By: Ram Narayanan
ramn@adelphia.net
November 25, 2003

I think the time has come for friends of India in overwhelming numbers to take issue with the US media whenever they exhibit a tendency (which is still quite prevalent) to place the world's largest democracy (India) on a par with the world's epicenter of terrorism (Pakistan).

Following is an article which has appeared in Los Angeles Times and in the Tri-Valley Herald (a Bay Area Newspaper), and quite possibly in other US newspapers.

The author of the piece Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times staff writer, needs to be told politely but firmly that he should desist from in-depth analyses on issues that he's not very well informed about, especially if the "passing fantasies", posing as facts are garnered from Islamabad. So, let us review some of the real facts:

Look at the relative size of Pakistan and India. Compare their respective populations and GDPs. Well - Pakistan has an estimated population of 145 million while India, with over a billion people, has more Muslims than Pakistan, and is a secular nation. India is 8 times Pakistan's size and India's economy, is 9 times as big - even after you cater for the doles and aid that Pakistan gets from outside. And India's economy has additional 'force multipliers' like three times the technical intensity, two times the savings rate, half the per capita debt, higher GDP growth rate and a robust democratic political system, and, above all a bright future.

Here are additional facts:

1. After China, India is considered the engine of growth in the world today - please do not take my word, check out HP's revenue growth this quarter. Pakistan is surviving on extortion money and international hand-outs.

2. Moody's predicts Indian growth at 7%. India's growth opens up a wealth of opportunities for US companies to tap into India's growing market. Walmart has already done 2 billion worth of trade last year alone with India, and US companies are finding India an increasingly attractive proposition. India's GDP will double in the next decade and this can only be good news for Indo-US relations. The most optimistic Pakistani growth is pegged at 5.1%. Ofcourse, once you take into account the $1B of free oil from Saudi Arabia and about $1B of grants and air-base rental fees, Pakistani growth would be hard-pressed to cross 2 or 3%.

3. Indian poverty rates have come down to about 23% (2001) from about 40% in the eighties, with the expectation that this will reach 15% by 2005. Poverty in Pakistan has gone up from 20% to over 33% (could be 35% by now) and the actual numbers have doubled in the same period of time. Pakistani per capita income has grown 13% in the last decade, while Indian per capita income has grown by 50% in the same time. Pakistan's growing poverty is a grave danger - it breeds fundamentalism and terrorism, especially when there is no democracy and the poor have few alternatives but to be sucked into the Madrassa system that promotes hatred against non-believers and asks the faithful to undertake Jihad.

4. India is now an aid giving nation rather than a recipient. Additionally, India's 45 million ton reserves of foodgrains have helped other countries in times of adversity. Pakistan survives on charity. Pakistan recently, had to put up its entire fleet of PIA planes as collateral to borrow money to buy a few aircraft from Boeing.

5. Indian spending on defense is at 2.5% of its GDP. Pakistani spending on defense is pegged at 3.5% and this does not include salaries of large categories of uniformed personnel. Pakistan has the seventh largest army in the world, while its per capita income is lower than that of sub-saharan Africa.

6. India may have a long way to go in catering to the welfare of its people but it has made a great start by focussing on communications and transport links across the length and breadth of the country. Highways link all major cities and will integrate with the rural interior in the near future. Growth in the number of cell-phones is a staggering 2 million a month, and the country is using the latest technologies sensibly to move ahead. India is already in the space age and does not intend to be diverted from its objective of becoming a self- reliant and strong nation that upholds the values freedom loving democratic nations hold dear.

7. India's defense spending is directly related to India's national security needs and has never had an offensive intent. Even in the case of Bangladesh where India was forced to intercede on the side of the Mukti Bahini (Bangladeshi liberation movement), it was because India was inundated with 10 million refugees fleeing persecution and genocide. Pakistani army spending has been associated with a genocide in Bangladesh (3 million killed) and perpetrating a genocidal war in Afghanistan even after the Russians had left (a good article to read would be Michael Moran's airlift of evil).

8. Today, India has facilitated US merchant shipping in the straits of Malacca and has expended money and resources to uphold the freedom of the high seas. With a large coastline and extensive land borders, India is obliged to spend on defence to protect its territorial integrity. Pakistani defense spending not only supports and benefits from the drug trade (read CIA reports), but also is directing the resurrection of the new and improved Taliban (see Washington Post and NYTimes). The main focus of Indian security is protecting its borders and sea trade around it. The main focus of Pakistani spending is terrorism in Afghanistan (read recent interviews by Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah), Chechnya, India and Pakistan itself - in fact, the only 2 leading secular politicians have been thrown out of the country, while major terrorist leaders (of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi) are invited to join the legislature.

9. Indian economy is NOT being held back by defense spending - McKinsey's 1999 report pegged about 4 points: increased growth (approx $25B annually) through reduced tarriff, better infrastructure and reform in labor laws. The Pakistani economy is being held back by defence spending - in fact the army owns every major economic institution in Pakistan - from travel agencies to cereal factories to an inordinate amount of land. Pakistan is run and owned by its army, for the benefit of the senior army officials. How many other countries have army generals who are dollar billionaires, with no apparent source of income, other than their salaries?

10. Indian students and graduates are being invited by research institutions and universities world wide - in fact, 60% of the sillicon valley companies that were started during the dotcom-boom had Indian founders; today many of the institutions that drive US innovation have overwhelming Indian presence. Pakistani students are on the other hand joining the Taliban in droves (see Washington Times report) and Pakistani students are being deported in bulk, by countries such as the US, Thailand and Kenya. Pakistan's contribution to the US, has been involvement with every international terrorist act against the US and its friends - $100k from Pakistan went to Atta, WTC planner was Pakistani and caught in Pakistan, CIA shooting killer was hailed in Pakistan, Hambali of the Bali bombings was indoctrinated in Pakistan, Africa Embassy bombers went "home" to Pakistan... .

Finally, Pakistan is

(a) The only "democracy" where an elected Prime Minister reports to a General and where the former is not ashamed to admit that real power rests with the army- Jamali, the Prime Minister, made this amazing acknowlegement just days ago!

b) A country that has used nuclear blackmail in the past and is under watch for nuclear proliferation to North Korea and Saudi Arabia, and

c) A country thats says one thing but does another on terrorism Al-Qaida-Taliban- Omer Sheikh et al.

The poor Pakistani people certainly do not deserve to be in the situation their rulers have put them in. The only way Pakistan can get out of the quagmire is if its elites stop taking the people for a ride and begin to look into their political (democracy) economic (an economy not dictated by defense- that syphons everthing conceivable towards military ends) and social (secular as opposed to radical, fundamentalist, jihadi) development. By using the bogey of Kashmir to put wool over the eyes of its own people, by pleading that theirs are the shortest beards (ie they are modern and progressive compared to the Islamists and others) and by fanning the nuclear flashpoint theory to scare the west, the Pakistan establishment has fooled too many people for too long. It is time to call a spade a spade and drop the hypocritical approach.

In brief, comparing the largest democracy in the world with the largest terrorist state in the world, is sheer intellectual dishonesty - much like comparing Saddam's human rights record with that of the US.

India and Pakistan need to be de-hyphenated NOW and for EVER.

Paul Watson: Paul.Watson@latimes.com  Editor, Los Angeles Times: letters@latimes.com Letters to the Editor must include your full name, city and daytime phone number (your number will not be published). Please keep your Letter under 250 words.

To write to the Editor, Tri-Valley Herald, click: http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86%257E10701%257E,00.html

Ram Narayanan

http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~1781639,00.html

TRI-VALLEY HERALD
Article Last Updated: Friday, November 21, 2003 - 2:57:17 AM PST

Arms race leaves medicine behind in India, Pakistan
The two countries spend more on weapons than on fighting disease

By Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- When India signed a contract to buy a $1 billion military radar system last month, foreign aid agencies were still searching for $50 million in donations to defeat the country's polio scourge.

Across the border, Pakistan's armed forces were updating their multibillion-dollar shopping list, including a request for U.S.-made F-16 jets, while aid groups fighting a tuberculosis epidemic struggled against a lethal funding gap.

India and Pakistan, locked in an escalating arms race, were the world's second- and third-biggest weapons importers last year. Only China spent more on the international weapons market, according to the 2003 yearbook of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a leading monitor of the global arms trade.

Arms control advocates argue that foreign development aid for health, education and other projects allows India and Pakistan to divert huge portions of their budgets to a military buildup that could trigger the fourth major war between the two nuclear-armed countries since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.
......
........
...........