The outsider

Indian diplomacy has often been tested in balancing this countrys hospitality to political emigres and its objective of improving relations with its neighbours. Just ask old China and Burma hands. But even the hardiest veteran has to have been astonished by the challenge of fielding a visa request from Pervez Musharraf,formerly the all-powerful ruler of Pakistan for nine long years,for most of that time simultaneously its president and army chief.

The times have changed,and the retired general inhabits a lonely patch in London,keeping at a safe distance the hostility of the judiciary and new political establishment back home. Of late he has been seeking to revive his relevance by launching a political party,separate even from the Pakistan Muslim League Q,the so-called kings party and pointedly named the All Pakistan Muslim League. And being himself,through it all,the former president has been freely commenting on everything to do with Pakistans internal and external affairs,revealing insider details of his tenure and offering a running commentary on events in Balochistan

and Afghanistan alike. However,reports suggest that he was denied a visa to India to attend a conference on account of the concern that a large number of his supporters,too,were planning to be around,and could have used the occasion to attack the current political dispensation in Pakistan.

Musharraf,of course,has visited India after he ceased to be president of Pakistan. But this wariness of his new political avatar must be a whole new experience for him,in many ways. Its interesting. Could it be that Musharraf,who dismissed the post-Zia years of democracy under Benazir Bhuttos and Nawaz Sharifs rule in the late 80s and 90s as a dreadful decade,is now feeling the dilemmas of the political outsider? Could it?