Author:
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 29, 2005
Introduction: Military, Monarchy
enrich themselves, public gets poorer: think-tank
The Strategic Fore¬sight Group
(SFG), a Mumbai¬ based think-tank, has in a study said that Pakistan
and Nepal, In¬dia's two immediate neighbours, have always concentrated
on en¬riching themselves when their military or monarchy were in power.
The SFG, in its latest report 'The
Second Freedom-South Asian Challenge 2005.2025', said that Pakistan's economic
life has always improved when its mili¬tary leaders secured external
aid or ex¬ported manpower. However, the report, un¬der the heading
'His Majesty, His Military', said that this economic health deteriorated
when the external support system weak¬ened.
However, any boon the Establishment
in these two nations receives does not trans¬late into profits for
the general public. "So long as these two institutions dominate the two
countries, the rest of the population, except the small charmed circles
around the monarchy and military, can be certain of gradual impoverishment.
Economic democracy does not matter," the Pakistani newspaper The News quoted
the SFG re¬port as saying.
The SFG report further stated that
while Pakistan and Nepal were under the spell of their military and monarchy,
India and Bangladesh had bureaucratic systems that could sound the death-knell
for industrial growth in the two countries.
"India and Bangladesh it ap¬pears
do not need the monarchy or military to distort the economy They have bureaucrats
who can inspect, arrest, squeeze entrepre¬neurs and kill their entrepreneur¬ial
sprit. India's inspection Raj will deliver an opportunity loss of US $2,000
billion in missed indus¬trial growth over the next two decades," the
report added.
The SFG report added that at the
current state of human devel¬opment, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh
were almost 30 years behind their East Asian neighbours, and added that
the informal trade in the subcontinent was in the hands of smugglers.
The report said that of the US $2
billion informal trade between India and Pak¬istan, almost half was
traded through third countries like Dubai, nations in Central Asia and
Afghanistan, with the rest being through informal cross-border trade.
ANI
