Pakistan is once again under the jackboot of the military it has nurtured for long at a cost well beyond its means. This is less a break in than a continuation of its story in which short spells of civilian rule have been mere interruptions in a succession of governments run by generals. In the present case, warning signals of an army coup in the making had been heard some time ago. It was the Nawaz Sharif government?s nervousness over the shadow cast by coming events, conveyed discreetly to the Bill Clinton administration, which made the United States resort to the unusual course of warning the army that overthrow of a duly elected government would not be acceptable to it. That the sacking of the army chief, General Parvez Musharraf, triggered the coup is no surprise. The surprise is that, though he was absent from the scene at the precise moment the army took over the television station and placed the prime minister and his colleagues under custody, the operation was carried out with great elan, without a shot being fired. The seizure of power could not have been so smooth if it had been an impromptu affair. Apparently, there was a contingency plan which was put into action meticulously as soon as the corps commanders in Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi knew that the fateful moment they had been waiting for had at last arrived. A bigger surprise was the way Nawaz Sharif let himself be taken for a sucker despite his knowledge of the conspiracy. Or his awareness of the sad fate of every civilian government that risked a confrontation with the military in a nation where the balance between civilian and military authority had tilted decisively in favour of the latter back in the Fifties. On the strength of his two-thirds majority in parliament, the deposed prime minister had managed to cut the presidency down to size, subvert the judiciary, tame a large section of the media and stifle the opposition. Having got away with dismissing the previous army chief, he thought he could foil Musharraf?s plans with implicit US backing. This grave miscalculation turned out to be his nemesis. He sought to put Musharraf on the wrong scent by extending his term of office. But the general was too smart to be taken in by this ploy. He knew that the prime minister was in fact trying to divide the army so that he could play one group of corps commanders against the other. What Sharif failed to realize was that the army prized its unity above everything else since loss of cohesion would deprive it of the enormous political leverage it had enjoyed all along. The prime minister tried to outsmart Musharraf who hit back with the support of all the corps commanders. There is no point in scanning too closely what Musharraf told his people on television about his future plans. Such addresses are designed by military dictators as a rule less to reveal than to conceal their aims behind a screen of stock sentiments, all too transparent subterfuges and tired cliches. His claim, ?this is not martial law?, can only make many people raise their eyebrows and ask by what other name do they call a regime set up by an ousted general who seizes power with the backing of the armed forces. The general would like the world to believe he has merely put his benighted country on ?another road to democracy?. If the situation were not so grim, the phrase reeking of chicanery could have been dismissed as a crass joke. But how many Pakistanis will have the nerve to laugh in the coup leader?s face? The ominous phrase, ?another road to democracy?, raises more questions than it answers. Is there a road map? Does anyone have an idea of how long or tortuous it is? Many of the coup leader?s critics in the West including Clinton feel sore that he has failed to lay down any timetable for restoring democracy in his country. But even if he did prescribe the time it would take him to complete the journey along the new road, what is the guarantee that he would abide by it and give up his ambition, unlike those who played the same game before, to hang on to power? He apparently distrusts the entire political class. How else can one explain his decision to exclude politicians of whatever stripe from the six member national security council which will run Pakistan under the new dispensation and be manned entirely by military bosses and bureaucrats? How long it will take to reach the destination along the yet uncharted road to democracy can be only a matter of hunches. But judging from precedents, the journey may be pretty long and painful. The road General Ayub Khan mapped out ended in a so called basic democracy made to the army?s specifications and involving no transfer of power to the people. General Zia-ul Haq?s reign began with a promise of early elections which soon dissolved into thin air and was translated into a dictatorship lasting 11 years. When democracy arrived on the scene gingerly, all it did was empower leaders of elected governments to loot the nation. Their main achievement was not to break the nexus between the military and the bureaucracy but to subvert the very institutions that could effectively check abuse of democratic power. It is no use wondering why few people came out on the streets to protest against the murder of democracy. The voters had given Sharif a two-thirds majority in parliament which in effect meant a mandate even to amend the constitution in any way he liked. What they got in return were a stagnant economy, a drastically devalued rupee, spiralling prices putting even many daily necessities beyond the reach of the poor, a much higher level of sectarian conflict, dried up foreign exchange reserves and a climate hostile to investment. What reason had they to feel sorry for his ouster from power when the country is still licking the wounds inflicted by his consistently gross mismanagement of its affairs? But this does not mean they are so daft as to take a man like Musharraf at his word or believe the military establishment will rid public life of corruption or that it has ready cures for the many ills that affect Pakistan?s body politic. The military is itself tainted by some of its leaders having made huge profits out of the illicit narcotics trade ? that also partly explains their close links with the taliban which continues to control the larger part of Afghanis-tan with their active help. Those who know Pakistan?s history in some depth have good reason to feel the bloated military establishment the country can ill afford far from being able to solve its problems is at the source of many of these. Yet there is no choice for Pakistan but to lump it and suffer military rule for a long period unless army leaders in their arrogance go further than the Sharif government in alienating the people. Or embark on an adventurist course in defiance of world opinion. Tracking down the illicit wealth stacked away by a whole lot of corrupt politicians may earn them some popularity in the short run. Their staying power will, however, depend on their ability to pull Pakistan out of the morass into which it has been pushed by a government covered in sleaze and to put an end to inter-ethnic and sectarian violence. Nowhere is the military known for its talents in managing a country?s affairs with celerity. There can be nothing more puerile than asking the new government in New Delhi whether it will be prepared to deal with Pakistan?s military regime. What choice does it have in the matter? It cannot change the compulsions of geography and has got to do business with its neighbours irrespective of who is in charge of their affairs. It was anxious to resume the process ? begun at Lahore, tragically interrupted by the Kargil war ? of building more cordial relations with Pakistan, provided a propitious atmosphere for positive talks was created by the other side by putting an end to crossborder terrorism. The same condition holds good today. The promised reduction of troops along the international border provides little comfort in view of Musharraf?s renewed commitment to back militants to the hilt. New Delhi cannot ignore the way the US?s and the European Union?s loud demand for restoration of democracy has lost some edge by Clinton?s commendation of the conciliatory tone in Musharraf?s speech. Clinton has missed the flagrant irony of a military dictator imploring the taliban to set up a representative government in Kabul. Musharraf may not be able to persuade his proteges in Afghanistan to heed his advice. But it is within his means to reduce forces along the line of control in Kashmir and put a stop to crossborder terrorism. These two actions are the acid test of his good intentions. All India can do is to keep its fingers crossed as it monitors every move of the Musharraf regime and every step, hesitant or otherwise, taken by the West to come to terms with the changed political scene in a nation that can easily turn into a rogue state.