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Per Capita income in South Asia
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DW44
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What? How? $5k at PPP is terrible. The nominal figure, which is the figure at market exchange rates(PPP adjusts that for cost of living compared to the US) is even worse at around $1.4k. Pakistan ranks 134th in the world out of 186 in per capita GDP at PPP with the only countries below Pakistan being basket cases from Sub Saharan Africa, a few resource poor central asian dictatorships, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and tiny pacific Island states. Basically, if you take out the African states, Pakistan will be somewhere in the bottom 10 to 15 in terms of both nominal and PPP adjusted per capita GDP.
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hafeezrocks
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I think he said that in comparison to Shining India which I agree is lowering the benchmark and setting low standards.
DW44
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Shining India is not a standard to aspire to, they're only a couple places higher and would also be in the bottom 20 if sub Saharan Africa is excluded. This isn't an appendage measuring contest and besides, we're not doing too well compared to then anyway. At the turn of the century, our per capita GDP(PPP) was 34% higher than theirs. Now theirs is 30% higher than ours with average an increase of 4.06% per year for us and 7.7% per year for them since 2000(the corresponding figured with 2010 as the baseline are 3.67% and 6.85%) so the Gap is actually getting bigger.
Pakpak
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A terrible, almost bankrupt Pakistan is still ahead of Bangladesh. Once we get our act together there is no chance Bangladesh will ever overtake us.
boomboomcheema
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But but but India has so many CEO's in United States, Indians are sending spaceships on Mars , IPL is the Greatest League and BCCI is the richest board on the planet.
#Superpower
#Superpower
TalentSpotterPk
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Human Development Index is a top notch indicator to see progress of a Country Overall while considering Masses.
HDI was developed by a Pakistani Economist Mr.Mehboob ul Haq. Yet the same Pakistan is ranked 146 while India is at 131. Sadly this is our Aoqaat actually. Both of Us.
India with its 1.32 billion people and growing will always be in the last of that list.
Imagine if India only had 50 crore people.
Our founding fathers had no vision and clearly had no plan for the country. They just wanted freedom without having an iota of knowledge of how to govern and improve the lives of people later on.
Imagine if India only had 50 crore people.
Our founding fathers had no vision and clearly had no plan for the country. They just wanted freedom without having an iota of knowledge of how to govern and improve the lives of people later on.
Rising Indian population sucks all the progress that is made over a period of time.
Would have been better if India was like Europe with 20-25 countries. Less population and easier to develop. Now no matter how much progress is made, the suffocation levels keep rising.
A couple of states which are progressing well economically , Human Development and in terms of population control, invite migrants from backward, over populated states who bring down the overall quality of life in developed states. It's a case of Europe being one country, where all Serbians, Romanians, Bulgarians could move to Germany without control.
Would have been better if India was like Europe with 20-25 countries. Less population and easier to develop. Now no matter how much progress is made, the suffocation levels keep rising.
A couple of states which are progressing well economically , Human Development and in terms of population control, invite migrants from backward, over populated states who bring down the overall quality of life in developed states. It's a case of Europe being one country, where all Serbians, Romanians, Bulgarians could move to Germany without control.
Slog
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India with its 1.32 billion people and growing will always be in the last of that list.
Imagine if India only had 50 crore people.
Our founding fathers had no vision and clearly had no plan for the country. They just wanted freedom without having an iota of knowledge of how to govern and improve the lives of people later on.
subcontinent should ideally have been 6-8 countries.
its its own continent
i mean before the british colonized south asia, the subcontinent hadnt been a single united entity for several millenia (and even that fleetingly)
they unified the subcontinent for their own administrative ease, gave it a name which they could pronounce easily (India) and somehow everyone lapped up the idea of there being one united south asia despite there being no logical reason
100% agreement with your post.
No politician wants to admit it, but the population Monster will never let India progress. They just make empty promises without actually having any plan.
Time for USSI ! United States of South India..
.. Pretty sure we'd beat Sri Lanka if that happened. !
We'd need to find a way to stop fighting over rivers though..
When the partition occurred, present day pakistan recieved what was back then considered one of the best parts of British India. Plentiful rivers, fertile land, very little portions covered by desert and fewer drought prone regions. Even the population of that region (Bangladesh exepted) was far more manageable than in India.
So by every metric you should've been outdoing us in the per capita Indicators. What went wrong or why is completely up to your judgement . Don't blame it on 'external factors' or 'western influence' alone.
If a civil war torn country like Sri Lanka can still show such improvement in these indicators and a much younger nation like Bangladesh with its far worse population problem and poverty can show such rapid improvement, its an pointer to the biggest nations of South Asia, about what all could have been done with with proper intent.
So by every metric you should've been outdoing us in the per capita Indicators. What went wrong or why is completely up to your judgement . Don't blame it on 'external factors' or 'western influence' alone.
If a civil war torn country like Sri Lanka can still show such improvement in these indicators and a much younger nation like Bangladesh with its far worse population problem and poverty can show such rapid improvement, its an pointer to the biggest nations of South Asia, about what all could have been done with with proper intent.
Madplayer
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I think you are ignoring the fact that most development works by British were done in India. Correct me if i'm wrong but Pakistan had 1 jute mill to its name and that was considered the biggest gift from British?? Pakistan indeed was made from zero while India had lots of advantages.
TM Riddle
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India with its 1.32 billion people and growing will always be in the last of that list.
Imagine if India only had 50 crore people.
Our founding fathers had no vision and clearly had no plan for the country. They just wanted freedom without having an iota of knowledge of how to govern and improve the lives of people later on.
How did you reach at that conclusion?
Socialistic policies - Not encouraging foreign investment - inability to take measures to stem population growth............ India was a big begging bowl in early 90's until Manmohan Singh and Narasimha Rao decided to open our economy to foreign investment.
India inherited most things from the Raj, both good and bad (Caste ridden society,the archaic british legal system, extremely weakend local manufacturing industries and the lions share of British Inda's poor ) . There were enough and more disadvantages inherited to counter the Railways or Enlish language and such things.
But Pakistan's fresh start was an incredible opportunity to mold an ENTIRE COUNTRY in whichever way you could. The society, culture , language etc could be remade . Which in many ways Pakistan did/tried to do .
That's way easier than a country with so much baggage like India & China had at independence. China completely dismantled the pre existing structures through its "Cultural Revolution" which wiped out god knows how many people. India didn't/couldn't do the same.
PS: Regarding textile industries, partition left all the major textile crop growing land in Pakistan and the processing mills in Maharashtra-Gujarat . Can't see how either nations benefited by that ..
DW44
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That's a myth. The only people who peddled that rumor were the likes of IMF because Pakistan adopted their policies and was therefore presented as the poster child for good economic policies even though those policies were extremely detrimental to Pakistan's long term development. IMF etc. are doing the same thing today, overlooking the massive fudging of statistics and using official stats to present Pakistan as an example of success achieved by following their policies. Korea etc. never emulated our policies or five year plans, nor did any other country. Korea sent some bureaucrats to be trained at Pakistan's civil services institute in the 60s and that's the extent of them "learning from" or "emulating" us. Ha Joon Chang, a Korean development economist at Cambridge and someone who lived through Korea's economic miracle busted this myth in one of his books.
Nostalgic
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Yet the old tale of how the South Koreans "copied" Ayub's Five Year Plans, back when South Korea was an impoverished backwater, keeps being regurgitated. I've seen it in books in the past, and now I see it on social media.
DW44
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That's how history works in Pakistan. It records what those in our corridors of power wished happened or want the people to believe happened instead of what actually happened. It doesn't hurt that the average Pakistani has the curiosity and intellect of a dead cow, coupled with a desire to believe how we were destined for greatness until X(insert your most hated leader here) messed it all up, so it all works out in the end for both sides.
Specialisttailender
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India with its 1.32 billion people and growing will always be in the last of that list.
Imagine if India only had 50 crore people.
Our founding fathers had no vision and clearly had no plan for the country. They just wanted freedom without having an iota of knowledge of how to govern and improve the lives of people later on.
Do you know what the educated ones did during independent movements (mid 1940s) ? Apart from the very few, most of them didn't bother to participate in any freedom movements. They benefited from colonial presence and found independent movement annoying and against their interests. It was the farmers and poorer people that stood brave against the colonists.
Korea is also very populated for their size, same can be said for Japan why couldn't our leaders develop our nation like the rest ? How about Singapore with no resources at all ? What did they do right that we didnt ?
TM Riddle
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You have to consider the socio economic realities of India at the time of partition.In 1947 India was mostly a rural agrarian economy with around 85% population residing in villages.British with their policies of exploitation has transformed the country into supplier of raw materials and consumer of finished products from Britain.
There was no proper infrastructure in place.The overall literacy was staggeringly low at around 15%.Public health facilities were almost non existent and water and air borne diseases were rampant and took a huge toll on life.This lead to a very low life expectancy.
Thus the country was in complete shambles and warranted a herculean task on the part of the policy makers to fulfill the dream of a developed and progressive India.
Thus they had to decide the type of economic system best suitable for the country, a system which would promote the welfare of all rather than few.Hence Nehru's decision to opt for mix market economy with heavy socialist leanings.
It's easy to criticize Nehru but he did what was best for the country at that time as adopting a free market approach would have been disastrous for a country like ours.Only mistake I think we did was not evolving and adapting to the changing socio economic environment which lead to wide spread corruption and practices like license Raj.Considering what we went through under British and the diversity of India, we have done rather quite well in my opinion.
Specialisttailender
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Everywhere from Kashmir to Kanyakumari is the same bro. Same old corrupted politicians, officials, citizens who litter our streets and spread ignorance is all the same. Even If India was split into many countries you wouldn't have seen any major change. It is the responsible of our citizens to elect reputable politicians, it starts with us. Who's fault is that incompetent people are kept getting elected in every state and central elections ? If Bengal was an independent country do you think Bannerji will turn West Bengal into Singapore ?
Specialisttailender
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Thank you, once again it is the posters from the most developed state in India doing the common sense taking. No wonder Kerala is ahead of everyone. Everyone else is doing the blame game, never wanting to take the responsibility. How can we progress if we are still in denial of our short comings ? Some of you should be ashamed.
DW44
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There's only one known model for developing an economy that is backed by results and those who used it thrived while those that didn't failed. You have to adopt it for your particular circumstances but the core concept remains the same, from 17th century Britain to Korea and Taiwan in the 70s. The only exceptions to this rule are Hong Kong, Switzerland and the Netherlands but they had certain things going for them that other countries didn't and can't any more so they're very much anomalies. Things like ethnic homogeneity, population size, religion, external environment, internal politics and other things that are unique in each country are factors you have to account for and adjust your policies accordingly but they're not insurmountable obstacles and with the right policies their impact can be minimized.
The problem today, simply put, is China and the WTO. China's rise and sheer size has made it virtually impossible for smaller countries to adopt the only tried and tested model for development, a situation made worse by the exponentially decreasing labor intensity in manufacturing so it's a fairly safe assumption to make that we will not be seeing any more countries making the transition from developing to developed.
The WTO is another hurdle because the rules they have set for global trade make it virtually impossible for any country to adopt the kind of trade policies required to successfully make the transition from developing to developed economy without facing severe retaliatory action.
Specialisttailender
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Anybody actually visited Sri Lanka and Maldives ? Can you see the difference between India/Paksitan and Sri Lanka/Maldives ?
Specialisttailender
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Interesting, how long can India continue to have a "growing middle-class" ? Wouldn't be become too expensive for US companies to outsource too ?
DW44
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India will get stuck in a middle income trap. Think Indonesia or Thailand on steroids. Basically, labor would be too expensive to compete with poorer countries on cost and innovation based industries would not be competitive against established players from developed countries. China too would get stuck in a middle income trap at some point but at a much higher income level (comparable to Turkey or Croatia) and for very different reasons.
There was no development of infrastructure by the British that didn't just straight up lead from the hinterland to the ports. The British de-industrialized Indian subcontinent. Before the British came, Indian subcontinent had 20% of the world's GDP share. This is before Plassey. Since Plassey to 1947, that share got reduced to less than 5%
The British also put limits the sizes of foundries, jute processing mills, etc. Their entire business model was 'colonies provide raw resources. We got gazillions of tons of coal in Wales, we bring home raw materials from colonies, process it at home to create jobs. We prevent colonies from out-competing our industries by banning/putting limit to industries in India'.
That was the whole basis of the Salt march.
Whilst Pakistan’s economic plight is largely the fault of its own leaders, it is certainly true that Pakistan’s economic inheritance was patchy. Before partition the British Secreatary of State wrote to the British Ambassador that a Pakistan, with a partitioned Punjab and Bengal "could not be capable economically of survival as an independent state." This was a widespread view. One businessmen migrating to India stated in May 1947 “After us the deluge. We are leaving Pakistan an economic desert.”
Pakistan commenced its life with a very low industrial base. It had raw materials but no markets to sell them to, as they were generally in India. Banking, insurance and credit facilities were run by non-Muslims, the majority of whom migrated to India. The lack of skilled manpower was summed up by Phillips Talbot writing in December 1947, “Compared to the Indian Dominion, Pakistan has fewer experienced administrators, fewer lawyers, fewer doctors, fewer bankers, fewer traders, fewer mechanics, fewer industrialists, and fewer financiers per thousand people. While India had found it necessary to jump civil servants perhaps three grades to fill secretariat vacancies, Pakistan had to advance them five grades.”
British India was administered as a single economic unit, with a free trade area, single tariff, a unified system of currency and credit, stitched together with a network of railways and telegraph. Partition disrupted this. The impact on Pakistan was certainly deeper.
Colonial industrial development had been predominantly around Bombay, Ahmedabad, Calcutta and the West Bengal/Bihar coal belt. The major ports were Madras, Bombay and Calcutta.
Punjab was economically the strongest province in Pakistan, but it suffered considerable disruption in the aftermath of partition. A case study of Lahore for instance indicated that only 13 of the 39 printing presses were running in 1947; that only 16 of the 28 banks were serving customers in August 1948. All of Lahore’s textile factories were only partially functioning and only 23 of the 101 engineering factories were operating in 1947.
In Bengal over 90% of the industrial units were located in Calcutta. In Bengal, banks, insurance companies, commercial houses, import and export firms, communication centers, power stations, educational institutions were generally located in Calcutta. The number of industrial workers that East Pakistan inherited was consequently extremely low.
The paucity of Pakistan’s national industrial inheritance is revealed by a number of statistics: of the 14,677 industrial establishments, 90.4% went to India. India’s share of industrial employment was 93.5%. Pakistan was in an inferior position with respect to infrastructure. Of the electricity generation India inherited 94.7% of the total installed plant capacity in kilowatts. Of the railway route mileage, 34,157 miles ended up in India out of a total of 41,141 miles. 1,734 engineering establishments were in Indian areas – with only 278 in Pakistan. Pakistan inherited no jute mills compared to 108 that India inherited. India inherited 380 out of the 394 cotton mills, 156 of the 166 sugar mills and all the paper and iron and steel mills – 49 and 18 respectively.
None of this is to suggest that this made Pakistan’s economic trajectory inevitable. Only that it does provide an important context in understanding Pakistan’s subsequent economic and political development.
Having to carve out a new institutional structure, linking provinces to a new centre and that in these financially difficult circumstances severely hampered the development of a democratic process in the early years of Pakistan’s existence (though it was not the only factor). Ayesha Jalal explained in an interview that,
“With the result that it would cost Pakistan the same amount to maintain a small army as it did to maintain an army for undivided India for the simple reason that Pakistan was going to be created in areas that were the frontier regions. So with resources of 17-1/2% bearing the cost of defence for the whole of India, put a crushing burden on the new State, along with the refugees, and stunted the political development in no uncertain terms.”
big_gamer007
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Sanjay Gandhi back in the day wanted to bring "nasbandi" (not sure what's is called in English).. He had the vision 40 odd years ago to control population but he had some other faults.. Ultimately according to rumours he was killed..
TM Riddle
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Vasectomy.
And dude you just can't force people to have their vas deferens cut and tied against their wishes.It's completely unethical and not to mention unhealthy and cruel.Govt should think of better programmes to curb the rapid population growth than resort to such Orwellian measures.
The easiest, long term proven and multiple success case of population control is women's empowerment. When women have careers, are responsible for their own lives and have power, they don't want to be baby-making machines. This is why Communist nations were the first to have control over population growth because one redeeming aspect of communism vis-a-vis capitalism, is that communism specifically treats women as 'equal fellow comrades' and empowers them.
When the west started to adopt the same female empowerment in the 60s and 70s, birth rates started to fall as well.
In this aspect, India is miles ahead of Pakistan and that is why India's population growth rate is significantly lower than Pakistan's.
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