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Zahid Hussain //DAWN: April 30, 2025
THE war clouds have thickened with India’s rising bellicosity.
The terrorist attack in Pahalgam in occupied Kashmir and the massacre of some two dozen tourists seem to have provided the excuse the Modi government has been looking for to escalate its warmongering. Jingoism has reached new heights. Rational voices are being drowned in a cacophony of insanity. The Line of Control is already heating up with the exchange of fire between Indian and Pakistani troops.
New Delhi is building a case for its aggression by trying to blame Pakistan for the Pahalgam terrorist attack. But it has failed to substantiate its allegation. The major reason for India’s vehemence is that the terror attack has shattered the narrative that the situation in occupied Kashmir is completely normal and that the people have accepted New Delhi’s decision to abrogate the held territory’s autonomous status. The Modi government is not willing to accept its own intelligence failure.
Some Indian analysts say that such a daring attack in one of the most protected areas could not be possible without local support for the militants. The fact is that even the use of brute force has failed to crush the Kashmiris’ struggle for their right of self-determination. According to the New York Times, “India has not officially identified any group as having carried out the massacre, and it has publicly presented little evidence to support its claim that Pakistan was behind it.”
While Indian officials maintain that their investigation is still continuing, the Modi government has already implicated Pakistan in the terrorist attack.
To back their assertion, according to international media reports citing officials, “In the briefings to diplomats at the foreign ministry, Indian officials have described Pakistan’s past patterns of support for terrorist groups… .” Interestingly, within hours of the terrorist attack, New Delhi announced a series of punitive actions against Pakistan. While addressing an election campaign in Bihar, the Indian prime minster warned of “unimaginable punishment for the attackers and their backers”.
Indian leaders in their hubris seem to forget the perils of military escalation.
It’s apparent that the Modi government’s war cry against Pakistan is an attempt to divert the world’s attention from its own failure in the occupied territory. There are strong indications that India plans to launch military strikes on multiple targets despite the absence of any evidence of Pakistan being linked to the latest terrorist attack.
Even a limited military strike by India could lead to a wider conflagration. The Indian calculation that military actions against Pakistan could be kept below the nuclear threshold is fallacious. It would be an extremely dangerous escalation in one of the world’s most volatile regions. The two South Asian nations have been on the brink of conflict many times previously. But the situation today appears to be far more serious with the cessation of all diplomatic channels between the two countries.
India’s decision to unilaterally suspend the Indus Waters Treaty, whic has survived three wars between the two countries, is ominous. Although it may not be possible to block the water flow, Pakistan sees India’s reckless action as a “declaration of war”. Islamabad has announced its own retaliatory actions.
New Delhi seems to have forgotten the lesson of its 2019 air incursion and Pakistan’s swift response that downed an Indian fighter plane. It was American diplomatic intervention that prevented the further escalation of a situation that could have gone completely out of control, with disastrous consequences for regional peace. Indian leaders in their hubris seem to forget the perils of military escalation in a highly combustible environment. The belief that war can produce quick results is extremely dangerous. It’s much easier to start a war than to end it. However powerful a country may be, it cannot command the outcome.
There are so many lessons to be learnt from various wars in recent history, which ended in humiliation even for the most powerful countries. One cannot but agree with the words of an international diplomat that “the more the conflict goes on, the more difficult it will be to have a diplomatic solution”.
The illusion of achieving quick military success often leads to endless quagmires. It is particularly pertinent in the India-Pakistan case. The two countries have been locked in a forever war — overt as well as covert. They have long been blaming each other of fighting a proxy war. The slogans of punishing Pakistan or punishing India only close the door for the resolution of outstanding issues.
What happened in Pahalgam must be condemned, but the tragedy should not be used for warmongering. There is also a lesson for Pakistan, where, too, there is no shortage of warmongers flaunting the country’s nuclear capability or making some other irresponsible remarks, as the defence minister did. It’s not in our interest to exacerbate the situation. There is a need to adopt a more rational approach even in the face of provocation. There is a need to step back from the brink.
The outcome of war is always uncertain, and fighting often produces unintended consequences. There is a tendency for wars to expand, become costlier and last longer than expected. The breakdown of diplomatic ties between India and Pakistan has certainly made communication more difficult, but there are other international channels that should be used to bring down the temperature and create an atmosphere for dialogue.
In 2002, there was imminent threat of a full-fledged war between the two countries, but sanity prevailed. Not only was war prevented, but a more substantive peace process between India and Pakistan was also witnessed. Unfortunately, the war hysteria orchestrated by the ultranationalist Modi government has closed all avenues for negotiations.
India is under the illusion that it has the military superiority to dismantle Pakistan. New Delhi has chosen this time to escalate matters when the world is preoccupied with other major conflicts. But it must understand that the flames of war could also cost India dearly.
The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
X: @hidhussain
Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2025
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Shahid Mehmood //DAWN: April 30, 2025
IT was in 1776, the year of the American Declaration of Independence, that celebrated economist Adam Smith’s magnum opus Wealth of Nations was published.
While almost everyone in the economics fraternity — and a considerable number outside of it — is aware of the work, not many bother to delve into what he wrote or to contemplate what he said. (It is amusing to see folks, who have never read a word of the book, embarrass themselves by holding forth as if they were an authority on the subject.)
A major aim of Wealth of Nations was to dispel and discredit an economic theory holding sway in Europe since at least the 16th century — mercantilism. One of the basic tenets underlying mercantilist thought was that the wealth of a nation lies in the number of minerals at its disposal, especially valuable ones like gold and silver. The more the stock of mineral wealth, the greater the power and standing of a nation.
Smith took the mercantilists to task, arguing against their zero-sum thinking that produced endless conflicts in the race to get a hold of precious metals. Instead, he advocated for more trade, instead of closed markets, and argued that a nation’s real wealth did not lie in accumulating minerals.
What reminded me of Smith is the sudden love that Pakistan’s policymakers have developed for minerals, the latest in the line of recycled ideas dangled before the world as a sweet offering, and aimed at attracting much-needed greenbacks to finance our gluttonous consumption and payment obligations. This idea has actually been peddled for long but without much success. (The April 1956 issue of Pakistan Affairs, for example, carries the statement of a leading government luminary about exploiting Pakistan’s mineral wealth).
This is besides the other sweeteners we have offered to the world, like ‘the gateway to Central Asia’, ‘connectivity hub’, ‘regional transport and logistics hub’, ‘front-line state against terror’, ‘best-kept tourism secret’, ‘CPEC game changer’, etc.
Despite all the enticing offers, and whatever mineral wealth we have found and already utilised, the trajectory of GDP growth in Pakistan remains topsy-turvy, and human capital indicators have been persistently poor. This shows that the presence of mineral deposits does not in itself guarantee sustainable development or economic growth. In fact, they could well be the purveyors of trouble, as the residents of Sui discovered over time, and the residents of Waziristan have recently been finding out.
The presence of mineral deposits does not in itself guarantee sustainable development or economic growth.
Let us contemplate the question of ‘national wealth’. What should policymakers look at in terms of increasing the national wealth? We turn to Adam Smith and his book again: “The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who had before been employed.”
The ‘productive power’ of labourers implies labour productivity. In fact, Smith gave productive labour so much importance that he made capital a subset of it (capital, in turn, helps propel labour specialisation). Almost 400 years before Smith, Ibn-i-Khaldun reached more or less the same conclusion regarding labour productivity and specialisation.
A final seal of approval on their thought came via Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer. His articles in 1986 (’Increasing returns and long-run growth’) and 1990 (’Endogenous technical change’) settled the debate over long-run growth determinants in favour of human capital as the most critical component.
So what should Pakistan’s policy be? Well, start with changing the traditional infatuation with the ‘game changer’ slogan and concentrate on what’s really important. The most critical game changer in any place is its labour force and its productivity, with other factors complementing it in the formation — and growth — of national wealth. And where do we stand when it comes to productive labour and the overall quality of human capital? The less said the better.
It’s not that minerals cannot contribute to national well-being; they can. But for that to happen, there needs to be a complementary system — top-class institutions, technological prowess, quality human capital, excellent management, property rights, an efficient legal system, etc — to maximise the potential of mineral wealth. Pakistan, unfortunately, has none of these attributes.
What does all this leave us with? Unless there is some drastic change in variables such as economic management and the quality of human capital, all talk of the country’s fabulous mineral wealth will not help it achieve sustainable growth or show any marked improvement in development indicators.
At best, given our experience and the present circumstances, the flow of foreign exchange from selling minerals would cater well to our consumption-based growth model and create partial relief in terms of our foreign payment obligations (this assumption holds only if we don’t keep on piling up more foreign debt).
Let me take the reader back to the 16th-century Spanish conquistadors who found a much-sought-after mineral — silver — in the Potosi mines of Bolivia. Its abundance led to Potosi being called the ‘Treasury of the World’. Suddenly, the Spanish empire found itself less pressed by the perennially pressing fiscal demands as huge quantities of silver started flooding its cities, making it easier to print loads of silver coins and help Spain’s colonial expansion. (It was only gradually that they found out that an exponential rise in money supply gives rise to exponential inflation).
What of the residents? Except for wages — which barely helped them survive — it brought misery, forced labour, high mortality rates and environmental pollution. In our times, Africa and its fabulous mineral wealth is perhaps the nearest example of Potosi-type expropriation (remember Leonardo di Caprio’s Blood Diamond, or residents slugging it out in cobalt mines?).
The lesson is that mineral wealth on its own is nothing without complementarities such as quality labour and institutions. So stop dangling it as a miracle cure to our economic ills.
The writer is an economist. His current research focuses on cost-benefit analysis of foreign-funded PSDP projects, economic reforms and history of economic thought.
shahid.mohmand@gmail.com
X: ShahidMohmand79
Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2025
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Shahzad Sharjeel //DAWN: April 30, 2025
JAWAHARLAL Nehru, the first post-independence prime minister of India, while dilating on statecraft, advised ‘muthi ko kasna nahin hai’ (don’t hold the fist tight). He may have been referring to the merits of a soft approach in dealing with myriad internal challenges, including the hundreds of princely states and their status vis-à-vis the centre. How clenched or loose Sardar Patel’s fist was in dealing with these matters is now part of history.
On our side, prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan and, later on, military dictator Pervez Musharraf both employed the punch as a symbol of state power, aimed externally on the part of the former and at internal opponents by the latter.
While we were still trying to figure out the contours of the ‘hard state’ that the establishment asserted Pakistan needs to become in the aftermath of the deplorable attack on the Jaffar Express in Balochistan in March, and while the new canals fiasco was brewing among the upper and lower riparian provinces, the Pahalgam atrocity happened in Indian-occupied Kashmir. Both sides wasted no time accusing each other of orchestrating the terrorist attacks.
In its first salvo of retaliatory actions, India announced holding the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance. “We will pursue the perpetrators to the ends of the earth,” vowed Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The ‘ghus kar marengay’ refrain was dug up by the media a few days later.
We need hydropower experts and legal wizards in international law.
Late to the public outrage against the proposed six canals on the Indus river to irrigate the Cholistan desert in south Punjab, the PPP, the ruling party in Sindh, tried to overcompensate with bravado. Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, usually displaying sangfroid, broke character to warn the Indian PM, “either our water or your blood will flow in the Indus”. He was addressing a public gathering near the banks of the river in Sukkur as part of his party’s effort to wrest the canals issue from the smaller parties and rights groups.
The complex interplay between externalities and internal compulsions of statecraft is not unique to Pakistan and India. That a country’s foreign policy is contingent upon its domestic choices and vice versa is well known. The rhetoric in the service of these policies and interests should also be seen in this perspective. Mr Bhutto-Zardari’s warning to Mr Modi aims to assuage his party’s domestic dilemma. President Asif Zardari’s reported assent to the canals project — thought to be the brainchild of the powers that be and the larger province of Punjab — had caused resentment even among the loyal cadres of the PPP. One way to keep on the right side of the state powers while appeasing the local vote bank is to take a hard line against India.
The IWT, which was signed between the two countries in 1960 to apportion the waters of the western and eastern rivers, was brokered by the World Bank. It is an extremely complex and technical treaty. From time to time, demands for renegotiating the IWT have emanated from within Pakistan.
Saner elements cautioned against it because, back in the 1960s, India and Pakistan were treated as equals by the facilitators of the treaty. In succeeding decades, the international standing of the two countries changed; compare their forex reserves, trade volumes, and levels of FDI.
Meanwhile, the World Bank’s role as ‘guarantor’ of the IWT has always been misunderstood. It was always meant to reduce over time. To renegotiate the treaty, we need hydrology and hy-
dropower experts. We stopped producing them decades ago. We also need legal wizards in international law. The lot we have has been losing us cases in international courts; Reko Diq, Turkish power producer Karkey, and a consortium of IPPs’ claims against us, to cite a few. This downward slide is, unfortunately, not limited to us: the World Bank does not appear to have a single legal expert with a complete grasp of the treaty. Ask the lender for a copy of a treaty, and in all likelihood, it will draw a blank.
Returning to the analogy of the fist, in the context of water or any fluid situation, leave it open, making it into an ‘oak’, an untranslatable Urdu word for the hollow of an upward-turned palm to drink, and offer it, and it can be of help even if for a short while. Tighten the fist and one is not even left with chullu bhar pani (a sip or a splash’s worth of water carried in the palm of the hand).
The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire essays titled Rindana.
shahzadsharjeel1@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2025
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DAWN EDITORIAL: 30 April 2025
PAKISTAN faces a paradox: its economy has been stabilising but growth remains elusive. The ‘feel good’ part of the economic recovery story forms the core of the official narrative that Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb repeated at a conference at Harvard University on Monday. “We have stabilised the fundamentals, restored confidence, and reignited growth,” he argued. Acknowledging these developments, he said, Fitch had upgraded Pakistan’s sovereign credit rating. However, the job of pinpointing what continues to ail the economy and prevents it from growing has been left to the State Bank, which, in its half-yearly report on the state of the economy published the same day, noted: “One of the prominent challenges long undermining the sustainability of growth is low and falling productivity that has adversely affected the country’s economic competitiveness.” The country’s weak productivity growth has contributed to frequent balance-of-payments crises, with the economy stuck in a recurring boom-bust cycle, the report adds.
That our productivity remains low is not surprising given that the entire structure of the economy is founded on consumption to achieve growth rather than on investment in the real and social sectors to boost productivity of the economy as well as individual workers. Decades of low investment in industrial infrastructure and agriculture means that we produce fewer things for the domestic and international markets and import more to sustain our flawed growth model. As a result, we are always looking for handouts, loans and bailouts to keep the economy afloat and pay our import bill. In the last couple of years, the authorities were forced to implement strict fiscal discipline, slash development spending and curb imports to stop the haemorrhaging of international reserves to secure multilateral funds and stave off an imminent default. This has undoubtedly helped the government somewhat stabilise the main economic fundamentals and reduce import-based consumption to improve reserves. But at the same time, it has killed growth. Economists agree that any attempt to grow faster than 3-4pc without restructuring the economy and boosting industrial and agricultural productivity would push us into a worse crisis. Yet we do not see substantive efforts being made in this respect. Our economy needs shock therapy; spirin will not work where surgery is required. Unless backed by substantive economic reforms, a feel good narrative has a very brief shelf life.
Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2025
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