Pakistan se azaadi

Pakistan not only has zero chance of catching up with India in most areas, but will inevitably see the gap rising. Its leaders will offer its people the same snake oil in different bottles

- SHEKHAR GUPTA

‘The risks in using this headline are enormous, from being accused of indulging in clickbait journalism to being asked to see a shrink. I'd plead, you hear me out.

Of course, it can be nobody's case that Pakistan has colonised India. In no field, be it military power, economy, culture and soft power, or global image can it ever catch up with India. That train left the station in 1983, which was around the time it chose the policy of bleeding India through a thousand cuts. This was Zia’s Pakistan on its Afghan jihad high and troubles in our Punjab were rising. This set Pakistan on a course of irreversible decline.

It got steeper in subsequent decades. Today, at about 55 per cent of India’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP), it sees the gap rising every quarter. A population a little over one-fifth of India’s has about one-tenth its GDP. On literacy, life expectancy, higher education, an enormous negative gap has built up for Pakistan and it is expanding.

Lately, there’s been some excitement over the Pakistani stock market being among the fastest-growing in the world while India has stalled for almost 18 months. This is a fact. Lift the Pakistani social media hood and look underneath. The total market cap of the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE), after this relentless 18-month boom, is about $70 billion. That’s exactly 1.35 per cent of the NSE, despite its long stall.