SOFT TALK: Musharraf said last week that Pakistan would not allow terrorist activity in PoK

For so long the war was rhetoric, and in reality a faraway idea despite the military mobilisation on the border. No longer. First the assassination of the All Party Hurriyat Conference leader Abdul Ghani Lone in Srinagar. Then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's chilling call to the army: be prepared for a "decisive fight". Now ordinary Pakistanis are smelling war.

The stock market crashed 70 points on May 22; since the militant attack at the Kaluchak army camp in Jammu on May 14, the Karachi Stock Exchange has lost 16 per cent of its value, wiping out billions of rupees in built-up capital. The threat of war is reverberating in newsprint as well. By Wednesday, evening newspapers in Islamabad, prone to sensationalism at the best of times, were predicting the break-out of war within 48 hours.

READY: Pakistani Army personnel man an anti-aircraft gun at Karachi port

The Government, on its part, went into overdrive. President Pervez Musharraf met with his Cabinet, the National Security Council, journalists and politicians-ostensibly to chalk out a strategy to deal with the threat on the borders. In a turnaround from the complacency that existed a week ago, he declared that the situation at the border was "grim" and closer to war than at any time since December 13 last year.

The deployment of the 6th and 39th Mountain Divisions of the Indian Army in Srinagar has put paid to the recent prediction that India would pull back its troops from the border. "The movement of the eastern army divisions to the western borders of India points to the fact that India really is preparing for war," says a military commander. Ordinary Pakistanis, though tired of an almost continuous state of siege since September 11, are not backing away. "Karachi is very far from Kashmir," says Kashif Hanif, a mechanic from Karachi's Orangi slum. "But if the Indians do anything to Pakistan, we will also fight for Kashmir," declares this clean-shaven 22-year-old who, in a back-to-front baseball cap, is a far cry from your average fanatic.

The political opposition to Musharraf-united under the banner of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and the Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal-refused to meet the president for consultations. However, all parties issued a joint communique asking India to desist from "any aggression against Pakistan", and ARD chief Nawabzada Nasrullah has declared support for the Pakistani Army in case of a war.

The public mood to a large extent is conditioned by the media. "India's response has been arrogantly negative and self-righteous," said Dawn in an editorial on May 21 after Pakistan's high commissioner to Delhi was expelled. Many in Pakistan also see the upcoming elections in Kashmir as an attempt by India to "hoodwink world opinion" about the situation there. "Attacking Pakistan will not solve India's problems in Kashmir," says Arif Mughal, a Kashmiri activist in Muzaffarabad.

The Pakistani military brass is now bracing itself for "some sort of action" from India. Diplomatic activity has also been stepped up. Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar has been in touch with diplomats in the European Union. Islamabad has kept UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan updated and there are reports that it might approach the UN Security Council. "If hostilities do break out, there will be immense pressure on India to accept international monitors along the Line of Control," says a Foreign Office source.

More optimistically, there are signs that Musharraf's Government may finally be ready to change a decade-long official military policy on Kashmir. A senior journalist who attended a consultative meeting with the president in Islamabad said that the General seemed to be attempting to elicit support for the change, which would in effect mean preventing militants from crossing the Line of Control. "It seems that the Americans and the Europeans have told Pakistan that for war to be averted, guerrillas going across must be stopped," says the journalist, who asked not to be identified. And it also seems quite clear that the decision to act on this has already been taken. "General Musharraf told us that the western powers have said they would know immediately if practical steps are taken and that he believed them. This, I think, is a direct result of an assessment which concluded that American pressure by itself would not be enough to stop India from waging war. The military seems finally to realise that a war is not worth it."

History, though, speaks differently: realism has never been Pakistan's virtue.