The rains are here with a vengeance. One moment we are suffering the ravages of draught and praying for rain. The next, we are mourning the death and destruction wrought by the opening up of the heavens. We are neither prepared for lack of water nor for a prolonged deluge. God tests us in more ways than one.

This is the fate of nations not focused on the needs of its people. In Rawalpindi the nullah Leh has been causing destruction for a long time. People die, houses are swept away but nothing stirs in the corridors of power. Banal statements and trite photo opportunities is the response of the elite. The moment passes. We move on to the next photo op. Nobody remembers the suffering until a year or two later when it happens again. We go back then for an action replay. The drill has now been well perfected.

The same or similar story can be repeated for other cities and towns and villages of Pakistan. Death, disease, hunger, poverty and natural calamities are constant companions of the people. They feel the cold and they feel the heat and they suffer the heavy rain and no rain at all. And they

have no jobs or jobs that pay next to nothing. They have hospitals, somewhere around, that are an insult to the concept of care, and schools that do everything but teach. They drink contaminated water and wade through the mountains of garbage piling around them. For them tomorrow is not a fresh dawn but another day to suffer, another day to endure. No wonder some give up hope and seek the solace of an early death.

The elite meanwhile marches on. They see death and destruction, poverty and suffering, because it cannot be avoided. But seen from the inside of an air-conditioned car, it is like a bad movie that has no relationship to their reality. The reality of constant temperatures, clean enclaves, and healthy food. They have hospitals nearby that care and schools that rival the best in the world. When they get together, there is much hand wringing about how bad things are and how much better it would be to move to some safe haven abroad. Then it is time for the next movie, or the next golf game, or the next party. The best, for them, is yet to come.

This is a land of stark contrasts, there is very little in between. This is the way it was when the British, with their notions of class-consciousness, left us. This is the way it has been for the last fifty-four years. I am not saying that things have not changed. For one we are over 140 million now and were around 30 at the time of independence. For another the appearances of modernity are more in evidence. Roads, televisions, cars, electrical appliances etc are much more than before. But, the essential equation has not changed. A small class of the rich rules over the vast majority of the poor. This has not changed.

This stark contrast in what is called the quality of life also means that the priorities of the elite and the poor are so completely different. The elite worries about global imagery, regional power and security, fundamentalism, paucity of entertainment, and keeping the poor away from their door. The poor worry about food, clothes, jobs, disease, lack of education, and the environmental hell in which they live. There is much mouthing of populist slogans by the elite, only to get the attention of the poor. In actual terms, the gulf between the two agendas, of the rich and the poor, is unbridgeable.

Since the poor have no power, the agenda of the elite has always taken precedence. The notion that Pakistan has become a national security state is not the figment of someone's fertile imagination. It is a reality. The term national security state basically signifies that our number one priority has been defence and everything else has been secondary to it. The same week that nullah Leh has caused so much destruction in the neighbourhood of GHQ, we have unveiled the new main battle tank, Al-Khalid. I have no idea how much has been spent on Al-Khalid. It must be millions and millions of dollars. During the same period, how much has been spent on the training works of nullah Leh?

If security is our number one priority, it would be stupid to argue that Pakistan does not require a main battle tank. We not only require an MBT, we also require the one billion dollar submarines that we have bought from France. We also require modern fighter jets to have parity with our adversaries. We, needless to say, had to have a nuclear weapon because India had developed one, and it was a danger to us. These are all self-evident truths, if you look at the reality through the prism of security.

The reality looks very different if you suffer the ravages of poverty on a day-to-day basis. It is bound to look different if you see your children die because of lack of medicines or lack of food. Do we remember that horrific story about someone in Gujar Khan who murdered his entire family - wife and small children, because he could not feed them anymore? Tell this person, or a million others who are facing the basic dilemmas of existence, that we had to spend over 17 billion dollars to develop nuclear weapons because we needed to feel secure. Or, that we need to spend hell of a lot more just to develop delivery systems for these weapons of mass destruction.

Some may feel that I am drawing the distinction too sharp between the needs of security and the fight against poverty. Not for a moment am I saying that this is an either, or, situation. But just look at the statistics. We have unveiled a poverty alleviation

programme of three billion rupees. This money is for the entire country. During the same period, just the instalment we are paying on the submarines could be ten billion rupees or more. Is there any balance between the expenditure on poverty alleviation and only one item of defence purchase,

the submarines? When you put into the

same kitty, the other gadgets of defence

that we spend on, the imbalance becomes vivid.

The needs of security are self-evident, the need to fight poverty is self-evident. How do we make the correct choice? We obviously need to reduce the threat to our security so that we can divert resources to the poor. One way to reduce the threat is to build our war machine to match any other. This is what we have done so far. The other way is to seek peace. Not just a cosmetic peace but a durable and sustainable peace that would allow us to actually start concentrating on the needs of our people.

It is for this reason that Agra has been so disappointing and post Agra is so depressing. There was an opportunity for peace that both sides let slip through their fingers. Both the leaders are busy earning kudos from their confrontation lobbies for sticking to their stand, for not giving an inch. The elite's blood is up, their emotions on a raw edge. They are determined to stand up to each other. President Musharraf is a hero to us, Vajpayee to them. So it goes, round and round. The heroes change, the mantra remains the same.

Meanwhile, back in the cities and towns and villages of Pakistan and also of India, the poor wake up every morning to the prospect of another bleak and depressing day. The burden of history that President Musharraf referred to in his banquet speech during the summit is not carried by the elite. Their life goes on as merrily as before. It sits heavily on the shoulders of the poor. Will this ever change?