Are India and Pakistan Failed States?

Amidst Pakistan's current troubles, Indian officials and mainstream media continue to display unconcealed delight in painting Pakistan as a "Failed State". And as they offer unsolicited advice to their neighbor, they ignore the ground reality that if Pakistan is a failed state, then India is as failed a state as Pakistan, if not more so.

Why is India a Failed State?

The reality of the failure of Indian state is as obvious as daylight. The Indian state's abject failures in delivering bare minimum services to its people, and its inability to solve India's basic problems are there for everyone to see.



Conventional Western understanding about modern India has recognized a degree of political instability, and the persistence of armed insurgencies in the country’s Northeast and Northwest regions. However, there has only been a slight awareness of the rural insurgencies and challenges to the state’s writ in the heartland of India. These have rarely been seen by outsiders as a systemic challenge to the dominant narrative of a democratic society engaged in economic and social development. The recent trajectory of India’s economic development has created an optimistic narrative that rarely includes discussion of internal instability. While there is focus on a small section of the urban elite, not much attention has been given to growing rural poverty, mass farmers' suicides and increasing rich-poor gap. Meanwhile, Maoists have gained significant momentum in rural India.

Not unlike North Korea, India is engaged in a massive arms buildup while almost half of its children are near starvation. A nation-state like India that fails to take care of 46% its children's basic nutrition needs has to be a failed state. In fact, George Friedman of Strafor raises serious doubts about India's viability as a modern nation-state, and dismisses the talk of its emergence as one of the great powers of the 21st century. Friedman does not accept that any of the four BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will achieve great world power status in this century. Instead, he believes that Turkey, Poland and Japan will join the United States as the most important world powers in the next 50 years.



Here are some shocking statistics shedding light on India's failures:

Pakistan is in the midst of a bloody insurgency by the Taliban and their affiliated groups. Last year was one of the bloodiest in Pakistan's history, claiming about 3000 lives in tragic violence by terrorists. Putting it perspective, India loses 3000 children every day to hunger and malnutrition, according to UNICEF.

One out of every three illiterate adults in the world is an Indian, according to UNESCO.

One out of very two hungry persons in the world is an Indian, according to World Food Program.

Almost one out of two Indians lives below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.

And yet, India spends $30 billion on defense, and just increased the defense budget by 32% this year.



Here are some more recent comparative indicators in South Asia:

Poverty:

Population living under $1.25 a day - India: 41.6% Pakistan: 22.6% Source: UNDP

Underweight Children Under Five (in percent) Pakistan 38% India 46% Source: UNICEF

Life expectancy at birth (years), 2007 India: 63.4 Pakistan: 66.2 Source: HDR2009

Education:

Youth (15–24 years) literacy rate, 2000 to 2007, male Pak istan: 80% India 87% Source: UNICEF

Youth (15–24 years) literacy rate, 2000 to 2007, female Pak istan 60% India 77% Source: UNICEF

Economics:

GDP per capita (US$), 2008 Pak:$1000-1022 India $1017-1100

Child Protection:

Child marriage under 15-years ; 1998–2007*, total Pak istan - 32% India - 47% Source: UNICEF

Under-5 mortality rate per 1000 live births (2007), Value Pakistan - 90 India 72 Source: UNICEF

In spite of the grim statistics above, India is ranked the fourth biggest military spender in terms of purchasing power parity.

The poverty and hunger situation in Pakistan is only a bit less serious than in India.

The myth about Pakistan being a failed state is being pushed by people who are either ignorant about Pakistan, or have an ax to grind.

Here's a video clip of British writer William Dalrymple comparing India and Pakistan:

On sanitation, a UNICEF report  said Indians make up 58% of the world population which still practices open defection.  India (638m) is followed by Indonesia (58m), China (50m), Ethiopia (49m), Pakistan (48m), Nigeria (33m) and Sudan (17m). In terms of percentage of each country's population resorting to the unhygienic practice, Ethiopia tops the list with 60%, followed by India 54%, Nepal 50%, Pakistan 28%, Indonesia 26%, and China 4%.


Do any serious analysts challenge the poverty and hunger figures for India, or the strength and scope of the Maoists insurgency? Absolutely not! Even Indian officials, including Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, agree with the data on hunger, poverty and malnutrition, as well the Maoists threat assessment.

In terms of the challenges to the writ of the state, India is host to some of the fiercest conflicts in the world. Since 1989 more than 80,000 have died in insurgencies in Kashmir and the northeastern states. About 25% of the Indian territory is outside the control of Indian authority.

Manmohan Singh himself has called the Maoist insurgency the biggest internal security threat to India since independence. The Maoists, however, are confined to rural areas; their bold tactics haven't rattled Indian middle-class confidence. In fact, the Maoists in India, led by the left-wing intellectuals with many urban sympathizers, have a greater chance of success in India than the poor, rural Pakistani Taliban, or other Islamic radicals in Pakistan, whose heavy handed tactics in Swat, and suicide bombings in Pakistani cities have destroyed whatever sympathies they had among the urban middle class.

Talking about failure to deliver minimum assistance to India's people, Indian Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed acknowledged in 2008 that India is worse than Bangladesh and Pakistan when it comes to nourishment and is showing little improvement.

Speaking at a conference on "Malnutrition an emergency: what it costs the nation", she said even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during interactions with the Planning Commission has described malnourishment as the "blackest mark".

"I should not compare. But countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are better," she said. The conference was organized last year by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Ministry of Development of Northeastern Region.

According to India's Family Health Survey, almost 46 percent of children under the age of three are undernourished - an improvement of just one percent in the last seven years. This is only a shade better than Sub-Saharan Africa where about 35 percent of children are malnourished.

Is Pakistan a Failed State?

Do any serious analysts challenge Pakistan's place on failed state index? Absolutely! Not just one, many analysts do!

Dalrymple, a self-declared Indophile, is not alone in rejecting the myth of Pakistan being a failed state. Others who know South Asia and other parts of the world, such as Prof Juan Cole, Peter Bergen, and others, also reject this myth.

My reasons for saying that India is a failed state are simple: More than Pakistani state, the Indian state has miserably failed in meeting the very basic needs of its people (particularly children) for food, clothing, shelter and basic sanitation. In addition, India has larger swaths of its territory in central and eastern where state authority does not exist.

India-A Failed Democracy:
India is also a failed democracy and a bad poster child for democratic form of government. It's pervasive hunger, poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy, a huge and growing rich-poor gap, and a well-established system of caste-based Apartheid, and its terrible governance make its democracy a joke. And its history of widespread persecution of its minorities makes its secular label ludicrous.

Here's an American researcher and professor emeritus of University Washington explaining anti-Muslim riots in his 2003 book "Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India":

Events labeled “Hindu-Muslim riots” have been recurring features in India for three-quarters of a century or more. In northern and western India, especially, there are numerous cities and towns in which riots have become endemic. In such places, riots have, in effect, become a grisly form of dramatic production in which there are three phases: preparation/ rehearsal, activation/enactment, and explanation/interpretation.1 In these sites of endemic riot production, preparation and rehearsal are continuous activities. Activation or enactment of a large-scale riot takes place under particular circumstances, most notably in a context of intense political mobilization or electoral competition in which riots are precipitated as a device to consolidate the support of ethnic, religious, or other culturally marked groups by emphasizing the need for solidarity in face of the rival communal group. The third phase follows after the violence in a broader struggle to control the explanation or interpretation of the causes of the violence. In this phase, many other elements in society become involved, including journalists, politicians, social scientists, and public opinion generally.

At first, multiple narratives vie for primacy in controlling the explanation of violence. On the one hand, the predominant social forces attempt to insert an explanatory narrative into the prevailing discourse of order, while others seek to establish a new consensual hegemony that upsets existing power relations, that is, those which accept the violence as spontaneous, religious, mass-based, unpredictable, and impossible to prevent or control fully. This third phase is also marked by a process of blame displacement in which social scientists themselves become implicated, a process that fails to isolate effectively those most responsible for the production of violence, and instead diffuses blame widely, blurring responsibility, and thereby contributing to the perpetuation of violent productions in future, as well as the order that sustains them.

Busting Myths of India as Peaceful, Stable and Prosperous":

Here's Indian writer Pankaj Mishra busting the myth of "Peaceful, Stable and Prosperous India":

Apparently, no inconvenient truths are allowed to mar what Foreign Affairs, the foreign policy journal of America's elite, has declared a "roaring capitalist success story". Add Bollywood's singing and dancing stars, beauty queens and Booker prize-winning writers to the Tatas, the Mittals and the IT tycoons, and the picture of Indian confidence, vigour and felicity is complete.

The passive consumer of this image, already puzzled by recurring reports of explosions in Indian cities, may be startled to learn from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in Washington that the death toll from terrorist attacks in India between January 2004 and March 2007 was 3,674, second only to that in Iraq. (In the same period, 1,000 died as a result of such attacks in Pakistan, the "most dangerous place on earth" according to the Economist, Newsweek and other vendors of geopolitical insight.)

I agree with India's Dalit leader, constitution architect and first law minister Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar's statement that "Democracy in India is only a top dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic."

As someone described it recently, the Indian republic is like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Slave’s Dream. It was created by a people that were subjugated by colonialism and its republican ideals were shaped by a human rights pioneer who rose from the lowest strata of the country’s enduring caste system, a form of slavery in some ways more degrading than apartheid. But after 62 years of independence, over 250 million Indian Dalits are victims of caste-based discrimination and segregation in India. They live miserable lives, shunned by much of society because of their ranks as untouchables or Dalits at the bottom of a rigid caste system in Hindu India. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in slave-like conditions, and routinely abused, even killed, at the hands of the police and of higher-caste groups that enjoy the state's protection, according to Human Rights Watch.

India's Secularism Is a Myth:
Regarding secularism, here's how Kapil Komireddy demolishes the myth of Indian secularism in a piece he wrote for the Guardian newspaper:

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 recognize and reject the principal source of this strife: religion itself.

The Next 100 Years:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, George Friedman, Chairman of Stratfor, and author of "The Next 100 Years", sees the United States, Turkey, Poland and Japan as the great powers of the 21st century.

Friedman raises serious doubts about India and China staying united as modern nation-states, much less emerge as great powers of the 21st century. He says India and China are regionally fragmented and it's very difficult to govern the vast nations from from Delhi or Beijing. He does not foresee Brazil or Russia emerge as great powers of the 21st century either, essentially dismissing all four members of the the much-hyped BRIC countries.

Talking about the emergence of South Korea and Israel as modern industrialized states, Friedman singles out the value of the transfer by the US of F-16s as a catalyst for recipient countries' development of skills and technical know-how. He makes no mention of Pakistan's development of the F16 maintenance and training infrastructure at Kamra PAC for its F16s in this context.

Friedman says the Islamic World will recover from the current chaos imposed by the United States in its conflict with al Qaeda. He also argues that Turkey, not Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, or Egypt, will emerge as a great world power, and the leader of the Muslim world.

Here's how Friedman describes the four great powers of the twenty-first century:

Japan, Turkey, and Poland will each be facing a United States even more confident than it was after the second fall of the Soviet Union. That will be an explosive situation. As we will see during the course of this book, the relationships among these four countries will greatly affect the twenty-first century, leading, ultimately, to the next global war. This war will be fought differently from any in history—with weapons that are today in the realm of science fiction. But as I will try to outline, this mid-twenty-first century conflict will grow out of the dynamic forces born in the early part of the new century.

"BRIC" is an acronym coined by Goldman Sachs to bracket four disparate nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China together just because of their large populations. Similar logic is used in GS's "Next 11" group of emerging nations which include Pakistan and Turkey.

I think population alone can not be used as a determinant for the future, although nations with higher than replacement fertility rate (TFR of 2.1 or greater) will have some advantage in the 21st century. Conversely, the nations with aging populations and sub-replacement fertility rates, such as Japan, Poland and Russia, will be disadvantaged.

I also think that the predictive abilities of most analysts, including Friedman, are limited by the present. Future is often seen as a highly exaggerated version of the present.

As Friedman himself says, Germany was predicted to be the greatest power of the 20th century. All that changed after two world wars, when America emerged as the most important world power, and the Soviet Union its biggest competitor. The same could happen in this century. We could see new players by 2050, such as Turkey and Poland, emerge in addition to US and Japan, rather than the much hyped BRICs.

As to the nukes, I don't think we ought to be constrained in our thinking by the current status of nuclear weapons technology. New weapons and technologies can emerge to potentially make the possession of the current generation of atomic weaponry irrelevant. Space-based weaponry, and remote cyber warfare could determine the winners of future conflicts.

All analyses and forecasts aside, no one has a perfect crystal ball. Only time will tell how the new world order emerges in the 21st century. But I do think the demise of the US power is highly exaggerated, as are the predictions of BRIC's extraordinary rise in the next 100 years.





Here's a video titled "I Am Pakistan":



Related Links:

Dalit Victims of Apartheid in India
FAQs on India's Massive Arms Buildup

The Next 100 Years by George Friedman
Haq's Musings

Escape From India
Reflections on India

Country Ranks 2009
Video: Who Says Pakistan Is a Failed State?
Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India
Insurgents Violence Reports in India

Case For Resuming India-Pakistan Talks
India 's Sane Voice Warns Against Smugness
State Fragility Index List of Countries

Hindutva Terror to Spark India-Pakistan War?

Failed state? Try Pakistan's M2

Is Pakistan Too Big to Fail?
India and Pakistan Compared in 2010

Why is Democracy Failing in Pakistan?

Middle Class Clout Rising in Pakistan

Panka j Mishra Busts the Myth of Peaceful, Stable and Prosperous India

US Afghan Exit: Trigger For India-Pakistan Talks?

China's Growing Role in Kashmir

Crises Deepening Pakistan's Class Divisions?

During my visit to Pakistan last year, I saw first hand and wrote a post on this blog about how the upper and middle class urban Pakistanis are coping with growing crises of education, electricity, gas, water, and security. For example, I talked about a friend who is doing well selling small power generators and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) for homes in Karachi. I also saw significant proliferation of private security companies, private schools, private water delivery businesses, and private clubs. Instead of helping improve the situation for all of their fellow citizens, it was clear that the Pakistani elite are retreating into their own bubbles to isolate themselves from the terrible effects of deteriorating governance in their land. This growing class divide is enhancing opportunities for Taliban and other insurgents to exploits class rifts in Pakistan.

Now I am sharing with you an interesting take on the situation in the following guest post by a Lahore-based freelance writer Mr. Zaair Hussain:

A Pakistani comedian once remarked that the country’s elite were cloistering into ever-smaller bubbles. Like all good humor, the comment provoked reflection long after laughter had faded.

To recognize our bubble is to recognize how we view those outside; from within those curved lenses, all without is distorted and alien. Even the best-meaning of us will crush the laborer in with the farmer, the beggar with the shopkeeper, the postman with the servant. We affix upon “the masses” a homogeneous mask, stripping them of their humanity. So ingrained is this habit, writing around that phrase was a painstaking task.

We dismiss them and they, for their part, resent us. They see us born into bubbles that rise effortlessly, for that is the nature of bubbles, and begrudge our sneering misconception that we rise because of some inner greatness. If you, sir or madam, were on the ground looking skywards, would you not pray with wicked delight for a sharp, terrible pop?

How has this schism become so advanced that the well-heeled have become aliens in their own land, by their own hand?

There are many culprits, but few so guilty as language.

The language of power and the language of the people are profoundly divided, just as when greater India was the jewel in the colonial crown. Pakistan has no monopoly on class divides and inequality. But in, say, England, the reduced and the royal alike hear the same speeches, can read the same poets, can engage in the same ideas. Closer to home, Iran and Bangladesh can boast the same.

Our schools, conversely, have failed us in language. No one poor in English, or poor in Urdu, has been greatly improved. The indigenous literature that was once the fierce pride of mailmen and mayors alike has evaporated to a curiosity, a hobby of the eccentric. We have lost Ghalib, and we never truly had Shakespeare. The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

I do not cast aspersion upon English; its versatility is unmatched, its literature rich. But we have unwisely decided to medicate our colonial hangover with a perverse mixture of an inferiority and superiority complex. Both are unfounded.

We have come to imagine that someone not educated in ‘proper’ English medium schools (like Dr Abdus Salam) is a prima facie simpleton.

The prime symptom is our obsession with the ‘correct’ accent. Woe unto those whose inflections are imperfect; their qualities will be lost to this pettiest of failings. When people launch into vicious mockery at a self-made actress’s pronunciation of “photographer” or “eyes”, they are spearheading a grotesque defense against what they see as a crack in their bubble.

The plummeting standards of local universities have deepened the divide; elite parents have pulled their progeny from Pakistani higher education institutions with all the deliberate subtlety of an 18th century dentist. Where once we were likely to remember the less privileged as our talented classmates, they are now absent from our worldview, labourers outside the glass divide, shadows without substance. In the halls of ideas, we have bid our adieus.

The state must shoulder a goodly share of the blame for our alienation. When we were snatched into darkness, we bought our own light. When we were left parched, we opened our wallets to private water that sprung up like costly oases in the desert. Left in fear, we hired and armed our own security. If the roads crack and fail, we will buy All-Terrain Vehicles. If legal justice fails us, we too will turn to the jirgas that spring up in every void left by the law like mushrooms in the dark places of the world. Things fall apart. And what then? A thousand, a hundred thousand self-important and insignificant micro-states will burst from the corpse of the old, and our alienation will be complete and irrevocable.

In our fear and frustration, we have created a false Eden and set before it an angel with a golden sword. Our homes, our offices, restaurants and retreats, clubs and celebrations. We protect these with a frenzied passion, and the password is always money. Great energy is expended jostling inwards, deeper into the bubble, until the world proper disappears from our senses altogether. We shuttle ourselves to and fro in smaller bubbles, our windows rolled all the way up. We live in a man-made chrysalis (chrysos = from gold) in which butterflies are formed, but never emerge. The center cannot hold. This, the third and final line I purloin from Yeats’ masterpiece ‘The Second Coming’ applies here save for this: we barely have a center to speak of, merely two peripheries in accelerating retreat, connected only by a rickety bridge creaking ominously in the wind. Soon that frail structure shall sigh its last and the two groups, needing each other desperately, will be left exchanging suspicious glances across a pitiless void.

But we are not yet beyond hope. The spiritual muscle that unites us in camaraderie has grown weak, but is not yet vestigial. When the ground opened beneath our feet in 2005 and hell itself seemed poised to break what it had not already swallowed, the men and women of Pakistan came forth in an effort that must have moved the most cynical of hearts. With their sinews and wallets, however great or small, they came to the aid of their countrymen.

Is it the reason we so cherish our cricket victories? When we cheer as one nation, we are for a fleeting moment linked to the mass of humanity that we otherwise reject, ignore or exclude.

It is not charity I advocate. Our compassion is ours to give or withhold. What everyone is entitled to is kinship, our acknowledgment that we and they are cut from the same mysterious cloth. Without kinship, wealthy and impoverished alike are beggared.

At the least, let us lobby for our sports, our arts, our culture (whether traditional pottery or desi rock). All persons, whatever else they lack, have souls that can swell and fall in unison. That which grew weary in isolation can revive itself in commonality, in knowing the full, true scope of experience that lies just beyond reach.

Let us refuse to accept that our best schools are incapable of teaching us our own language; they have taught us so much, so well. They must teach us how to speak so we can be heard, write so we can be read.

Let us tear away some morsels to fund our universities. We deserve it. Not we, the elite, but we, the people. We deserve to engage intellectually with the best our country has to offer. Let us feud and bicker our college years away, attacking ideas rather than accents, and come away enriched.

Let us sit on the patio of cafés and watch the world go by. Walk when we can and be jostled and irritated and marvel at the textures of life we too often handle with gloves that are velvet on the inside and iron on the outside. Demand and embrace parks and libraries and other public places until we become, once more, members of the public.

Only when our bubbles seem less like palaces and more like prisons shall we escape them.

Zaair Hussain is a Lahore-based freelance writer. He can be reached at zaairhussain@gmail.com

Related Links:

Eleven Days in Karachi

Jinnah's Pakistan Booms Amidst Doom and Gloom

Incompetence Worse Than Corruption

Creative Financing of Pakistan's Energy Projects

Pakistan's Energy Crisis

Light Candles, Do Not Curse Darkness

Taliban Exploiting Class Rifts in Pakistan

Water Scarcity in Pakistan

Salman Ahmed Rocks Silicon Valley

Life Goes On in Pakistan

Pakistan's Higher Education Reform

Aman Ki Asha: South Asians Aspire For Peace

Guest Post By Rakesh Mani

It's one of the most remarkable campaigns the subcontinent has seen: a joint peace initiative run by the Times of India, India's most powerful media empire, and the Jang group, Pakistan's most influential media group. Their joint 'Aman ki Asha' (Hope for Peace) initiative looks to develop a stronger Track II channel in the diplomatic and cultural relations between India and Pakistan.

The Urdu language Jang newspaper's involvement is relevant, and crucial, although the Jang Group's English language The News is also involved. However, it is probably the vernacular Jang reader who needs to be made more open to establishing a rapport with India. The case of the linguistic divide is less pronounced in India. Readers of the English press and vernacular press often share similar opinions on relations with Pakistan.

The criticisms about such civilian initiatives are probably fair: the assortment of cricketers, musicians and matinee idols who are lending their names and faces to the cause have little influence in either country. As long as the politicians and mandarins in India's establishment and the military men and mullahs in Pakistan's power elite are not involved, what difference does it all really make?

Given this reality, it is fair to assume that such a concerted initiative must have the approval of those who matter in Delhi and Islamabad, and possibly in Washington as well. Clearly the intent is to build a strong peace constituency among the masses in both countries for a pact that's being made in the highest echelons. Because war, in its adversity, unifies nations while peace divides them and gives rise to arguments about the price.

Negotiations on Kashmir have never gotten anywhere because neither country has been willing to compromise. For years, we have heard the familiar volley of archaic recriminations; with India refusing to budge from the status quo, and Pakistan looking to significantly alter it. Clearly both countries, at some point, will have to make some compromises to build peace. The gradual process of selling that compromise to their respective electorates has now begun in earnest.

Indians and Pakistanis, raised on animosity and mutual suspicion, now have to be programmed to yearn for peace. At any cost.

There have always been romantics and idealists in both countries who spoke fondly of their neighbor and lobbied for peace. But these constituencies were always relegated to peripheral positions by realist viewpoints that stressed strategic interest. And today, after years of opposing interests, we have a situation where the strategic interests of India and Pakistan seem to coincide.

The galaxy of strategic stars in the subcontinent is now aligned for peace. And things are moving quickly.

A few days ago, the governments of India and Pakistan announced that their foreign secretaries will meet for talks at the end of February to resume the formal dialogue on a number of key issues, including Kashmir. In an apparently unrelated gesture, India's Home Minister P. Chidambaram said that the scores of Indian militants from Kashmir who have crossed into Pakistani territory should be allowed to return to India without punishment.

It is in New Delhi's interest to stabilize the democratic regime in Pakistan, to prevent a nightmare scenario: a million Pakistani refugees, fleeing a theocratic Taliban-dominated country, pounding the gates at Wagah. It's a real threat, with a precedent. The Indian government hasn't forgotten the 1971 crisis, when millions of Bengali refugees flooded into West Bengal from erstwhile East Pakistan. Almost forty years ago, the question was economic and humanitarian.

Today, it's a catch-22: let the Pakistani refugees in, and you run the risk of a phalanx of anti-India militants being camouflaged among them; refuse them entry, and it becomes horrible publicity for a country that fancies itself a responsible, emerging superpower.

Islamabad, on the other hand, feels that the time is ripe to pressure Delhi into a settlement. With Washington leaning on them heavily for support in the war on terror, their approach will be to convince the Americans that they can't fight the battle on their Western border when there are Indian guns being pointed at their back in the East.

One suspects that Manmohan Singh, having seen the nuclear deal through in his first term, is looking to make a settlement on Kashmir his foreign policy priority for the UPA's second term in office. If all goes well, each player in the love triangle has their strategic interests fulfilled and becomes a sure shot for the Nobel Peace Prize.

A fine feather in their caps, but also the possibility of a final and lasting peace in a subcontinent that has been saddled with sorrow and disquiet for decades.


The writer is a 2009 Teach For India fellow, and a writer and columnist for a variety of publications. Email: rakesh.mani@ gmail.com

Related Links:

Case For Resuming India-Pakistan Talks

India's Sane Voice Warns Against Smugness

Hindutva Terror to Spark India-Pakistan War?

Is Pakistan Too Big to Fail?

India and Pakistan Compared in 2010

Why is Democracy Failing in Pakistan?

Middle Class Clout Rising in Pakistan

US Afghan Exit: Trigger For India-Pakistan Talks?

China's Growing Role in Kashmir

Why Is Democracy Failing in Pakistan?

Why has democracy not taken root in Pakistan? Why have the nation's democratic institutions failed to sustain themselves? How can Pakistan build and strengthen democratic institutions that provide good governance to solve its problems? Is it entirely the fault of Pakistan's ambitious military generals who have ruled the nation for about half of its 60 year history? Or does it have anything to do with the poor performance of the politicians who have had the opportunity to govern for thirty years, and failed to solve most of its major problems, particularly those related to human development and industrialization?

There are many answers to the questions above. But the explanation that appeals to me most is the one offered by British writer William Dalrymple. He wrote for the Guardian as follows on Pakistan's 60th independence day:

"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."



While I do see the middle class clout increasing in Pakistan after a decade of economic growth and increasing urbanization during Musharraf years, I don't believe that middle class rise in politics alone can help build and sustain good democratic governance. Incessantly talking about building democratic institutions is not enough. What is needed is the building of competence through good governance education for members of democratic institutions such as the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.

Pakistan does have the British legacy of functional institutions such the nation's military and the bureaucracy which have been able to sustain the state. The members of the civil and military services have the basic educational facilities, such as a number of staff colleges and academies, for training them to do their jobs. As a result, the military and civil service officers are reasonably competent in carrying out their assigned responsibilities.

However, no such training exists for the politicians who get elected to the highest positions of leadership in the executive and legislative branches. Under the constitution, they are charged with appointing judges and making and executing laws and policies to solve the nation's problems. Yet, most of them lack the basic competence to understand and appreciate their responsibilities. The parliamentarians are usually uninformed about most of the key issues of governance brought for discussion on the floor. As a result, the level of parliamentary debate is very poor, and important budget priorities and policies are agreed, and laws are passed without fully taking into account all of the issues involved.

There is no effective system of drafting legislation, holding hearings with stakeholders and experts, making budget appropriations, and subsequent oversight by specialized parliamentary committees. People who chair such committees don't have much of a clue as to where to begin, what questions to ask, and how to hold the executive and the bureaucracy accountable. As a result, once the laws and policies are approved, and budgets passed, there is not much oversight or accountability.

There was a proposal in 1998 to set up Jinnah Democracy Institute, named after Pakistan's founding father Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who spoke eloquently about democracy when he told military officers, “Never forget that you are the servants of the state. You do not make policy. It is we, the people’s representatives, who decide how the country is to be run. Your job is to only obey the decisions of your civilian masters.”The idea for democracy institute was inspired by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in the United States, and its main purpose was to offer at least one semester of required training to Pakistan's elected representatives. Unfortunately, the proposal has not gone anywhere.

If the current crop of elected politicians are really serious about strengthening democracy, it is important for them to pursue a broad good governance agenda in Pakistan with education and training of politicians as the center piece. It is important for them to revive the idea of a school of government in Islamabad to increase the chances for democracy to survive and thrive in Pakistan. Unless the politicians find a way to improve governance to solve people's problems, the nation will be condemned to repeat the past history of democracy's failure in Pakistan.

As a Pakistani-American wishing to see a healthy and friendly US-Pakistan relationship of one democracy with another, I believe this is an opportunity for the United States to use its aid and influence with leadership in Islamabad to build competence and institutional capacity for good democratic governance in Pakistan. Helping Pakistan set up Jinnah Institute of Democracy, along the lines of Kennedy School of Government, could become a significant step forward in promoting good governance and sustaining democracy in Pakistan. This may or may not work, but it is certainly worth a try.

Here's a video clip of British Writer William Dalrymple talking about Pakistan:




Related Links:

Incompetence Worse Than Graft in Pakistan

Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's Vision

Good Governance Reform Agenda in Pakistan

Pakistan – build institutions, civil society, to avert state failure

Feudal Power Dominates Pakistani Elections

Middle Class Clout Rising in Pakistan

Pakistan Most Urbanized in South Asia

Pakistan's Human Development

Pakistani-American in $500 million NFL Deal

What is NFL? It is America's National Football League, the biggest sports franchise business in the world. It's much bigger the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket franchise which is much better known to South Asians. The IPL has particularly been in the news lately for its controversial exclusion of Pakistani cricket players. Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan, who criticized Pakistanis' exclusion from IPL, has come under attack by right-wing Hindu extremists who are rampaging through the streets in India, burning theaters screening Khan's latest movie.

Today's media reports indicate that a Pakistani-American Shahid Khan of Illinois is in $450-$750 million deal to buy the NFL team St. Louis Rams. The final price will depend on whether Khan gets 60% or 100% of the stake in the NFL franchise. Khan, 55, is the president of Flex-N-Gate Corp., an auto-parts manufacturer in Urbana, Illinois with $2 billion in annual revenue. He has lived in the Champaign-Urbana area for more than 40 years and is married with two adult children. Khan is a graduate of the School of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois.

Flex-N-Gate employs over 9,500 people at 48 manufacturing and 9 product development and engineering facilities throughout Canada, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, and Spain. Khan, 55, and his wife, Ann Khan, live in Champaign. He has given millions of dollars to his alma mater, including funding a 2007 major expansion of the university’s tennis facilities — now called the Shahid and Ann Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex.

To put this deal in perspective for South Asian readers, "Mumbai Indians", the most expensive of the eight IPL franchises, was bought by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani for $112 million.

This season, each of the 32 NFL team owners were limited to $127m in salaries for their entire squad of players. That means some footballers are handsomely paid - Drew Brees, the star quarterback of the recent Superbowl winner the New Orleans Saints, has a six years $60m contract. By contrast, the most expensive IPL players fetch less than a million dollar bids, which are still the highest in the world for cricket players.

Indian cricket has taken a page from the big sports franchises in the West. Forbes magazine reports that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), a nonprofit body controlling the game in the country, has racked up $1 billion to date from selling commercial rights to Indian cricket for the next five years. (One source: Nike paid $45 million to flash its logo on players' apparel and to sell garments to cricket fans.) "It's all about extracting the most value," said Lalit Modi, BCCI's new marketing chief, who hopes to eventually make $1.5 billion from Indian cricket, ten times what BCCI made in the last go-around.

In both IPL and NFL, the biggest source of revenue is the sale of television rights, followed by brand name merchandise sales, ticket sales and endorsement deals.

Shahid Khan is obviously an outstanding success story for Pakistani-Americans. Nationwide, Pakistani-Americans appear to be prospering. The US census calculated that mean household income in the United States in 2002 was $57,852 annually, while that for Asian households, which includes Pakistanis, was $70,047.

Hard numbers on how many people of Pakistani descent live in the United States do not exist, but a book published by Harvard University Press on charitable donations among Pakistani-Americans, “Portrait of a Giving Community by Professor Adil Najam,” puts the number around 500,000, with some 35 percent or more of them in the New York metropolitan area. Chicago has fewer than 100,000, while other significant clusters exist in California, Texas and Washington, D.C.

New York Times estimate of 109,000 Pakistani-born American workers' occupations include salesmen, managers or administrators, drivers, doctors and accountants as the top five categories.

Pakistani-Americans political participation remains woefully inadequate. But there are some signs that it is beginning to happen at various levels starting from from local communities to state legislatures.


Related Links:

Pakistani-American Elected Mayor

Edible Arrangements--Pakistani-American's Success Story

Pakistani-Americans in Silicon Valley

IPL Mixes Sports, Business and Entertainment

HDF Fundraiser in Silicon Valley For Pakistan

Pakistani Diaspora in America

Asian-Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues

New York City's Pakistani Population

Pakistani-Americans in NYC

NED Alumni Convention Draws 400

NEDians Convention 2007 in Silicon Valley

Muslim Demographics in America

Pakistanis in America

Pakistani-Americans Wikipedia Entry

Illegal Immigration From India to America Hits 125%

Pakistanis Find US Easier Fit than Britain

Portrait of a Giving Community

India's Washington Lobby

Occupations of Pakistani-Americans--New York Times

American Football Faces Financial Reform

Indian Premier League

Pakistani Engineer is New NFL Owner

Earthquake Fears in India and Pakistan

The recent 7.0 earthquake that caused over 200,000 deaths in Haiti has revived discussion of potential loss of life from seismic activity in many cities in the developing world, including the South Asian capitals of Islamabad, Kathmandu and New Delhi, all located close to the South Asian fault lines.



GeoHazards International, a Palo Alto, Calif. nonprofit research organization aiming to reduce suffering due to natural disasters, predicts that a 6.0 earthquake on the Richter scale would cause tens of thousands of deaths in major cities in the developing world. Here is GeoHazards' list of top 10 major cities and their expected minimum death tolls in the developing world which are most vulnerable to major earthquakes of 6.0 (or higher) intensity:

1. Kathmandu, Nepal 69,000
2. Istanbul, Turkey 55,000
3. Delhi, India 38,000
4. Quito, Ecuador 15,000
5. Manila, Philippines 13,000
6. Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Pakistan 12,500
7. San Salvador, El Salvador 11,500
7. Mexico City, Mexico 11,500
7. Izmir, Turkey 11,500
10. Jakarta, Indonesia 11,000

San Francisco in 1989 and Haiti this year were hit by earthquakes of equal intensity of 7.0 on Richter scale; yet SF suffered only 63 deaths while the Haiti tremor has claimed over 200,000 lives.

A lower intensity 6.0 earthquake would also cause potential deaths and damage in cities like Los Angeles and Tokyo, but the much higher death toll and greater degree of destruction anticipated in developing nations has more to do with corruption, economics and engineering than geology.



The magnitude 7.6 quake that struck Kashmir and the North West Frontier regions of Pakistan in October 2005 killed over 70,000 people, many in remote parts of the country, not as dense as urban centers like Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The mountainous terrain made it specially difficult to provide disaster relief and contributed to greater casualties.

In Kashmir's 7.6 earthquake, as also in the tremor of slightly higher intensity in 2008 in China that claimed about 70,000 lives each, most of the casualties occurred in collapsed government buildings like thousands of public schools, claiming a disproportionate number of children's lives. The earthquakes in China and Pakistan exacted an outsize toll on schoolchildren, as a large number of crowded schools pancaked into rubble, while better built private buildings next to the public school buildings stood almost undamaged. In sharp contrast to the China and Pakistan, California authorities have closely monitored the construction of schools since a 1933 earthquake in Long Beach killed more than 100 people, many struck by falling debris as they ran out of shaking buildings.

Unfortunately, the construction industry is considered to be the most corrupt of all industries by Transparency International, and the developing nations whose cities show up on the most vulnerable list also figure prominently among the most corrupt nations in surveys conducted by the same organization. Even in places where new building codes exist to minimize potential quake deaths and damage, proper enforcement is absent because of widespread corruption.

As to the cost of building to withstand seismic activity, Dr. Brian Tucker of Geo Hazards believes that schools, hospitals and crucial buildings like the U.N. mission that collapsed in Haiti can be reinforced to withstand quakes by adding just 4% more to the cost of construction--something he urges foreign donors to keep in mind while giving aid. "It's not God that's doing this," Tucker recently told Forbes magazine. "It's men who are not building correctly."

Speaking at a World Affairs Council meeting in San Francisco, Tucker recently talked about his work with The Academy of Sciences in Pakistan to set up remote training of people involved in building construction. Tucker also mentioned Geo Hazards' work with communities in Nepal to retrofit schools to withstand earthquakes. They went door to door to explain to parents what can be done, provided partial funding and training to masons, and the masons then helped reinforce schools and offer services to community members to retrofit or build many earthquake-resistant homes in Kathmandu. Part of the masons' training involved showing them how the slow, wet curing of concrete makes a big difference in its ability to withstand forces created during earthquakes. Proper slow curing of concrete is necessary but not sufficient. Concrete is a material that is very strong in compression, but relatively weak in tension. To compensate for this imbalance in concrete's behavior, rebar (reinforcing carbon steel bar) is cast into it to carry the tensile loads. In collapsed school structures in China and Pakistan, thin, bendable wire was the only evidence of rebar, the material that holds concrete structures together. Generally speaking, the less steel in a concrete building, the less strength it has to withstand movement.

Since the devastation caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that claimed 230,000 lives, the UN has led "Build Back Better" campaign around the world. As part of this effort, the task of rebuilding after disasters has been viewed as an opportunity to bring improved social services, clean water, and sturdier schools to the affected areas. Former US president Bill Clinton is advocating that the lessons learned from this campaign be utilized in Haiti.

As Haiti rebuilds, and organizations like Geo Hazards share their learning from their ongoing work in various earthquake prone nations, it is important for South Asians to pay attention to better prepare for future earthquakes.

Related Links:

Is Haiti Disaster Entirely Natural?

Rampant Corruption in Construction Industry

Bhutto Convicted in Switzerland

Build Back Better

Corruption in Pakistan

Infrastructure Corruption in India

Infrastructure Corruption in Pakistan

Transparency International Survey 2007

Is Siemens Guilty?

Fluor's Anti-Corruption Initiative

Zardari Corruption Probe

Construction, Corruption and Developing Countries

US Afghan Exit : Trigger For India to Talk to Pak?

India has invited Pakistan for the first high-level bilateral talks since it walked away after Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008, according to media reports.

Although there had been a number of writers, columnists and peace activists in India demanding a resumption of India-Pakistan dialog, India had strongly resisted such calls until recently, while insisting on a series of pre-conditions.

None of the Indian pre-conditions for dialog have been met, and yet India has decided on resuming the dialog with its neighbor to the West. Why this sudden change of heart? Does it have anything to do with the rapidly changing dynamics in Afghanistan?

Well, it is not a coincidence that India's offer of talks came soon after global powers endorsed an Afghan plan at a conference in London late last month to seek reconciliation with the Taliban in which Pakistan is expected to play a major role.
The US and NATO nations' pursuit of dialog with the Taliban is a clear indication of their plans to exit Afghanistan soon.

The American and NATO plans are probably causing growing fears among the Indian elite of being shut out of a potential deal with Pakistan over the future of Afghanistan. Such a deal could bring back the dynamics of the 1990s, a situation unacceptable to India.

Some Indian analysts argue that Pakistan has an anti-India establishment which may be still hedging its bets on certain militant groups whether to keep India on its toes or to regain paradise lost in terms of strategic depth in Afghanistan.

The Indian analysts are probably correct in their assessment that at least a part of the Pakistani "establishment" does not want serious progress in talks with India. But I also believe there is a similar anti-Pakistan establishment in India that wants to thwart any possibility of peace with Pakistan.

I often hear references to India's "shadowy security establishment" and "agencies" by Indian columnists like Siddarth Varadarajan in The Hindu newspaper, and politicians like Mehbooba Mufti after a recent Srinagar hotel attack.

Similar questions about "power establishment" outside the elected leadership in India have also been raised by SM Mushrif in his recent book "Who Killed Karkare?"

Regardless of the anti-peace establishment in either country or India's incentive to return to talks with Pakistan, let us hope that these talks prove to be more than a tactical move. Let us hope that this dialog helps conclude the agreement on Kashmir that reportedly was very close when the secret three-year talks broke off. Removing Kashmir as an obstacle to peace in South Asia could open up a new era of stability and prosperity for all of the people of the region.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Facts and Myths About Afghanistan and Pakistan

A conversation with South Asia Scholars

Case For Resuming India-Pakistan Dialog

India's Sane Voice Warns Indians

Hindutva Terror to Spark India-Pakistan Conflict?

India Tops in Illiteracy and Defense Expenditures

UNESCO Education For All Report 2010

India's Arms Build-up: Guns Versus Bread

South Asia Slipping in Human Development

World Hunger Index 2009

Challenges of 2010-2020 in South Asia

India and Pakistan Contrasted 2010

Food, Clothing and Shelter in India and Pakistan

Introduction to Defense Economics

Food, Housing and Clothing in India and Pakistan

Who Killed Karkare?

Talk to Pakistan, Stupid!

Secret India-Pakistan Talks

FAQs on India's Massive 34% Defense Budget Hike

Last year, India decided on a massive 34% increase year-over-year in its defense spending. Here are some frequently asked questions and answers about this dramatic move that puts India among the world's biggest spenders on defense.

Q1: How much does India really spend on defense?

A1: On paper, India spends $32.7 billion, about 3% of its GDP on defense, after an increase of 34% for 2010.

In reality, India spends closer to 3.5% of its GDP on defense.

Here's what Col.(Retd) Pavan Nair of the Indian Army has to say about it in a recent guest post on Haq's Musings:

India's own specified limit of 3% has been observed only by excluding several items like the cost of the MoD and the expenditure on military pensions which by itself amounts to 15% of the total defense outlay. Several other items like the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (JAKLI, a regular regiment of the army consisting of thirteen battalions) and the Coast Guard are also excluded. A substantial part of the cost of the nuclear arsenal and allied systems is excluded. All para-military forces including the ones directly involved in border management are excluded. The Parliamentary Committee on Defense spends most of its time on personnel matters and resolving issues of protocol between the service chiefs and the defense secretary. The Committee looks at DE but beyond stating that DE should be pegged at 3% of GDP, it has nothing substantial to contribute. Clearly, parliamentary oversight and control seems to be missing. For several years, DE in aggregate has crossed 3% of GDP.



Pakistan spends about $4.3 billion annually, less than 3% of its GDP, and there has been no real increase year-over-year in 2010. There was a 10.15 per cent nominal increase from Rs 311.303 billion revised defense budget for 2009-2010. In real terms, however, it represents a decrease because inflation in Pakistan exceeds nominal increase in defense. Pakistan’s defense allocation does not include foreign assistance, which is expected add about a billion dollars to defense spending for operations against Taliban insurgents. The aggregate $5.5 billion of military spending by Pakistan accounts for about 3% of its $ 175 billion GDP.

“The war on terror has already cost us over $35 billion since 2001-02. We now face the prospects of incurring huge expenditure on account of counter-insurgency,” according to Pakistan's deputy finance minister Hina Rabbani Khar.

Q2: Doesn't India need to spend more on defense to fight the terrorists in the region?

A2: The military brass in India used the Mumbai attacks in late 2008 to argue for and win a 34% increase in defense budget. But terrorism is just an excuse by Indian military to get large funds and buy expensive cold war era weapons which are useless against the asymmetrical threat from the terrorists any way. It lines the pockets of the arms dealers (and a few corrupt generals and officials) without increasing India's security against potential terror attacks.

The 34% increase can not be explained by Indian military pay hikes either, given India's huge weapons' shopping list and its status as one of the biggest importers of military hardware in the world. The real aim is to intimidate India's neighbors, and assert India's hegemony. But it won't work as long as India has serious challenges of poverty, illiteracy, hunger, social inequity and multiple insurgencies at home by its most impoverished citizens.

Q3: Won't India just grow out of poverty, hunger, illiteracy through rapid economic expansion of its economy?

A3: Over a decade of rapid economic growth in India has done little to help its poor, hungry and illiterate population.

India has miserably failed to use a period of high economic growth to lift tens of millions of people out of poverty, falling far short of China’s record in protecting its population from the ravages of chronic hunger, United Nations officials said recently. In 2008, British Development Minister Alexander contrasted the rapid growth in China with India's economic success - highlighting government figures that showed the number of poor people had dropped in the one-party communist state by 70% since 1990 but had risen in the world's biggest democracy by 5%.

In the context of unprecedented economic growth (9-10 percent annually) and lack of 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).

Ranked at 45 on PHI index, Pakistan is well ahead of India at number 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.

Q4: Why can't India do both: Increase defense spending and reduce poverty, illiteracy, hunger and disease?

A4: Defense spending should not be a sacred cow. Huge increases shouldn't get approved with little or no debate, and there should be much greater oversight of how it's spent.

It needs to be discussed and debated rationally in the parliament and the media.

What I find is that there is more debate and discussion in Pakistan on defense spending than there is in India, in spite of the fact Pakistan is fighting a war against determined insurgents in the North West.

In spite of its many other urgent issues like access to food, education and health care, it's a shame that a huge 34% boost in defense budget got approved in India without much serious discussion. A similar dramatic increase in Pakistan would have elicited howls of protest and loud demands to curtail it.



Q5: Why should there be any discussion or debate in India on defense budgets when there is consensus among all political parties that military spending should increase?

A5: That may be a good explanation of lack of debate, but the size of the increase at 34% year over year should be too big to slide through parliament without much scrutiny. And it's strange that there is no such consensus on similar spending increases on food, health care, education and poverty alleviation where India lags behind many of its neighbors.

In 2008, Indian Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed acknowledged that India is worse than Bangladesh and Pakistan when it comes to nourishment and is showing little improvement.

Speaking at a conference on "Malnutrition an emergency: what it costs the nation", she said even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during interactions with the Planning Commission has described malnourishment as the "blackest mark".

"I should not compare. But countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are better," she said. The conference was organized last year by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Ministry of Development of Northeastern Region.

According to India's Family Health Survey, almost 46 percent of children under the age of three are undernourished - an improvement of just one percent in the last seven years. This is only a shade better than Sub-Saharan Africa where about 35 percent of children are malnourished.

Unlike Indian military which got 34% increase this year, there is no one talking about a similar spending increase for human development in a nation that is slipping to lower ranks in human development. In fact, the latest Human Development Report for 2009 shows that all major South Asian nations have slipped further down relative to other regions of the world. Pakistan's HDI ranking dropped 3 places from 138 last year to 141 this year, and India slipped six places from 128 in 2008 to 134 this year.

The total per-capita expenditure on health (central as well as state expenditure) is about a third of the per-capita expenditure on defense in India. This low level of funding is the prime reason for poor health parameters which in turn keeps a large proportion of the population in perpetual debt and poverty. The UN millennium development goals pertaining to mortality rates and poverty are not likely to be achieved mainly on account of poor spending and delivery in the health sector. The allocation for federal spending on health in the current year is Rs 22,641 crores or merely 0.4% of GDP.

Q6: Why Is the Indian defense spending any of this blogger's business?

A6: India's military spending directly affects the entire south Asian region. It increases the threat perception in the neighborhood, particularly when the Indian military brass engages in threatening rhetoric in the midst of its huge arms buildup. It distorts the spending priorities of Pakistan, a smaller neighbor which was invaded and divided by India in 1971.

Recently, Lt-General A S Lamba of Indian Army has been quoted by the Indian media as boasting about a "massive thrust into Rawalpindi to quiet Pakistanis within 48 hours of the start of assault." Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor has said India is ready for a “the successful firming-up of the cold start strategy (to be able to go to war promptly) in the multiple fronts against multiple different militias at the same time.” General Kapoor has talked about taking on China and Pakistan at the same time.

India has over 6000 tanks, and it is inconceivable that these tanks will roll over the Himalayas to invade China. These tanks are meant to invade Pakistan in the plains of Punjab and the deserts of Sind. Indian Army has 33 infantry divisions. Twenty-four are on Pakistan borders. It has three armored divisions, all three are positioned near Pakistan borders. There are three mechanized divisions in India, all three are on Pakistan borders.


Related Links:

South Asia Slipping in Human Development

India's Defense Budget: Guns Versus Butter

Indian Military Brass Challenges China and Pakistan

India's Defense Spending: Facts Beyond Figures

Pakistan's Defense Budget

World's Top Arms Importers

PHI Poverty Hunger Index

Has Justice Been Served in Afia Siddiqui's Conviction?

A New York jury has convicted Dr. Aafia Siddiqui of shooting at American soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan during her arrest in 2008. The judge, the jury and the entire proceedings focused narrowly on shooting charges, and there was no discussion of how the accused ended up in Afghanistan. The trial has, in fact, raised more questions than it has answered.



The biggest question that remains unanswered is where was Aafia Siddiqui since her disappearance from Karachi in 2003 till the alleged shooting during her arrest in Afghanistan in 2008?

A Harper magazine story from last November, 2009 issue has a detailed report on Aafia Siddiqui's ordeal from 2003 to the start of her trial in 2009. It has multiple conflicting accounts from many sources including Pakistani officials and Aafia's family.

As the Harper reporter Petra Bartosiewicz explains it, "The charges against her stem solely from the shooting incident itself, not from any alleged act of terrorism. The prosecutors provide no explanation for how a scientist, mother, and wife came to be charged as a dangerous felon. Nor do they account for her missing years, or her two other children, who still are missing. What is known is that the United States wanted her in 2003, and it wanted her again in 2008, and now no one can explain why."

Bartosiewicz goes on to add:

The total number of men and women who have been kidnapped and imprisoned for U.S. intelligence-gathering purposes is difficult to determine. Apart from Iraq and Afghanistan, the main theaters of combat, Pakistan is our primary source of publicly known detainees—researchers at Seton Hall University estimated in 2006 that two thirds of the prisoners at Guantánamo were arrested in Pakistan or by Pakistani authorities—and so it is reasonable to assume that the country is also a major supplier of ghost detainees. Human Rights Watch has tracked enforced disappearances in Pakistan since before 2001. The group’s counterterrorism director, Joanne Mariner, told me that the number of missing persons in the country grew “to a flood” as U.S. counterterrorism operations peaked between 2002 and 2004. In that same three-year period, U.S. aid to Pakistan totaled $4.7 billion, up from $9.1 million in the three years prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Correlation does not prove causation, of course, but Pakistan’s former president, Pervez Musharraf, did claim in his 2006 memoir, In the Line of Fire, that his country had delivered 369 Al Qaeda suspects to the United States for “millions of dollars” in bounties (a boast he neatly elides in the Urdu edition). It is reasonable to suspect this figure is on the low side.

Aafia Siddiqui’s elderly maternal uncle, Shams ul Hassan Faruqi, a geologist, says almost everyone the reporter spoke to is lying. Faruqi told her an entirely different story. He said Siddiqui showed up at his house unannounced one evening in January 2008, a time when, according to a Pakistani intelligence officer she was supposedly in the hands of the CIA. Her face had been altered, Faruqi said, as if she had undergone plastic surgery, but he knew her by her voice. She said she had been held by the Pakistanis and the Americans and was now running operations for both of them against Al Qaeda. She had slipped away for a few days, though, because she wanted him to smuggle her across the border into Afghanistan so she could seek sanctuary with the Taliban, members of which Faruqi had known from his years of mineral exploration.

Speculation is rife that Siddiqui could have been working as a double agent for at least part of the time she was gone missing. It's possible that she lost trust of her American handlers, which led to her arrest, shooting, and the recent conviction in New York.

The Harper reporter concluded by quoting Afia's sister Fowzia as saying," I’d love it if a real investigator would come and devote himself to the case. You know, really work on it.”

Even the evidence presented on the narrow shooting charges appeared to leave considerable doubt about the guilt of the accused, already labeled "Lady al Qaeda" by some of the American media. The statements by several witnesses were contradictory, and no credible evidence was presented linking the accused to the gun allegedly used by her in shooting. None of the soldiers or the FBI agents was hurt. Only the accused was shot in the stomach during the incident. But these holes did not prevent the jury from reaching a unanimous verdict of guilt.

Here is how a New York based human rights attorney Joanne Mariner described Siddiqui's trial:

A trial's narrative is always tightly circumscribed by the rules of evidence and the demands of relevance. In this instance, however, the constraints of the trial narrative have seemed especially limiting. Not only has the question of whether Siddiqui spent months or years in a secret prison not been thoroughly explored, the fate of her two missing children has not been clarified.

"If You Were in Secret Prisons"

To the extent that claims about a secret prison surfaced at trial, it was largely because Siddiqui herself – sometimes in courtroom outbursts – raised them. Siddiqui's defense lawyers did little to draw out information about Siddiqui's possible CIA detention, and the government clearly wanted the topic to go away.

If Siddiqui's lawyers had wanted to explore the question, they faced two major obstacles. First, the government was uncooperative; it refused to provide any information about the Bush administration's system of secret CIA detention, claiming that such information was classified. Second, Siddiqui did not cooperate with her legal team, leaving them without a possible firsthand source of information.

The issue nonetheless arose on the very first day of trial. Captain Robert Snyder, a US Army officer who was stationed in Ghazni at the time of Siddiqui's arrest, was describing the documents that Siddiqui was said to be carrying when she was arrested.

For much of the morning, Siddiqui had rested her head on the defense table, suggesting that she was not paying close attention to the testimony. But as Snyder began listing the writing on some of the documents –words like "dirty bomb," "lethal radiation," "deadly fallout," "Empire State Building," "Brooklyn Bridge" – Siddiqui suddenly interrupted him, upset.

"If you were in secret prisons," she said, her voice growing louder, "[and] your children were tortured ... " As the judge motioned for her to be removed from the courtroom, she continued: "This is not plans for New York City; I was never planning to bomb it! You're lying!"

The subject came up again the next week when Siddiqui herself was on the witness stand, tense and uncomfortable under grilling by the prosecutor.

During direct examination by one of her defense attorneys, the topic of secret prisons did not arise, but when the prosecutor started to discuss the documents that had allegedly been in Siddiqui's possession, Siddiqui interrupted her.

"If they're in a secret prison, they see their children tortured in front of them ... "

"That's not responsive," the judge ruled, after the prosecutor complained. "Strike the testimony."

"You Told Special Agent Sercer That You Had Been in Hiding for Several Years"

Later in Siddiqui's cross-examination, the prosecutor came up with a very different version of how Siddiqui spent her missing years. Describing Siddiqui's conversations with an FBI agent who spent time with her at Bagram Air Base while she was receiving medical care there, the prosecutor challenged Siddiqui's story of secret detention.

"At Bagram," the prosecutor insisted, "you told Special Agent Sercer that you had been in hiding for several years."

The prosecutor got a chance to develop the story further when Special Agent Sercer, an FBI intelligence analyst, took the stand. Asked whether Siddiqui had discussed her whereabouts during the years before her 2008 arrest, Sercer said that Siddiqui had said she'd been in hiding.

"She would move from place to place," Sercer said Siddiqui had told her. "She married someone so that her name would be changed. She stayed indoors a lot."

Sercer's version of the story coincides with what Siddiqui's first husband, from whom she divorced in 2002, has told journalists. He claims that Siddiqui was seen at her house in the years between 2003 and 2008, and that he himself saw her in Karachi.

A Diversion or a Crime

In his closing argument, the prosecutor dismissed Siddiqui's references to torture and secret prisons, calling them "a classic diversion." The case "isn't about that," he insisted: It's about what happened in a police station in Ghazni, Afghanistan.

What this case shows is that Muslims are currently a despised minority in the West these days. What we are seeing is reminiscent of the McCarthy era Red Scare or the WW II era anti-Japanese sentiments against Muslims in America. Even the US judiciary appears to have been swayed by the current environment, just as it was when the US Supreme Court approved of the internment camps to isolate and hold Japanese Americans during the second world war.

Given the environment of deep suspicion and fear of Muslims, all norms of fairness and rule of law are being ignored in the US when it comes to justice for any one with a Muslim name who gets accused of anything smacking of violence or terrorism.

Here's a video clip of Dr. Amjad Khan, ex-husband of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, speaking with GeoTV news:



Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Is Afia a Dangerous Terrorist or Innocent Victim?

Musharraf's Economic Legacy

Harper's Story on Aafia

South Asia Review

Case For Resuming India-Pakistan Talks

I believe it is a crazy notion that talking to someone, particularly your adversaries, is a concession. This kind of distorted thinking is the result of the Bush era failed policy of "punishing" your enemies by refusing a dialog. US President George W. Bush is gone, but it appears that the Indian policy of not engaging with Pakistan is guided by with the irrational thinking learned from him.

If the Americans and the Soviets could talk when they had thousands of nuclear warheads pointing at each other during the cold war, surely India and Pakistan can, too.

It must be remembered that the population centers in India and Pakistan are so close geographically (unlike population centers in US and Russia) that any serious miscalculation can lead to a deadly nuclear war with little or no warning, a potential accident whose chances can be minimized by regular communication and discussions between India and Pakistan.

Unfortunately, excuses are dime a dozen, if India wants to pursue its misguided policy of prolonged disengagement. The costs of such a policy could potentially be much much greater than the terrorist incidents that affect Pakistan more than India.

The biggest cost of the policy of confrontation backed up by a massive military buildup by India is already being paid by the most vulnerable Indians whose numbers exceed the poor, hungry and illiterate people anywhere else in the world.

One out of every three illiterate adults in the world is an Indian, according to UNESCO.

One out of very two hungry persons in the world is an Indian, according to World Food Program.

Almost one out of two Indians lives below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.

And yet, India spends $30 billion on defense, and just increased the defense budget by 32% this year.

Here are some more recent comparative indicators in South Asia:

Poverty:

Population living under $1.25 a day - India: 41.6% Pakistan: 22.6% Source: UNDP

Underweight Children Under Five (in percent) Pakistan 38% India 46% Source: UNICEF

Life expectancy at birth (years), 2007 India: 63.4 Pakistan: 66.2 Source: HDR2009

Education:

Youth (15–24 years) literacy rate, 2000 to 2007, male Pak istan: 80% India 87% Source: UNICEF

Youth (15–24 years) literacy rate, 2000 to 2007, female Pak istan 60% India 77% Source: UNICEF

Economics:

GDP per capita (US$), 2008 Pak:$1000-1022 India $1017-1100

Child Protection:

Child marriage under 15-years ; 1998–2007*, total Pak istan - 32% India - 47% Source: UNICEF

Under-5 mortality rate per 1000 live births (2007), Value Pakistan - 90 India 72 Source: UNICEF

In spite of the grim statistics above, India is ranked the fourth biggest military spender in terms of purchasing power parity.

The poverty and hunger situation in Pakistan is only a bit less serious than in India. It is also in Pakistan's best interest to focus on developing its people and its economy rather than engaging in confrontation with its neighbors.

Given the ugly realities of South Asia, it is high time for India to respond to Pakistan's overtures, as argued in the following Op Ed by a sane Indian Siddarth Varadarajan in The Hindu newspaper:


When the Angels who rule India say they favour dialogue and peace with Pakistan but then fear to tread, is it any surprise that fools would rush nin to destroy that virtuous path? We will never know whether somebody from our shadowy security establishment whispered something dark and fanciful in the ears of the owners and managers of the Indian Premier League as they went in for the player auction last week and if so, for whom he was batting.

Certainly, the manner in which every Pakistani cricketer was boycotted despite the initial expression of interest by the teams smacks of considerations other than sports, business or common sense. Most of all, the decision betrays such a poor understanding of the geographies of market development, brand building and soft power that its net effect will be to undermine India’s interests in the widest possible sense.

My own view is that the boycott was not ordered or engineered by the Government of India or any of its agencies acting on instructions from the top. But that does not free our leadership from the vicarious responsibility of needlessly perpetuating a bilateral vacuum that has produced one of the most spectacular self-dismissals sub-continental cricket — and diplomacy — have ever seen.

In the face of a popular backlash across the border, the Ministry of External Affairs rightly noted that the government had nothing to do with the IPL selection. But instead of expressing regret over an outcome that it played no direct role in producing, the MEA statement threw a heap of salt on the wounded national pride of all Pakistanis. “Pakistan,” the Ministry smugly declared, “should introspect on the reasons which have put a strain on relations between India and Pakistan and adversely impacted on peace, stability and prosperity in the region.”

If anything, a little introspection on the Indian side may have been equally appropriate, since some senior Ministers — including P. Chidambaram — later went out of their way to say the exclusion of Pakistani cricketers was indeed unfortunate. Apart from reflecting badly on India, the insulting exclusion has allowed reactionary, extremist elements in Pakistan to seize the moral high ground. And it has pushed Pakistani public opinion and civil society further into the embrace of those who would like to perpetuate a climate of hostility with India and who have more than a soft spot for terrorism.

When terrorists from the Pakistan-based group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, attacked Mumbai in November 2008, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decided not to repeat the mistake the Vajpayee government made in December 2001 of cutting off transport and people-to-people relations as part of its strategy of coercive diplomacy. Dr. Singh’s advisers knew they were dealing with a fractured polity and society across the border. They knew India needed a differentiated approach that would help isolate those elements in the Pakistani establishment with connections to jihadi organisations while strengthening those who had realised the damage state sponsorship of extremism was inflicting on Pakistan itself.

Within this framework, suspension of official dialogue was seen as a way of putting pressure on the Pakistani military and the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, a strange conclusion given that the army and the ISI were never too hot on talks in the first place and used the resulting tension to rally the nation behind them. The civilian leadership, which managed to get a reluctant establishment to accept that the Pakistani soil had indeed been used to plan 26/11, needed the limited resumption of dialogue to strengthen itself for the larger domestic battle against military dominance and jihadism. The arrest of senior LeT operatives should have occasioned some let up from India, at least by the time their trial got under way last year. But the hysterical cries of sell-out which greeted the July 2009 Sharm el-Sheikh summit stayed the Manmohan Singh government’s hand. As for civil society, New Delhi believed it would be possible to push ahead with people-to-people relations despite the freeze that had set in at the official level. Subsequent events have shown that belief to be slightly misplaced. The problem was not with the willingness of Pakistani businessmen, cricketers, artists and others to engage with India but the corrosive effect the suspension of dialogue would have on the capacity of the Indian system to use soft power to its advantage.

The IPL fiasco is one example of the negative externalities generated by the lack of official contact between the two governments. But there are others. During the India International Trade Fair in 2009, several container loads of Pakistani products got held up in lengthy customs clearance procedures. Needless to say, this petty if unscripted harassment of traders and exhibitors from across did nothing to enhance India’s national interest. This year, many Pakistani publishers and book distributors have been unable to obtain visas for the Delhi book fair.

Instead of people-to-people relations influencing official relations in a positive way, the freeze in official ties has inevitably begun to cast a chill on all forms of interaction. Businessmen, who should be looking to exploit opportunities for mutual gain, have become infected with the same hard-line pathology that our security establishment suffers from. Last year, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry Task Force on National Security and Terrorism came up with a report so strident and hawkish that it provoked an unhelpful backlash from traders in Pakistan. Among the “hard options” the FICCI task force said India could take against Pakistan in the event of another major terrorist attack were “surgical” strikes, covert retaliation inside Pakistani territory, the blocking of imports, all-out assault and “leveraging the water issue” to pressure Pakistan.

Like nature, the relationship between the two countries abhors a vacuum. India held back the tide of dialogue in the hope that Pakistan would permanently dismantle the infrastructure of terror on its territory and a more fertile ground for bilateral progress results. The strategy might have worked up to a point but diminishing returns set in a long time ago. Today, India is acting as if the continuing suspension of dialogue is buying it security and that the resumption of dialogue would be a concession to Pakistan. In fact, dialogue is nothing other than a mechanism for advancing one’s own goals. In the hands of a skilled diplomatic establishment, dialogue, even on a range of difficult issues and disputes, can be used selectively to harvest gains. New Delhi has talked to Islamabad for decades about Kashmir without conceding an inch of territory and there is no reason to fear what might happen if talks are resumed. Especially if the same dialogue process also allows bilateral trade to increase beyond the current annual level of $2 billion and allows Indian soft power to create a wider constituency for peace and good relations in Pakistan.

It goes without saying that Pakistan needs to do more to demonstrate its willingness to crack down on extremist elements that continue to plan attacks on India. On its part, India needs to realise that engaging with Pakistan will be a more effective way of driving home that point than trading statements and insults every few weeks and refusing to sit down at the same table. A new start must immediately be made with the convening of a meeting of the two Foreign Secretaries. Neither side should stand on ceremony as far as the venue is concerned. Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram should make it a point to visit Islamabad for the Saarc Home Ministers meeting later this month and meet his Pakistani counterpart to review not just the Mumbai case but other subjects of mutual concern. The Saarc summit in Bhutan in April will provide another occasion for bilateral interaction at the Prime Ministerial level though careful preparation is needed to ensure a productive and implementable outcome. In the meantime, a moratorium on sound-bites, especially by those who are not in the loop or in synch with Prime Minister Singh’s thinking, is essential.

Related Links:

India's Sane Voice Warns Indians

India Tops in Illiteracy and Defense Expenditures

UNESCO Education For All Report 2010

India's Arms Build-up: Guns Versus Bread

South Asia Slipping in Human Development

World Hunger Index 2009

Challenges of 2010-2020 in South Asia

India and Pakistan Contrasted 2010

Food, Clothing and Shelter in India and Pakistan

Introduction to Defense Economics

Food, Housing and Clothing in India and Pakistan