Analysis: A tale of two countries

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- India marks the 60th anniversary of its independence from British rule Wednesday in an ebullient mood. Its cricketers defeated England in a test series on English soil for the first time since 1986, its economy is flying high, and its government concluded a civilian nuclear agreement with the United States, which would give India U.S. nuclear technology.

Neighboring Pakistan is not having as good a time. Democracy is no closer to being restored now than it was when army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf overthrew the elected government in 1998 and took power. Islamic radicalism now has a public face as evinced by the recent siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad and the violence that followed. The government's fragile truce with tribes in Waziristan has collapsed. And the presence of Taliban and al-Qaida on its soil has made Pakistan the favorite whipping boy of U.S. politicians trying to score points in the war on terrorism.

One would think India, which doesn't need a reason to gloat at its neighbor's discomfort, has much to celebrate.

But as the world clubs India with China, because of their expanding economies and geographical proximity, and Pakistan with the failing or failed states of the Islamic world, a key consideration is omitted: The two nations may have been riven by a bloody partition 60 years ago, but today, more than ever, the future of each depends on the stability of the other.

The new India may have swagger, the financial wherewithal to buy Western companies, an economy expanding at nearly 9 percent per year and legitimate claims as a military power. But the land of tomorrow with its newfound Las Vegas-style opulent excesses will have little to boast about if its neighbor to the west remains a political basket case.

No two nations have had a past so inexorably linked as India and Pakistan, and their future is likely to be as entwined. For India, an unstable Pakistan could, and likely would, mean increased unrest in Kashmir, the divided state that both sides claim, and violence in a half-dozen states across the nation where Islamist groups are fighting the Indian state.

As India's own history in Punjab and Kashmir show -- and as more modern conflicts such as the insurgency in Iraq illustrate -- militia groups fighting a proxy war can go on for as long as it takes. Although low-level violence will have little effect on a country's economic prospects, a major attack on infrastructure is all it will take to repel the foreign investors India now so arduously courts.

Pakistan, on the other hand, no matter how hard it tries to look to the Islamic world for a common culture, cannot ignore the 800 pound gorilla to its east. No matter how much Pakistan grows or how attractive its economic policies become, at the end of the day its 164 million people are dwarfed by India’s more than 1 billion. Similarly, its defense spending of $4.1 billion for 2006-07 pales in comparison to India’s $20.11 billion during the same period.

Sixty years after independence, both nations can claim progress, but they must also concede that the vision with which they were created -- a progressive Muslim state envisioned by Pakistan’s Mohammad Ali Jinnah and a non-aligned, self-reliant, pacifist nation imagined by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru -- lies partly tattered.

Pakistan has moved from being a Western-leaning dictatorship to one where the military rules in an uncomfortable alliance with Islamists. India has transformed from a nation of vast poverty to one where the wretched live next to and often in envy of the newly rich (according to one Indian government report released last week, 77 percent of India still lives on less than $1 a day).

For either country to succeed, it must look to the other. India needs a stable Pakistan for its long-term success, and Pakistan needs to take a leaf out of its neighbor’s book and begin the painful process of transforming itself to the vision of its founders.

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(e-mail: kcalamur@upi.com)