Pakistan Day 2013

[Riaz Haq]

As Pakistanis celebrate Pakistan Day today, March 23, 2013,  there are some who are questioning the founder's
wisdom in seeking partition of India to carve out Pakistan as an
independent nation.  They do not recognize today's Pakistan as Jinnah's Pakistan. The doubters justifiably point to the rising tide of intolerance and increasing violence and  a whole range of problems and crises Pakistan is facing. Many in the  oppressed Shia community wonder aloud if it was a mistake to demand a separate country for Muslims of undivided India.

Wax Statues of Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi in Islamabad

Are the critics correct in their assessment when they imply that Muslims in Pakistan would have been better off without partition? To answer this question, let us look at the following facts and data:

1. Muslims, the New Untouchables in India:

While India maintains its facade of  religious tolerance, democracy and secularism through a few high-profile Muslim tokens among its high officials and celebrities, the ground reality for the vast majority of ordinary Muslims is much harsher.

An Indian government commission headed by former Indian Chief Justice Rajendar Sachar confirms that Muslims are the new untouchables in caste-ridden and communal India. Indian Muslims suffer heavy discrimination in almost every field from  education and housing to jobs.  Their incarceration rates are also much higher than their Hindu counterparts.

According to Sachar Commission report, Muslims are now worse off than the Dalit caste, or those called untouchables.
Some 52% of Muslim men are unemployed, compared with 47% of Dalit men.
Among Muslim women, 91% are unemployed, compared with 77% of Dalit
women. Almost half of Muslims over the age of 46 ca not read or write.
While making up 11% of the population, Muslims account for 40% of India’s prison population. Meanwhile, they hold less than 5% of government jobs.

2. Upward Economic Mobility in Pakistan: 

In spite of all of its problems, Pakistan has continued to offer  higher upward economic and social mobility
to its citizens over the last two decades than India. Since 1990, Pakistan's middle
class had expanded by 36.5% and India's by only 12.8%, according to an ADB report titled "Asia's Emerging Middle Class: Past, Present And ...

Miles Corak of University of Ottawa calculates that the intergenerational earnings elasticity in
Pakistan is 0.46, the same as in Switzerland. It means that a difference
of 100%  between the incomes of a rich father and a poor father is
reduced to 46% difference between their sons' incomes. Among the 22
countries studied, Peru, China and Brazil have the lowest economic
mobility with inter-generational elasticity of 0.67, 0.60 and 0.58
respectively. The highest economic mobility is offered by Denmark
(0.15), Norway (0.17) and Finland (0.18).

The author also looked at Gini coefficient of each country and found
reasonably good correlation between Gini and intergenerational income
elasticity.

 More evidence of upward mobility is offered by recent Euromonitor market research indicating that Pakistanis are seeing rising disposable incomes. It says that there
were 1.8 million Pakistani households (7.55% of all households) and 7.9
million Indian households (3.61% of all households) in 2009 with
disposable incomes of $10,001 or more. This
translates into 282% increase (vs 232% in India) from 1995-2009 in
households with disposable incomes of $10,001 or more. Consumer spending
in Pakistan has increased at a 26 percent average pace
the past three years, compared with 7.7 percent for Asia, according to Bloomberg.

3. East Pakistan Debacle: 

Critics love to point out Pakistan's break-up in 1971 as evidence of failure of Jinnah's Pakistan. They lavish praise on Bangladesh and scold Pakistan as part of the annual ritual a few days before Quaid-e-Azam's birthday every year.

Economic gap between East and West Pakistan in 1960s is often cited as a
key reason for the secessionist movement led by Shaikh Mujib's Awami
League and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. This disparity has grown
over the last 40 years, and the per capita income in Pakistan now stands
at more than twice Bangladesh's in 2012 in nominal dollar terms,  higher than 1.6
in 1971.

 Here are some figures from Economist magazine's EIU 2013:

Bangladesh GDP per head: $695 (PPP: $1,830)

Pakistan GDP per head: $1,410 (PPP: $2,960)

Pakistan-Bangladesh GDP per head Ratio: 2.03 ( PPP: 1.62)

4. Poverty, Hunger, Other Socioeconomic Indicators: 

 Pakistan's employment growth has been the highest in South Asia region
since 2000, followed by Nepal, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka in that
order, according to a recent World Bank report titled "More and Better Jobs in South Asia".


Total
employment in South Asia (excluding Afghanistan and Bhutan) rose from
473 million in 2000 to 568 million in 2010, creating an average of just
under 800,000 new jobs a month. In all countries except Maldives and Sri
Lanka, the largest share of the employed are the low‐end self-employed.


Pakistanis have higher graduation rates in education and suffer lower levels of hunger and poverty than Indians and Bangladeshis.

Pakistanis spend more time in schools and colleges and graduate at a
higher rate than their Indian counterparts in 15+ age group, according
to a report on educational achievement by Harvard University researchers
Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee. Pakistan has seen its human capital grow significantly over the last decade.  With nearly 16% of its population in 25-34 years age group having
college degrees, Pakistan is well ahead of India and Indonesia,
according to Global Education Digest 2009 published by UNESCO Institute of Statistics. UNESCO data also shows that Pakistan's lead is growing with younger age groups.

Source: Global Education Digest

Barro-Lee Data on Educational Attainment in India and Pakistan

Here is a summary of Barro-Lee's 2010 data in percentage of 15+ age group students who have enrolled in and-or completed primary, secondary and tertiary education:

Education Level.......India........Pakistan

Primary (Total)........20.9..........21.8

Primary (Completed)....18.9..........19.3

Secondary(Total).......40.7..........34.6

Secondary(Completed)...0.9...........22.5

College(Total).........5.8...........5.5

College(Completed).....3.1...........3.9



According to the latest world hunger index rankings, Pakistan ranks 57 while India and Bangladesh are worse at 65 and 68 among 79 countries ranked by International Food Policy Research Institute in 2012.

World Hunger Index 2012

The latest World Bank data shows that India's poverty rate of 27.5%, based on India's current poverty line of $1.03 per person per day, is more than 10 percentage points higher than Pakistan's 17.2%.
Assam (urban), Punjab and Himachal Pradesh are the only three Indian
states with similar or lower poverty rates than Pakistan's.

 Pakistan ranks well ahead of India and in the middle among 15 similar countries
compared by the
Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010).  Other countries in
this group include India, Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Moldova, Mongolia,
Nicaragua, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Island,
Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen.

Poor Treatment of Minorities:

Clearly, Pakistanis have not lived up to Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's vision of a tolerant and democratic Pakistan where the basic rights of all of its citizens, including religious and ethnic minorities, are fully respected. Popular Pakistani columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee put it well when he wrote: "Fortunately for him, Jinnah did
not live long enough to see his dream betrayed by men unworthy even to
utter his name. He died before total disillusionment could set in
(though he had his suspicions that it was on its way) and broke his
heart. From what we know of him, he was that rare being, an
incorruptible man in all the many varied meanings of the word
corruption, purchasable by no other, swayed by no other, perverted by no
other; a man of honor, integrity and high ideals. That the majority of
his countrymen have been found wanting in these qualities is this
country's tragedy."
 
Defying Prophets of Doom and Gloom:

Pakistan finds itself in the midst many serious crises of governance, economy, energy, security, etc. I do think, however, that all of the available and credible data and indicators confirm the fact that Muslims in Pakistan are not only better off than they are elsewhere in South Asia, they also enjoy higher economic and social mobility than their counterparts in India and Bangladesh.

On Pakistan's National Day today, let me remind everyone that Pakistanis have made a habit of proving pessimist
pundits wrong. Pakistani state was dismissed as a temporary "tent" and a
"nissen hut" at birth
by Viceroy Lord Mountbatten in 1947. That same "nissen hut" is now a
nuclear power about which Brookings' Stephen Cohen has says as follows:

“One of the most important puzzles of India-Pakistan relations is not
why the smaller Pakistan feels encircled and threatened, but why the
larger India does. It would seem that India, seven times more populous
than Pakistan and five times its size, and which defeated Pakistan in
1971, would feel more secure. This has not been the case and Pakistan
remains deeply embedded in Indian thinking. There are historical,
strategic, ideological, and domestic reasons why Pakistan remains the
central obsession of much of the Indian strategic community, just as
India remains Pakistan’s.” 

Here's a video discussion on Pakistan:



Imran Khan's March 23 Jalsa and Musharraf's Return to Pakistan from WBT TV on Vimeo.

 Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Human Capital Growth in Pakistan

Upwardly Mobile Pakistan

Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan

Rising Tide of Intolerance in Pakistan

Muslims-New Untouchables in India

Violent Conflict Marks Pakistan's Social Revolution

Economic Mobility in Pakistan

Poverty Across South Asia

Graduation Rates in Pakistan

Introspection of Pakistan's Creation

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an AsiaNow report on disproportionate population of Muslims and Christians in Indian prison:

Mumbai (AsiaNews) - The high number of prison inmates from socio-religious minorities "is due to the attitude of some states, which target the most vulnerable sections of society," said Arun Ferreira, an activist for Christian Dalits and tribals, who spoke to AsiaNews following the release of the 2012 Prison Statistics report by the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB).

According to the report, Muslims, who are 13.4 per cent of India's population, represented 28.02 per cent of the prison population in 2012. Christians are in the same situation. Nationally, they are 2.3 per cent of the population but they constitute 6 per cent of the prison population.

For the activist, "We get these percentages because Dalits, Tribals, Muslims and Christians are often the victims of loopholes and sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Ferreira should know. He personally experience what it means to be behind bars. Accused of being a Naxalite (Maoist) guerrilla, he was arrested in May 2007 in Nagpur (Maharashtra) and indicted on 11 charges, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

During his detention, he was tortured and interrogated twice after being treated with a "truth serum," a psychoactive drug that is now illegal. After four years and eight months in jail, he was released on bail.

"My experience in prison is that every state tends to target minorities, showing some of its specific features," Ferreira told AsiaNews.

"In states where Hinduism is strong, like Orissa (where the effects of anti-Christian pogroms still linger), many innocent Christians have been arrested and thrown in prison, falsely accused of being Naxalites. However, the same thing happened in Gujarat after the 2002 riots."

"In Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, which are also under strong Hindu influence, the authorities have overtly attacked the Christian community, treating its members as the 'criminal' element in the Dalit and Tribal groups."

All too often, Christians fall into the clutches of the justice system on false evidence because they back causes that embarrass the authorities.

"In Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, some tribal Christians were arrested on false accusations of terrorism," Ferreira noted, "when in fact the problem was their struggle against large-scale mining projects that required huge tracts of land to be expropriated."

The same is true for Tamil Nadu, where Christians have been charged with 'subversion' for opposing the construction of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant.

"Sadly, neither the government nor the NCRB recognise political prisoners as a separate category, so there are no statistics about it."

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Discrimination-in-India:-Christians-...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a Dawn piece by Indian journalist Javed Naqvi on Dalit leader Amberkar:

As the intellectual and academic focus shifts to the Dalit worldview in India with Arundhati Roy’s fresh evaluation of Dalit mascot B. R. Ambedkar, who like Jinnah was also Mahatma Gandhi’s bête noir, fresh perspectives are expected to be unearthed from that largely masked historiography.

For all his sharp and often sympathetic assertions on Pakistan, and despite the fact that Ambedkar and Jinnah shared the laurels at the Round Table Conference and together won short-lived victories for their communities, the Dalit view of the freedom movement has been largely airbrushed at every stage of academia in both countries.

The deletion of Jaswant Singh’s and Advani’s perspectives on Jinnah is of a piece with the fate assigned to Ambedkar’s kindred bonding with Jinnah. But why has he been shunned in Pakistan? There will be hopefully a renewal of interest in the great Dalit intellectual not the least because of the interest shown in him by Ms Roy, whose word counts for something even among the most India-phobic Pakistanis.

Ambedkar’s appreciation of the Muslim quandary flowed from his view of the Congress as an upper caste Hindu party, not willing to do away with the horrors of the caste system in a free India.

“At the Round Table Conference, the Muslims presented their list of safeguards, which were formulated in the well-known 14 points. The Hindu representatives at the Round Table Conference would not consent to them,” notes Ambedkar dispassionately in his work Pakistan, or the Partition of India, which he wrote in 1940.

“There was an impasse. The British government intervened and gave what is known as “the Communal decision”.

By that decision, the Muslims got all their 14 points. There was much bitterness amongst the Hindus against the Communal Award. But, the Congress did not take part in the hostility that was displayed by the Hindus generally towards it, although it did retain the right to describe it as anti-national and to get it changed with the consent of the Muslims.

“So careful was the Congress not to wound the feelings of the Muslims that when the Resolution was moved in the Central Assembly condemning the Communal Award, the Congress, though it did not bless it, remained neutral, neither opposing nor supporting it. The Mahomedans were well justified in looking upon this Congress attitude as a friendly gesture.” Ambedkar’s observations were unbiased, neutral.

He then notes characteristically without fear or favour: “The victory of the Congress at the polls in the provinces, where the Hindus are in a majority, did not disturb the tranquillity of the Musalmans. They felt they had nothing to fear from the Congress and the prospects were that the Congress and the Muslim League would work the constitution in partnership.

“But, two years and three months of the Congress government in the Hindu provinces have completely disillusioned them and have made them the bitterest enemies of the Congress. The Deliverance Day celebration held on the 22nd December 1939 shows the depth of their resentment. What is worse, their bitterness is not confined to the Congress. The Musalmans, who at the Round Table Conference joined in the demand for Swaraj, are today the most ruthless opponents of Swaraj.”

What has the Congress done to annoy the Muslims so much?

Ambedkar answers his own question: “The Muslim League has asserted that under the Congress regime the Muslims were actually tyrannised and oppressed. Two committees appointed by the League are said to have investigated and reported on the matter. But apart from these matters which require to be examined by an impartial tribunal, there are undoubtedly two things which have produced the clash: (1) the refusal by the Congress to recognise the Muslim League as the only representative body of the Muslims, (2) the refusal by the Congress to form coalition ministries in the Congress provinces.”...

http://www.dawn.com/news/1095469

[Riaz Haq]

Sindh's Muslim landowners were big beneficiaries of partition. It freed them from heavy debts they owed to Hindu moneylenders:

1. From the Imperial Gazetteer of India by W.W. Hunter 1881:

"They (Muslim landowners) are almost always in debt to t,he Hindu moneylenders who exact as much as cent per cent on their advances"

http://books.google.com/books?id=RooIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA368&lpg=...

2. From The Empires of the Indus by Alice Albinia:

"Partition increased the economic power of the landowners because many of the Hindu moneylenders to who they were indebted fled for their lives to India"

http://books.google.com/books?id=zqz3bnuX7LsC&pg=PA84&lpg=P...

[Riaz Haq]

World Bank's 2012 data show Bangladesh's PPP GDP is $372 billion and Pakistan's PPP GDP at $795 billion is more than twice Bangladesh's.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD/countries/1W?...

[Riaz Haq]

Excerpt from BBC News on housing discrimination in India:


Segregation has inevitably led to curious business opportunities. Sensing that mixed neighbourhoods were fast disappearing and even well-to-do-Muslims were finding it a problem to buy property, Ahmedabad-based entrepreneur Mohammed Ali Husain began a property fair connecting Muslim builders with buyers.

More than 40,000 potential buyers have turned up for the two fairs he's held so far, checking out and buying housing offered by 25 Muslim builders.

"Earlier communities lived in segregated neighbourhoods for cultural reasons," say Mr Husain. "Now the reason is the fear of the other."

Deep divisions
In a deeply divided and hierarchical society like India, segregated living - and housing - has existed for centuries.

Mumbai has community-based "vegetarian only" housing societies. Delhi and Calcutta have Muslim ghettos, crowded, run-down and neglected. A planned apartment coming up in Delhi promises "dream homes for elite Muslim brotherhood".

Ahmedabad has been always divided on caste, community and religious lines. But, as analysts say, the ghettoisation was relative in the sense that Muslim-dominated areas co-existed with Hindu-dominated ones.

"These mixed neighbourhoods disappeared after Muslims became the main victims in communal riots which have gone on a par with their growing socio-economic marginalisation," write Christophe Jaffrelot and Charlotte Thomas in their study of ghettoisation in Ahmedabad.

The divisions of the past appeared to be more cultural in nature; the divisions of today appear to be rooted in fear, distrust and anomie.

Mr Kadri says he was picking up an order at a burger chain drive-thru a few years ago when he overheard the manager asking one of his delivery boys to not to deliver to Juhapura because, "people will chop you into pieces if you go there".

Rising urbanisation was expected to blur religious and social boundaries, but that hasn't happened fully.

So despite the fact that more than a third of India's Muslims live in cities and towns - making them the most urbanised community of a significant size - poverty and discrimination continues to easily push them into ghettos.

Even Dalits - formerly known as untouchables - who escape the stifling caste-based discrimination of their villages to live and work in the cities find that they still end up living in ghettos.



http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30204806

[Riaz Haq]

Maududi was the most vociferous opponent of Mr. Jinnah and the Pakistan Movement. I reproduce here some of his referenced works here from his “Muslims and the Present Political Turmoil” (Vol.III) First Edition published from Delhi. Jamaat-e-Islami claims that the whole Two Nation Theory project was derived from Maududi’s writings which is completely untrue. Maududi described the idea of Muslim Nationalism as unlikely as a “chaste prostitute”. Here he wrote:

” Who are the Muslims you are claiming to be a separate nation? Here, the crowd called Muslims is full of all sorts of rabble. There are as many types of characters in this as in any (other) heathen people”. (Vol. III, P.166) 

“If you survey this so-called Muslim society, you will come across multifarious types of Muslims, of countless categories. This is a zoo with a collection of crows, kites, vultures, partridges and thousands of other types of birds. Every one of them is a ‘sparrow’. (Ibid. P.31) 

One of Jamaat-e-Islami’s latter day claims has been that Mr. Jinnah wanted an Islamic state. Ironically this is what Jamaat-e-Islami’s philosopher in chief Maulana Maududi was writing back then:

“Pity! From League’s Quaid-e-Azam down to the lower cadres, there is not a single person who has an Islamic outlook and thinking and whose perspective on matters is Islamic“. (Ibid. P.37)

“To pronounce these people fit for leading Muslims for the simple reason that they are experts of Western type politics and masters of Western organizational arts, and are deeply in love with their people, is a manifestation of an unislamic viewpoint and reflects ignorance of Islam”. (Ibid. P.70)

“Even with a microscopic study of their practical life, and their thinking, ideology, political behaviour and style of leadership, one can find not a trace of Islamic character.” 

Jamaat-e-Islami now claims claims that the Muslim League won the elections because it promised Pakistan as an Islamic state. Here is what Maulana Maududi said then:

“In no Muslim League resolution, or in a speech by a responsible leader of the League it has it been made clear that their final goal is of establishing an Islamic system of government. Those who believe that by freeing Muslim majority areas rule of Hindu majority, an Islamic government will be established here in a democratic set up, are wrong. In fact what will be achieved will be a heretical government by Muslims, indeed worse than that.” (Ibid. P.130-32) 

One of the main arguments in favor of separate federations in India put up by Muslim League was that parliamentary democracy would not work in United India given the permanent minority that Muslims were with their own majority zones. Thus Pakistan – as a separate federation- had to be a democratic state. Jinnah’s vision, as Gandhi concluded after his abortive meetings with Jinnah in 1944, was of a perfect democracy in Pakistan. This vision was rejected by Maulana Maududi and his party. The fact that Jinnah used electoral methods and strengths of numbers for his politics also upset Maulana Maududi quite a bit. He wrote:

“For these reasons, the great numbers (of Muslims) that we find. (listed) in the census records has become worthless for purposes of Islam. Anything done on the strength of these numbers will result in acute frustration.” (Ibid. P.56)

Had these great numbers supported Maududi he would have gladly accepted their strength. In 1947, he moved to Pakistan and brought here with him his cancerous Jamaat-e-Islami too. He remained however a committed opponent of the Pakistani national causes including the Kashmir struggle calling it unIslamic. Today the Jamaat-e-Islami castigates anyone and everyone who wants a peaceful settlement in Kashmir. I suppose Maududi could not call the Kashmir struggle a Jihad because then Ahmadis were involved in fighting there under their Al-Furqan brigade.



https://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/maulana-maududis-role-...