Lemmings, a kind of rodents of sub-arctic regions, are known for jumping from a cliff in blind rush to follow each other. The 170 million Pakistanis seemingly have the same tendency, of rushing headlong behind their leaders over the precipice for a mass suicide. The analogy is being invoked to condemn the almost suicidal silence of the nation and its leaders on the issue of Kalabagh dam, the only large storage of the sweet river waters we can immediately construct for our desperate and dire need of irrigation and generation of cheap hydel power. Moments have come in human history when apathetic subjects have blindly followed their visionless leaders into the sea like the Pharaoh destroyed by God. This is one such moment when we Pakistanis are rushing headlong towards the edge of the precipice of 21st century. Hunger and famine would surely follow to finish us as a respectable sovereign nation. -DR. MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTI, Lahore, via e-mail, April 21.