What ails Pakistan?

By Dr Claude Rakisits | April 2021

This is a question I’ve grappled with ever since I first started studying Pakistan almost 40 years ago as a young Ph.D. student. While there probably is no definitive answer to that question, I do believe there are factors and events which can be identified which have contributed to the deep structural problems Pakistan has today.

In many ways Pakistan started its existence over 70 years ago on the back foot and has been trying to catch up ever since. The fact that Pakistan’s two wings were separated by over a 1000 miles of hostile Indian territory meant that from the very beginning the impoverished country’s economic and political development processes were compounded by a nasty regional neighbourhood.

From the very beginning–and still today—India rejected the very existence of Pakistan. Similarly, Afghanistan refused then—and still does now—to accept the Durand Line as the official demarcation of the western border of Pakistan. Faced with such hostile neighbours bent on making sure Pakistan failed in its nation-building project, the military’s role in Pakistan’s security and governance spaces took added importance from the very beginning. And being the only credible and developed institution in the country—along with the public service, the military soon began to dominate the political space as well. This wasn’t difficult given that after Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, most leaders were relatively speaking political diminutives, parochial and not focused on the national interest.

So whilst it was almost a seamless development that the military filled the political and institutional vacuums, particularly in the early days when Pakistan only had limited infrastructure and was struggling to settle seven million refugees, its ever-increasing role in the national life of the country over the years meant that it crowded out political parties, thus stifling their growth. Moreover, because India dominated—and still does—Pakistan’s security concerns, the resulting military omnipresence in the broader national security space has been almost inevitable. But this has come at a heavy price.

Because of its large size, the Pakistan military consumes around a quarter of the federal budget. This is a grossly disproportionate amount of the national funds, thus leaving much less for other critical sectors, such as education, health, social services and infrastructure development. Needless to say, the starving of desperately needed funds for those cornerstone sectors of society has asphyxiated the country’s economic growth and development. As a result, the central bank has had to raise loans from external sources, such as the IMF, China and Saudi Arabia, to keep the country running. The repayment of these loans has required more loans, and so the vicious cycle of indebtedness continues. Rampant corruption and a minuscule income tax base (1% of the population) puts additional stress on the economic health of Pakistan, a country of 225 million people where more than 50% of the population is under the age of 30. On the Human Development Index, it’s ranked 152 out of 189 (India is 129; Bangladesh is 135). About 25% of the population lives in poverty. This dire overall socio-economic situation is untenable and will only become more acute over time.

The only solution is a rebalancing of the country’s public funding priorities and this means significantly reducing the military’s gargantuan share of the national budget so that public money can go into the development of the productive sectors of society. However, given that the size of the military is a direct consequence of the dangerous neighbourhood Pakistan lives in, only a significant improvement in relations between Pakistan and India leading to normal bilateral relations would allow Islamabad to considerably reduce the size of its military over time. And the only path to that outcome is a final, irreversible resolution of the Kashmir issue—the crux of the festering bilateral relationship. The outcome of the resolution would not only need to be satisfactory to all Kashmiris but also address Pakistan’s and India’s security concerns. Such a resolution would entail a UN-run referendum with three choices—join Pakistan, join India, or independence—executed in Pakistan - and Indian-administered Kashmir. A resolution of this issue would eliminate the need for the massive Pakistan army and the commensurate heavy costs that having such an army entail. It would also give more breathing space for political parties and civil society to develop.

Of course, achieving such an outcome would require political will from the leaders of Pakistan and India. And while the prospects of diplomatic negotiations on Kashmir seem remote today, international relations don’t remain static. Things can change if the right incentive is there. If the leaders can be convinced—assisted by an external player, such as the US or the UN, that the long-term peace dividends are much higher than the present situation which has only brought misery, destruction and the obscene wastage of billions of rupees over the last 70 years, then there is a serious possibility to move things forward. A normalisation of Pakistan-Indian relations would benefit the people of both countries immensely. People-to-people links could blossom, and bilateral trade would grow exponentially. It would be a win-win situation for everyone.

Too many people in Pakistan have suffered economic hardship for too long. It’s time to fix that once and for all. Things can be changed. It’s only a matter of priorities and political will.

Dr Claude Rakisits is an Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University, Canberra. His publications can be read at www.Geopolitical-Assessments.com. He can be followed on Twitter @ClaudeRakisits