Tuesday 13 October 2015

Had Pakistanis been better off but for partition from India?

Had Pakistanis been better off but for partition from India in 1947?



Do Pakistanis feel that Pakistan would have been better off today economically had partition not happened? Why?






Jawwad FaridJawwad FaridFrom Karachi to Khunjarab pass.




A tough question to answer without getting into trouble on both sides of the border. Here goes. 

I think a possible approach is to take a look at the context around partition discussed in Wolpert's Jinnah of Pakistan. Though the book doesn't really come out and say so but it does suggest very subtly that the partition of 1947 had less to do with religion and more with economic issues. 

Having said that I would say that a majority of Pakistanis (not just the elite or the army) feel that they are better off post partition. I am from a middle class family and I have friends and family members on both side of the border. 

I would submit that the economic opportunity made available to our parents and onward to our generation appears to be better than what my cousins and friends have had access to on the other side. I base this statement on the (relative) upward social mobility my generation has experienced and the economic choices we have been given.   

(Within economists there is also one mindset that thinks that smaller is better, that city states do better than nation states and special administrative regions do better than large provinces. The same theory proposes that within our historical perspective the combined GDP and economic growth experienced by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh over the last 70 years should ideally be higher than the figures experienced by a united India. But in this instance there is no way to test the theory).

I don't think its a question of religion or minorities. I think my Indian friends are significantly more competitive than I am. And in a level playing field, where a decision is made solely on the ability to compete and merit, I will most likely loose. My problem specifically is that I am too laid back. 

On the other hand if you give me a country and nation to build with limited resources, there is so much more that needs to be done. I wasn't there but I feel that our leaders 70 years ago felt they would be better off with a blank slate. I think like me, they knew they couldn't compete within the demographic makeup of a united India. But I don't think it was politically correct to acknowledge that weakness. 

The resulting prosperity and wealth creation in Pakistan happened because there was so much more to do, so much more to build and so few of us to do so.  To be fair the generation before us saw enormous difficulty and pain but the future they built for our generation has made it possible for us to climb higher on the economic ladder. So no, at least in my opinion I don't think I would have been better off economically in united India. 

I agree that cross border trade, cooperation in education and health, in arts, culture and tourism, in tolerance, can transform our countries and our economies. For once I would like to travel across India and see the hill stations my parent rave about. I would love to invite my Indian students over for a weekend or a home cooked dinner on this side of the border. 

Other than politics and historical baggage, I don' think there is anything stopping us from realizing that future in our lifetime.

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