Line Control It's going to be quite a home-coming. When the chief executive of Pakistan - and some say its would-be-president - comes to his country of birth sometime in July, the visit will gladden quite a few hearts. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will be caught smiling, for the visit would reinforce his image as a liberal in a party of hawks and prop him up as a statesman. The First World community, led by Uncle Sam, would beam, for it has been prodding the two nations to share a platform for quite a while now. The doves in India, for long years urging India to build bridges with Pakistan, would exult. And even MP Vijay Goel - otherwise not really known for nurturing any fondness for Pakistan - would be happy to be able to pump some government money into his constituency of Chandni Chowk - an area where Musharraf's ancestral home is located. The one with the widest smile, of course, would be the General. Twenty months ago, when he rudely elbowed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif out to take over the reins of power in Pakistan, Musharraf was the bad guy in the neighbourhood. Not that Sharif was anybody's blue-eyed boy either, but it has been pointed out - albeit in hindsight - that he was, if nothing else, the democratically elected leader of the nation. Musharraf, on the other hand, was the man behind Kargil and came to power in an army coup. In July (the dates are still to be finalised), when Musharraf holds a meeting with Vajpayee at the invitation of New Delhi, he is going to emerge as the legitimate ruler of Pakistan. But New Delhi, apparently, had no choice but to bestow the modest title on the General. An insider argues that once the government had a clear indication that Musharraf had no immediate intentions of abdicating power in favour of an elected government, it could no longer postpone talks with Pakistan. When Musharraf took over power in Pakistan, the reaction to the coup was a mixed one. 'I was happy,' says a Delhi-based defence expert. 'Nawaz Sharif had come down so heavily on democratic institutions such as the press and the judiciary, that it seemed as if Musharraf's take-over wasn't such a bad idea after all.'' Musharraf was just what the doctor had ordered for Pakistan's well-heeled middle-class. After the coup, newspapers were flooded with pictures of a smiling Musharraf - cuddling a couple of puppies, walking hand-in-hand with his little grand-daughter, or simply standing by his elegant, saree-clad wife. The press in India played up the fact that Musharraf - one of three sons of an Urdu-speaking diplomat - was from Azamgarh and had an ancestral home in Delhi's Daryaganj. Suave and articulate, he had effectively given himself an aura of liberalism. 'I found him extremely affable,' says journalist-broadcaster Karan Thapar, who interviewed him for a TV channel in Rawalpindi some months ago. So amiable that Musharraf took off his tie and presented it to Thapar after the journalist complimented it. 'My staff told me later that he had smiling eyes,' says Thapar. 'I found him calm and placid, even when I was asking him all kinds of uncomfortable questions.' That the General knows how to woo people is evident. After returning to India, Thapar sent him a letter, thanking him for the interview. 'We do that with everybody, but nobody really replies to the routine letter,' says Thapar. Musharraf, of course, wrote right back, thanking Thapar. But Musharraf's image of a liberal hasn't cut much ice in Pakistan. 'In the last few months, he has more or less erased this image of a liberal man,' says a political watcher in Islamabad. 'He came with a great many promises, but hasn't implemented any one of them,' says Kalim Bahadur, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University's School of International Studies. In Islamabad, Musharraf's habit of going back on his words has sparked some humour. Says a Pakistan watcher: 'The late General Zia-ul-Haq was known as the CMLA - or the Chief Martial Law Administrator. Musharraf is known by the same abbreviation, but in his case, the letters stand for: Cancel My Last Announcement.' When he took over, Musharraf had talked about greater accountability in public life, rooting out corruption and tackling fundamentalism. 'But one of the first things he did was strike a deal with Nawaz Sharif,' says the Islamabad-based analyst. 'And he has been going rather easy on fundamentalist groups,' he says. By all accounts, the people of Pakistan had hoped that the new administration would take the mullahs on. Musharraf even announced at a human rights convention in Pakistan that the government would try to water down the stringent blasphemy law. 'But he went back on that soon after,' the analyst says. Clearly, a lot of Musharraf's recent pronouncements have been aimed at consolidating his own position in the country, and with the clergy. That Musharraf is planning out a future as the President of the country is evident. He has created the post of a deputy chief of army staff for his close associate, General Muzzaffar Usmani. He has also initiated a mammoth multi-phase election at the grassroot level. Right now, the President of Pakistan has to have the support of most members of the 700-member assembly and council. But reports from Pakistan indicate that Musharraf is working on a scheme under which the President would be elected by some 2,50,000 grassroot level local council members. To get the support of the international community, Musharraf has been working on economic reforms. Riding a bankrupt nation, he has launched programmes for bringing in sales tax and substantially widening its extremely narrow tax base. 'The economy is in a shambles. But there is not much you can do when 70 per cent of your budget goes in defence and repayment of loans,' says Bahadur. Musharraf's track record in the last 20 months has not been enviable. Despite tall promises, he hasn't dealt with ethnic strife, nor been able to control rise in crime and proliferation of small arms. And though Musharraf has been talking about bringing in 'real' democracy, his actions have so far stifled it. Last month, when opposition parties tried to organise a May Day rally to press for democracy, he had the entire political opposition arrested. Asked by a newspaper why he had arrested some 2,000 political workers, the General replied: 'We have decided that there will be no outdoor political activity.' The General, clearly, is not finding the going easy. 'Getting on a tiger is easier than getting off one,' says Bidanda Chengappa of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi. 'Dictators seldom have a smooth exit.' In New Delhi, efforts are on to help the General get an effective saddle.