Pakistan: The Big Society

All the local and family ties that you could possibly imagine, but with little or no State. Do we really want to end up like that?

India deserves credit for the commonsensical call to deal with the "Taliban", who have no existence apart from the Pashtun in general, who are old Indian allies. But as for the ISI's backing of "Islamist militant groups" or what have you, sooner rather than later, and at least arguably already, what else will Pakistan have? Especially if she is to be sandwiched between India and the restored, Indian-backed "Taliban".

No wonder that the "Taliban" are open to this. The scholars at Deoband strongly rejected Jinnah's two nation theory. So did plenty of other people: just as there have always been more Irish Catholics in the remaining United Kingdom than the entire population of the 26 Irish counties that seceded, so there have always been more Muslims in India than the entire population of Pakistan. And they were right.