Before answering the Three questions from Pakistan that India needs to answer, I’ll tell a real story, a common story of many Indian's (maybe it’s your’s too), so you can easily correlate.
My grandfather use to live in a village, he was not so well off, but maybe he realized the importance of education, so he studied seriously, while his siblings use to say"what's the advantage of it? You earn similar to us." But he had no answer. Later he got some opportunity and moved to town. His outlook changed. Later came the generation of my father, by then my grandfather had realized the benefits of education, so my father became engineer, while his cousins (back in village) were still struggling to understand the importance of education, they still use to say, what's the benefit of so much hardship when the income is only a bit higher. By the time my father retired, he had much better living standards than his cousins (back in the village). By the time of my generation the path was clear and higher development was the only way. By this time the decision taken by my grandfather has resulted in a tremendous difference in every aspect, may it be intellectual, financial, social, medical or any other. The question "what's the advantage of education? You earn almost similar to us." Was replaced by regret “If our grandfather had also thought like your’s, we would have not been suffering today” after all they started from the same point.
Story of the 2 nations in question in this article is also similar. Both got independence at the same time, had an almost similar condition. Rather Pakistan started with a lead in almost every index. But both made different decisions. India have firm believe in democracy, socialism and secularism. Let’s analyze where they stand today, to answer the Three questions from Pakistan that India needs to answer
The comparison given in the article is very vague, without any study or figures to support. I will provide studies and data. To quantify the
Question 1 : Corruption
Statements like “Corruption in India issimilar to Pakistan” are quite vague. Here is the fact where 2 countries stand in terms ofCorruption:
Statements like “Corruption in India issimilar to Pakistan” are quite vague. Here is the fact where 2 countries stand in terms ofCorruption:
(Note: there were total 168 countries in this study)
I agree that India is not corruption free country, corruption is one of our major hurdle for development. But clearly, it's not "Similar" to Pakistan, as it's mentioned in the article.
Question 2: Religious fanaticism
Exaggerating events like “people suspected of eating beef are killed mercilessly.” will only take you away from understanding the difference. There was only 1 such unfortunate event, where 1 person died. Though loss of even one life in such incident is shameful for us. Divide in society is another important issue for India. But compare the religious and cultural diversity of India with that of Pak which has quite homogeneous demographic but still has regular occurrence of religious fanaticism:
But all these are just random news, so here is a Quantified Report: It's self-explanatory.
Question 3: Militarism
The article itself has answered this question by mentioning: “Democracy suffered paralysis in Pakistan at young age. Starting with General Ayub’s in 1958, we have had three decade-long military rules.” & “India never experienced military rule.”
That’s the difference, Pak underwent repeated Military rules as if it started enjoying it. Most of the Pakistani’s I spoke to support military rule over Democracy.
While India never had a coup, because of our faith in democracy. We love our Military and our Military loves India, hence it focuses on what it is expert at, i.e. protecting the country. For running our country we have faith in our Political system, we know it’s corrupt to some extent, but nothing is born perfect, so we are trying to correct it, rather than replacing it with Military. That will be disastrous and no one I know of want's that.
That’s the difference, Pak underwent repeated Military rules as if it started enjoying it. Most of the Pakistani’s I spoke to support military rule over Democracy.
While India never had a coup, because of our faith in democracy. We love our Military and our Military loves India, hence it focuses on what it is expert at, i.e. protecting the country. For running our country we have faith in our Political system, we know it’s corrupt to some extent, but nothing is born perfect, so we are trying to correct it, rather than replacing it with Military. That will be disastrous and no one I know of want's that.
Outcome: After all that matters is end result:
At the time of independence India started lower than Pakistan in many indices (per capita), but over the time India equated Pak in most indices by the 90’s and moved ahead in the 2000s. This was possible due to stable governance which brings in pro-development attitude. And this gap is expected to grow in India’s favor, due to India's higher growth rate.
Here are some vital parameters:
Currency: It is one of the strongest barometers of political stability. Even though currency of India and Pak started with same the base, today Indian currency is 57% higher than Pakistani:
Due to stable governance, even the currency of Bangladesh is 34% higher than Pakistan’s, even thought it was same in 1971, when Bangladesh gained independence.
Per Capita Income: India started low but overtook in the 2000s and now there is a significant and growing difference.
Economy: It's growing faster so the gap is increasing.
Development: India overtook in ’80s and now even Bangladesh has overtaken.
To conclude, just like in the story, the gap may look negligible initially, but due to stability, which brings growth oriented attitude, the difference is ever increasing. It’s already clearly visible and in some generations there won’t be any comparison left.
I wish, Pakistan also understands the importance of stable government and its importance for development. Democracy is like a tree it takes time and lot of efforts to mature but it bears fruits for a long term.Military rule may get you overnight fame by creating nukes, but what’s the point if it can't enable you to even make non-glamorous but more useful tech like Railway engine (and other stuff) which can be used every day?
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