DESTITUTE PEOPLE

TOGETHER, Pakistan and India are home to the largest number of poor
people in the world. Yet, instead of jointly addressing the plight of the people,
they continue to quarrel and periodically engage in conflict. Even the recent
visit of Pakistan`s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to Goa to attend a
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting was met by the pejoratives of
hawks on both sides.

All these overzealous nationalistic elements conveniently gloss over the fact
that millions of poor people on both sides of the border live a life bereft of
human dignity and basic necessities. Among 191 countries, India and Pakistan
rank 132nd and 161st on the Human Development Index (2021-2022)
respectively. While India fares better than Pakistan,I ts overall ranking is
nothing to celebrate. In fact, compared with 2019, India`s HDI value has
tumbled from 0.64 in 2019 to 0.63 in 2021. The maternal mortality rate in
both countries is deplorable, with India at 133 (in 2017) and Pakistan at 140
per 100,000 live births.

India also has the dubious distinction of being home to the world`s largest
population 732 million without access to a toilet. This number is almost thrice
the size of Pakistan`s total population. In Pakistan, according to statistics
from some years ago, over 40m people are forced to defecatein the open.

Economic and multidimensional poverty are rampant in both countries. With

a large population base, India has the world`s largest poor population of
almost 270m people. Similarly, the World Bank has estimated poverty in
Pakistan to be almost 40 per cent. According to the UN`s Human
Development Report (2021-22) the percentage of people exposed to severe
multidimensional poverty in Pakistan is much higher than India`s, though in
absolute numbers, India has a far bigger population suf fering in this category.

While a huge population in both countries is impoverished and denied basic

services, which are essential to human dignity, the two governments
nevertheless spend lavishly on lethal weaponry at the expense of the
socioeconomic wellbeing of their people. Figures for 2021 show that
Pakistan`s ratio of defence expenditure to GDP was 3.8pc and that of India
2.7pc. Absolute numbers reveal greater details, Pakistan allocated a budget of
$11.3 billion, and India almost seven times more with $72.6bn, to defence.
Then, there are unrecorded and unaccounted expenses in addition to publicly
announced budgets.

According to the StockholmInternational Peace Research Institute, India

maintains a large contingent of over 3m army personnel while the strength of
the Pakistan Army is close to 1m. A colossal amount is funnelled into the
imports of deadly weapons. According to Sipri, in 2020 India spent $2.8bn on
the import of arsenal whereas Pakistan spent some $760m. India also has the
ignominious distinction of being the largest arms importer in the world in
2018-2022. Sipri`s recently released report Trends in International Arms
Transfer 2022, shows that India was the biggest arms importer that accounted
for 11pc of global arms imports from 2018 to 2022.

This war and weapon mania is devouring the economic ability of both
countries.

The money spent on arms can be used for the uplift of millions of destitute
and desperate families. According to a World Bank estimate, the potential of
Pakistan India trade is approximately $37bn against the actual $2bn or so. If
India and China can insulate bilateral trade from security-based hostilities,
why can`t Pakistan and India do the same, instead of pursuing the route of
political acrimony? Indeed, one should learn from China, which maintains
cordial business ties with India, while not relenting on its geopolitical stance.
It is because of this policy that bilateral trade between India and China
reached $136bn in 2022. This policy is more pronounced in the case of the
Sino-US trade partnership. Despite the deep mutual disenchantment, both
countries set a record figure of $690bn for trade between them in 2022.

Peace dividends would pay well if India and Pakistan did not let politics get in
the way of economic ties. Billions of dollars spent on weapons could be saved
by both countries. Bilateral trade can flourish if the two governments take
advantage of the low cost of labour and accessible routes to each other`s
territories. Both countries ought to invest their precious resources in
developing human capital, which is the cornerstone of economic growth and
social well-being of any country. The World Bank says that if Pakistan
improves its human capital, its GDP per capita could rise by 144pc, eight times
more than in conditions where `business as usual` prevails. • The wnter is a
civil society professional.