Category: Pakistan

The Difference Between India and Pakistan

Here’s an interesting tweet

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Sure, Indians are better known for being high-powered CEOs in foreign corporations than Pakistanis. Pakistanis tend to specialize more in the “peaceful” pursuits of high-powered terrorism, which is consistent with the fact that Pakistan is built on the peaceful foundation of the Religion of Peace. So naturally Pakistanis spread peace around the world.

As the population of the Religion of Peace grows in any place, it becomes more peaceful. In time, peace finally reigns. Syria is getting more peaceful by the day, to the point that people cannot take any more peace and are fleeing Syria. Heartbreaking stories of people drowning is merely the froth on a deep ocean of peace.

Enough of the Religion of Peace.

Time to once again ponder the question. Indians are obviously not incapable or stupid. So why are so many forced to migrate out of India to become successful? What’s it about India that Indians find it hard to be successful in India?

The Habit of Being Honest

A few days ago, a Pakistani singer by the name of Rahat was caught smuggling around $130,000 out of India. It does not matter what the prescribed penalties are for such an act but the interior minister of Pakistan called up the Home Minister of India, P. Chidambaram and thanked him for facilitating Rahat’s release. Thanks to Mr Chidambaram’s intervention in the matter, it all ended well for the singer. But not for the country.
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Of Human Savagery and Human Joy

Christopher Hitchens once wrote “I think human civilisation only begins when people separate religion from the state. Policing that frontier, making sure of it, is a huge thing, culturally and politically. You realise that any attempt to cross it is poisonous – in the sense of lethal.” I am reminded of that while reading yet another account of human savagery in a land which was based on a lethal religious dogma. But be warned that this is rated R for violence. If you don’t have a strong stomach, skip the text and just go to the embedded videos.
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The Unbearably Sad Reality of India

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reported how the US is pressuring India to (what effectively is) surrender its interests to Pakistan’s whims. “U.S. Aims to Ease India-Pakistan Tension“. Why? Because Pakistan presented to the US administration “a litany of accusations against the Indian government,” and suggested “the U.S. intercede on Pakistan’s behalf.” Which the US is in essence doing. Continue reading “The Unbearably Sad Reality of India”

Cargo for Pakistan

I have previously observed here that India has what I call a “cargo cult democracy.” In India’s neighborhood that is not a distinction. The entire Indian subcontinent suffers from that malady. The short version is that around here democracy as practiced is a simulation, a facsimile that should not be confused with the real thing that has something to do with informed choice based on differing perceptions of priorities that matter in the larger scheme of things.

Informed choice is not a matter that can be delegated to people who are not only not informed but for the most part cannot be informed even if you wanted to because the basic channels for information transmission are denied to them. Most of the electorate is illiterate to begin with and to add insult to injury, meaningful debate concerning the issues is entirely non-existent in the mass media. In the absence of substantial policy choices, it all boils down to names and faces. In every nook and cranny of the country, one comes face to face with huge billboards with the faces of people with names—never mind what they represent or what their accomplishments are.
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Quo Vadis, Pakistan

Pakistan matters critically to India. One could dismiss it as a failed tin-pot dictatorship and is of little consequence with respect to India’s development and economic growth. But it is just because it is a tin-pot dictatorship that it matters. Even more precisely, it has been made into a tin-pot dictatorship so that it can serve as a lever to indirectly control India. I deliberately say “made” because it is a tool used by the West and therefore fashioned by and kept in “good” shape to serve the purpose. Principally, it is the US which wields Pakistan most adroitly.

One cannot escape the fact that the US is the world’s reigning hegemon. Nothing much of any significance happens around the world is not in some way affected by what the US does. No large nation or a confederation of nations is immune from US influence to some extent, whether it be India, China, or the EU. But when it comes to small impoverished dependent nations, the US is the ultimate dispenser of their destinies. Pakistan is what the US wants it to be, and Pakistan does what the US wants it to do.
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