is a Pakistan that has become deeply divided.

The fissures are visible at multiple levels. The most obvious example is that of attack helicopters hunting down rebels in Baluchistan and the tribal areas of our northwest frontier?rebels who are our fellow citizens. But equally dangerous is the chronic failure of our provinces to agree on new dams essential to meeting our future needs for water. Or the inability of our society to channel dissent into debate, an inability that means the publication of cartoons in a newspaper in Denmark is able to provoke not just a response in our own newspapers but also riots that transform our cities into virtual battlegrounds. The failure to bridge such divisions is particularly dangerous for Pakistan as a country with myriad ethnic and religious groups. The rich-poor divide feeds the waves of crime rocking cities like Karachi, and the ideological war between Sunni and Shia Muslims fuels domestic terrorism.

What Pakistan needs is compromise: between provinces, between religion and secularism, between the desire for growth and the imperative to check inflation, between us and our neighbors. But a government led by a President in a soldier's uniform has proven ill-suited to striking compromises. So we must try the alternative: a return to democracy, with its inherent horse trading, messiness, and false starts. Such a transition will not be without risk, and many Pakistanis are frightened by the potential for instability. But the alternative, a continuation of the status quo, in which our President lacks the legitimacy that comes from having stood in a fair election and large segments of the country feel unrepresented by the state, is even riskier.

The first challenge, of course, is to convince Musharraf to stand down at the end of his current term and allow the elections scheduled for 2007 to be free and fair. He would do well to bear in mind that the people of Gwadar want jobs and a hospital, not army checkposts. No matter how many tribal chiefs are killed, in this the people of Gwadar will never be alone.

• Mohsin Hamid
• Pakistan's increasing polarization can be cured by democracy