While India dreams, Pakistan slips into a never-ending nightmare

INTERNATIONAL DESK: India and Pakistan recently celebrated their Independence Days. It should really be a ‘birthday’ in the case of Pakistan, carved out by the departing British administrators by dismembering India, but we shall le that slip. The journey of the neighbours so far has been instructive. While one is the world’s fifth-largest economy, poised to soar higher while remaining rooted in civilizational ethos, the other is a failed state, descending into a vortex of political instability, economic crisis, and religious fundamentalism.

The juxtaposition of hope and despair offers a stark reality. A research reportreleased by the State Bank of India on August 15, based on income tax returns filed from fiscal year (FY) 2011 to FY2022, reflects the ascent of India’s middle class.

The data, taken from the Income Tax dashboard, shows that average income of middle-class Indians has tripled from Rs 4.4 lakh in FY13 to Rs 13 lakh in FY22. Named ‘The Ascent of the new Middle Class in circular migration’, the SBI report traces the migration of lower-income groups to the upper income bracket in last 10 years and a concomitant fall in the number of return filers with zero tax liability.

Even more important is the audacity of hope. In his Independence Day address, prime minister Narendra Modi laid out the vision of a ‘developed India’ (Vikshit Bharat) by 2047, the 100-year anniversary of emancipation from foreign rule. His speech wasn’t just a statement of ambition, but a detailed account as well as a roadmap of the steps needed to fulfil that goal.

Data backs the audacity of hope and statement of ambition. It is estimated in the SBI report that the number of people filing income tax returns will increase by 85.3 per cent to 482 million by FY2047, placing India among the moderately prosperous nations while the per capita income, pegged at Rs 2 lakh in FY23 may surge to Rs 14.9 lakh in FY47. Similarly, the average (weighted mean) income, that now lies in the range of Rs 13 lakh for the middle class, is projected to reach Rs 49.7 lakh by 2047.

These are staggering numbers. Coupled with India’s demographic dividend and status as the world’s most populous nation such growth, if estimates are met, may catapult India into the league of superpowers. Not even most reckless punter would bet against India’s rise.

India is politically stable with a strong government at the Centre that enjoys overwhelming majority; the prime minister remains the world’s most popular leader; the states are competing for foreign investment and facilitating removal of roadblocks; the world is looking at India as the ‘sole bright spot’ for global economic revival. Such has been India’s diplomatic efforts that warring camps in Europe are competing for India’s affection.

Contrast India’s growing geoeconomic and geopolitical profile with that of Pakistan. The country, according to one of its top bankers, is “IMF’s most loyal customer”, having had to seek the global monetary fund’s help 25 times in the last 75 years, a dubious record. Pakistan is now in an advanced state of penury, with its bankrupt economy mired in such a debt trap that it must keep borrowing more and more just to service old debts.

Islamabad has just secured another $3 billion bailout deal from the IMF to avoid default by the skin of its teeth. Its fragile economy has been ravaged by rising commodity prices due to the war in Europe, catastrophic floods, self-harming policies and economic mismanagement. Its foreign exchange reserves, that never rose above $21 billion in its history, are so precariously low right now that barely three weeks of imports may be covered. Inflation is at an all-time high.

In February, the beleaguered Shahbaz Sharif government increased goods and services tax to 18 per cent and was forced to jack up fuel prices to cope with the economic crisis. Petrol surged to PKR 272 per litre with diesel keeping it company at PRK 280. Kerosene stood at PKR 203 per litre with daily use items such as milk (PKR 210 per litre), flour (PKR 320 per kg) and chicken (PKR 780 per kg) zooming beyond the reach of most people. In less than 48 hours since coming to power on Monday, the new caretaker government in Pakistan led by Anwaarul Haq Kakar has increased fuel prices even more, with petrol reaching PKR 290 per litre.

So dire is the shortage of US dollars that Pakistan is clinging on to the greenbacks for dear life to keep its weakening currency afloat (now trading at PKR 303.50 to a USD) and resultantly, importers are unable to accrue raw materials and crucial components leading to factories shutting down. It is a systemic rot.

Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that assemblers and manufacturers of Suzuki vehicles and Toyota cars are closing their motorcycle plants and factories for weeks due to a lack of inventory and kits, affecting everything from steel to automobile production. “Thousands of companies are finding it difficult to obtain import permits for their manufacturing needs and cargoes remain stuck in ports as the government curbs demand for dollars to prevent a drain on the nation’s foreign-exchange stockpile,” adds the report.

The macroeconomic situation is horrifying. As Sushant Sareen writes in ORF, “from the available projections for the next fiscal year i.e., FY2024, the debt servicing obligations of the federal government will be around Rs (PKR) 1 trillion more than the revenue. In other words, Pakistan will not just be borrowing money to pay for defence expense, development expenses, subsidies, and running of civil government, but it will also be borrowing money to service its debt. The outgoing fiscal year has seen GDP growth of just 0.29 percent. Even this is believed to be a number inflated by Dar’s (former Pakistan’s finance minister Ishaq Dar) creative book-keeping skills because independent economists have calculated a negative growth of around 1-2 percent.”

The net result of skyrocketing inflation (not at 31 per cent), balance of payment crisis and negative industrial growth is an escalating socio-political turmoil, heightened civil unrest and risk of even more political instability ahead. The country’s most popular leader, former prime minister Imran Khan, has been thrown into jail and disqualified from contesting election over corruption allegations after a trial court sentencing that Khan’s supporters say was a “kangaroo court”.

Hackles have been raised further with the leaking of a “secret document” that purportedly reveals American interference behind Khan’s ouster, though the US denies any such role. The military, led by General Syed Asim Munir, is striking back hard to retain its authority and primacy over the polity after the May 9 riots. The appointment of a caretaker prime minister amid news that pending general elections would be delayed further indicates that the hybrid regime will continue. For now, the military has decisively won the Khan vs Munir civil war. The polity will remain under the army’s boots.

But a crisis-ridden polity must find a way to vent its frustration, and it is evident in the way religious minorities are being targeted in Pakistan under the aegis of a new, harsh blasphemy law.

While the percentage of minorities in Pakistan has dwindled from 23% in 1947 to around 3% currently, a Gatestone Institute report observes that “the country’s male-only, elementary school-level madrassas turn out millions of students who are taught to hate Hindus, Christian and Jews”. Reports abound of minor Christian and Hindu girls being abducted, forcefully married off and converted.

On Wednesday, a Muslim mob of thousands set fire to eight churches in Jaranwala, eastern Punjab, and several homes following accusations of blasphemy. CNN reports that two Christian men were charged by local police in the town of Jaranwala on the grounds of “desecrating the holy Quran and abusing the Prophet Mohammed.” Two years ago, a Sri Lankan man was accused of blasphemy, lynched and set on fire by an enraged mob.

A BBC report quotes a 31-year-old Christian, whose house was attacked by the mob Wednesday, as saying, “they broke the windows, doors and took out fridges, sofas, chairs and other household items to pile them up in front of the Church to be burnt… They also burnt and desecrated Bibles, they were ruthless.”

I have dwelt at length on the dire economic and political situation in Pakistan, and the polity’s descent into bottomless religious fundamentalism because it offers a sharp contrast with the abundance of hope that India provides to its youth. Pakistan also boasts of a young demography, but its young, including the educated and qualified workforce, are leaving the country in droves in search of better opportunities.

According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, 8.32 lakh Pakistanis have left the country till June this year, among which 4 lakh are educated and qualified professionals, including doctors, nurses, engineers, information technology (IT) experts and accountants. Firstpost notes, quoting Pakistani media reports, that 67 per cent youngsters in Pakistan want to leave the cash-strapped country, while 31 percent of educated youth are without jobs.

The situation is so desperate that Pakistani youths are risking their lives to illegally migrate to Europe, and according to a 2022 survey by the Mixed Migration Centre, “nearly 90% of Pakistanis who recently arrived in Italy used a human smuggler. An official from Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency estimates 40,000 illegal trips are attempted every year”, says a report in Greek City Times. Reuters adds that at least 209 Pakistanis were on an overloaded boat that capsized and sank in open seas off Greece last week, and of the illegal detection of migrants this year through May, around 4,971 were from Pakistan, a record for the country on the central Mediterranean route in a single year, according to Frontex, European Union’s border and coast guard agency. Facing a bleak future, Pakistan’s youth are either leaving, or dying. In Pakistani newspaper Express Tribune, columnist Shaezal Naveed Cheema writes, “The impact of this youth exodus is not confined to Pakistan alone. Our counterpart neighbour, India, also has a huge expat population. However, even though many young Indians have sought opportunities abroad, India’s domestic youth population remains a driving force behind the nation’s progress. India’s economy thrives primarily due to the enterprising spirit of its youth, who contribute to various sectors, from technology to innovation and entrepreneurship… But our state’s priorities differ greatly from those of successful regional players like India. We stand still in the 1950s as the world around us evolves and grows.”

India is an economic powerhouse in the region, and according to a report in Asian Development Bank, “India is booming and pulling the South Asia region forward along with it.” It is now dawning on the Pakistan that it remains firewalled from the intense economic activity in its neighbourhood. A report by German media DW, released on August 14, Pakistan’s ‘Independence Day’ quotes a section of its youth wondering “why better ties with India are still a pipe dream”. The youth reportedly want ”stronger ties with India” and want both nations to “open borders” and “trade with each other”.

Perhaps it is a measure of the success of Pakistan’s propaganda that it has been able to delude its young citizens of the toxic reality that Pakistan has brought upon itself, after decades of exporting terror to India, launching four failed wars, continuing with the policy of armed conflict through terrorist groups to snatch Kashmir, baking terrorism into its security doctrine to continue war against its ‘eternal enemy’ while inflicting violence on the Indian state and its citizens through an orgy of savagery and bloodshed.

Pakistan’s ideological obsession with India to the point of neglecting its nation-building process has brought it to such a precipice that it now sees a decisive gap in state capacity with India with New Delhi steadily widening the gap while it falls lower and lower into an abyss. Faced with the new realities, Pakistan’s strategic elite is suffering impotent rage, grudgingly admiring India and wailing at its loss of leverage. Kashmir has slipped away from its grasp for good, and even its iron brother, China, is asking Pakistan to learn from India.

In a 1997 essay, V.S. Naipaul had written, “from India’s point of view, the Partition was extremely fortunate. The religious question would otherwise have paralysed and consumed the state. By cruel irony, this is what it’s done across the border in Pakistan. In India, there’s the emphasis on human possibility. In Pakistan, there’s only a constant regression to greater and greater fundamentalism…”

Every passing day shows how prescient Naipaul was. There is little hope that Pakistan, even now, will change its course, so deep is its level of delusion and so internalized is its anti-Indianess. But if at some point in the future it wants to be a part of the growth story that India is stitching in the region, it must come without conditions. If it wants resumption of trade ties, that will be on India’s terms, taking into account India’s core concerns.

Well may its elite still harbour the illusion of parity, that train has left the station long back. Pakistani youth might want better ties with India, the reverse isn’t true. Having lived through the terror inflicted on it by the Pakistani state and its agents of terror, Indian attitudes have irrevocably hardened towards Pakistan. The new generation harbours anger and are happy to let Pakistan slide into nether regions of inferno. The chickens are coming home. (FIRSTPOST)