We’ve got bigger problems on our hands
“Focusing on tertiary education is not going to solve Pakistan’s education problem. The government should start strengthening primary education and the rest should take care of itself. Building universities will not help unless the quality of education is improved.”
Pakistan and India’s historic rivalry over a host of issues and its resulting financial costs – not to mention the human and social – have locked both countries into a protracted cycle of an arms race. The recent tensions over Kashmir which have spiraled out of control are certain to renew efforts on both sides of the LoC that more military expenditure and import of arms is essential in order to meet external security challenges.
Moreover, both countries defense spending do not correlate with their economic and social sector growth. Recently, the World Bank, in a report titled ‘Poverty and Shared Prosperity’ lamented that globally Pakistan and India are among the countries where the states face daunting tasks in containing the rising levels of poverty and unemployment. While the organisation in this regard terms the threat level as alarming, in Pakistan and India, there appears no urgency to tackle these problems on a war footing.
Pakistan and India spend a large portion of their national wealth on defense, draining their recourses. India spends almost $40 billion on its military budget while Pakistan defense expenditures with a hefty rise in the current fiscal year, has reached at $8 billion. Moreover, the Nuclearisation of South Asia which is tied with Pakistan and India’s bilateral conflict has a potential to annihilate both countries: according to a research report, more than 21 million people are likely to be killed in case of a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India. In addition, due to the hazards of nuclear war, Pakistan and India’s conflict is also considered a scenario where the ‘World War Three’ might popup.
This arms race between India and Pakistan can potentially prove more devastating for the latter: in a bid to match India’s defense expenditures whose economy is much larger than Pakistan, Islamabad can actually inflict devastating impact on its own economy. Pakistan’s sustained overspending on defense, besides squeezing resources from other sectors, could well bankrupt its economy.
A recently released documentary, called ‘Among the Believers,’ sheds light on this phenomenon by using the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) as a case study. The documentary shows how Madrassas in Pakistan have provided an alternative social and economic infrastructure to fill the space left by the state which in return offers them more political and ideological influence in society, making their objective of mainstreaming radicalisation as part of Islam easy.
The costs of such policies will not only be external but domestic as well. For instance, Pakistan’s current expenditure on education is the lowest in South Asia despite an increase in the 2015-16 education budgets. In consequence, the state of education in Pakistan is such that besides producing mannequin PhD’s, we have not made any progress towards catching up with international education standards. According to the Times recently released university ranking, not a single university from Pakistan could make it into top 500 top global universities.
While commenting on the federal government’s project of building one university in every district of the country, Dr. C.J Dubash, a distinguished educationist and the Dean of the School of Education at the Forman Christian College University, told the DNA that “Focusing on tertiary education is not going to solve Pakistan’s education problem. The government should start strengthening primary education and the rest should take care of itself. Building universities will not help unless the quality of education is improved.”
The Pakistani youth, that certainly is the future of Pakistan, can also become a liability for the country if their potential is not harnessed in a right way that include – among other things – investing in quality education and meeting a rapidly rising demand for more jobs in order to accommodate thousands of young graduates that are leaving universities every year. “If you look at the countries that have developed, have done so on the boom of their youth bulge,” said Adil Najam, the Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at the Boston University.
According to the National Human Development’s country specific Report, “Pakistan needs to create at least 1.5 to 2.5 million jobs a year to maintain its current unemployment rates.” Najam also warned that if Pakistan is to prevent a crisis like “Arab Spring,” it needs to focus on these immediate issues. “If you have a lot of people who are angry, disconnected from the society and irritated, you must address their problems… to avoid Egypt-like agitation,” Najam said.
One of the reasons that extremism has thrived in Pakistan is because of the state’s failure to meet its obligation to invest in public welfare. Hence, the vacuum left because of the state’s policies, has been filled by non-state actors. A recently released documentary, called ‘Among the Believers,’ sheds light on this phenomenon by using the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) as a case study. The documentary shows how Madrassas in Pakistan have provided an alternative social and economic infrastructure to fill the space left by the state which in return offers them more political and ideological influence in society, making their objective of mainstreaming radicalisation as a part of Islam easy.
In a different context, India is facing similar challenges: poverty, growing religious and ethnic intolerance and a disenchanted youth is posing serious problems for New Dehli. Beyond war hysteria which always appends further economic costs on Islamabad and New Dehli, the last thing Pakistan and India need is an all-out war.
There is no denying that Pakistan needs to maintain the Doctrine of Minimum Credible Deterrence; however, the policy makers in Islamabad also need to pay heed to more impending challenges which if left unresolved, will lead to an internal implosion.
