Pakistan India - Economic Growth compared.

[Kaptaan]

Pakistan, India as well as Myanmar and Bangladesh are the four successor states to the colony often called British Raj. Pakistan and India gained independance from Britain in August 1947. Between both India most of the British colonial infrastructure including the gift of a newly built capital called New Delhi that the British bequeathd to the newly formed republic of India.

In addition British hold over what became republic of India had been longer and dated way back to 1780s. On the other hand British conquest and consolidation of the regioin coterminous to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was shorter at just 98 years and had began in 1849.

The effect of longer British rule was that modern education and everything that comes with what was then the most advanced nation in the world - Great Britain including even cultural influence down to the English language had been ingested far deeper into what became Republic of India. Most of the New Delhi government buildings including the parliamant building were built by British in 1920-30s.

A noted British architect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Edwin_Lutyens working for the British Raj was behind designing the new capital which was moved from Kolkatta in 1920s. By the time the British left most of the central New Delhi had been completed. The British Viceroys residence became the Indian President's house.

Lutyens' Delhi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In addition majority of British era universities, most of the western educated, English speaking social capital, most of the industry, most of the ports all went to the Republic of India. It was for this reason that the saying goes "Jinnah got a moth eaten Pakistan".

In the moth eaten Pakistan there was no capital. The new republic literally had some offices in tents while new buildings were sought oe confiscated. There was chaos and shortage of even typewriters. Being frontier region of the British Raj literacy was very low. It did not help that the British Raj reserve money ended up in the hands of India as it got the capital New Delhi. India deliberated and dragged over giving Pakistan it's due share and only with intervention of Gandhi was some money transferred.

The only positive was that the country did inherit a rather large military from the British Raj whose regiments today make the Pakistan Army. This was thanks to the fact that a abnormal numbers of soldiers were recruited from the region of coterminous Pakistan by the British.

The first decade was a struggle just to survive. Just over a decade later in 1959 did Pakistan began the construction of a new capital which India had been bequethed by the British 30 plus years before. The Indian government recieved keys from the British to a shiny capital New Delhi. Pakistan had to build a new capital Islamabad.

To understand the economics of both countries it is important to be informed by what went into making the present. Pakistan thus started from a terribly difficult and a low industrial or human capital base most of which went to India.

However a study of the per capita of both countries tells us that Pakistan was ahead of India in 1960. This tells us that a average Pakistan was better off then his counterpart in India. This lead by Pakistan continued for the next 48 years. Only in 2008 did India begin to over take Pakistan and has since then taken the lead. Thus over the last 60 years Pakistan has been ahead in this economic relay race and India has only been ahead for the recent 12 years.

Below is a chart from World Bank figures that shows GDP per capita with two slices of the last 60 years. One slice of 48 years where Pakistan and led and the recent slice of 12 years where India leads.

World Bank Open Data

Free and open access to global development data

data.worldbank.org

It is relevant to note that since 2001 Pakistan has been victim of the War on Terror. The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 triggered seismic tremor waves which had deleterious effects on the economy of Pakistan. The war spilled over into Pakistan's border regions and by 2010 think tanks in West were publishing reports of the imminent collapse of the Pakistani state and what should be done, prepare contingency plans in how to secure the countries nuclear warheads. Obviously this had massive impact on the economy and long term planning as the governments became overwhelmed by issues related to the War on Terror. In addition globally the countries imnage took a battering which impacted exports. Buyers were hesitant to come to Pakistan and costs like insurance went out of the roof.

The country in 2021 is just about coming out of this two decades of chaos. This must be kept in mind when looking at the economic performance of recent period. I know the fact that India is ahead today is source of much pride to Indians and shows up as bluster. But it is not end of history. This is a relay race that continues.

For decades as can be seen in the World Bank sourced chart India lagged and became famous for it's "Hindu Growth Rate" which was another way of saying "snail pace". So I want to end with this take away. Never consign one participant in this relay race. You never know what the future will bring. Using the present to declare victory is infantile.

The Hindu rate of growth is a term referring to the low annual growth rate of the economy of India before the economic reforms of 1991, which stagnated around 3.5% from 1950s to 1980s, while per capita income growth averaged around 1.3%.[1

Hindu rate of growth - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

@Nilgiri @Yankeestani @Saiyan0321 @Waz @Jackdaws

 

[Jackdaws]

This is all true AFAIK. I would have thought India started to get ahead of Pak in the late 90s, but if your data suggests it happened only in 2008 then it might be accurate.

Also, lest we forget India did not actually have too many industries when the British left. There were some mills in Bombay and Tatas had a steel plant in Jamshedpur. India was a source of cheap raw material to fuel the British Industrial Revolution.

That's why the emphasis on Swadeshi and building everything at home took precedence during the Nehru era. What followed was the Land Reform Act, Green Revolution which made India self sufficient in food grains and White Revolution which made India the world's largest producer of milk. In fact I remember reading that Dr. Kurien, who headed the White Revolution even helped Pakistan in the early 1980s with their own milk cooperative effort. Maybe some Pak member can verify.

But did India have a better industrial base than Pakistan in 1947 as @Kaptaan has written? Yes, that's accurate.

But India did build a lot - not just state run firms and cooperatives but institutes which taught just about everything. Institutes for Management, Rural Management, Design, Technology etc. Even as the rest of the world scoffed, Nehru ensured India at least had a space program - the picture of India's first space equipment being carried on a bullock cart is rather iconic.

Of course under Indira Gandhi and even Rajiv Gandhi, India became supreme laggards till the perfect storm of Gulf War and collapse of Soviet Union resulted in an Indian economic crisis and India had to reluctantly embrace capitalism.

Now I don't know the Pakistani economy story - but am happy to learn more.

 

[Nilgiri]

A) GDP calculations (when converting into USD) were notoriously flawed for low-trade developing world in the cold war.

If say less than 3% of GDP was forex-exposed, extrapolating it 1:1 (via exchange rate based on the 3% exposure) with the rest of the 97% was deeply flawed.

This was actually the underlying issue pointed out by a notable Pakistani economist (Mahbub Ul Haq).

Countries politically closer oriented to the issuer of the USD similarly got a relative bump since their forex-exposure % of GDP was higher from that.

This had little bearing on the actual economy+development intensity in the end....especially when you look at specific consumption and development numbers at the macro scale during the era...and the far larger context of low-development to begin with.



B) Given that context, it is not useful to compare who actually earned 1 dollar and who earned 2 dollars.....when the ok threshold was something like 100 dollars.

I think this is self-explanatory as to why. Splitting hairs over whats real and whats inflated by whatever cold war artefact in operation for "GDP" (itself an estimate) when the levels were crushingly low to begin with....is not worth much of a debate.


C) It is precisely why no Indian should lord over earning "more" than the average Chinese did for the majority of modern nation state either.

China was an extremely insulated economy (for the developing world average in cold war) and traded at an even lower forex exposure setting till the 80s opening up of their economy.

However by say the 80s/90s when the context started to adjust to more equivalency here....it could be seen the income level quickly caught up and surpassed India's.

This was natural given China had demographically done better at that point (during the cold war insulation). Its fertility rate was far lower, its infant mortality rate was far lower, its birth rate lot lower, its population pyramid more developed, its literacy rate far higher etc....so there was more spring in its step to harness/absorb better USD-referenced wealth when it opened up for it.

The same goes for India vis a vis Pakistan during the 90s.


Total Fertility Rate 1995 and (2018):

China = 1.7 (1.7)
India = 3.65 (2.2)
Pakistan = 5.7 (3.5)


Birth Rate 1995 and (2018):

China = 17 (11)
India = 29 (18)
Pakistan = 38.4 (28.3)


Infant Mortality Rate 1995 and (2018):

China = 38 (7)
India = 78 (28)
Pakistan = 96 (56)


Literacy Rate 1995 and (2018):

China= 85% (97%)
India = 55% (74%)
Pakistan = 38% ( 58%)


Surely if the economic hierarchy (actual income + wealth intensity of the common layperson) was:

Pakistan > India > China by the cold war "majority time" argument

....these numbers (esp. snapshot at 1995) would have different?...even reversed?

As the countries respectively integrate with the USD reference, their USD-based numbers w.r.t economy improve....as the exchange rate correlates with more of what their economy does. It is that simple.


D) Pakistan's underlying problem of note (w.r.t relative economic stagnation since the 90s) has little to do with the "War on Terror".

If you unpack to the core level....past the laggard performance (of 10 - 20 years behind w.r.t India) in demographic + socioeconomic development (which is result of the same underlying reason)....it is the savings rate of Pakistan.

Savings is what determines how much you can leverage to invest in yourself, invest in others, loan from others (and pay back) and increase wealth over time.

GDP is just a yearly (estimated) production/operationalising % of that total wealth (of which savings is a notable first tier component).

Well before the war on terror during the 90s, Pakistan's savings rate of GDP was already low, averaging around 15% a year. This has precipitously declined to 6% or less today (approaching 5% in 2020).

India for comparison during the 90s, averaged around a 25% savings rate and started to approach near 40% during the next decade, and now is at around 30% (looking to get it back into high 30s again).

This is similar reason why Pakistan's tax revenue % of GDP is also extremely low....as stuff has to be on the books "saved" for a govt to get its cut to spend on public infra, security, admin and welfare etc. Without that savings rate, the govt has to pass on ludicrous amounts of inflation from time to time (due to little forex buffer)....and also resort to dubious loan cycles to even just maintain a certain consumption level (forget about sustainably growing).

The situation currently is one where the entire population of Pakistan saves in one year (~ 15 billion USD), what 25 million Indians do.

If this situation continues to fall so that it is the amount of what 20 million Indians save in one year, then 15, then 10 and then single digit millions of Indian savings a year.... You can imagine what the actual situation inside Pakistan was all along (during the cold war too) at its core, developed then and now entrenched systematically....refusing to change.

These saving + investment numbers matter greatly in the end:

The same credit suisse report has the numbers for Pakistan (in red rectangle) at:

Mean wealth = 4000 USD
Median wealth = 1800 USD
Total wealth = 465 billion USD

The effect of a 5% savings rate continuing should be instructive and obvious.

If there is no serious discussion inside Pakistan as to the why (and there really isn't given the typical conflation, diversion, whataboutery that is done when the khaki coterie presents itself in the deepest introspection required for this), thats an even bigger issue.

@Paro @crixus @Raptor @Zapper @Milspec @Joe Shearer @VCheng @kaykay @anmdt @Saithan et al.

This is all true AFAIK.

Nope. It is heavily skewed w.r.t angle of the situation/context....as to what the GDP (using USD exchange rate) numbers (of the era, transition era and current era) even represented.

 

[ekemenirtu]

Interesting that you believe in some unreliable estimate by an investment bank but discard all the tiring efforts of numerous economics and statisticians at the world bank, IMF, UN, OECD and regional and national statistical agencies.

According to Credit Suisse, Indonesia's wealth per adult is lower than India's.

Yet, Indonesia's GDP per capita and savings per capita - both in terms of market exchange rates and purchasing power parity - have been higher than more than 5 decades, at least.

How come India's wealth per adult is supposed to be higher?

A lot of American wealth is tied to the volatile stock/financial markets. Would India's case be too different?

Even then, how can we explain $15 trillion in supposed Indian wealth?


The same argument goes for East Asian Tigers.

How come Singapore with its notoriously low consumption and notoriously high savings rate has a much lower wealth per adult than Hong Kong with its notoriously high consumption per capita?

How come Singapore which has been richer than Taiwan for a few decades at least and prior data for these countries is unavailable would be almost as rich/poor as Taiwan in wealth per adult?

Some of your theories regarding exchange rates are, if you would excuse me, downright hilarious.

I hope you would not be offended or take it as a personal slight.

Any theory must be able to stand vindicated against available evidence.

Your personal pet theory says, "Forex exposure" determines the exchange rate? I am at a loss here as to what your pet theory really suggests. Could you clarify?

From this part:

If say less than 3% of GDP was forex-exposed, extrapolating it 1:1 (via exchange rate based on the 3% exposure) with the rest of the 97% was deeply flawed.

This was actually the underlying issue pointed out by a notable Pakistani economist (Mahbub Ul Haq).

Countries politically closer oriented to the issuer of the USD similarly got a relative bump since their forex-exposure % of GDP was higher from that.

I gather that you imply if trade forms a miniscule portion of a country's GDP then the currency would be undervalued against the USD and vice versa, a higher trade to GDP ratio would mean a currency would be overvalued against the USD.

If that understanding is correct, then I would like you to present evidence for that.

So far, I have failed to find evidence supporting your pet theory. In the absence of supporting evidence, your pet theory remains the exclusive preserve of you and your ilk.

Contrary to your theory, you may find that certain countries intentionally devalue their currencies for competitive advantage in the export market and likewise, some currencies may be overvalued because of political alliances, like you have rightly pointed to.

Speculation and attacks on currencies can also be mounted due to political reasons as we have seen during the 1997 Financial Crisis or during the recent attack on the Turkish Lira. Iranian, Venezuelan, Russian national currencies have similarly suffered at the hands of speculative currency traders, some or most of whom may have been backed by national authorities of Western countries.

 

[Nilgiri]

but discard all the tiring efforts of numerous economics and statisticians at the world bank, IMF, UN, OECD and regional and national statistical agencies.

I literally started out referencing one of the best economists on the subject ever. He was instrumental to the development of the ICP matrix and PPP model used by a number of your quoted international organisations.

So try again maybe? It is not my "pet theory".

A reference's relevance to an entity is very much tied to the exposure and permeation of that reference to that entity we are trying to measure. Extrapolating a 3% basis to a 100% is very different from extrapolating 10% basis to 100% and 20% basis to 100% and so on (especially if sensitivity is dictated by the envelope constraint at say around 30% when it comes to trade/current account of large countries).

If the (foreign) balance of payments makes up a tiny % of total production in a country....it is only so relevant to extrapolating a number determined by that BoP (the exchange rate) to the whole production and consumption of that country.

It would be similar to how you design any index, prices or otherwise. Are they relevant to the body by sampling across its breadth...or are they skewed to a very small portion and profile?

That is the whole underlying basis of the ICP and PPP.

According to Credit Suisse, Indonesia's wealth per adult is lower than India's.

Yet, Indonesia's GDP per capita and savings per capita - both in terms of market exchange rates and purchasing power parity - have been higher than more than 5 decades, at least.

How come India's wealth per adult is supposed to be higher?

Maybe read the report and methodology analysis?

Things like market capitalisation, realised equity valuation and net savings (rather than gross savings I quoted, as with some countries like Indonesia, there is somewhat a marked difference) all play a role.

Even then, how can we explain $15 trillion in supposed Indian wealth?

Again, you can read the report....and maybe come back with some specifics as to what is faulty?

Some of your theories regarding exchange rates are, if you would excuse me, downright hilarious.

The only thing hilarious is the paucity of actual sustenance in your post and the ill-thought assertions you make on top.

I hope you would not be offended or take it as a personal slight though...

Your personal pet theory says, "Forex exposure" determines the exchange rate? I am at a loss here as to what your pet theory really suggests. Could you clarify?

No that's not what I said. I said if forex pressure on an economy is minimal to its imputed total real size (as PPP tries to estimate better, and can be approximated estimated to the previous years before it was established), its extrapolation to the entirety (i.e current USD nominal) is very flawed.

It was the very reason why India's per capita GDP (when converted to USD) was higher than China's during the cold war, even though China had 2 -3 times the energy consumption per capita (And far better pace of demographic transition)...among other consumption norms being clearly higher. China just barely traded (esp with USD) past its barter system with other communist countries. No sustained US liquidity means no sustained permeation and accurate valuation of its true GDP was available by use of a simple exchange rate that governed a tiny fraction of its economic activity.

India simply traded more with the world relative to its GDP with the world than China did and got a bump from that (as little as it was in India's case too, though higher)....., this has drastically reversed now (and largely also why India's PPP multiplier is larger than China's for example since China has far more USD saturation in its economy).

The same trend though applies w.r.t India and Pakistan when talking about the cold war era numbers and the post cold war era transition and more recent decades.

Again an actual read of Mr. Haq's paper(s) (on which so much of this side of developmental economics is based) would do you good rather than asserting something which I never said at all.

I gather that you imply if trade forms a miniscule portion of a country's GDP then the currency would be undervalued against the USD and vice versa, a higher trade to GDP ratio would mean a currency would be overvalued against the USD.

Well you gathered wrong.

Here's a starting point for you to consider and research and read up on the underlying theory and sources (if you do not want to read up the the earlier Haq papers):

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/33623/9781464815300.pdf

 

[Kaptaan]

I knew this thread was going to be "suicide information overload" and we would get trapped in endless cycle. I am neither a economist or a expert on the matter. However as a lay person I make some simple observations. Just like I don't need scientific data to tell me Britain is more developed country than Pakistan. Or I don't need technical manuels to decide that a BMW is a better car than a Dacia Logan.

I cited World Bank sources which clearly show that for most of the period since independance Pakistan was leading India. Even today in 2021 it's not like when people cross the border between India and Pakistan at Wagha they think "cickey I just entered Third World".

There is no discernible differance when people cross the border between Indian Punjab and Pakistani Punjab other than in India in 2021 they still have people pulling rickshaws. This tells us certain segment of the population offer their services at such rates that they can make modern forms of ambulation redundant.

I have never had the privilage of crossing from India to Pakistan to be able to make obseravation but have watched scores of vlogs by people who have and it is apparent that there is not much differance in living standards. Although most do note Pakistan is to a degree cleaner, less chaotic and less congested than India.

In summary both countries are on the same tier although we can spend lot of time splitting hairs but that will stand. In this race between the two things could as easily change within decade as they did in 2008 when India took the lead. It would be grave mistake and arrogant for Indian's to think that the lead they have got now is permanent.

Nothing is.

 

[Nilgiri]

Same kind of tier of Pakistan would need basic things in India to involve same amount of people as the national population of Pakistan (220 million people) when we talk about its aggregate in Pakistan.

Definitely same kind of tier obviously:

The situation currently is one where the entire population of Pakistan saves in one year (~ 15 billion USD), what 25 million Indians do.

How did things look in 1991 (the year of the Indian economic liberalisation process)?

Let us first get the basic reference:

Population 1991:

Pakistan = 111 million
India = 891 million (8 times the people)

Population 2019:

Pakistan = 217 million
India = 1366 million (6 times the people)

The change from 8x to 6x the population is already saying something about tiers where it matters.

Confirmed by the population pyramid currently:

Given this population pyramid and trends regarding it.... the population of Pakistan is expected to peak at a full quarter or so of India's max population. (i.e 400 million vs 1600 million)....i.e Pakistan is expected to add a similar amount of people (around 200 million more) as India will (till about 2070)....even though Pakistan is 6 times smaller by population.

I'm sure this can be easily resolved, rectified and is of little permanence (given what this means to fiscal resource strain on basic dependency ratio and so on)

But anyway lets look at some numbers and ratios involving the basic transfer of wealth and knowhow (vetted by the international free market parties) in 1991 compared to now, and the population ratios involved between the two.

In 1991, the population was 111 million versus 891 million.

Did Pakistan's basic numbers here represent about 111 million (randomly picked) Indian performance?



Total exports (1991):

Pakistan = 7.7 billion USD
India = 22.9 billion USD

111 million Pakistanis represented the performance of about 300 million Indians here in 1991.


Total exports (2018):

Pakistan = 28.2 billion USD
India = 538.6 billion USD

210 million Pakistanis represented the performance of about 70 million Indians here in 2018.

It went from 3 times better to 3 times worse (on per capita basis). A total differential over time of 9 times.





The gross domestic savings in 1991, same story:

Pakistan = 8 billion
India = 59 billion

i.e 111 million Pakistanis used to represent the performance of around 120 million Indians back then.

Now 220 million Pakistanis represent the performance of around 25 million Indians (mentioned already)

The same total differential change of ~ 9 times.





How about forex reserves? In 1991:

Pakistan = 1.22 billion USD
India = 7.6 billion USD

i.e 111 million Pakistanis used to represent the performance of around 143 million Indians.

Now:

Pakistan = 20 billion USD
India = 584 billion USD

i.e 220 million Pakistanis represent the performance of around 45 million Indians.

Total Differential change is around 6 times.



Sorry but its not the same tier at all. Pakistan will have to work mighty hard, and change its way of functioning in a deep way to make up even some of the difference in future.

Same goes for India to catch up with China.

Same tier assertion is a cop-out without looking at the basic important numbers of note that have drastically changed.

 

[Saithan]

I see what you mean, performance wise the numbers are telling a story, but I'd like to know if shadow economy is evaluated in these calculations. E.g. Turkey did have a bad economy early 2000's, but people still got through because they had savings and there was the shadow economy add to that the shadow economy was said to be just as big/large as the reported economy.

We all know that Pakistan has some governance issues, but I'd like to point out that as long as there are changes and improvements even slightly things may get better. Whether that's enough remains to be seen.

I believe that the national curriculum introduced should have been enforced with military backing since way back. Anyway that's a different topic.

I think it's important to see how people live rather than just looking at numbers. Which is why the layman approach is good.

Another thing I am curious about is the population growth, It's quite impressive to have high literacy rate even when you (government) keep the economy struggling. I am not sure, but perhaps Pakistan is doing some social engineering a kind to China, and with Chinese investments and hopefully other nations everything will click in place and Pakistan might experience a sudden economic growth spur on those investments, but I think the government is interested in controlling these events rather than allow free market powers to dictate the outcome.

 

[TR_123456]

I dont get why you guys keep comparing Pakistan to India and vice versa.

I really dont.

 

[crixus]

I dont get why you guys keep comparing Pakistan to India and vice versa.

I really dont.

seems like something to with identity

 

[Kaptaan]

seems like something to with identity

Sunshine, it's nothing to do with identity. I am very sure, proud of who I am. It's you guys who try to leach on to everything including deluding that the Raj was your product when what existed before 1947 was just a huge prison camp built by Englishmen.

I dont get why you guys keep comparing Pakistan to India and vice versa.

I think I have explained before. It's all about rivalry. If your old enough to have lived through the Cold War era you will know that everything would turn into USA v Soviet Union. The Western Block v Eastern Black. NATO v Warsaw Pact.

From culture, to art to movies were informed by this. Hollywood Rocky versus Drago of the Soviet Union. It even spread across the globe and millions of innocents died in this global rivalry.

In Vietnam the Americans were sucked in to prevent a pro Soviet regime taking over and we all know what happened. In Afghanistan the Soviets got sucked in and we know what happened. Every country turned into a arena for the rivalry between both. In 1980s the leftists in Turkey had sympathies with Soviets. The military was supported by US to crush the left. We saw this soret of thing played across the globe.

Indeed that rivalry still persists between Russia and the West today. In South Asia both countries have nukes pointed at each other. So are you really, really surprised to see one upmanship?

You may or may not detect it but at some level this bleeds in almost every post by members from both countries. Particularly take note that this is defence forum and not tree hugging global global peace and love forum.

Defence forums are about militaries. Militaries are about nationalisms. Nationalism are about deep tribal instincts. This rivalry informs everything. I suspect any football match between Azerbaijan and Armenia would attract wee tad more angst then say a game between Belgium and France.

 

[Jackdaws]

seems like something to with identity

You've nailed it. Many Pakistanis you meet abroad know more about Indian movies than Indians do. Their national language is from Central India. Their founding father Jinnah is an ethnic Gujarati. The other guy who he appointed as PM was from Central India. So it's a severe identity crisis for them. You don't see Indians speaking languages native to Pakistan - have you ever seen an Indian speaking in Brahui or Balochi? There is obviously a small Sindhi community in India but it's not anywhere close to being a mainstream language.

 

[Kaptaan]

You've nailed it. Many Pakistanis you meet abroad know more about Indian movies than Indians do. Their national language is from Central India. Their founding father Jinnah is an ethnic Gujarati. The other guy who he appointed as PM was from Central India. So it's a severe identity crisis for them. You don't see Indians speaking languages native to Pakistan - have you ever seen an Indian speaking in Brahui or Balochi? There is obviously a small Sindhi community in India but it's not anywhere close to being a mainstream language.

Your now derailing the thread but I am forced to reply to this nonsense. Pakistan recieved millions of Indian migrants in 1947 who because they came from large urban cities of the Raj tended to have higher literacy and managed to grab a undue share of the state particulary in Karachi.

But the fact is they only make 5% of the population so naturally there is some cross over. Punjabi is spoken by about 52% of Pakistan thus it is a Pakistani language. Yet your Sikhs also speak it but you don't see me making a ruckus about it.

Urdu is in fact heavily Persianized language. I could ask why does Hindi have such huge vocabulary that clearly is from the Muslim conquests. I mean I hear terms like Shaheed used in India. Most Indian females have dumped the native sari and adopted the shalwar kameez. The list goes on. Bollywood regularly plagiarizes Pakistan songs.

Going back to economies no visibly there is no differance between Pakistan and India. The other day I was watching a vlog and I saw masses of Indian's pulling rickshaws like draought animals. That left me thinking about the Mars humping economy of India ...

 

[Kaptaan]

I think it's important to see how people live rather than just looking at numbers. Which is why the layman approach is good.

It is estimated that 53% of the Pakistani economy is undocumentated. The amount of fuel used in the country is far higher than the official figures. Across the Iran-Pak border there are fleets of vehicles smuggling fuel which is typically sold at 60% of pump price. In fact they call it "Irani oil".

All counries have undocumented economies. Even in UK. But the scale of it is vastly greater in Pakistan. The real issues are related to -

1. governance and tax reform.
2. breaking public/private cartels
3. giving the country another outlet to the world. At the moment the country is suffocated by being forced to trade with the globe through just one port causing severe issues.

If these can be fized the country will boom. The war on terror is now closing down. Trade and economy are the policies recieving attention. Pakistan just needs few more years of political stability and for reform to be consolidated.

 

[crixus]

You've nailed it. Many Pakistanis you meet abroad know more about Indian movies than Indians do. Their national language is from Central India. Their founding father Jinnah is an ethnic Gujarati. The other guy who he appointed as PM was from Central India. So it's a severe identity crisis for them. You don't see Indians speaking languages native to Pakistan - have you ever seen an Indian speaking in Brahui or Balochi? There is obviously a small Sindhi community in India but it's not anywhere close to being a mainstream language.

Except being an enemy of India what identity do they have ........

 

[crixus]

Sunshine, it's nothing to do with identity. I am very sure, proud of who I am. It's you guys who try to leach on to everything including deluding that the Raj was your product when what existed before 1947 was just a huge prison camp built by Englishmen.

Explain it to the Turkish admin @T-123456 who is wondering why a British national always end up comparing Pakistan with India, Deep down its still the identity crisis which forces you to open all threads based on some kind of comparison with India and boast on Pakistani past achievements ( mostly fake ones).
Regarding 47, still, my parents choose the land of forefathers than the land of those who used to put the warnings in regal cinema Lahore that dogs and Indian are not allowed beyond this line, and seems it seems like British still get followed by some Caravan hounds

 

[TR_123456]

Explain it to the Turkish admin @T-123456 who is wondering why a British national always end up comparing Pakistan with India, Deep down its still the identity crisis which forces you to open all threads based on some kind of comparison with India and boast on Pakistani past achievements ( mostly fake ones)

It goes both ways,your side does it to.

 

[Jackdaws]

Your now derailing the thread but I am forced to reply to this nonsense. Pakistan recieved millions of Indian migrants in 1947 who because they came from large urban cities of the Raj tended to have higher literacy and managed to grab a undue share of the state particulary in Karachi.

But the fact is they only make 5% of the population so naturally there is some cross over. Punjabi is spoken by about 52% of Pakistan thus it is a Pakistani language. Yet your Sikhs also speak it but you don't see me making a ruckus about it.

Urdu is in fact heavily Persianized language. I could ask why does Hindi have such huge vocabulary that clearly is from the Muslim conquests. I mean I hear terms like Shaheed used in India. Most Indian females have dumped the native sari and adopted the shalwar kameez. The list goes on. Bollywood regularly plagiarizes Pakistan songs.

Going back to economies no visibly there is no differance between Pakistan and India. The other day I was watching a vlog and I saw masses of Indian's pulling rickshaws like draought animals. That left me thinking about the Mars humping economy of India ...

You are entitled your views. I have seen vlogs where the difference is that women on the Indian side of Punjab work and drive two wheelers and the infrastructure is significantly better on the Indian side.

Urdu is a central Indian language. Sorry to burst your bubble but 99% of verbs are of Sanskrit / Prakrit origin.

Urdu’s origin: it’s not a ‘camp language’

Some myths are so deep-rooted that one has to work really hard to make people, especially students face facts. One such myth is about the origin of Urdu. Most of our students subscribe to the view that Urdu is a ‘lashkari zaban’ or ‘camp language’.

www.dawn.com

Sikhs speak Punjabi because umm....they are Punjabi. From what I understand Urdu is the mother tongue of less than 10% of Pakistanis. It's as absurd as Telugu being declared the national language of India. Actually not even Telugu, since at least that language is native to India. It's like Brahui being declared the national language of India.

Now like Malaysia / Singapore has Tamil as an official language because of a significant number of Tamil speakers in those countries, Tamil is not THE national language. It makes sense that Pak have Urdu has as an official language but adopting an Indian language as its sole national language is absurd.

 

[TR_123456]

I think I have explained before. It's all about rivalry. If your old enough to have lived through the Cold War era you will know that everything would turn into USA v Soviet Union. The Western Block v Eastern Black. NATO v Warsaw Pact.

Been to the DDR,East Berlin.

You may or may not detect it but at some level this bleeds in almost every post by members from both countries. Particularly take note that this is defence forum and not tree hugging global global peace and love forum.

It looks more like an obsession from both sides if you look at PDF and various Indian forums.

Defence forums are about militaries. Militaries are about nationalisms. Nationalism are about deep tribal instincts.

Nationalism is to all ''outsiders'',with you guys its only about the big or small neighbour.
But,its just my observation for about 20 years.

 

[Kaptaan]

Explain it to the Turkish admin @T-123456 who is wondering why a British national always end up comparing Pakistan with India

I already did. scroll up and you will see. And many of us here, including Turks are diaspora. I have no identity issue. I am a proud Pakhtun with a heritage far superior to any Indians. I am not one of those minority Pakistani rootles Indian mohajirs. The greatest gift ever endowed was the 1947 event. I don't want to be associated with Biharis, Bengalis, Upites, Odishans and the rest that make up India. Nothing. The Baloch, Sindhi, Punjabi, Kashmir are my brothers. That is not identity issue. I think it's quite simple.

Moving back to the subject of the thread. As @Saithan said numbers are only a good as those who collate them. If I am freezing and I observe ice on the ground but my temp gauge reads 40 degrees celsius I am going to have make some adjustments to what the real temperature is.

Balochistan is the most undeveloped, most war torn province on account of being adjacent to Afghanistan province in Pakistan. It also has the lowest GDP per capita. This below is a clip of a guy complaining about the poor state of the bazaar in the city and how the provincial government is neglecting it's duties. Delayed road works, lack of traffic control is blighting the bazaar. On paper and going by figures this is the province with the lowest HDI, literacy and poverty.

This below is Varanasi city in India and is probably typical and or certainly not the poorest state in India which I believe is Odisha. Notice there are pedal rickshaws still in use. One thing is cerain. Pakistan does not like like Sub Saharan Africa and Indsia like Sweden. I think most people will just dismiss both in the same bin.

Ps. I will not be entertaining anymore posts on my nationality, my person, or identity in this thread. You got issues go please open a thread and tag me. Thanks in advance.