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Pakistan Now: Darkest Before Dawn?

When God said “let there be light”, Rana Sanaullah was out of town.


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When #Manipur was burning #Indian tv focused on turmoil in #Pakistan. It showed those visuals because it could secure them #from #Pakistani media that was actively covering #ImranKhan’s arrest. But Indian media had no cameras on ground In Manipur



By Sanjaya Baru


Arresting advocates of Khalistan and of Jihadism without arresting advocates of a Hindu Rashtra is not in India’s national security interests in the long run.

The national security challenge both within Pakistan and within India is essentially a domestic challenge of rising economic inequality, religious extremism and regional sectarianism. Of course, India has been a victim of cross-border terrorism and Pakistani state agencies are responsible for this. Pakistan too alleges that it is a victim of ‘cross border terrorism’, emanating from both its eastern and western borders. However, the challenge to national security in both countries comes increasingly from domestic sources. It would be no exaggeration to say that internal threats to national security pose a greater challenge in both countries than external threats to security.

A Pakistani columnist, Huma Yusuf, summed up the challenge to her country in words that could easily find an echo this side of the border.



“The number of issues around which Pakistanis should be coalescing is staggering: food security, safety, dignity of work, free speech, minority rights, welfare protections, healthcare provisions, climate resilience. Until we can craft a politics that champions for the people rather than against their overlords, our future will be riot, not reform.”

Why Pakistan became a laggard

Pakistan’s problems are rooted in its domestic political and economic evolution. It is often forgotten that in the period 1960-1980 Pakistan’s economy grew at annual rate of 6.0% while India’s growth rate was 3.5%. In the 1990s, this was reversed with India growing annually at close to 5.5% and Pakistan slowing down to an annual average growth rate of less than 4.0%. Pakistan also performed better on the foreign trade front than India till 1990. In the 2000s, Pakistan has paid a heavy price on the economic and development fronts thanks to the course its domestic politics took.



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That was not to be.



The Pakistan middle class began to migrate in large numbers to West Asia and western nations, leaving the country in the hands of traditional feudal elites. It is into this vortex that Imran Khan entered, with the help of the military, seeking to stabilise the country internally. However, as Pakistan scholar Ayesha Siddiqa observed recently, while Imran’s supporters came to “express 70 years of anger” against the traditional elite, “the crowd was also raised by the military to think it has the right to own and drive the State.”

Taking Siddiqa’s analysis forward in a perceptive analysis of the situation in Pakistan, Praveen Swami adds:

“The religious right-wing positioned itself as the pole of political resistance to the elitism of the post-colonial state…The religious Right enjoyed influence far in excess of its demonstrated electoral success because of the reluctance of the secular centrist parties to challenge Islamism head-on. Each wanted to recruit Islamism to its side, not seeing it as a threat to democracy.”


Just as Pakistan has experienced a massive out-migration of its educated middle class, along with elements of the elite and working classes, India too has experienced what I have termed as the ‘secession of the successful’ with both the Indian middle class and urban rich migrating overseas. Adding to the out-migration of working class talent (West Asia), and the educated middle (English-speaking countries) we now have the growing out-migration of business and what are called High Net worth Individuals or HNIs.
 
The only time there will be light will be when people will come out with Weapons and fight

  • Fight Police
  • Fight Rangers or Goons

And this time there will be no turning back , that Imran Khan was released now go home so we can send you VIGO next day to kidnap people


This time fight will be till Islamabad is captured
 

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