It’s been over half a century that we lost our Eastern wing. The cataclysmic event has since been debated ad infinitum – often drawing parallels with the situations obtaining here at the time. Lately, due to developments within, this comparison has assumed more relevance. Indeed, no two cases were exactly the same. Geographic anomaly for example, that played a significant role in separation of our Eastern wing, does not exist in the present-day Pakistan. But then physically congruous countries too have imploded. British India, for example, was one. No harm therefore to look for similarities that might seem uncomfortably close.
Disaffection of people alone was not likely to push a people away from their homeland. In East Pakistan they were not even in majority but the estrangement was serious enough for the public to celebrate parting of the ways. Ratio of alienated Baluchis must be high enough to sustain unrest for seven decades. Pashtuns are so deeply integrated into the mainstream that their breaking........