Dr. Devendra Kothari
Population and Development Analyst
Forum for Population Action
To those who say that peace is
never possible between India and Pakistan, remember that no one could predict
the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
In
his maiden speech after taking over the reign of Pakistan on August 18,
2018, Prime Minister Imran Khan made a tall promise to build ‘Naya (new)
Pakistan’. Khan’s vision statement is reflective of his close observation, intimate
experience and interaction with ordinary people. Also, it encompasses
a variety of local perspectives; and it is easy to communicate and short enough
to fit even on a T-shirt. However, he did not specify mission statement which is the next step in
the action planning process. This post (#102) argues that ‘naya’
Pak needs nayi soch (new thinking) for a better Pakistan, aka #NayaPakistan.
First, Strike on Terrorism: Experts, while speaking at the launch of the third revised
edition of ‘Pakistan’s Economic Journey: Need for a New Paradigm’ (2019)
authored by former chief economist of Pakistan Fasih Uddin, pinpointed that governance
failure (read controlling terrorism) as
the root cause of all of problems of Pakistan.[1] Thus, dismantling terror
infrastructure is a foremost vital step towards ‘Naya Pakistan’, since it takes
away a lot of money which could otherwise be used for development activities. Currently, Pakistan is an
epicenter of terrorism. Terrorism
is a calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians
in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in
nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.
According to Daniel Byman, a Senior
Fellow at the Brookings Institution, "Pakistan is probably
today's most active sponsor of terrorism."[2] Further, “Pakistan
is not doing enough to curb terrorism financing and money laundering”, a global
financial watchdog, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), said recently in a
stern warning that reflects renewed scrutiny of the country’s links to militant
groups.
The warning came a week after India
threatened to retaliate against Pakistan for a bombing that killed at
least 40 Indian soldiers in Pulwama (Kashmir)
on February 14, 2019. The terrorist group that claimed responsibility,
Jaish-e-Muhammad, or Army of Muhammad, operates in Pakistan, where it raises
money under aliases, as per FATF and experts. Pakistan was put on the FATF grey
list in June of 2018 and was put on notice to be blacklisted by October 2019 if
it didn't curb money laundering and terror financing. There are many terrorist groups like Al Qaeda,
the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, operating under the patronage of Government of
Pakistan and its army. In a swift and precise air strike following the Pulwama bombing,
India bombed and destroyed Jaish-e-Mohammed's biggest training camp at Balakot in
Pakistan on February 26, killing a "very large number of terrorists,
trainers and senior commanders.” The airstrike was the first time since the war
of 1971 that Indian Air Force aircraft crossed the Line of Control and the
first time since both states have become nuclear power.
After the air strike, Pakistan did not receive support even
from its ‘friends’ including all weather friend, China. France asked
Pakistan to exercise restraint, saying that it supported Indian actions against
terrorism and asked Pakistan to stop allowing its territory to be used by
terrorists. Further, the US, its former closest ally,
noted its condemnation of the Pulwama attack and asked Pakistan to crack
down on terrorists operating from its soil. Even the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
(OIC) has sent a signal of sorts to Pakistan by inviting Indian participation
at the foreign minister-level meeting in Abu Dhabi.
Will Islamabad
take action against terror groups? For ‘Naya
Pakistan’, it is must. It has been estimated that normalizing its
relationship with its neighbours – all of whom, not just India, are plagued by
Pakistan-based terror – would bump up its annual GDP growth by 1.5 per cent. Moreover the
international environment Pakistan operates in today is very different from
what it was a quarter century ago, when it could use its strategic cover as an
American partner to secretly breed anti-India terrorists. But 9/11 and Osama
bin Laden taking shelter in Pakistan changed the US-Pakistan equation.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Middle East allies too have become wary of its policy of
using terrorism as an instrument of state policy. They see India as a more attractive
investment destination with growing energy demands that their oil industries
can fulfill, as observed by the TOI Editorial. In short, taken together, there is growing
international consensus that Pakistan must act on terror. And, it will work,
but we have to give some time to Pakistan. In other words, India must get
Pakistan to keep it under GSP and simultaneously Pakistan must drop ambiguity
and undertake credible action against terror groups.
Second, Reconcile with
India: Seventy two years on, India-Pakistan relations
continue to be on a roller-coaster ride. Relations between two countries have
been complex and largely hostile due to a number of historical and political
events. The region of Kashmir has been at the centre of
tensions between two countries since both
states came into being in 1947. Both claim it in full, and each controls a
section of the territory. These sections are separated by one of the most
heavily militarized borders in the world, known as the line of control, where
there are frequent exchanges of artillery and small arms fire. The two
South Asian rivals have fought three wars and one quasi-war over the last seven
decades, besides engaging in periodic shorter clashes over their disputed
border and sparring in international diplomatic arenas. Now both are
nuclear power.
Given this backdrop, India and
Pakistan must surely now realise that resolving Kashmir is an infinitely better
course of action than war. For Kashmir,
there is only one strategy left to try: peace through dialogue. PM Imran Khan
offered to talk on this issue. “This
problem of Kashmir is only going to be solved by direct dialogue between the
two sides.” His statement also made it clear
that he wanted to link the release Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman to the
reopening of negotiations with India in order to find a way out of the current
crisis including terrorism.
How should India respond? India, for its
part, should not be rigid, and should not totally close its doors to engagement
with Pakistan. I think India should welcome this move. While
keeping all options open, it is important for the government of India to make a
definitive assessment regarding Pakistan’s intentions before taking the next
step in both the military and diplomatic spheres. This is a difficult job, among other things
because the real decision-makers in Pakistan are not the Prime Minister and his
cabinet but the top generals ensconced in General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. It is not just the
Pakistan army, but also the political class, which needs to be bold and stop
being in denial.
Is there hope
for India and Pakistan's difficult relationship? India and Pakistan can either make peace or continue
in an endless cycle of violence. For the moment, both countries have agreed on not escalating matters
further. What can we now look forward to?
Will an action like the air surgical strike deep inside of Pakistan in Balakot
in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa end cross-border terrorism or solve the Kashmir issue?
Will this approach help us? I don’t think so. Surgical strikes after Uri didn't prevent Pulwama.
Another may be heady but won't deter Pakistan. It will make her more revengeful.
For example, India under the
leadership of Indira Gandhi defeated Pakistan in war in 1971. A real war
involving tanks, battleships, infantry divisions, submarines, warplanes and the
lot, killing thousands, forcing their surrender, breaking up their country,
capturing over 90,000 Pakistani soldiers, including their general, and jailing
them in India. She ordered Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then the President of Pakistan,
to come to Simla and sign a settlement on our terms. She thought all this
decisive military action and strong leadership had permanently solved the
problem of Kashmir and cross-border terrorism. But it didn’t. It made Pakistan more powerful. [3]
For Pakistan, the 1971 war was a
complete and humiliating defeat, a psychological setback that came from a
defeat at the hands of India. Steve Coll, in his book Ghost
Wars, argues that the Pakistan military's experience in 1971 with India
influenced the Pakistani government (and Army)
to support jihadist (a Muslim who believes in
using violence to achieve religious and political aims),
because the jihadists were thought as a
tool to use against India, including bogging down the Indian Army in Kashmir.[4] Also, after the war, Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto, President (1971-73) and Prime Minister
(1973-77) of Pakistan authorized the highly secretive and
clandestine atomic bomb programme, as part of its new deterrence
policy, to defend itself and never to allow another armed invasion
from India. Bhutto famously declared: “If India
builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get
one of our own.” This crash program reached parity in 1996 when the
first nuclear weapon was successfully tested.
As hard as it would be, but this is an opportune time
for both sides to rise above the mindset of right and wrong, judgment and
blame, and instead come together and work to build peace. India and
Pakistan have paid a huge price for the unending conflict. PM Khan acknowledged
in his speech that it has cost Pakistan tens of thousands of lives and billions
of dollars. He also said it is in his country’s interest to address the
conflict. India is in the same situation and has lost countless lives
too. So, it is also in India’s interest to move toward a peaceful
solution.
The solution of the Kashmir problem is as simple as we
want it to be or as complex as we want it to be. It can take seven months to
agree or 70 years. But certainly without recognizing the existence of multiple
stakeholders and having a time-bound negotiation, we can never expect to see
peace in Kashmir or in the South Asia as a whole. India’s approach of closing
its porous border and treating Kashmir as a security problem is a
short-term stop-gap solution that does not recognize the humanitarian cost, nor
does it treat Kashmir as the unfinished business of Partition. On the other
hand, Pakistan’s approach of funding cross-border terrorists or so-called
fighters is ultimately a piecemeal and
failing strategy that achieves nothing long-term other than trouble for the
local Kashmiri population and its own development aspirations including
building ‘Naya Pakistan’. “It remains to be seen whether both countries have
the political will, wisdom and compassion needed for an actual solution.
Thoughts, words and deeds have to come together for this. We cannot say one
thing and do something else. [5]
Only a truly
grassroots initiative can help disentangle the historical and ideological
baggage and de-link Kashmir from carrying the burden of India and Pakistan’s
national identities. It will also create new social and political spaces for
creative ideas exploring, for example, the meaning, form, content, and
viability of a ‘soft border’ across the dividing Line of Control in Kashmir.
The key lies in shifting the focus from India and Pakistan to Kashmir, and from
territorial disputes to addressing the political needs of the people.[6]
To those who say that peace is never possible between
these two countries, please remember that no one could predict the collapse of
the Berlin Wall. Also take example of the highest level talk between North
Korea and USA to find a solution. Kim Jong
Un’s nuclear and missile programs represent one of the most dangerous
challenges since the end of the Cold War. But there are opportunities to stop
them through dialogue. When Kim and Trump can talk to resolve the problem, why
not India and Pakistan? You can draw a line but you can’t erase the
history of more than 3000 years in just 70 years. We are the same people living
under different governments.
Lastly, Focus on Human Development: Pakistanis is the poorest
country in South Asia, as per the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), developed by the Oxford Poverty & Human Development
Initiative (OPHI) and UNDP. MPI identifies how people are
being left behind across three key dimensions: health, education and living
standards, and 10 indicators – nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling,
school attendance, sanitation, cooking fuel, drinking water, electricity,
housing and assets. All these are the basic ingredients to eradicate poverty by
unlocking human potential.
According to the 2018 report, about 43.9 per cent of Pakistan’s
population was living under multi-dimensional poverty, compared to 27.5 per
cent in India. It means around 90 million (9 crore) out of the total population of 200.8 million in 2018 can be
classified as deprived, mahroom or vanchit Pakistanis. And,
without empowering this population of 18 million families, Pakistan cannot think of becoming an
inclusive and developed economy. And for this,
a concerted strategy is needed.
My
policy monograph - Nurturing Human Development: A
Strategy for New India
[7] - proposes a strategy and it is christened as “HDPlus” (Human Development
Plus). And it can be used by Pakistan to empower its
population. The HDPlus strategy is a dynamic agenda based on
a ‘whole child’ concept that is school-going child and his/her family
(that is HDPlus family) should be the fulcrum of human development
efforts. The concept is being described by policies, practices, and
relationships which ensure that each child is healthy, educated, engaged,
supported and encouraged. It is aimed in laying foundation for the
human competency that is quality of being adequately or well
qualified physically and intellectually.
If Pakistan wants a bright future for its people then it
needs to act now. Time is the essence here. So stop wasting time. Make it
happen today! It is, therefore, time to shift gears, up the momentum, and be
more incisive in securing the interest of the disadvantaged people. For
‘Naya’ Pakisthan’, the immediate development slogan must be: “Nau Crore Mahroom Pakistanis ki Taraqqi”
(Development of 90 million deprived Pakistanis).
What Pakistan can
learn from its ‘twin’? Socio-economic
development indicators, as presented in Table 1, show how the trajectories of
Pakistan and Bangladesh (earlier East Pakistan), demographic twins, grow apart. When Bangladesh was carved out of
Pakistan in 1971, it was no match to its erstwhile western part (earlier West
Pakistan) on most socio-economic parameters. Today, Bangladesh
is already a solid member of the World Bank’s lower middle-income class.
According to a set of statistical models that the Bank have developed, by
2030 Bangladesh appears to have an even chance of reaching the Bank’s upper
middle-income class (roughly US$4,000 to $12,000 per capita annually). For a
country that Henry Kissinger dubbed it ‘a basket
case” at independence in 1971, that prospect is impressive. [8]
It
is because Bangladesh didn’t squander its time and resources in breeding
terror, focusing nuclear weapons technology as well promoting religious hatred.
Pakistan lost the plot to terror after the 1971 war while Bangladesh got its
script right.
From very beginning, it focused on human development to
incase its demographic dividend. (When
it comes to HD, even India should learn from Bangladesh.)
The state-sponsored terrorism and the nuclear programme have taken heavy
tolls of Pakistan. On the other hand, realizing the gravity of the threat of rapid population growth, the
government of Bangladesh has accorded the highest priority to population
control in its human development strategy from very beginning. This
helped trigger demand for modern contraception and formalize Bangladesh’s
public health supply chain. As the rate of contraceptive use grew through the
1980s and 1990s, the country’s total fertility rate (TFR), an estimate of the
average lifetime number of children that women will bear, declined steeply from
around 7 in 1971 to 2.2 in 2017 (Bangladesh currently has
the lowest TFR in South Asia), advancing the median age of population and promoting related progress in
education, child health, nutrition, gender equity, sanitation and hygiene, population stabilization among others, as
shown in Table 1. And these basic ingredients were crucial in unlocking human
potential or pushing human development in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh labour
force survey reveals that women’s participation in the paid labour force
increased from 16 per cent in 1996 to 35 per cent in 2017.
Table
1 Trajectories of three countries— Bangladesh, India and
Pakistan
Variable
|
Bangladesh
|
India
|
Pakistan
|
|||
1971
|
2018
|
1971
|
2018
|
1971
|
2018
|
|
Total
population (in million)
|
66
|
166
|
566
|
1358
|
60
|
201
|
Annual
population growth (%)
|
2.2
|
1.0
|
2.2
|
1.1
|
2.7
|
2.0
|
Total fertility
(births/woman)
|
6.9
|
2.1
|
5.5
|
2.3
|
6.6
|
3.5
|
Life expectancy
at birth (years)
|
47.1
|
72.5
|
48.4
|
68.6
|
53.4
|
66.4
|
IMR (infant deaths/1,000 live
births)
|
140
|
28.3
(2016)
|
148
|
34
(2016)
|
141
|
53.9
(2016)
|
Adult
literacy (% aged 15+)
|
29.2
(1981)
|
72.9
(2016)
|
40.8
(1981)
|
63.3
(2011)
|
25.7
(1981)
|
57.0
(2014)
|
Primary school
enrollment ratio (%)
|
70.5
(1980)
|
120.4
(2015)
|
83.0
(1980)
|
108.6
(2015)
|
78.0
(1980)
|
97.7
(2015)
|
Source: World Bank Open Data at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.
|
||||||
As a result, Bangladesh’s population is rising at half
the rate of Pakistan (Pakistan has crossed Bangladesh in terms of
population as compared to 1971). Bangladesh does far better than India, let
alone Pakistan, on infant and maternal mortality rates. This means, to put it
in plain terms that a child born in Bangladesh today has much better chance of
survival than a child born in Pakistan. Further, Bangladeshis live six years longer
than Pakistanis on average. (Life expectancy of Bangladesh is even more than
India.) It shows how healthy Bangladeshis are which enhances the efficiency of
human resource in terms of productivity.
What’s significant is that Bangladesh now exports
more ready-made garments than India and Pakistan combined. So, what Pakistan,
therefore, can learn from its ‘twin’?
· Bangladesh
doesn't put religion on everything like Pakistan which led to increase in
Islamic extremists/terrorists in the country.
· Bangladesh has shown how a nation can power its progress by
investing in people. It didn’t squander its time and resources in breeding
terror and promoting nuclear weapons technology.
· Relations between India and
Bangladesh have been friendly, although sometimes there are border disputes.
The historic land boundary agreement was signed with India on 6 June 2015 which
opened a new era in the relations and further stopped all irritants in ties.
Further, India and Bangladesh are close strategic partners
in counter-terrorism. On the other
hand, Relations between India and
Pakistan have been complex and largely hostile due to a number of
historical and political events. Consequently, their relationship has been plagued
by hostility and suspicion, though a large part of north India and Pakistan
somewhat overlap in areas of shared lingua franca
and cuisines.
In sum, let us hope in the
coming days the hatred between India and Pakistan will vanish and both will
work together for mutual benefits..!! And, that will ensure not only PM Imran’s
‘Naya Pakistan’ but also PM Modi’s ‘New India’.
It will change
the life of at least 1/5th of humanity for better by freeing billions of
dollars of defense budget for development.
[1]
Uddin, Fasih. 2019. Pakistan’s Economic
Journey – Need for A New Paradigm (third edition), IPS Press, Islamabad,
Pakistan.
[2] Daniel L. Byman. "The Changing Nature of State Sponsorship of Terrorism" (PDF). Brookings.edu. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
[3] Refer, article: Status quo resorted…by Aakar Patel at: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/aakarvani/status-quo-restored-can-we-now-play-pakistan-in-the-world-cup-please/
[5] For details, refer
article: The Solution to the Kashmir
Conflict by Rohan Bedi, Fair Observer, August 2, 2018
at:https://www.fairobserver.com/region/central_south_asia/kashmir-war-conflict-india-pakistan-peace-south-asia-politics-news-this-week-71417/
[6] Refer article: Kashmir's
Problems Need a Political Solution By K.S.
Venkatachalam, The Diplomat, Sept. 05, 2016 at: https://thediplomat.com/2016/09/kashmirs-problems-need-a-political-solution/
[7]For details,
see: Kothari, Devendra.
2019. Nurturing
Human Development: A Strategy for New India, New Delhi: Paragoan International
Publishers. A copy of the publication could be obtained by contacting
author. Though this framework is based
on Indian experiences, but it can be applied in Pakistan with some modifications.
Insightful
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