16 December: The inauspicious date that the extremism-diffusing military establishment has etched into Pakistan’s history

Islamabad: The two major setbacks that Pakistan suffered on 16 December – first the country’s inglorious dismemberment and the birth of the sovereign Bangladesh in 1971, and then the grisly and repugnant massacre of over 130 children of an Army-run school in Peshawar by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2014 – both trace their roots to the oppressive, intrinsically flawed, and largely self-serving policies pursued by the country’s military.