Author: Editorial
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: June 20, 2001
It is one of the subcontinent's
most heartbreaking tragedies. Commentators on this side of Radcliffe's
meandering line have long bemoaned the Lost Decade in Jammu and Kashmir,
the years the people of the state have been forced to sacrifice in dodging
the crossfire. Across the border too, that telling phrase, the Lost Decade,
is being uttered with startling regularity in a vibrant debate on the precarious
state of Pakistan's economy, on the factors contributing to its slippery
slide to bankruptcy and on to the gates of the International Monetary Fund.
It would be tempting, then, to link the historic, albeit token, cut in
Islamabad's defence budget announced on Monday with an acknowledgement
of what a leading Pakistani columnist has termed ''the price Pakistan is
paying for hurting India in Kashmir''. It would, however, also be naive.
In inflicting upon his government
the psychological blow of actually chipping away at the defence outlay,
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shaukat Aziz was perhaps more keen to extricate
his country out of its ''single tranche'' status than to take stock of
the cost of confrontation. With Pakistan scheduled to complete a one-year
loan programme with the IMF this autumn, Aziz's efforts at fiscal discipline
are aimed more at securing a subsequent three-year loan. For a military
dictatorship that seized power bloodlessly in October 1999 and won great
popular support for its avowed ambitions to reform the country's economy,
these are tough times. GDP growth is down drastically; foreign exchange
reserves are still hovering at a measly $1 billion; the long- and medium-term
foreign debt is estimated to be almost 50 per cent of GDP, feeding fears
of default. To make matters worse, farm incomes are down after a furious
drought, which has in turn depressed consumer spending. But Aziz and his
bosses would consider themselves lucky if their travails were limited to
masterminding - or merely implementing on the IMF's directive - structural
reforms. The possibility of Pakistan ceding economic sovereignty to the
IMF could give rise to an unlikely anti-government coalition: jehadis distressed
at the thought of the country's defence budget being periodically scrutinised
by economists in Washington, politicians seeking an emotive issue to re-engage
with the electorate, and sundry members of the intelligentsia enraged over
foreign prescriptions. It is to these ''ladies and gentlemen'' that Aziz
probably addressed his assurance that ''Pakistan's sovereignty and credible
deterrence will never be compromised''.
Call it yet another of life's little
cruelties, but the challenge for Pervez Musharraf and co. does not end
at assuaging the feelings of these ladies and gentlemen - that is, if they
are in fact desirous of urgently turning around the economy. Cosmetic cuts
in the defence budget can certainly not account for ''the price Pakistan
is paying for hurting India in Kashmir''. Pakistan for many years now has
argued that its unfinished business with India be accorded priority over
economic imperatives. This question of priorities must be reconsidered
now that economic stagnation looms ever larger. Or else Pakistan's Lost
Decade will simply stretch beyond a mere 10 years and a bit.
