In Pakistan instead, the turmoil in the society and the question marks over the nature of governance are proving to be disincentives for foreign investments and pushing it more and more into isolation.
The role of religion in the life of polity would not have become such a troubling question in the region which became Pakistan had India remained united. Ahmedias need not have been excommunicated from Islam, which is a highly regrettable violation of human rights; nor Shias threatened with the same fate by the so-called conscience-keeping Mullahs of the Sunni sect. Military incursion into spheres of power and governance lies at the roots of rise of influence of the Mullahs in Pakistan and the havoc they are creating there. The full story is, however, yet to reveal itself. The clergy is hoping to rule in Pakistan in days to come.
They rule only in two other countries, Iran and Afghanistan and in both countries medieval horrors have been revisited. In undivided India, the citizenry would have been spared this fate. No Taliban scourge will arise in India. Jehadis and armed sectarian groups will not have a free run in the country as they have in Pakistan today. Political and religious authorities will operate in their own separate domains. In India, unlike Pakistan, Islam has developed a soft face, comparable to Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia. In Pakistan, Islam is extracting a much severer cost from the society, with its anti-blasphemy and Hudood laws. In united India too, Islam would be having a benign face much like what existed in British times.
India today is an attractive destination for foreign investments and is fast ‘becoming a vibrant part of the global village. The potential of the undivided India would have been even more attractive. In Pakistan instead, the turmoil in the society and the question marks over the nature of governance are proving to be disincentives for foreign investments and pushing it more and more into isolation.
Lowering the Quality of Life
Moving over from the abstract to the concrete, empirical evidence suggests that the cost of the two-nation theory to the two nations it created has been enormous, The two countries have been in a state of confrontation from the beginning. Four wars have been fought in 1948, ’62, ’71 and ’99. Besides, Pakistan is engaged in a low cost proxy war against India in J&K state from 1989. This conflict situation imposes very heavy burden on the resources of the two countries and leaves disproportionately small sums for allotment to social sectors and human development programmes. It is, therefore, not surprising that poverty, illiteracy and lack of health care exist at unacceptable levels in both these countries.
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Being the smaller of the two, but displaying a higher degree of confrontation and belligerency, Pakistani defence expenditures are not sustainable by its economy. Pakistan maintains the seventh largest army in the world. For some years after partition, defence spending accounted for 85 per cent of central revenues. For the past ten years according to Sipri Yearbook 1999, (Page 284), the figure has hovered around 25 per cent annually. Seen in the context of debt servicing which the Pakistani budget for 1997-98 placed at 45 per cent of central revenues, the nature of the unsustainability of Pakistani economy becomes self evident.
Pakistan is engaged in a low cost proxy war against India in J&K state from 1989. This conflict situation imposes very heavy burden on the resources of the two countries”¦
Currently Pakistan’s foreign debts are estimated at US $38 billion at the end of December ’99, according to World Bank indicators 2000.1 With defence expenditure pegged so high, there is no way the debt will reduce. A debt trap seems to be Pakistan’s destiny in coming years, unless it drastically reduces its defence outlays.
This confrontation produces trends that run contrary to the world trends in defence expenditure and changes in force structures. The US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency report on World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfer 1996 (Page 3) notes that whereas the overall military expenditures for the world between 1985 and 1995 declined annually at the rate of 4.9 per cent, those for South Asia rose 3.6 per cent annually. According to the same report, the same year, force strength fell 3 per cent annually for the world, but the figures for South Asia disclosed an annual increase of 1.3 per cent.
The Sipri report mentioned earlier claims that the military expenditures of India and Pakistan account for 90 per cent of the total expenditures in the South Asia region. With major chunk of resources thus transferred to what must be treated essentially as non productive sectors, the social indicators of development, as disclosed by the World Development Report for 1998-99 of the World Bank, for India and Pakistan rank among the lowest in the world on important counts such as per capita income, literacy, poverty, energy consumption, accessibility to drinking water, etc. Pakistan’s level of defence spending rules out any upgradation of its social conditions in the foreseeable future and thus will constantly be eroding its comprehensive national strength which has to be measured on the basis of its social development indices.The attitude of confrontation colours all major national policies in Pakistan. The infrastructure development within the country has remained hostage to military priorities. Membership of Western military pacts like SEATO and CENTO were sought, not because Pakistan had a basic interest in the cold war politics of 1950s and 60s, but because it helped Pakistan to strengthen itself militarily against India.
It did not matter to it if in the process it acquired the status of a vassal state.
Casualties of Lack of Cooperation and Coordination
Regional issues go uncoordinated at world bodies like the World Trade Organisation or the United Nations because of its antagonistic posture towards India.
Pakistan objects on the ground that the required storage of water in the Barrage amounts to a violation of the Indus River Water Treaty.
Some lesser issues between the two countries have remained in a limbo because of a lack of desire to work out solutions. The Sir Creek issue is one such problem. It involves the demarcation of the maritime boundary between Sindh and Gujarat along the Sir Creek on the Indian Ocean. There is no doubt that the movement of the coastal boundary by a few kilometres this way or other could result in a change of possession of a few hundred square kilometres of exclusive economic zone. If a spirit of give and take had existed, this problem, festering since 1964, would have been sorted out long ago.
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