It is good journalism, but Ms. Tavernise needs to go just a tad further back in the region's history, to trace the antecedents of the power structure and its correlation with the current situation. What the British did to the two countries, India and Pakistan, by "partitioning" them, was criminal. Families were torn asunder by the hundreds of thousands; landowners, traditionally at the top of every power structure, had to convert to Islam or disavow any relations with anyone in Pakistan respectively, if they wanted to retain their land and power. Just like the British feudal system, either the younger son, or his best friend or close family, became the local Mufti (priest). Hence, controlling the populous was easy. The Sindh province is analogous with Gujarat State in India - the Punjab province similarly, works with Indian Punjab and the rest of Northern India - then there was East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Every form of local, regional and religious issues color the politics of the people in both countries, Pakistan and India, and what used to be a cohesive union, has become the worst mess conceivable. The Kashmir Issue, while it existed, was never this bloody or this virulent before the “Afghan Jehad” against Babrak Karmal and the Russians, and the very generous aid provided by the United States. The Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, etc. did not exist before then, either. There were certain areas in India for instance, where no one wore hijab or burqas. Towards the middle and end of the 80’s things changed radically, and families of Hindus and Muslims, who would break their fasts during the Rozas (Muslims) and Devi Poojan (Hindus, prior to Dussehra) together, or ate off the same family platter to celebrate Eid, to denote their centuries of love and unity, all of a sudden became strangers, if not enemies. And this happened more in Gujarat and Maharashtra, specifically Bombay. But if you ask the people of either Punjab, what they thought of each other, you would hear anything, from the sentimental, the nostalgic to the quite inhumanly painful stories of the “Partition” days, or their “golden childhood”. We joke that everybody who came from the Punjab Province to India, boasted of their acres and acres of land, their jewelry, and the servants that used to do everything for them. And everyone who ever came from Bangladesh had so much that their homes had coconut, date and mango trees, surrounding them! The claims were always absurd and always painful. No, the folks from that region do not discuss Lebanon or Palestine – their beefs are more local; Kashmir, the lack of water (when India turns off the spigot in the north), their displeasure with the aid being given to either side by one Super Power or the other, Kashmir being the biggest of all made up issues. It obviously never occurs to anyone, that doing so, is only deepening already deep wounds on both sides. While all the Islamic rulers of India entered the country through Kashmir, most notably the Mughals, one of whom described Kashmir as Heaven on Earth. Kashmir also happened to be ruled by a Hindu Prince, whose family did so for ages, with the complete blessings of both, the Mughal rulers and the British; that region has some of the holiest shrines of the Hindu religion; and most ironically, the Nehrus were Kashmiri Brahmins. This issue is malignant – there is no solution to it that will make anyone happy, and it has existed approximately from the same time (India was given independence in 1947) as the creation of Israel in 1948. If you go to Lahore, you will find that Wahabis and Deobandis notwithstanding, the general population is happy to be moderate. Elsewhere, you hear of all kinds of strife and stress, the need to develop sufficient weapons as to keep India at bay. India will rather have hungry and sick people, and develop their own weapons without foreign assistance, first to prove that there aren’t better brains than theirs, and then to retain its superiority – this kind of thing is heavily popular during elections, just like they are in America – the Republicans have won how many elections now, thanks to their being more macho than the Democrats? This region is as much subject to its history and needs (real or imagined) as the United States is, to its own perception of reality. In order to know the countries and their citizens, in some cases denizens even, because civilization remains so far from their lives, Ms. Tavernise will have to study the people a lot longer and way more in-depth.