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I wonder what India would look like without Pakistan constantly pestering them. Would they be more democratic without an existential, aggressive border threat?
by throwayyy479087 4y ago
I wonder what India would look like without Pakistan constantly pestering them. Would they be more democratic without an existential, aggressive border threat? Would they be less united and collapse? Sure seems like a loose confederation. Maybe they'd have the same problems, just towards China.
I'm not saying that Pakistan shouldn't exist, just that the entire game of Pakistani politics seems to be one-upping each other on who can hate their neighbor more.
Geography really is destiny.
- asadlionpk 4y agoI don't think Pakistan cares much about India except in the case of Kashmir. Reverse question, what Pakistan would look like without India constantly pestering them?
- newyankee 4y agoThe entire existence of Pakistan depends on being a strong Islamic entity in South Asia and selling their Nuclear Weapons as being the defender of Islamic Ummah. It is a different issue that all these factors have been exploited by the all powerful Army , extremists and other vocal actors leaving very less modern, practical voices in the country.
- hef19898 4y agoTo whom exactly did Pakistan export nuclear weapons tech again? Edit: They sold centrifuges to North Korea. Which is not an islamic country as far as I know...
- fooker 4y agoAllegedly North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
- sidewndr46 4y agoI am reasonably certain it is the opposite. Saudi Arabia funded Pakistani science to make sure they developed nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia has no need to develop nuclear weapons or posses them as a result. They can just ask Pakistan for them at a moments notice if they actually need to.
- fooker 4y agoSure, think of it as buying call options instead of shares from the Saudis POV.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lab14 4y agoPakistan is selling nuclear weapons? Can you provide any support for this claim?
- alephnerd 4y ago* was selling. This isn't happening anymore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan#Proliferation_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan#Proliferatio...
- hef19898 4y agoThat is far from selling actual warheads, isn't it? And the history of nuclear prolifiration is long and complicated.
- alephnerd 4y agoyep! pretty much, but selling the supply chain and specs themselves is almost as bad. It took PK almost 30 years with PRC information transfer to build the Islamic bomb, but 10 for NK thanks to Khan Labs.
- hef19898 4y agoAnd how many new nuclear powers are there since North Korea? I can not think of any.
- fooker 4y agoCompare how often Pakistan is mention in r/India and how often India is mentioned in r/Pakistan.
- manquer 4y agoReddit is really poor sample of how average person or decision makers think in these two countries.
- throwayyy479087 4y agoThis is true of every country, by the way. Reddit has lost it.
- alephnerd 4y agoNeither subreddits are realistic snapshots of South Asian social media. Most South Asians use FB+Whatsapp with a smattering of Twitter.
- newyankee 4y agoIndia is finally growing out of thinking too much about Pakistan and other threats most of the time and focusing on growing and at least trying to catch up a bit with China in the future in some respects. Although being a democracy that is difficult to achieve.
- alephnerd 4y agoIdeally a US-Canada or a France-Germany kind of coexistence, but realistically probably more like Nepal, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka (close but tense relations due to local level political populism).
- manquer 4y agoIn the Indian public discourse Pakistan does not get much airtime as it used to even 15 years ago, there aren’t simply that many border tensions or terror attacks as there used to be and people care lot less, few enough remember the partition or have close relatives on the other side still alive, the emotional connections are all gone . Pakistan enjoys more political stability in the last decade not withstanding recent drama with Imran khan compared to how it was for most of the last century under military control. The junta was in power till late 2010s , they still hold a lot of influence over politics of course but don’t really fully control it as they did last century .
- dartharva 4y agoPakistan is not an existential threat, but more of a hot political talking point in India, and vice versa in Pakistan for India. Had Pakistan not been an issue, India's politicians would have invented another populist topic to distract people with. Vice versa for Pakistan. It's possible it would get worse without Pakistan, because then the artificial boogeyman could be something inside the country, capable of creating pandemonium that can reach the country's sovereignty. But that's just a random speculation.
- yumraj 4y ago> Pakistan is not an existential threat, So, a nuclear power, effectively ruled by military junta and full of religious fanatics is not an existential threat. In that case, I don't know what it. I guess North Korea is not an existential threat to South Korea (instead of religious it's the communist ideologues) and China is not an existential threat for Taiwan (CCP ideologues).
- nashashmi 4y agoYour comment is racist and inappropriate for HN.
- tido99 4y agoJust last month, Pakistan's national assembly unanimously voted to expand its country's blasphemy laws, which have previously been used to charge more than 1500 Pakistanis. That doesn't include the more than 70 people who have been murdered by mobs and vigilantes over allegations of "insulting Islam." Those laws impose the death penalty for "insulting the Prophet Muhammad" and 10 years to life in prison for insulting his "companions." According to Pew Research, 76% of Pakistani Muslims support the death penalty for simply leaving Islam, never-mind "insulting" the religion (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/04/30/the-worlds-m...). Apparently a 10th century drawing of the guy is "prophet worship" (which is also punishable by death), but putting people to death for insulting him isn't. If you think those surveys are wrong, the unanimous legislative support for these measures would suggest Pakistan really is ruled by a military junta that doesn't represent its people. If you acknowledge the polls are even somewhat accurate, I'm curious how you think demanding the death penalty for leaving a religion doesn't make you a fanatic. According to Gallup Pakistan, a majority of Pakistanis said they wanted the "type of Islamic government in Pakistan that the Taliban have brought in Afghanistan" (https://gallup.com.pk/post/32284 https://gallup.com.pk/post/32284). I am genuinely curious what you do believe constitutes a religious fanatic if demanding the death of people who leave their religion and openly supporting Taliban-style government doesn't fit the bill. There are absolutely (non-Muslim) religious fanatics in India and other places who do terrible things. Conversely, there are many Pakistanis who are not religious fanatics and oppose these fanatical measures. That doesn't change the truth of his point: that Pakistan is plagued by religious fanatics and a militaristic government. All countries have their religious fanatics, but there is a very real difference between, say, 50 crackpots from the Westboro Baptist Church carrying offensive signs and 76% of the country supporting the execution of people that leave their religion.
- rajman187 4y agoI’ve noticed that Indian news media is far more interested in covering Pakistan than the other way around. Indeed, I’d wonder what Pakistan would look like without India constantly pestering them, e.g. reducing flow of critical river paths from Indian Panjab that supplies much of the agricultural needs)
- alephnerd 4y agoDepends on the media. If you read general mass media like OpIndia, Zee, or NDTV that's true, but if you read media aimed at policymakers (ThePrint, ORF, or Himal for example) it's 70-30 China-PK. Same in PK as well - in vernacular media like Ary or Geo it's all Amreeki/Yahudi/Hindu Sazish but English media which policymakers read is more prosaic. I guess the difference is, English has increasingly become a vernacular language in Indian discource, but not yet in PK.
- pkd 4y agoI'm not sure that's a great example. The Indus water treaty has been respected by India despite all the wars and tensions with Pakistan over the decades. Only in the last month is it that it has been brought into question.
- Synaesthesia 4y agoIndia was an empire from Pakistan to Burma which was partitioned because the British wanted to weaken it and divide it. That caused a huge amount of problems, like Kashmir, Bangladesh.. If you read about the history of British perfidy in Bengal, its actually pretty horrifying. Yes India was once very rich and capable, before it was reduced to penury.
- hef19898 4y agoYou really think, that Hindus and Moslems would have lived peacefully this whole time without British India being split apart? Honestly, I think a civil war between those groups would have been equally as likely as peaceful co-existance. Anyway, that is pure speculation, isn't it?
- rhaway84773 4y agoWell, India has 200million Muslims. No civil war yet. There have been altercations between Hindus and Muslims. There’s no reason to believe it would be significantly worse if you doubled the number of Muslims in India, especially when you consider that a lot of the Hindu-Muslim divisions were sown as a result of partition itself, which was an incredibly divisive and bloody affair. Further, a larger Muslim population would also have reduced political power of the Hindu fascists as well and lack of funding through Pakistan and increased Democratic power would have led to less political disaffection in the extremist Muslim side.
- Jenepas 4y ago[dead]
- Synaesthesia 4y agoMaybe, but they did coexist for a long time without any real issues. And the fact does remain that Britain plundered the place something extraordinary. Bengal was once probably the richest place on earth. Today its Bangladesh.
- yumraj 4y agoThe biggest beneficiary of India's partition was China. Without India's partition, assuming that the Muslim population that wanted a separate Islamic nation was willing to live peacefully, China may not have had the guts to gobble Tibet, there would have been no friend of China on the other side of India to contain it and population of India + Pakistan + Bangladesh would have surpassed China long time ago. So, yes, India and the world would have looked a lot different. But, that's not the reality today, so no reason to ponder over it I guess.
- throwaway2203 4y agoYup my relatively liberal Pakistani friends used to ponder that a lot... until Modi came and suddenly they were really glad for Pakistan. :)
- rhaway84773 4y agoAnd then they elected Imran Khan.
- asadlionpk 4y agoWhat's wrong with Imran Khan?
- Jenepas 4y ago[dead]
- Jenepas 4y ago[dead]
- OmegaPG 4y agoPakistan was created for political reasons to keep India busy and to make sure USSR don't get such huge country as its ally. It is now 75 years and Pakistan is still used by USA, Russia, China, UK and even smaller countries like Sri Lanka to keep India occupied. Pakistan never should had existed. It was created with a great human tragedy, it will go down with a great human tragedy. Pakistan with 250 million population is out of money, power, oil, fertilizer and even food and water because they are spending 1/3rd of their money maintaining their army.
- adharmad 4y agoI wonder how long it will take for the people of Pakistan to realize that POK is a money sink and their money could be used much more effectively to develop their own country. The terrorist organizations that are fostered by their military establishment are simply turning on Pakistan and attacking them.
- OmegaPG 4y agoThat time was 2010. That ship has sailed. Pakistan has to pay 2-3 billion USD in next few weeks or else they will default. They have to pay 8-10B USD this year or they will default. They have to pay 70-80B USD in next 5 years or they will default. Pakistan right now has 2 billion dollars in their forex that too because Saudi gave them 3 billion USD some time back. Pakistan can collapse in just few months like Sri Lanka.
- time_to_smile 4y ago> Geography really is destiny. While I generally agree with the importance of geography I think this is glossing over a major part of the history of India and Pakistan. The partition of India [0] by the British upon their exit from the region should be understood as a major tragedy in human history and very much lead to increased instability in the region. Writing this off as "mere geography" is to miss the major and well documented impact of British colonialism on today's political climate in the region. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India
- cuteboy19 4y agoRecently there was a survey of Indian and what countries they considered threats. China was top, followed by the US. Pakistan was much lower in the list
- duxup 4y ago> Would they be more democratic Isn’t being less democratic usually a choice by those in power to hold on or expand their powers? Locally?