Article Type

Article

Description

Pakistan and India both achieved independence in 1947. At that time there was a great deal of skepticism among the Indians as well as the foreigners about Pakistan’s economic future. They wondered as to how a country so poorly endowed, heavily bruised by the pangs of partition, separated physically by 1000 miles across a hostile territory could survive politically and economically. It is true that the political union of the two wings of the country could not be sustained but the emergence of two independent nations out of Pakistan in 1971 did not in any material way adversely affect the economic prospects of Pakistan or Bangladesh.

India deserves the credit for maintaining, preserving and nurturing the largest democracy in the world for this 60 years period.Pakistan and Bangladesh, on the other hand, were not so successful in their endeavors to have an uninterrupted history of democratic rule. The reasons for this divergence have been analyzed and debated at length and fall beyond the scope of this article. But an interesting point that is the focus of our attention is how far the two countries –Pakistan and India– despite this divergence in political evolution have traveled across the economic path during the last sixty years.

Publication Source

Dawn

Publication Date

8-14-2007

Pages

1-16

Notes

Also published in "Blue chip : the business people's magazine, Dec,2007".

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