Through all the long-running insurgencies in Asia — in India's Kashmir, the Philippines' Mindanao, and Sri Lanka's north — runs a single, unmistakable theme: the arrogance of the majority and its refusal even to admit that the minority may also have a point of view that, in a democracy, needs to be considered with equal respect. Behind this arrogance is the pseudo-democratic belief that the majority is always right and, by implication, any minority dissidence must be treasonous and suspect.

It's the same arrogance that's threatening to wreck the Mindanao peace process yet again. After 40 years of bloody conflict with Muslim rebels that has left more than 120,000 people dead and millions displaced in the southern island of the Christian-dominated Philippines, peace had settled on the ground and an International Monitoring Team (IMT), led by Malaysia, had been supervising talks between the national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), not on separating from the country that had been the rebels' original demand, but on widening the ambit of autonomy and recognising a Bangsa Moro ancestral domain.

But early this month, many of the Malaysian members of the IMT left and others are likely to leave soon, making people wonder if hostilities are going to erupt again. The Armed Forces of the Philippines says it's keeping itself ready. Positions on the two sides of the fence have hardened since last December, with MILF demanding that the domain issue be settled at the International Court of Justice and the government insisting on a national referendum. Caught in between, international monitors feel they have little to do.

It's a pity, because an earlier peace deal with the main Islamic faction, Nur Misuari's Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), has already established an Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The ancestral domain as MILF sees it will mean adding only about 1,000 more Muslim-dominated villages to ARMM, by no means too big a price to pay to buy peace that the Philippines badly needs to stabilize its economic future.

ARMM, consisting of all the Muslim-dominated provinces of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, was established in November 1990 and a peace agreement was signed with Misuari in 1996. Soon thereafter, the then Philippine president, Fidel Ramos, started peace talks with MILF, which had broken away from MNLF on the Bangsa Moro issue. But three years later, actor-turned-politician Joseph Estrada, who succeeded Ramos as president, ordered a Rambo-style war against the rebels, dealing a body blow to the peace process. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Estrada's successor, picked up the peace thread and IMT came to be established in 2004, but now it's evident she doesn't have the courage or the will to accept a simple demand.

As the issue drags, fears of a new flare-up become increasingly real, and if the lid blows, the gut reaction of the government in Manila would be to reply with force. It's true that Filipinos are a tolerant people and we don't hear of the kind of communal rioting that are common in our country, but they don't quite like the fact that they have to shell out for Muslim Mindanao's economic survival. Almost 98 per cent of ARMM's operating revenue still comes out of Manila's coffers and there's an acute lack of development.

That may be the reason why a section of politicians is seriously looking to find a third way to solving the Muslim question, skirting the two obvious paths that have been followed so far — military reprisals and peace talks. A resolution is now before the Philippine Congress that seeks to redraw the country's political map, eliminating its existing 81 provinces and reinventing it as a conglomerate of 11 federal states, including a federal state of Bangsa Moro. What encourages the proponents of the idea, led by Senator Aquilino Pimentel, is the fact that Moro leader Nur Misuari isn't averse to it, though Misuari prefers a four-state set-up, instead of 11 proposed.

The idea stems from a realisation that mere autonomy won't solve the Muslim question — ARMM has practically been a non-starter — nor would the use of force (the last big offensive only led to the creation of another armed faction, the Abu Sayyaf). There has to be a political reorganisation of territories on a more viable economic basis. For example, a federated Bangsa Moro state could include richer territories from beyond strictly Muslim areas, without compromising Muslims' political autonomy but ensuring a better economic standing.

Nobody knows if the idea will fly since there's too much to sacrifice and agree to. But if it does, it could set an example for other countries facing similar internal problems, not necessarily involving religious minorities alone. In one form or another, it could certainly apply to the current unrest in West Bengal's northern districts or in India's northeast.