False Sense
of Security
By S.Ehtisham, MD
Bath NY
I recently read an article by Jag Mohan, a former
federal minister of India. He claimed that there
were 83,000 $ millionaires and 40 $billionaires
in India. Life expectancy had increased, software
industry was worth $ 20 billion and the country
had the third largest pool of scientists in the
world.
Then he went on to furnish truly deplorable statistics:
- over 250 million men, women and children go
to bed hungry.
- 40% of total low birth babies under the age
of five are Indian.
- out of 150 million children in the world who
do not attend school, 130 million are Indian.
- 640 million Indians have no access to sanitation,
170 million do not have safe water.
- 293 million do not have access to health care
facilities
- 100,000 peasants committed suicide between 1998
and 2003 because of debt burden.
- Slums are growing 250% faster than the population
- Infrastructure is so poor that 40% of vegetables
and food are wasted during the journey from the
field to the consumer
- India produces half as much grain per year as
China does though the former has double the cultivable
area.
The social cost of headlong descent into "me
too-ism" has been catastrophic. It took the
West 500 years to reach the level of technological
and scientific level it is at today. To try to
reach the level in a few decades has resulted
in terrible dislocation of the society and the
cost in human misery is incalculable.
Recently published statistics in an IMF/WB economic
survey place Pakistan at position 73 and India
at 134. These statistics are misleading, ignore
the lost opportunities and give a false sense
of security to Pakistanis.
After the initial chaos had been overcome, Pakistan
found itself in a much better economic situation
than did India. It was self-sufficient in food.
It had jute and cotton to earn foreign exchange.
It enjoyed windfall profits during the Korean
War. The earnings were invested in import-substitution
industries which were protected by high tariff
walls.
We migrated to Pakistan in May 1951. Quetta was
the first city of our sojourn. Wheat sold for
Rs five a maund. It was Rs 18 per maund in UP
India. Ghee was Rs 5 per sair. It was for Rs 25
in India. Grapes were 4 annas a sair. They were
Rs 5 per sair in Lucknow.
Pakistanis looked so much healthier than Indians
did and I am not talking of Pathans, Punjabis,
Sindhis or Baloch. My focus is on the immigrants
from UP, India.
Even as late as 1986 when I visited Bombay I could
not believe my eyes. I could count the ribs of
passers-by from a moving taxi. I expect you to
know that an average Indian wears only a dhoti
which covers the lower half of the body. I hasten
to add I am talking of men.
Then the ruling group of feudals, military and
bureaucrats put the country on a steep downslide.
It got into military and economic pacts. It ran
up immense loans called aid. Aid does not come
without strings.. It is interest-bearing loan.
It is a "tied" loan too. You have to
buy goods from the loan-giving country. You have
to use their ships. They overcharge you for the
material and services. It is not uncommon that
you will end up paying 200 for goods and services
which you could buy for 100 on the open market.
You have to buy spare parts from the very same
manufacturers who charge you 300 or more for an
item worth 100.
The story of military hardware is even more depressing.
Western countries unload obsolete and obsolescent
arms on "developing" countries. They
also make gifts of their failures. Zia had gone
to attend field trials of a tank which the US
army had rejected, when his plane was blown out
of the sky. The tank needed a paved surface to
run on! The saga of spare parts is repeated here
too. And they can choke off the supply line any
time they want, as they did during the 1965 war
with India.
Officers were sent to the USA for training. They
came back brainwashed.
The country is, of course unable to pay the loan
back and takes more loans to pay just the INTEREST
ON THE LOAN. It is called loan servicing. The
principal remains intact. The loan burden on Pakistan
is truly mind boggling.
Curiously enough the greatest addition to loan
and interest burden was during the "ISLAMIC
DISPENSATION" of Zia. The country became
totally dependent.
Western interests did not desire a freely elected
and empowered parliament in Pakistan that could
have abolished the feudal system and loosened
the neo-colonial hold of the West on the country.
Army does not understand that neo-imperialist
hegemony never helps. The 1968 coup was arranged.
Import restrictions were whittled down.
Ayub wanted to take over Kashmir when India was
down and out during 1961 war with China. Kennedy
told him to hold his horses and as a sop got Nehru
to renew his promise to hold plebiscite in the
state.
In 1965 Ayub did not want to accept Kosygin as
mediator. Russians had always tilted towards India.
Johnson wanted to curry India's favor. In a midnight
call he told Ayub to go to Tashkent or else.
In the 1970 elections Pakistan had the last chance
of democratic government which would spend money
on nation building - education, jobs, health,
industry and infra structure and not waste it
on WWII vintage rifles. The ruling class which
now had mullahs in its ranks and could now be
called the evil Quad-feudal, army, bureaucrats
and clerics - aided and abetted by the West opted
to lose half the country.
The country was in dire financial straits. Bhutto
had to accept the conditions IMF and World bank
imposed to bail the country out. Currency had
to be devalued, and import restrictions further
relaxed.
Bhutto, for all his faults, had self-respect.
He wanted a bit of it for his country as well.
He managed to get Muslim countries on board as
well. The fore-runners of current MMA launched
a well financed campaign (dollar lost 25% of its
value on the street in Karachi. I was there) and
got rid of Bhutto. When they felt that all their
disinformation campaigns did not make a dent in
the man's popularity, they hanged him. NO ISLAMIST
PARTY PROTESTED THE MURDER.
Post-9/11, Musharraf's supine acceptance of American
troops and hand over of air bases to them was
inevitable. No government, elected or otherwise
could have avoided it.
The country has to meekly accept all the demands
of WB and IMF. They have placed their own man
in PM's office. He is busy selling national assets
like electric supply companies, steel mill and
ports to global corporations.
Bugti's murder was not due to his intransigence
and insistence that a larger part of Sui gas income
be spent on Baluchistan. It was his threat of
retaliation which would compromise war on "terrorism"
in Afghanistan. He had provided samples of the
events to come by blowing up gas lines. Gwadar,
pipelines through Baluchistan, all pet projects
of global corporations, I count China among them,
were on the line.
Now the country has, short of a bloody upheaval,
no chance of getting out of the stranglehold of
national debt and the agents in place, willing
and unwilling, of Western intelligence agencies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
