While the current unrest in Sindh flows from many complex factors, including our inability to forge shared national perceptions, priorities and power, a catalyst was provided by the inexplicable neglect of the water crisis. Despite repeated warnings by the independent media and parallels drawn with the 1970 cyclone in East Pakistan, Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore and the moribund state media appeared unwilling to grasp its explosive potential and the need to reach out to the people.

Even after the ethnic militants had found an emotive cause in the water crisis, Irsa's shenanigans continued and, oblivious to the damage being done to its already battered image and the national fabric, Punjab seemed bent upon winning arguments and more water for itself. It could so easily have undercut the militant propaganda by showing timely and voluntary magnanimity.

Sindh and Punjab ministers were finally "directed" to tour Sindh when, flush from the success of their first water-strike, the MQM-JSQM combine announced a dharna on the national highway on June 10. Nothing was heard of the visit because, in breaking up the dharna, two JSQM activists were shot dead by the police, 55 injured and hundreds arrested on sedition charges. The Chief Executive, when posited the potential fallout of this over reaction, said during Friday's Face the Nation that such things happen in a melee. Administratively, correct. In fact, the protestors were reportedly armed, unruly and traded gunfire with the police. But the situation is loaded with grave political implications. Might it not have been a lesser evil to let the road be blocked for a few hours than giving the militants the martyrs they were seeking?

Sure enough, the dharna killings reminded Altaf Hussain of Jallianwala Bagh and became the pretext for the strike call for last Wednesday. On Tuesday, even as the Sindh officials were verbalising vacuous assurances to the citizens, masked gunmen were running amok in Hyderabad and Karachi. Gunfire and explosions reverberated through the cities, 21 vehicles were torched and two innocent commuters killed by the phantom gunmen - one, a woman, was reportedly burnt with the vehicle she was travelling in.

Thereafter, "success" of next day's strike was a foregone conclusion. Even so, four bomb-blasts in Karachi and sporadic hit-and-run attacks on Wednesday sealed its fate and left the security apparatus looking more hapless than ever. In the current Sindh strikes has climaxed the trend wherein successful city closures are no longer a measure of support for their authors. The Sindh-wide "curfew" imposed on May 28 by the Sunni Tehrik to protest the murder of its leader, Maulana Saleem Qadri, was a special landmark because, unlike the MQM, the Tehrik has no demonstrated mass following. True also of JSQM in interior Sindh.

"Successful strikes" now simply expose the state's failure to offset the dread of the gun-totting goons. General Musharraf was right in saying that 75% of the people closed shop in Karachi for fear, just as he is right that 1% religious zealots are holding the society hostage. But these statistics, far from being an exoneration of any kind, are severe indictment of the state.

It is easy to advise the people to stand tall and call the terrorists' bluff, as General Musharraf did during his Face the Nation talk. But those in the eye of the storm will run for shelter. The security apparatus has to give the people at least an even chance against the thugs for popular resistance to emerge. Presently, the dice is heavily loaded in favour of the terrorists.

So, what is going on in Sindh and, particularly, Karachi? Is it the Karachi-Kashmir linkage being played up before the Musharraf-Vajpayee meeting? The old grand plan moving forward? A reminder before the local bodies' polls of who is boss in Karachi? Or, a mix of all?

Whatever their motives, the terrorists have shown their ability to paralyse the province at will. And, even as the nation agonises over the dangerous drift, there is no formal government statement. Sindh officials have blamed MQM-JQSM, and MQM has as always accused the "agencies."

In his Face the Nation appearance, Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider had said the real issue was not water as Sindh is getting 85 million cusecs against its canal-capacity of 100 million. There was, he said, "some other agenda." He did not elaborate; nor did General Musharraf while criticising the MQM and JSQM and adding that foreign hands were pulling the strings and there was more to the show than met the eye.

But so much has happened in Karachi, with even the murders of Murtaza Bhutto and a national icon like Hakim Said mired in mystery, that the people are unsure what to believe. So, let us not go by official allegations.

Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan has been at the forefront of whatever the unfortunate country has endured at the hands of a self-serving ruling oligarchy of which he is a part. Whatever his failings, he is a democrat to a fault and not prone to screaming "traitor" at the first hint of dissent. So when he gets worried, it is time to take note.

As the MQM was preparing walk out of the Nawabzada-led Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, it demanded that the Lahore Resolution (1940) be made a part of the ARD agenda. This compelled Nawabzada Saheb to complain that MQM's attitude towards Pakistan was tougher than India's; and, having struggled all his life to protect Pakistan, he could not soil his twilight years by supporting this talk of "states" which leaves no room for national integrity.

The eerie similarity between MQM's sudden departure from the ARD and Sh Mujibur Rehman's from the All Parties Conference the Nawabzada was leading could not have escaped him. MQM had been struggling for a year along side the PPP in Nawabzada Saheb's Grand Democratic Alliance to unseat Nawaz Sharif. After the military takeover, it even helped achieve the impossible by bringing the PPP and PML (N) together in an upbeat ARD.

Then, suddenly, MQM began distancing itself from the ARD. Protests over the absence of Altaf Hussain's portrait during a meeting were followed by the demand that both the PPP and PML (N) apologise for alleged atrocities against its workers. Then came the demand that the ARD support a Lahore Resolution-based new constitution - forcing the obviously frustrated Nawabzada to question the price of keeping the MQM aboard?

This was in January 2001. He hasn't changed his mind since. Condemning the dharna killings, he declined to support the MQM-JSQM agitation and cited Altaf Hussain's vow to create a Muhajir Bahini and seek India's help to dub it a separatist movement. He claims to have counselled General Musharraf during their 4-hour tete-a-tete on Thursday that separatism flows from suppressing "patriotic parties," the Sindh situation is very alarming and MQM-JSQM are demanding "water or independence."

If only the choice was that simple! Just as the "Kalabagh dam or Pakistan" slogan had damned the former, Sindh could have all the water it needed. But that, we are told by the Interior Minister and General Musharraf, is not the real issue.

It's all very well to blame foreign hands and hidden agendas, but what is expected of the government is a strategy to combat the threat. So far, the only clue to a "strategy" is yet another anti-terrorism law followed, presumably, by another crackdown. It might work, as General Nasirullah Babar had demonstrated. But, as Ms Bhutto points out, only a democratic government can take on terrorists.

Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar's helpless sighs during the Hardtalk interview on BBC TV are evidence of how difficult it will be to handle international flak. Besides, as the unravelling of General Babar's success suggests, a lasting solution lies in listening to the militants, healing their wounds and winning their hearts. This miracle can only be worked by tolerance, collective thinking and a participatory process which are the essence of democracy.

That being so, crime must begin to be punished. In the present free-for-all between sectarian and ethnic terrorists, and the resulting blood-soaked milieu of fear, the call to surrender arms seems surreal. To mean anything, the de-weaponising exercise needs to focus on the terrorists. They must be pre-empted and punished - though not the messy way Hakim Said's 'killers' were.

The author is a freelance columnist