Comments on Haq's Musings: Introspection of Pakistan's Creation

Here are excerpts of India's DNA story on Ayesha Jalal's interview in Jaipur:

One of Pakistan's most acclaimed historians, Ayesha Jalal bemoans the fact that history as an academic discipline has failed to grow in her country, a deficiency that needs to be addressed to spawn a new breed of scholars in the subject.

A professor of History at the Tufts University with as many as seven books to her credit, the Pakistani-American who is an authority on South Asia has chosen to return to Pakistan as a visiting scholar to help address the gap in her own way.

In India to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival, Jalal told PTI during an interaction why she felt that the academic growth of history in India had contributed to the development of a worthy scholarship in this country.

"Of course, there are biases and political agendas too, but India has continued to teach history, as a result of which you have historical scholarship coming from India," she said.

"I was bemoaning the fact that in Pakistan history has suffered as an academic discipline, and is not taught as is the way in India," she said.

Jalal's books include 'The Sole Spokesman' and 'Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia' ?" works that have tried to trace the history of the subcontinent including the origins and the tortured legacy of the partition.

She has also co-authored Modern South Asia: History, Culture and Political Economy with her husband Sugata Bose, a book that is considered perhaps the first joint exercise by an Indian and a Pakistani in dissecting the history of modern South Asia.

A grand niece of eminent Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto, Jalal returns to Pakistan from her base in the United States as a visiting professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).

"In my own modest way, I am trying to address this issue by teaching history in Pakistan," she said.

The author, whose last book 'Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia' traced the discourse on jihad in South Asia over centuries, strongly believes that the Taliban has lost support among the people and that Pakistan is a country that is politically more resilient than many would believe.

"The Arab Spring has reinforced the fact that the people are prepared to take up structures of state. In Pakistan, despite military regimes, no ruler has survived more than 11 years, forget about 30 or 40 years. I think Pakistan is politically more resilient than many people believe, all it needs is a chance," she said.

However, she believes the issues ?"- of pervading injustice and inequity -- that have contributed to al qaeda'a rise will have to be addressed to put an end to violence.

The emergence of Imran Khan on Pakistan's political horizon has made many people take note of the former cricketer's potential, and Jalal feels it has a lot to do with the prevailing disenchantment and yearning for a change.

"There is a lot of disenchantment in Pakistan, there is anti-incumbency what Indians know very well. Imran Khan's popularity has much to do with it. People are looking up to him for a change," she says.

http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/report_pakistan-needs-to-breed-more-historians-ayesha-jalal_1641153

Here's an Op Ed in the News criticizing of Nawaz Sharif's Aug 13 speech at SAFMA:

Nawaz Sharif’s speech on Aug 13 at the Safma seminar “Building Bridges in the Subcontinent” continues to make waves two weeks later. Media attention has focused mainly on some of his observations which seem to question the basis of Pakistani nationhood. These remarks have caused surprise and consternation even among some long-standing supporters of the PML-N, which claims to be the successor of the party which led the Pakistan movement in pre-partition India. Hardly anyone from the top ranks of the PML-N, apart from the newly appointed spokesman, has sought to defend the party leader’s verbal escapade.

Pakistan and India, Nawaz said, had the same culture and heritage, ate the same food, spoke the same language and shared the same way of life. Despite the many things the people of the two countries had in common, he said, they were now separated by “a border”.

Even when allowance is made for the fact that Nawaz was addressing a mixed audience of Pakistanis and Indians on building bridges between them – in itself a totally desirable enterprise – his statement is offensive. And it is untrue because, though the Muslims and Hindus lived on the same soil for centuries, they inhabited two different spiritual worlds. Nawaz was in fact repeating many of the points made by the Congress Party of India – and refuted by the Quaid-e-Azam – during the Pakistan movement.

Almost as outrageous as Nawaz’s assertion about the Indians and Pakistanis having a common culture is his assertion that they worship (pujte hain) the same God. The Quran says something very different in Surah al-Kafirun: The believers worship not that which the non-believers worship, nor do the non-believers worship that which the believers worship. Nawaz should also know that the Muslims do not perform puja, as the Hindus do, but ibadat.
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Nawaz’s political judgment – never very sound, as seen in his selection of Musharraf as the army chief and then in the ham-fisted manner in which he tried to fire him – has been warped further by the trauma of his overthrow in 1999 and subsequent forced exile. That may be understandable at a human level. But such a flaw can be fatal in a national leader. If Nawaz cannot overcome this shock, he should return fulltime to his family business and leave politics to others.

The Indian government and media are delighted, and understandably so, at Nawaz’s Safma speech. But so also is a small section of the Pakistani media and “civil society” which labels itself pretentiously as the “liberals”. The newly coined English word lumpen-intelligentsia would be a more appropriate description for them. One of them, a star TV commentator, claimed last week that 99 percent of the people of Pakistan agreed with what Nawaz said. The remaining one percent, whom this analyst dismissed as the thekedar (self-appointed guardians) of the two-nation theory, were itching to nuke India, as he claimed. So much for objectivity and informed analysis.

Pakistan and India should indeed give up confrontation, learn to live as peaceful neighbours and try to build bridges of understanding. But denying the foundations of Pakistani nationhood, ignoring the threat posed by India and abandoning the Kashmir cause is certainly no way of going about it, as Nawaz seems to think. If he does not retract the unfortunate remarks he made on these issues, it is to be hoped at least that others in his party would disown them.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=65244&Cat=9

Here are some excerpts from a Wall Street Journal review of a recent book "Great Soul" on Mohandas Gandhi's life by Joseph Lelyveld:

Joseph Lelyveld has written a generally admiring book about Mohandas Gandhi, the man credited with leading India to independence from Britain in 1947. Yet "Great Soul" also obligingly gives readers more than enough information to discern that he was a sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatical faddist—one who was often downright cruel to those around him. Gandhi was therefore the archetypal 20th-century progressive intellectual, professing his love for mankind as a concept while actually despising people as individuals.

For all his lifelong campaign for Swaraj ("self-rule"), India could have achieved it many years earlier if Gandhi had not continually abandoned his civil-disobedience campaigns just as they were beginning to be successful. With 300 million Indians ruled over by 0.1% of that number of Britons, the subcontinent could have ended the Raj with barely a shrug if it had been politically united. Yet Gandhi's uncanny ability to irritate and frustrate the leader of India's 90 million Muslims, Muhammad Ali Jinnah (whom he called "a maniac"), wrecked any hope of early independence. He equally alienated B.R. Ambedkar, who spoke for the country's 55 million Untouchables (the lowest caste of Hindus, whose very touch was thought to defile the four higher classes). Ambedkar pronounced Gandhi "devious and untrustworthy." Between 1900 and 1922, Gandhi suspended his efforts no fewer than three times, leaving in the lurch more than 15,000 supporters who had gone to jail for the cause.

A ceaseless self-promoter, Gandhi bought up the entire first edition of his first, hagiographical biography to send to people and ensure a reprint. Yet we cannot be certain that he really made all the pronouncements attributed to him, since, according to Mr. Lelyveld, Gandhi insisted that journalists file "not the words that had actually come from his mouth but a version he authorized after his sometimes heavy editing of the transcripts."

Although Gandhi's nonviolence made him an icon to the American civil-rights movement, Mr. Lelyveld shows how implacably racist he was toward the blacks of South Africa. "We were then marched off to a prison intended for Kaffirs," Gandhi complained during one of his campaigns for the rights of Indians settled there. "We could understand not being classed with whites, but to be placed on the same level as the Natives seemed too much to put up with. Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized—the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live like animals."

There is deep cynicism today, particularly among t...

2010-08-17T10:50:06.764-07:00

There is deep cynicism today, particularly among the secular liberals in Pakistan, about the two-nation theory and the whole idea of partition in 1947.

To put the reality of life in Punjab prior to partition, let me share with you some data that clearly shows how the "tangible benefits" were shared between Hindu-Sikh minority and Muslim majority:

From "PARTITION OF PUNJAB" by Dr. Kirpal Singh (1988)

1. Landholdings 65% non-Muslims the remaining by Muslims

2. Electrical Connections: Muslims 74,790 and non-Muslims 81,525

3. Tax paid for urban immobile property:
Rs. 924, 358 by non-Muslims &
Rs. 396,189 by Muslims

4. Sales Tax :
Rs. 519, 203 by non-Muslims &
Rs. 66,323 by Muslims

5. Out of the 97 banking branches only 7 were run by Muslims.

6. Of the Rs. 100 crore bank deposits only 1 crore belonged to Muslims

7. Out of 215 factories in Lahore 167 were owned by non-Muslims

8. Total investments Rs. 6.05 crores Rs. 4.88 crores by non-Muslims

9. OUT OF 16 COLLEGES ONLY 3 WERE RUN BY MUSLIMS

10. Out of the 40 High Schools only 13 were run by Muslims

11. Candidates appearing for University examinations only 28.51% were by Muslims.

12. Several Public libraries and hospitals established in the Lahore were by non-Muslims

13. Of the 5332 shops in Greater Lahore 3501 were owned by non-Muslims

14. Of the 80 Insurance offices, only 2 were owned by Muslims

15. Of the 12 Arts & Science colleges in Lahore only 1 was run by Muslims

16. Of the 15 professional colleges, excluding 3 run by the Govt, all were run by non-Muslims

17. Of the 12 hospitals NOT EVEN ONE WAS RUN BY MUSLIMS.

18. Rationing enumeration: Muslims (53.9%), Hindus (34%), Sikhs (10%) & others (2%).

Muslims in undivided Punjab had very low standards of living relative to Hindus and Sikhs, they were poor and backward, and there was no Muslim professional or business class as there is now.

Although I haven't seen any data on it yet, I bet similar situation prevailed in Bengal and Sindh as well. And I can bet development never touched the lives of the Muslim provinces of NWFP and Baluchistan either.

I dont think India is non-secular at all.. How can...

2009-12-24T05:30:51.434-08:00

I dont think India is non-secular at all.. How can you say that when you have a Sikh occupying the highest Chair in India. There is however animosity between Muslims and Hindus. But, Muslims have a long history of either being the victims when in minority or ruthless when in Majority(Example:Pakistan).
Secularism in India is a deeply embedded when you look at the 2 most popular mediums in India- Hindi Film Industry and Cricket.
I've never seen intolerance when it comes to these popular mediums and especially in Cinema. People watch Protagonists who are mainly from the Minority Community(Muslims) are loved by all and are given cult status by ordinary people. Is there any chance of this kind of thing happening in Pakistan?
Or,can Pakistan ever have a Sikh or Christian as PM or President? Or even Army Chief(Since, the is the power center of Pakistan)?
The relations between the 2 communities have been strained since partition happened and thats understandable. But, Muslims have a better life in India and practice the most purest form of Islam anywhere in the world when you compared it to countries like Pakistan,where Muslims are easily radicalized.

Here's an interesting commentary by Kapil Komi...

2009-12-23T22:56:46.672-08:00

Here's an interesting commentary by Kapil Komireddi published in the Guardian earlier this year:

Indian Muslims in particular have rarely known a life uninterrupted by communal conflict or unimpaired by poverty and prejudice. Their grievances are legion, and the list of atrocities committed against them by the Indian state is long. In 2002 at least 1,000 Muslims were slaughtered by Hindu mobs in the western state of Gujarat in what was the second state-sponsored pogrom in India (Sikhs were the object of the first, in 1984).

For decades Indian intellectuals have claimed that religion, particularly Hinduism, is perfectly compatible with secularism. Indian secularism, they said repeatedly, is not a total rejection of religion by the state but rather an equal appreciation of every faith. Even though no faith is in principle privileged by the state, this approach made it possible for religion to find expression in the public sphere, and, since Hindus in India outnumber adherents of every other faith, Hinduism dominated it. Almost every government building in India has a prominently positioned picture of a Hindu deity. Hindu rituals accompany the inauguration of all public works, without exception.

The novelist Shashi Tharoor tried to burnish this certifiably sectarian phenomenon with a facile analogy: Indian Muslims, he wrote, accept Hindu rituals at state ceremonies in the same spirit as teetotallers accept champagne in western celebrations. This self-affirming explanation is characteristic of someone who belongs to the majority community. Muslims I interviewed took a different view, but understandably, they were unwilling to protest for the fear of being labelled as "angry Muslims" in a country famous for its tolerant Hindus.

The failure of secularism in India – or, more accurately, the failure of the Indian model of secularism – may be just one aspect of the gamut of failures, but it has the potential to bring down the country. Secularism in India rests entirely upon the goodwill of the Hindu majority. Can this kind of secularism really survive a Narendra Modi as prime minister? As Hindus are increasingly infected by the kind of hatred that Varun Gandhi's speech displayed, maybe it is time for Indian secularists to embrace a new, more radical kind of secularism that is not afraid to recognise and reject the principal source of this strife: religion itself.

Here's an interesting analysis of how Pakistan...

2009-12-22T09:25:49.337-08:00

Here's an interesting analysis of how Pakistan has changed in this decade by a Ahsan, a blogger on Five Rupees:

In the last decade, this picture has changed dramatically due to three central factors.

The first and most important factor is the explosion of private electronic media. In the 1990s, it was difficult for most Pakistanis -- the vast majority of which cannot or do not read newspapers -- to get information that was not government-sponsored or, less mildly, propagandistic. ....

This picture has changed drastically, as anyone with even a cursory interest in Pakistan will be able to tell you. There are now dozens of news channels in Pakistan, each with their own ideological and partisan bent. Some are national-level, others more regionally and ethnically focused. The trend began in the early part of this decade and has plateaued only recently, as the market gets sated. And while few of these channels will win awards for calm understatement or presciently sedate analysis, the fact remains that the media -- if it can be spoken of as a collective -- has given voice to a mass of the population previously unheard from. It has become a player of truly monumental importance for its ability to shape, mold, and excite the public. It is, at once, sensationalistic, blood-thirsty, xenophobic, conspiratorial, humorous, investigative, and anti-government. And yet its arrival on the scene is more than welcome, first for providing the venue for disenfranchised interests to make themselves known and second because the alternative is much worse.

The second significant factor, related to but distinct from the first, is the rise of communication technologies in Pakistan, particularly cellular phones. In 2002, there were 1.2 million cell-phone subscriptions in the country. By 2008, this number had risen to 88 million -- an increase of more than seven thousand percent. In addition, more than one in ten Pakistanis had access to the internet by the end of the decade; low by advanced countries' standards but an astronomical rise by Pakistan's. These developments in communications meant that political narratives became congealed and disseminated at speeds never heard of before, and that information and the wider "war" for public opinion became incredibly hard to win if a battle was lost at any stage.

The third major factor is the economic growth that took place in Pakistan in the first half of the 2000s. Pakistan's GDP doubled between 1999 and 2007, and more than kept pace with population growth, as GDP per capita increased by almost sixty percent between 2000 and 2008. More to the point, this growth was overwhelmingly powered by expansion of the service sector, which is concentrated, quite naturally, in the urban centers of the country. For the first time since independence, the term "Pakistani urban middle class" was not a contradiction in terms.

This development had two effects. First, and more trivially, the urban middle class did what urban middle classes do: they bought televisions and computers. In turn, that allowed them to plug into the private media explosion in ways simply unimaginable previously. Second, it shattered the elite-only edifice of Pakistani politics, and made challenges to government based on Main Street issues -- the price of flour, the lack of electricity, the selective application of the rule of law -- a viable process. Fifty years ago, Seymour Lipset wrote one of the canonical articles in Political Science on the process of democratization, its relationship to urbanized middle classes, and how the demands and values of the latter lead almost inexorably to support for the former. Here was living proof of Lipset's analysis.

I quote from the UNESCAP website, "In India, ...

2009-12-22T09:00:31.904-08:00

I quote from the UNESCAP website, "In India, for instance, between 1990 and 2005 the poverty rate fell from 51.3 to 41.6 per cent in 2005. Since these countries have large populations, falling rates mean that many millions of people are escaping poverty."

It means that while 100 million people come out of poverty in India, about 30-40 million come out in Pakistan.

anoop: "But, show me the figures of pre-1991 ...

2009-12-22T08:13:32.519-08:00

anoop: "But, show me the figures of pre-1991 and now and compare them to really know which country is PROGRESSING and which is not."

http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/12/climate-change-worsens-poverty-in-india.html

Please take a look at the UNESCAP poverty chart 1990-2006. It shows that population living under $1.25 declined in both countries, but more dramatically in Pakistan.

Poverty in India declined from about 50% to about 40% 1990-2006.

Poverty in Pakistan declined from about 60% to about 22% 1990-2006.

Riaz, Thats fine. I agree. But, again you haven...

2009-12-22T02:15:51.835-08:00

Riaz,
Thats fine. I agree. But, again you haven't quoted present and past figures. I am saying poverty exists. You dont have to show the indicators to me. I can see that. But, show me the figures of pre-1991 and now and compare them to really know which country is PROGRESSING and which is not.
There has been tremendous growth in the past 2 decades and ignoring that is not good analysis.
I will be very interested to find out if Pakistan has progressed or not on those indicators. Infact, Pakistan's economy was in much better shape than India's pre-1970's.
Its time to find out who is climbing the ladder and who is not.

anoop: In the context of unprecedented economic g...

2009-12-21T11:39:06.263-08:00

anoop:

In the context of unprecedented economic growth (9-10 percent annually) and national food security, over 60 percent of Indian children are wasted, stunted, underweight or a combination of the above. As a result, India ranks number 62 along with Bangladesh at 67 in the PHI (Poverty Hunger Index)ranking out of a total of 81 countries. Both nations are included among the low performing countries in progress towards MDG1 (Millennium Development Goals) with countries such as Nepal (number 58), Ethiopia (number 60), or Zimbabwe (number 74).

On PHI index, Pakistan ranks 45 well ahead of India at 62, and it is included in the medium performing countries. PHI is a new composite indicator – the Poverty and Hunger Index (PHI) – developed to measure countries’ performance towards achieving MDG1 on halving poverty and hunger by 2015. The PHI combines all five official MDG1 indicators, including a) the proportion of population living on less than US$ 1/day, b) poverty gap ratio, c) share of the poorest quintile in national income or consumption, d) prevalence of underweight in children under five years of age, and d) the proportion of population undernourished.

Riaz, CIA Factbook says India has reduced poverty ...

2009-12-21T10:44:20.631-08:00

Riaz,
CIA Factbook says India has reduced poverty by 10 Percentage Points. You were claiming that poverty is not decreasing in India,right? Here, you have been proved wrong. It says,"The economy has posted an average growth rate of more than 7% in the decade since 1997, reducing poverty by about 10 percentage points. India achieved 9.6% GDP growth in 2006, 9.0% in 2007, and 6.6% in 2008, significantly expanding manufactures through late 2008."

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html

India's democracy is stable,fair and bringing people out of poverty. Its perfect structurally. What do you think?

Riaz, Please enlighten me which democracy is corr...

2009-12-21T10:30:28.175-08:00

Riaz,
Please enlighten me which democracy is corruption free? Is USA the richest country in the world free of corruption or corrupt politicians?
It matters what are we doing about this corruption. Acts like Right to Information in India are tools in the hands of people to fight corruption. RTI was used to bring to justice Ex-CM of Jharkhand Koda and has brought justice to hundreds of thousands of people.
Institutions like the Lok Ayukta are dedicated to fighting corruption. In Karnataka, Lok Ayukta is the most popular person because people see his as the saviour against corruption.
Is Pakistan more or less corrupt than India,a democracy? Are Pakistani politicians more honest and clean than India's?
Pray tell me what are the legislation or institutions in Pakistan that are dedicated to fight corruption! I think the Pakistani govt needs to find time from discussing NRO to protect criminals than support legislation that fight corruption.

"Currently two-thirds of India's budget is allocated for military, paramilitary, police, various security forces and debt servicing."

---> I hardly doubt that. India spends 2.5% of GDP on defence.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html
Think before denouncing democracy,Riaz. Its the only way Pakistan can survive. By democracy I mean real democracy. Not the one Pakistan practices.

When you show me figures of various kind of indicators please show me the indicators before 1991 and now so that we can compare. I never said India is not poor or India is the richest and best-est country in the world. India has its share of problems but we have to see how much India has progressed in the past 20 years. Hope you agree. Without such comparison you are judging at face value which is not correct. Please get similar figures for Pakistan and you can evenly compare and contrast the kind of growth India and Pakistan have made in the last 20 years.
If you say inspite of growing at 8% over the last decade India has not brought millions of people out of poverty then you have no idea about economics. And, your claim that Pakistan is growing faster than the measly 3% is laughable. Pakistan's growth in the last decade was artificial and dependent on aid by the Bush administration to the tune of $ 17 Billion. Thats huge for a country like Pakistan. This years 3% growth is just an adjustment for all those years of artificial growth. Pakistan true growth potential wont be seen as long as its economy runs on aid. Pakistan's future predictions by IMF is 4% for next year when its own population is growing at 1.95% so that negates and brings the overall growth to 2%. Just 2%. Pakistan is pushing people into poverty and its economy is stagnated or is growing at the "hindu" growth rate.
India on the other hand is bringing millions out of poverty every year and I am a testimony for that. India's growth has given me and a lot of others the ability to dream. As I sit in my Air Conditioned room in IBM which employs 40,000 people in Bangalore alone I can only see things getting bigger. 8000 IBM jobs came to India this september? When the West is getting afraid of Bangalored you are writing India's economic obituary. You cannot be farther from reality.
India is healing. And, a beacon of hope to the world. Wait for a few more years.
Advice: Save these figures for comparison in about 20 years. Then, we will really know if India has grown.

Anoop: Indian democracy is the reason why India la...

2009-12-21T09:27:18.871-08:00

Anoop: Indian democracy is the reason why India lags so far behind China and other nations in the neighborhood in meeting the very basic needs of its population.

With few exceptions, it is dominated by self-serving and corrupt, even criminal politicians who are busy enriching themselves at the expenses of the poorest of the poor in the world.

An estimated 200,000 Indian farmers have ended their lives since 1997, including many in this area, largely because of debt, according to a recent LA Times report.

There is widespread hunger and malnutrition in all parts of India. India ranks 66th on the 2008 Global Hunger Index of 88 countries while Pakistan is slightly better at 61 and Bangladesh slightly worse at 70. The first India State Hunger Index (Ishi) report in 2008 found that Madhya Pradesh had the most severe level of hunger in India, comparable to Chad and Ethiopia. Four states — Punjab, Kerala, Haryana and Assam — fell in the 'serious' category. "Affluent" Gujarat, 13th on the Indian list is below Haiti, ranked 69. The authors said India's poor performance was primarily due to its relatively high levels of child malnutrition and under-nourishment resulting from calorie deficient diets.

Its child malnutrition rate of 46% is worse than Sub-Saharan Africa's 35%, as admitted by Indian planning commission member Syeda Hameed. Even Bangladesh, a poor nation, has done better than India in terms of child welfare.

Currently two-thirds of India's budget is allocated for military, paramilitary, police, various security forces and debt servicing. That leaves one-third for everything else, including infrastructure development projects, education, healthcare, poverty alleviation, and various human services. The new arms buildup by India will leave even less for what India needs most: to lift hundreds of millions of its citizens from abject poverty, hunger, squalor and disease.

Indians do have elections, but most vote their caste rather than cast their votes for candidates with real merit.

So, overall, Indian democracy remains unresponsive to the needs of the vast majority of its people who live in abject poverty and endure frequent hunger.

Riaz, I take great offence when you say democracy ...

2009-12-21T02:35:10.319-08:00

Riaz,
I take great offence when you say democracy in India is flawed. How is it flawed? Do politicians here rig the election? Are'nt we the fastest growing economy in the commity of democracies around the world? Democracy has taken time to pay dividends here for the poor but it is working. Not a single person in the world is threatened by India's rise(compare it with China's rise which is a source of concern for most around the world), a democratic country's rise. Its only the Pakistanis who are scared and are in denial. Have you heard of 2 democracies in the world going to war??? That is why we want Pakistan to be democratic soon. Military men are immature and dont understand war or peace. Your support to your army unnerves anyone who really knows democracy.
Quit criticizing democracy in India and as a whole. Because that is the only system that can save Pakistan and keep it together. You think people will learn after losing half of their country to fact that democracy was not properly enforced. If more people like you who support democracy-minus-civilian-supremacy are there in Pakistan, God help the country.
The democracy you so often criticize is the fastest growing in the world.

The question is often asked why democracy has surv...

2009-12-20T16:24:21.470-08:00

The question is often asked why democracy has survived in India but not in Pakistan.

Here are some fundamental differences between India and Pakistan that are often overlooked:

1. India's founders Nehru, Patel and Azad lived long enough after partition to implement their vision of a democratic India free of the legacy of Feudalism left by the Brits. India could not have survived as a nation-state without the foundation laid by its wise founders.

2. British writer William Dalrymple has accurately described the politics in Pakistan as follows: "There is a fundamental flaw in Pakistan's political system. Democracy has never thrived here, at least in part because landowning remains almost the only social base from which politicians can emerge. In general, the educated middle class - which in India seized control in 1947, emasculating the power of its landowners - is in Pakistan still largely excluded from the political process. As a result, in many of the more backward parts of Pakistan the local feudal zamindar can expect his people to vote for his chosen candidate. Such loyalty can be enforced. Many of the biggest zamindars have private prisons and most have private armies."

3. Gandhi believed that India has no choice but democracy. India is much larger and too diverse to be ruled by an autocrat or any military, however large. Speaking about it last April, the US South Asia expert Stephen Cohen of Brookings Institution said, " But there is no all-Indian Hindu identity—India is riven by caste and linguistic differences, and Aishwarya Rai and Sachin Tendulkar are more relevant rallying points for more Indians than any Hindu caste or sect, let alone the Sanskritized Hindi that is officially promulgated".

4. Indians are a lot more patient than Pakistanis. They have been willing to endure bad governance over extended period of time. Democracy in India has failed to deliver any benefits...even the very basics such as food, clothing and shelter. India's democracy is a deeply flawed democracy and it survives because alternatives are far worse for Indians.

Power in Pakistan has alternated between military and feudal politicians in the last six decades. Pakistan's experience has clearly shown that military generals are better ruler who deliver economic growth. The politicians are too inept and corrupt to deliver results for the people. It is false to blame the military for Pakistan's breakup. It was the failure of politicians to compromise and work together that led to the loss of East Pakistan in 1971.

Riaz, You are generalizing way too much! You can f...

2009-12-20T03:14:14.906-08:00

Riaz,
You are generalizing way too much! You can find so many westerners coming to India,Pakistan and Bangladesh with expectations to see another Europe. Face it India is a huge country with different faces. That author of that blog has seen one or few of the faces of India. I can show you many different opinions about India which show it in a positive light. I can also show many articles which show Pakistan in a negative light with regard to its infrastructure and the filth that normally westerners notice.
Here is an article of such sort:
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/martyt/london2sydney/1181562360/tpod.html
I will not generalize and say the whole of Pakistan is covered in filth and is dirty. Atleast in India you have a state govt and central govt working together to reduce poverty and improve infrastructure. Can you say the same thing about Pakistan?
Hell,Pakistan's case is so hopeless that it is living beyond its means even after 62 years of Independence and recently there was massive begging involved by the govt incharge(Remember,FOP)
I am from Bangalore and I do see areas with less privileged people in them and they are very dirty.
But, I also see a greater Bangalore where everything is growing very fast and there is wealth all around. I see super highways coming all around Bangalore and I see the metro tracks coming inside Bangalore. This is just one city in India. You can see similar things happening in various cities in India. You just have to look at the right places,just like you look at slums to find India's poorest.
The bottom line is India is growing at 7.9% this year and Pakistan is growing at a measly 2.3% this year.
A bigger percentage of people will be coming out of poverty in India than in Pakistan.

anoop:"And, high growth will fix everything. ...

2009-12-19T22:11:04.211-08:00

anoop:"And, high growth will fix everything. we are already seeing results of such high growth in bangalore and Hyderabad."

I think you missed the following part about Banglaore in Sean-Paul Kelly's travelogue:

Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common on the streets. In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight.

So when do you think Pakistan's economy is goi...

2009-12-19T21:53:41.006-08:00

So when do you think Pakistan's economy is going to outgrow India's or grow at a much faster rate than India's?
Economy is growing despite all these things. And, high growth will fix everything. we are already seeing results of such high growth in bangalore and Hyderabad. The states of Karnataka and Andra Pradesh have benefited tremendously by these super fast and high tech cities. The problems mentioned do exist but not un-fixable. I am not going to point out Pakistan's follies to satisfy my ego and gain an upper hand as this would be not in the right spirit. I dont need to point at another country and say to myself,"my country is a little better". Heck, we see Pakistan-related news everyday in papers. Compare everyday news India makes and everyday news in Pakistan makes in International papers and you will see how different these 2 countries are.
Anyway, India has a bright future and is going to be the 3rd largest economy by 2050. NOBODY can deny or stop that. Only time will tell if India is going to #1 or #2.

Here are "Reflections on India" published by an American traveler-blogger:

First, pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don't know how cultural the filth is, but it's really beyond anything I have ever encountered. At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump. Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common on the streets. In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight. Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one's health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads. The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum--the capital of Kerala--and Calicut. I don't know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India's productivity, if it already hasn't. The pollution will hobble India's growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small 'c' sense.)

The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India. Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls. The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America. And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit. There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old, if not older. Everyone in India, or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It's awful. Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses. At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now. The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit. Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.

For some of the posters here, let me share with yo...

2009-12-19T10:36:25.544-08:00

For some of the posters here, let me share with you what Sean-Paul Kelly, a traveler-blogger, thinks of India, based on the recent NY Times story on "India's Innovation Envy":

Indians, it seems, aren’t lacking in the hyper-patriotic, and India certainly doesn’t lack its boosters in the West. Alas, some folks are beginning to see the light:

"BANGALORE, India — In the United States and Europe, people worry that their well-paying, high-skill jobs will be, in a word, “Bangalored” — shipped off to India.

People here are also worried about the future. They fret that Bangalore, and India more broadly, will remain a low-cost satellite office of the West for the foreseeable future — more Scranton, Pa., in the American television series “The Office,” than Silicon Valley."

Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley-Asia has called this wage arbitrage (Roach happens to be one of the few American economists that gets it right on India). And Americans are right to worry about this. It’s put downward pressure on services as varied as call-centers and tech support, to financial news reporting, X-ray and MRI interpretation and accounting. I would be especially worried if I were an accountant. But then again, many of the big firm accountants need not be worried, as their shilling game for Wall Street will protect them. For a time.

"Even as the rest of the world has come to admire, envy and fear India’s outsourcing business and its technological prowess, many Indians are disappointed that the country has not quickly moved up to more ambitious and lucrative work from answering phones or writing software. Why, they worry, hasn’t India produced a Google or an Apple?"

Wait a second. India does not have any technological prowess in the true sense of the word. After all, if they did, why would the Ambassador, a car model over fifty years old, made of the heaviest steel imaginable, and horribly inefficient be the best selling domestically produced car in India, still. The Nano notwithstanding.

"Innovation is hard to measure, but academics who study it say India has the potential to create trend-setting products but is not yet doing so. Indians are granted about half as many American patents for inventions as people and firms in Israel and China. The country’s corporate and government spending on research and development significantly lags behind that of other nations. And venture capitalists finance far fewer companies here than they do elsewhere."

Re-read that graph closely and you’ll begin to get an idea of the hurdles India faces. And hurdles it is doing nothing, absolutely nothing to overcome. Instead of using its domestic capital for something like infrastructure building, local elites continue to siphon it all off and live behind huge fenced in compounds paying dalits pitiful, barely life-sustaining wages.

Here's an Indian report from last year about India significantly lagging Pakistan in clean energy and CNG usage:

New Delhi, May 5, 2008
India is way behind Pakistan in terms of its gas pipeline network, with the neighbouring country’s network stretching around 56,400 km against its 10,500 km, connecting only 20 cities compared to Pakistan’s 1,050, industry body Assocham said.

Pakistan’s pipeline density, at present is 1044 km/mmscmd (million metric standard cubic meter per day) per day compared to 116 km/mmscmd of India, Assocham said in its paper on gas sector ‘A Comparison between India and Pakistan’.

The neighbouring country has created a 31,000 km distribution network to serve its domestic and commercial consumers in large locations, against the 11,000 km network that have so far been build in India to serve the needs of its consumers in limited pockets, the report said.

While Pakistan has nearly 1,600 CNG stations, India has 380. The gas throughput in Pakistan is 38 mmscmd per day as against 8.5 mmscmd gas in India.

The number of gas customers and vehicles running on CNG in Pakistan is about 19 lakh and 15.6 lakh respectively, while in India the number is 5.50 lakh and 4.60 lakh.

“The gas availability in Pakistan is undoubtedly quite large, compared to India but given the imports of gas and even its domestic availability in India, its pipeline network is extremely poor and the main reason attributed for the low and limited pipeline network in India is because this sector has been thoroughly regulated which has now been opened for competition,” Assocham president Venugopal Dhoot said.

The paper added that since the pipeline network in India does not reach out to most of the potential demand centres, a number of industrial projects, which would ideally run on gas, have to depend on much more costlier and more polluting alternative fuels.

“Thus the unmet gas demand in India is probably much higher than what is reported,” he said, adding India, “at present has only one major cross country pipeline in the form of Hizira-Bijaipur-Jagdishpur pipeline and there is estimated to be considerable unmet demand even in the states serviced by this pipeline”.

With the increased availability of gas, the country needs to gear up quickly to meet the increased requirement of cross country as well as regional and local downstream gas distribution networks, he said. — PTI

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2008/20080506/biz.htm#1

The Supreme Court of Pakistan has unanimously decl...

2009-12-16T09:52:54.254-08:00

The Supreme Court of Pakistan has unanimously declared NRO null and void ab initio, according to Dawn News:

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has declared the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) null and void in a short order.

In a landmark decision, the apex court unanimously decided that the ordinance was unconstitutional.

All old cases that had been dismissed under the NRO stand revived and can now be reopened as per the court orders.

The court said that all orders that were passed and all acquittals under the NRO were illegal and never existed.

The apex court in its order also said that all convictions that were held prior to the enactment of the NRO stand revived as well.

Now the Zar dari camp is expected to argue that, under the constitution of Pakistan, President Zardari is immune from prosecution as long as he is in office.

Related Links:

Swi ss Corruption Probe Against Zardari

NRO, Democracy and Corruption in South Asia

Pakistan's Intelligence Failure Amidst Daily Carnage

Here's an interesting report by Reuters in Pakistan:

By Alistair Scrutton

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - If you want a slice of peace and stability in a country with a reputation for violence and chaos, try Pakistan's M2 motorway.

At times foreign reporters need to a give a nation a rest from their instinctive cynicism. I feel like that with Pakistan each time I whizz along the M2 between Islamabad and Lahore, the only motorway I know that inspires me to write.

Now, if the M2 conjures images of bland, spotless tarmac interspersed with gas stations and fast food outlets, you would be right. But this is South Asia, land of potholes, reckless driving and the occasional invasion of livestock.

And this is Pakistan, for many a "failed state." Here, blandness can inspire almost heady optimism.

Built in the 1990s at a cost of around $1 billion, the 228-mile (367-km) motorway -- which continues to Peshawar as the M1 -- is like a six-lane highway to paradise in a country that usually makes headlines for suicide bombers, army offensives and political mayhem.

Indeed, for sheer spotlessness, efficiency and emptiness there is nothing like the M2 in the rest of South Asia.

It puts paid to what's on offer in Pakistan's traditional foe and emerging economic giant India, where village culture stubbornly refuses to cede to even the most modern motorways, making them battlegrounds of rickshaws, lorries and cows.

There are many things in Pakistan that don't get into the news. Daily life, for one. Pakistani hospitality to strangers, foreigners like myself included, is another. The M2 is another sign that all is not what it appears in Pakistan, that much lies hidden behind the bad news.

On a recent M2 trip, my driver whizzed along but kept his speedometer firmly placed on the speed limit. Here in this South Asian Alice's Wonderland, the special highway police are considered incorruptible. The motorway is so empty one wonders if it really cuts through one of the region's most populated regions.

"130, OK, but 131 is a fine," said the driver, Noshad Khan. "The police have cameras," he added, almost proudly. His hand waved around in the car, clenched in the form of a gun.

On one of my first trips to Pakistan. I arrived at the border having just negotiated a one-lane country road in India with cows, rickshaws and donkey-driven carts.

I toted my luggage over to the Pakistan side, and within a short time my Pakistani taxi purred along the tarmac. The driver proudly showed off his English and played U.S. rock on FM radio. The announcer even had an American accent. Pakistan, for a moment, receded, and my M2 trip began.

Built in the 1990s by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, it was part of his dream of a motorway that would unite Pakistan with Afghanistan and central Asia.

For supporters it shows the potential of Pakistan. Its detractors say it was a waste of money, a white elephant that was a grandiose plaything for Sharif.

But while his dreams for the motorway foundered along with many of Pakistan, somehow the Islamabad-Lahore stretch has survived assassinations, coups and bombs.

A relatively expensive toll means it is a motorway for the privileged. Poorer Pakistanis use the older trunk road nearby tracing an ancient route that once ran thousands of miles to eastern India. The road is shorter, busier and takes nearly an hour longer.

On my latest trip, I passed the lonely occasional worker in an orange suit sweeping the edge of the motorway in a seemingly Sisyphean task.

Here's a 2008 Guardian story by Dilip Hiro on Pak feudal power:

The roots of feudal dominance lie in history. The Pakistan Muslim League, the parent of its present two versions, is the descendant of the All India Muslim League (AIML). Formed in 1906 to promote loyalty to the British Crown while advancing Muslim interests, the AIML was led by Muslim grandees and feudal lords. It was not until 1940 that it demanded partition of the Indian sub-continent, with Muslim majority areas constituting independent states. Unlike the anti-imperialist Indian National Congress, it lacked an economic programme favouring small and landless peasants, and trade unions for industrial workers.

Given the traditional peasants' servitude to landowners, and almost universal illiteracy in rural Pakistan, where most people lived, electoral politics became the privilege of large landlords, who controlled vote banks. During elections their choice of a party depended on self-interest: which one will supply or raise government-subsidised irrigation water and/or fertiliser; or build roads to the villages they owned.

This continues. A recent report in the Observer from Old Jatoi (population, 3,000) in Sindh is illustrative. While the peasants working for the local grandee, Mustafa Jatoi, live in shacks, his spacious house is surrounded by green lawns and high white walls, with its driveway chocked with Toyota SUVs and Suzuki Mehrans, now deployed to transport him to drummed-up rallies.

His electoral rival, Arif Jatoi, too has similar assets. But he takes time off to fly to Islamabad to seek extra development funds for his area from the prime minister, allied with the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q.

In the more populous Punjab province, the Lahore-based Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, a PML-Q candidate, charters a helicopter to campaign in his rural constituency, promising to bring a gas pipeline to the villages. The family's fortunes have come from textile factories. Likewise, Nawaz Sharif and his brother, the leaders of the opposition PML-N, have amassed millions from their industrial assets.

It would be naïve to expect such super-affluent Pakistanis to advance the interests of landless peasants or poorly paid factory workers.

The near-monopoly of power by the Pakistan Muslim League was broken in 1967 when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of Benazir, established the Pakistan People's Party. He coined a catchy, all-embracing slogan: "Islam is our faith, democracy our polity, socialism our economy; and all power to the people." It won him the sobriquet of "a socialist demagogue".

While advocating socialist economy, he never uttered the term "land reform". He could not. He possessed 12,000 acres of rice-growing land. He behaved as haughtily as any other feudal lord. So too did his daughter, Benazir. The corruption and the affluence of her and her polo-playing husband, Asif Zardari, are widely known.

Just as with the Jatois elsewhere in Sindh, any electoral rivalry is between competing estate owners. In the Bhutto-Zardari case, it is Benazir's cousin, Mumtaz. Owner of 15,000 acres of arable land worth £12 million, he earns an annual tax-free income of £345,000 in a country with per capita income of £350 a year.

In a recent interview, Mr. Bhutto waxed eloquent about his last summer holiday at Hotel Splendido in Portofino on Italy's Amalfi coast while his peasants suffered the humid heat needed for rice to grow. It was a break from his normal summer forays to apartments in London's posh Mayfair or Knightsbridge.

The glaring scandal of the present election campaign is the total absence of the long-overdue debate about land reform, where the state takes over the land above the legal ceiling and distributes it among landless peasants.