Our part of the world is in a state of terrible disorder. In Pakistan, ten people are shot dead while praying in a mosque. Their killers have little reverence for a place of worship or for their victims' piety. In India, an entire train is attacked in which fifty or more are burnt to death. First reports indicate that this madness was driven by religious zeal. In Nepal, the death toll, by last count, is over 400. This is just one week of mayhem between the government forces and some people who call themselves Maoists. Mao is dead in China, both physically and metaphorically, but in Nepal he lives and thrives.

Sri Lanka is hopefully moving towards a peace accord, but in a decade of violence thousands have been killed. This is not about religion, although the Tamils are Hindus and Sinhalese Buddhists. The God being worshiped here is Tamil nationalism. The troubles in Afghanistan are at another level. Twenty years of bloodshed and carnage have turned this beautiful country into a moonscape and its people are scattered in the wind like bits of weightless confetti.

This is the state of our region -- death, destruction, mayhem and turmoil, bordering on anarchy. No one is the hero here, no one role model. Some are less troubled and some more, but none is without pain. Each one lives in a cocoon creating myths to sustain an unreal image of greatness. The reality is less romantic. An exploding population and meagre resources have put a huge question mark on our collective future. Our ruling elites continue to deceive themselves with delusions of grandeur. Lofty rhetoric may relieve some deeply ingrained insecurity, but in the end words are no substitute for reality. We are at war, both within and on the brink with each other.

After a period of relative calm, the sectarian monster has again raised its ugly head in Pakistan. The Rawalpindi incident is its goriest and most recent manifestation. It is not very well known but sectarian killings have been going on for weeks in Karachi. The brutal murder of Daniel Pearl is just an indication of how strong the forces of evil are. While our military is on the border staring down the Indian threat, the real war at home has started. Those who thought that extremism has been routed with one speech on January 12 need to think again. We have a long way to go and the journey has just begun.

We are not the only one in serious difficulty. India is contending with no less than seventy-seven insurgencies or freedom movements. The most well known is in occupied Kashmir with a death toll of over fifty thousand but there are others. Each one is taking a toll, each one exacting a price. Our problems with terrorism pale in comparison with the troubles in Nepal and Sri Lanka. The figures of dead and wounded in these countries boggle the mind. Afghanistan was a failed state much before the Americans decided to bomb it into smithereens. That leaves only Bangladesh and the tiny Maldives. Bangladesh is not in the throes of a hot civil war, but the two ladies are dragging it down with their unending wrangling. Maldives survives as a tourist haven, but it is a widely scattered group of Islands with a very small population. This may be the only reason why it has no internal convulsions.

Death and destruction is only part of the equation. The other is poverty and misery and hunger and disease and just the sheer hopelessness of existence. Pakistan may appear to be better off than some others but its human development statistics are shameful - sixty-three million people below the poverty line, forty odd percent of literacy, growing unemployment, poor infrastructure, bad sanitation and woefully inadequate health services. The rich are living a first world existence while the majority are on the edge struggling to survive. What a bitter harvest of neglect after 54 years of independence.

While we are in this sorry state, visit Bangladesh or Nepal to see the other side of poverty. Last week I was in Kathmandu and to say that I was stunned would be an understatement. The countryside is breathtakingly beautiful with gorgeous valleys and high, snow clad peaks that shimmer hauntingly in the distance. But, the moment you come to a settlement, the destitution and misery is palpable. The infrastructure is either nonexistent or crumbling. Even the best parts of Kathmandu are relatively tame compared with the ostentatious display of wealth seen in our posh neighbourhoods. God knows Nepalese are wonderful people, and I have no desire to run anyone down, but it is depressing to see the state they are in.

Two years ago I was in Bangladesh, for the first time, and the poverty in Dhaka shook me. If you want to understand the term population explosion, visit Dhaka. Tent cities have come up on the sidewalks and human-driven cycle rickshaws are everywhere. Except for a few areas, there is misery and destitution and filth everywhere. We took a boat trip on the 'bori ganga'. It is a large river but it had the colour of a sewer -- the kind of colour you see in the Lahore canal when the water level goes down. Again I am deeply conscious of the fact that I may be offending some sensibilities but that is not the purpose. I am only trying to give some idea of the true state of our region. Of course, in the case of Bangladesh we must share a great deal of the blame. After all it was a part of Pakistan for twenty-four years, and if there is poor infrastructure or a miserable quality of life, we are at least partly to blame.

I have never been to India but I am told that destitution is like an open sore blighting the landscape of their major cities. A large number of people live, eat, sleep and carry out other necessities right in the open and sometime on the side of their main streets. Calcutta, the famous Calcutta, is described by people as one huge slum. Bombay, except for its posh neighbourhoods, is supposed to be no better. In a population of over a billion in India, no less than seventy percent live on or below the poverty line. What is the use of atomic weapons and nuclear submarines and other symbols of a super power, if the country is mired in such dire poverty?

Sri Lanka is better, more orderly and cleaner. There is poverty but its nature is different. A very high degree of literacy means that even the very poor take care to keep up appearances. It is also a very beautiful country with all the advantages of a tropical climate. High rainfall makes the countryside lush green, and the sea all around it makes for beautiful beaches. I am convinced, but for a debilitating civil war, Sri Lanka would have been the role model for our region. And do you know the reason why? It has a literacy rate of close to a hundred percent. This is the one essential difference between Sri Lanka and other countries of the region.

South Asia is being left behind. The elites are too busy beefing up security to fight the troubles within or to fight each other. They do not realise that many of the problems they face inside are a result of poverty. These insurgencies, these troubles are directly related to it. No amount of investment in security is going to solve this core crisis. The recent elections in India are an eye opener only if the elite care to see. The people want the burden of their life to be made easier. They couldn't care less for bombs and missiles and high tech weapons. Or, for a false national honour sustained by sabre rattling.

We neither have oil in South Asia nor do we have a vast reservoir of other natural resources. We only have water flowing in from the Karakorum and the Himalayas and we have our people. They are our oil. Unless we begin to invest in them, we will not go very far.