William Dalrymple has a nice “state of the union” type essay in the Guardian, on the occasion of Pakistan’s Independence Day. (Incidentally, happy Independence Day! Here are two photos from Flickr relating to ‘Azaadi2007’ that mark the celebration: Karachi, yummy mithai at the Quaid e Mazar Mazar e Quaid; and a building in Islamabad, all lit up.)
Considering where Pakistan is and where it’s going, Dalrymple starts with the good news and then surveys the bad. First, the good:
On the ground, of course, the reality is different and first-time visitors to Pakistan are almost always surprised by the country’s visible prosperity. There is far less poverty on show in Pakistan than in India, fewer beggars, and much less desperation. In many ways the infrastructure of Pakistan is much more advanced: there are better roads and airports, and more reliable electricity. Middle-class Pakistani houses are often bigger and better appointed than their equivalents in India.
Moreover, the Pakistani economy is undergoing a construction and consumer boom similar to India’s, with growth rates of 7%, and what is currently the fastest-rising stock market in Asia. You can see the effects everywhere: in new shopping centres and restaurant complexes, in the hoardings for the latest laptops and iPods, in the cranes and building sites, in the endless stores selling mobile phones: in 2003 the country had fewer than three million cellphone users; today there are almost 50 million. (link)
This confirms what I’ve often heard from friends about Lahore and Karachi in particular — there’s a lot of growth, which many people aren’t really aware of.
On to the long list of challenges and serious problems facing Pakistan, which Dalrymple divides into three categories. For Dalrymple, the first two categories are topics we have all heard a lot about in recent years: one is the lack of a culture of democracy, and the second is the threat of radical Islam. But it’s the third problem Dalrymple talks about, education, that I found interesting:
The third major issue facing the country is its desperate education crisis. No problem in Pakistan casts such a long shadow over its future as the abject failure of the government to educate more than a fraction of its own people: at the moment, a mere 1.8% of Pakistan’s GDP is spent on government schools. The statistics are dire: 15% of these government schools are without a proper building; 52% without a boundary wall; 71% without electricity.
This was graphically confirmed by a survey conducted two years ago by the former Pakistan cricket captain turned politician, Imran Khan, in his own constituency of Mianwali. His research showed that 20% of government schools supposed to be functioning in his constituency did not exist at all, a quarter had no teachers and 70% were closed. No school had more than half of the teachers it was meant to have. Of those that were just about functioning, many had children of all grades crammed into a single room, often sitting on the floor in the absence of desks.
This education gap is the most striking way in which Pakistan is lagging behind India: in India, 65% of the population is literate and the number rises every year: only last year, the Indian education system received a substantial boost of state funds.
But in Pakistan, the literacy figure is under half (it is currently 49%) and falling: instead of investing in education, Musharraf’s military government is spending money on a cripplingly expensive fleet of American F-16s for its air force. As a result, out of 162 million Pakistanis, 83 million adults of 15 years and above are illiterate. Among women the problem is worse still: 65% of all female adults are illiterate. As the population rockets, the problem gets worse. (link)
The literacy rate in Pakistan is actually falling — ouch. Maybe it’s time for a few less F-16s and a few more teachers?
what does
mean?
Amardeep, is there a gender/regional breakdown of the falling literacy rate? I think of the areas that are grossly neglected by the government and wonder if resources are flowing to the cities while the rest of the country is largely abandoned. I, of course, have no idea what I’m talking about — just speculating.
dough is important, but it isnt everything. rights, working systems, stable government, secular systems, wodespread functioning democracy, etc. matter alot. a lot of the comparison between india and china ignores these things as well..
Yeah with all those generals and soldiers running the country, one would think those bunglows are rather large and “well appointed” by sepoys serving their masters (and madams)
From the original article,
Middle-class Pakistani houses are often bigger and better appointed than their equivalents in India.
In general, the educated middle class – which in India seized control in 1947, emasculating the power of its landowners – is in Pakistan still largely excluded from the political process.
Is it good news followed by bad news ? Or is it good news clarified at a higher level of detail by the bad news ?
If they dont have the political power yet, are the middle class in Pakistan better at striking deals with existing power structure(land owners) for their own good ?
The extreme poverty that is in India compared to Pakistan can be explained by the population density.
Population density Pak : 206 per sq. Km India : 356 per sq. KM.
More than 50% higer population density can explain why there are less begger and desperately poor people seen in Pakistan.
Please, ask the average Pakistani if he or his children have a better future in India or Pakistan and then come back and tell me about their bungalows and cleaner streets.
Is it good news followed by bad news ? Or is it good news clarified at a higher level of detail by the bad news ?
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I think it’s probably right. Dalrymple is giving a perception he had from experiences in both countries. But the statistics he gives in the second part of the article belie the “good news.” (I didn’t talk about Dalrymple’s comments on why democracy is unlikely to blossom overnight in Pakistan, but that too is pretty damning. Even if “free and fair” elections were to happen tomorrow, there might not be much of a real change.)
And Camille, I don’t have those stats handy (I’ll poke around on the internets and see), but I would speculate that there must be a strong rural/urban divide in play. The falling literacy rate is probably linked to rural families who don’t send daughters to school (though they might have in the past).
The BBC’s Mishal Hussein (herself of Pakistani origin) interviewed Imran Khan today. When she asked him about Pakistan’s economic growth rates under Musharaff, he said it was due more to the American money (war on terror payments) and money that Pakistani expats send home rather than any policies instituted by the govt. Of course he is very anti-Musharaff.
What parts of Pakistan and India was he comparing? South India has generally less number of beggars compared to North, same with cleanliness.
What is the illiteracy rate in Pakistan if Balooch & other western areas are discounted? I am sure it compares with that of North western parts of India.
I don’t think it is fair to compare to whole of Pakistan with whole of India in every aspect of a society. Shouldn’t it be compared to Afghanistan, Iran etc? Or Pakistan should be evaluated independently about its merits as a nation state.
P.S. Happy Independence to Pakistanis.
Nice post, Amardeep. Also appreciated your blogging the Indo-US nuclear deal and on Barkha Dutt. Too many good things, and I wish I could make all the comments I want to! 🙂 But on this one, I’m sure I’ll have more comments later.
One small thing to add – Pakistan has also drawn up its own ambitious plan for a dramatic increase in civilian nuclear capacity to go with its economic expansion – like expanding it by a factor of about 20 in the next 30 years, but it’s being kept low-key right now, especially with all the talk about Rainbow Six, unlike India’s.
Minor quibble – it’s actually the Mazar-e-Quaid, not QeM.
‘Middle-class’ meant different things in India and Pakistan. Although India’s political economy is now changing post-liberalization, with globalization inducing changes in the wage distribution. But Pakistan never really had a legacy of the ‘socialist planned economy’ – so pre-1995 or so, private sector salaries were significantly higher in relative terms, and government officials, army officers, private professionals (lawyers, doctors, chartered accountants, stockbrokers, etc) always made more money in Pakistan than in India. The whole income distribution in Pakistan had a different skew.
So the upper-middle class was larger in Pakistan, that is one way of looking at it. Or the same qualifications got you a perch in the upper-middle class in Pakistan that in India got you only into the middle-class, another angle. But this also meant that the political views of the Pakistani ‘middle class’ were much more right of center, and as a class they saw much more in common with the Army and the landowners and the status quo in general, than the common people in Pakistan, or the middle class in India. So yes, I’m sure they all jointly worked the system to keep each other (army, landowners, rich professionals) happy, and many of them were also from the same families. But that is changing now in interesting ways, and it’s changing in India too, of course.
Might comment more on this later, gotta go for now.
I think it has to depend on the area you’re in, also. I can’t help but think of Baluchistan. Not to make a symbol of the region, but I doubt that folks feel like things are substantially “better” than India. Not sure this really compares apples and apples. Perhaps Dalrymple is comparing “middle class” urban elites and “middle class” urban elites?
circus in jungle
The literacy rates of North Western Indian are: Chandigargh 81.76% Himachal Pradesh 77.13% Punjab 69.95% Haryana 68.59% Rajasthan 61.03% Jammu & Kashmir 54.46%
Total Literacy Rate of Pakistan is 41.5%.
I have no idea how the article can justify that Pakistan has a higher literacy rate, overall literacy rate for India is 61.3%
I have no idea how the article can justify that Pakistan has a higher literacy rate, overall literacy rate for India is 61.3%
Uh, Jo, Dalrymple agrees with you — he clearly states that Pakistan’s literacy rate is much lower than India’s, and it continues to fall. Meanwhile, India’s literacy rate is rising every year.
Please read the article a bit more carefully. Anyway, thanks for the statistics.
For Jinnah’s sake, look around you……..great news on India is everywhere while the news on our neighbour is only about terror and war. So, why are some people here so torn up over the relative size of middle class houses and numbers of beggars on the streets of India vs. Pakistan ? Quite frankly, this reeks of insecurity.
Amardeep
Don’t have time to get into the center of this mithai post at the moment but just wanted to say after looking at your posts over the last few months. You are such a DBD and I mean this in the nicest possible way as a compliment, you are more in tune with things desh than a lot of my DBD friends. And no, I don’t mean to say being ABD or DBD is better, just that perspectives are a little different and nothing wrong in either – just that your perspectives are so spot on even from a DBD point of view for desh centric topics. Keep up the good work!
It was wrong of Dalrymple to make such generalizations, but I can’t help but feel that people on this thread are insulted that he even dared to say those things. It’s stupid to compare all of India to all of Pakistan because they face such different problems internally. He is however, right to point out the disparity in spending for quality of life vs. military by Musharraf’s government; he gets away with a lot.
I can speak for what I’ve seen of upper middle-class relatives in Pakistan: they are not really concerned with politics. The impression I get is that everyone is looking out for their own family & their own well-being. I haven’t seen political mobilization or activism such as the likes of those that I’ve seen in [especially] the southern part of India.
Anecdote:
well said, thank you.
Is is even possible for a Westerner to write about Pakistan without comparing it with India?
Kurma, I really don’t believe so. I find it odd that on Pakistan’s birthday, they’d return to a colonial clutch and have a British man give his commentary on the two countries.
You are such a DBD and I mean this in the nicest possible way as a compliment, you are more in tune with things desh than a lot of my DBD friends. And no, I don’t mean to say being ABD or DBD is better, just that perspectives are a little different and nothing wrong in either – just that your perspectives are so spot on even from a DBD point of view for desh centric topics.
Well, thanks. I think it’s mainly that I live in a pretty desi-centric household, and many of my current-events posts come out of dinner time conversations and the like. I still don’t have any clue whatsoever on cricket! 😉
“I still don’t have any clue whatsoever on cricket! ;-)”
too too bad 🙁 [ :)] I’d have loved to have seen your take on india’s first test win in england in 21 years, the aging “galacticos” of indian cricket and, of course, the biggest scandal/thrill of the year: how jellybean-gate inspired zaheer khan to scythe through the english jellybabies 🙂
Lest we be under any delusions – India cannot progress unless Pakistan progresses simultaneously. If Pakistan delves into chaos, we are royally F*&#E#.. Indeed, I wouldn’t mind If the Govt. of India dedicates 1/2% of GDP to provide subsidies to the [Non Military] Pakistani private sector economy. Yes, there are ways of doing this, without insulting the average Pakistani.
Lest we be under any delusions – India cannot progress unless Pakistan progresses simultaneously.
Anecdote, could you say more about what you mean by this?
Economically, I understand it, India-Pakistan trade is still relatively minimal. I gather you must be referring to security issues…?
Not quite that simple. The education statistics also don’t take into account madrassah schooling, which (before the inevitable drama begins about “training terrorists” blah blah blag) actually accounts for a pretty hefty chunk of “literacy”, if defined as the ability to read/write at a basic level and carry out simple-to-moderately complex calculations. In most areas where government schools don’t exist, local community madrassahs provide a fairly solid educational background. Not all of them are run by complete chootias. Some are actually very focused on providing schooling and education to children, with the emphasis on Islam being about as present as it would be in a Catholic or Jesuit high-school in the US (I suspect). This is not to say that the more cultish ones don’t exist, but there is a positive angle to them as well.
I don’t have hard numbers on how the literacy rates etc. would be affected by this, but I do also know that private trusts such as The Citizens’ Foundation are setting up huge numbers of schools and providing training to teachers, both in urban and rural locations. I’ve not had a chance to skim the entire article and see Dalrymple’s methodology, but I suspect that the situation isn’t quite as dire as he would have it seem. It’s not great, but you’d think he’d know better than to stick with “official” numbers 😉
And you point is ?
And your point is ?
“South India has generally less number of beggars compared to North, same with cleanliness. And your point is ?”
Probably that south indians are a lot cooler than north indians.
My point is that it is futile to compare whole of India with whole of Pakistan. There are enormous differences among different regions of each country.
Unfortunate that growing in India one knows more about America than Pakistan. I have always wanted to travel to other developing countries – just to get a causal observer’s sense for the standard of living or just plain standardization. Simple stuff – does traffic stick to the lanes, how efficient the airport is, can one trust the cab driver, does an average restaurant have a restroom, how well are directions signed, are the footpaths clogged, are city maps available easily, do food vendors use gloves, can you drink the tap water, is a 3 star hotel really a 3 star…that sort of thing. How does Pakistan compare?
One example, I am still amazed that the names of India’s airports appear to be handpainted across the front.
And when Dalrymple talks compares desperation – is he talking about the look in the eyes of the less fortunate or is he talking about the worries of the middle class?
Somebody with the time and energy should do a comparison between Pakistan and an equivalent artificial country – Indistan, where Indistan consists of Indian Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, plus Delhi. So the equivalents at the state/province/city level would be
Indian Kashmir <--> ‘Azad Kashmir’ + Northern Areas Indian Punjab + Haryana <--> Pakistani Punjab Rajasthan <--> Baluchistan Gujarat <--> Sindh Himachal Pradesh <---> Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) National Capital Territory of Delhi <---> Islamabad Capital Territory Port of Surat <---> Port of Karachi
Now this would be more of an apples to apples comparison, with a rough equivalence in demography, ethnography, linguistics and geography as well. I rather suspect that Pakistan might come off looking much better both in relative and perhaps even absolute terms. And the indices chosen shouldn’t just be aggregate, but also per capita, not just economic, but human development indicators as well.
Let the games begin!
Competitiveness, too.
One thing though– the middle class(es) in India are much larger, proportionately, than in Pakistan. Part of what well-appointed might mean has to do with taste, so maybe more to William Dalrymple’s taste, what to do, alas?
True, but that doesn’t invalidate the real issue with income distribution and the class configuration of Pakistani society I mentioned earlier. And Dalrymple was probably also thinking back to his visit to Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jehangir’s house in Lahore’s Gulberg neighborhood, where he was impressed by the homes and drawing rooms:
I don’t understand what the concern is. It is possible for Pakistan to be deeply flawed AND have better habitations/infra than India. It explains why there are authors like Mohsin Ahmed (i.e. author of “Reluctant Fundamentalist”)…he had an idyllic life in one of these suburbs and he would have been sheltered from the realities and problematic thought processes that existed in his country well before US funding for mujahideen.
Ah yes, The Guardian propping up its favorite country Pakistan again, However unfortunately for Mr. Dalrymple the CIA does not share his optimistic apprasial.
1) India per capita PPP GDP (2006 figures) $3,800 2) Pakistan per capita PPP GDP (2006 figures) $2,700.
1) India – population growth rate (2006) – 1.6% 2) Pakistan – population growth rate (2006) – 1.83%
1) India – economic growth rate (2006) – 9% 2) Pakistan – economic growth rate (2006) – 6.6%
Do the math.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html
Pakistan had better numbers in these categories in 50s & 60s. So let’s not take one year’s or a decade’s numbers and declare victory. India has a long way to go to make the current growth sustainable.
circus in jungle
Pakistan had better numbers in these categories in 50s & 60s. So let’s not take one year’s or a decade’s numbers and declare victory. India has a long way to go to make the current growth sustainable.
Umm,the 50s and the 60s are nearly 50 years old and India has shown a consistent growth of about 7% from 1991 onwards. While India does have a long way to go in removing poverty, the assertion that Pakistan is richer than India as quoted by the author is wrong. The point of whether India can sustain this growth is another story. And BTW can you show me some facts to back up your statement that Pakistan was better in the 50s and the 60s. Also,The figures are not for one year. The nearly 50% difference in per capita income is over 15 years of growth difference between the two countries.
WHAT?!?! Let them sort out their own economy! Can you figure out how to do this without insulting the average Indian?
Chachaji (#33), I agree that if you just compared those regions of India to Pakistan, that would be apples to apples; however, I actually think India (or that portion of it) would come out ahead. What Pakistan does NOT have is the dire povery seen in U.P., Bihar, W. Bengal, Orissa, M.P. etc….which is a huge drain that drags down all the indicators for India.
Sure, but on the other side of the coin, the space complexes of Kerala and Andhra; the nuclear complex in TN, Maharashtra, Karnataka; the mines of Bengal, Orissa, Bihar; the steel plants in MP, Bihar, Bengal etc will also not come in to the picture. And look at this – only one IIT – Delhi, and only one IIM – Ahmedabad. So on a composite indicator basis, considering everything, Pakistan has the equivalent of all those things that Indistan would be missing, in just about the same amount of area. I suspect this will show up somewhere in the statistical indicators. And just generally,I would be quite concerned, even rather afraid for Indistan.
No offense, but the CIA is not the most reliable source of data and statistics. If you’re going to compare economic indicators, better (in my opinion) to go with UNDP, UNFPA, IMF, etc. (also imperfect measures, but not as blatantly inaccurate as the CIA numbers often are)
FOBGuy:
The Pakistan’s early growth wasn’t that impressive compared to South Korea or other countries but relative to India it was better.
Here is one, two, three
Indian growth rate before 90s is called Hindu growth rate and was around 3-5% where as Pakistan’s was around 6-8%.
I don’t disagree with you on this.
I think these comparisons shouldn’t be made without whole lot of qualifiers.
One has to take these literacy numbers with a big pinch of salt. When the govt. says that someone is literate, it doesn’t mean that they can sit down and read the newspaper or even write a short paragraph. The “so-called literates” are nowhere near being functionally literate; many of them may just be able to sign their name. At times, literacy programs count the number of enrolled as being literate. This is not just in govt. programs but even in those run by NGOs.
I believe that the UN’s defintion of a literate is someone who can read and write 1-2 sentences describing their daily life. It is not clear if the govt. definition is the same.
My father, who lives in India, is involved in adult literacy programs and he despairs whenever he hears these claims.
No offense, but the CIA is not the most reliable source of data and statistics.
FYI: Those numbers you see are mostly “not” collected by CIA which you see on their public domain literature.
Those are part of their “unclassified” research which they put out as one of their “tiny” outreach by their researchers. The source of those numbers you see on CIA websites are mostly peer-reviewed papers, reports, newspapers, IMF, World Bank, home country reports, etc, etc. CIA pays a lot of money to these researchers, and most of the work is classified, and is never public domain, unless declassified by Congress.
The job of CIA is not to put out socio-economic numbers. However, these socio-economic numbers often put by CIA are well researched, and respected, are part of larger briefing (dossier) on individual countries. You can cross-reference their numbers, if you are careful.
They are not part of any covert/ overt operations.
Kush, I know that these are not CIA-generated. I am stating that, in general, the CIA Factbook tends to be either a) outdated, or b) inaccurate. I’m not trying to imply some kind of information/data-conspiracy. Their metrics are not the metrics that are widely used in economic research, let alone socioeconomic research. I am not saying this to malign any research that they’re doing. I would say the same if someone cited Wikipedia for their statistics. Thus, by extension, when making an ECONOMIC argument, I am simply asking for a level of scrutiny over data selection.
Anything CIA collects is not going to be on their website. You will only know about it if you are on the Senate Intelligence Committee, maybe. Why CIA puts out a factbook in public domain:
The World Factbook is prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency for the use of US Government officials, and the style, format, coverage, and content are designed to meet their specific requirements. Information is provided by Antarctic Information Program (National Science Foundation), Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (Department of Defense), Bureau of the Census (Department of Commerce), Bureau of Labor Statistics (Department of Labor), Central Intelligence Agency, Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs, Defense Intelligence Agency (Department of Defense), Department of Energy, Department of State, Fish and Wildlife Service (Department of the Interior), Maritime Administration (Department of Transportation), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (Department of Defense), Naval Facilities Engineering Command (Department of Defense), Office of Insular Affairs (Department of the Interior), Office of Naval Intelligence (Department of Defense), US Board on Geographic Names (Department of the Interior), US Transportation Command (Department of Defense), Oil & Gas Journal, and other public and private sources.
The Factbook is in the public domain. Accordingly, it may be copied freely without permission of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The official seal of the CIA, however, may NOT be copied without permission as required by the CIA Act of 1949 (50 U.S.C. section 403m). Misuse of the official seal of the CIA could result in civil and criminal penalties.
It is thoroughly researched as opposed to WMD, since it is mostly library research.
sigh I really don’t feel like arguing about this. The point is not about whether or not it’s well researched, nor what the CIA puts in the public domain or not. You can appeal to authority as much as you want, but it won’t change the fact that there are gaps and limitations in the data. If you are going to travel to Jamaica and want a quick perspective, then visit the CIA factbook. If you want to do rigorous data on time-lagged GDP growth, then try 1-2 other primary sources. Not only is there an issue of selection bias in the data, but by virtue of the process of declassification CIA numbers often lag by a few years for many countries, particularly those in the global South.
Whatever, I’m done. This is such a non-issue. If you want to use CIA numbers, then please go ahead, and realize that your figures will be taken with a teaspoon of salt.
Chachaji, instead of Surat, I think it should be Mumbai that faces off with Karachi. But Mumbai’s not geographically contiguous with the rest of Indistan, so I can see why you wouldn’t want to do that. Delhi is a better comparison with Lahore I think than with Islamabad.
Militarily, Indistan would be pretty strong too, since most of the soldiers come from those regions, and most of the command centres, the supplies, as well as the nukes are there anyway.
I would tend to agree that the CIA World “Fact Book” is not the most a propos source of information for debated on economics and standard of living, for two main reasons:
(1) As someone else mentioned, the CIA Fact Book does not actually make measurements or statistical estimates, it is simply a repository of data generated by other researchers and agencies.
(2) Therefore, the CIA does not always gather the most relevant metrics and at times they have even made mistakes in data gathering (the 2004 Fact Book was rife with typos and other numerical transciption errors). Obviously, this is not a priority at the CIA
I think that agencies such as the UNDP, World Bank, and the IMF, which actually work with the individual national statistical bureaus and has its own dedicated staff of devoted econometrists and sociologists, are more likely to have the accurate, reliable, apples-to-apples data. According to the detailed analyses carried out by the World Bank, India’s real (not PPP-adjusted) per capita income in 2006 was $820 US Dollars at then-current exchange rates, compared to US$770 for Pakistan, so India only has a slight advantage of about $50 bucks in terms of real p.c. income. But the real distinction in social welfare is apparent in the deplorable income distribution in India. According to data gathered by the UNDP (2006), only 17 percent of Pakistanis live on less than $1 (PPP) per day, while a staggering 35 percent of Indians live on less than $1 (PPP) per day note that these are PPP-adjusted numbers, which means that in real money terms, more than one third of the entire Indian population lives on less than 20 cents, or 9 Rs, per day. (The PPP conversion rate for India is roughly 1 real US Dollar = 4.6 ‘Indian PPP Dollars’.