Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Does the answer lie in the make up/ organization of the founding political parties of the respective countries, that is Congress and Muslim League.

Or the personalities of the founding fathers, i.e, Gandhi and Quad-e-Azam?

**Congress: **All members of the Congress paid a 4 anna annual fee. All these members had a vote for electing provincial congress committees and for a delegate conference which inturn elected the All India Congress Comittee. The President of the Congress was then elected by the annual All India Congress Comittee. The President then nominated the treasurer and 13 members from the All India Congress Comittee, which was called the working comittee that had executive authority of the party.

**Muslim League: **Formed by more effluent of the Muslims in India, Nawab Salimullah, Nawab Waqarul-mulk and its first President was Tha Agha Khan III. It was largely a diaorganized body till 1930’s. The 1931 annual sessiona at Delhi, only 75 members attended. The President was elected in the annual meetings that were largely low key affairs, held in private houses. President was elected every three years.

**Gandhi: **Was (or presented himself) as a pure Indian. Dhoti clad, wore khaddar, vegetarian.

Quaed-e-Azam: Meticulous and elegantly dressed in western clothes, hardly spoke a language other than English. His appearance and demenour were aloof from the ordinary Muslims of India.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

because they didn't have power crazy guys like Ayub, Zia and Musharraf.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

This is yet another example of cockeyed analysis.

For sane and valid comparative analysis, you always have as large of an example set as possible.

India is as unique as is Pakistan, or Afghanistan, or Iran, or China, or Burma, or Indonesia. BTW all of these countries are in the same general neighborhood.

If you want to beat Pakistan on the head, sure you would compare to someone who is doing a little better.

Countries follow their destinies on much more complex process ...

So please keep this ...analysis to yourself.

...then do analysis on the following topics before dumping crap on Pakistan.

  1. Why Iran is a basket case even when they have oil
  2. Why Islamic jannat of Afghanistan gets raped by every Tom, Dick, Harry, and even Ranjit.
  3. Why China is doing 100 times better economically than a comparably sized **dhoom-cratic **India.
  4. Why BDesh is being ruled by their army even when your ilk wants to prove using Bible, Quran, and Gita that Bengalis are more dhoom-cratic.

Off course you won't do that analysis. With eyes-wide-shut, it is much easy for anarchists to blame everything on Pakistan.

=====================
In memory of our slain soldiers and officers,
Long live Pakistan army and law-enforcement agencies,

Pakistan Paindabaad.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

Instead of empty rants, argue in favour or against.

I request the mods to remove the above post.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

hahha! censorship is the name of the game if you don't like it. And still these people blame Musharraf for shutting down few TV channels. Man you win the prize.

There are 4 simple questions to challenge your dhoti-clad theory and why it is wrong to compare two countries with such asinine points.

  1. Why Iran is a basket case even when they have oil
  2. Why Islamic jannat of Afghanistan gets raped by every Tom, Dick, Harry, and even Ranjit.
  3. Why China is doing 100 times better economically than a comparably sized **dhoom-cratic **India.
  4. Why BDesh is being ruled by their army even when your ilk wants to prove using Bible, Quran, and Gita that Bengalis are more dhoom-cratic.

So stick to the discussion instead of running to mods ''oon oon mujhay marta hai uncle! oon oon!

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

Stick to the discussion huh

The discussion is why India is democracy and why Pakistan isn't. The two countries that diverged from each other at one point in the history. Its not about why Iran/Afghanistan or China did or did not do something.

I have presented my view as to why this did not happen.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

actually india might be a democracy but for most of its history, it has been controlled by members of nehru dynasty. and given a choice between being ruled by pak army or by the nehru family or even bjp which is the main opposition, i would choose pak army any time. in fact the current govt of india has actually copied pak army by appointing mms as pm. mms like shaukat aziz has no political base of his own and was drafted to politics in early 90's to salvage india's economy which was in a mess due to mis-mangement by nehru dynasty.

also pak is not unusal when you look at the third party in burray sagheer namely bangledesh which was created by committed socialist like mujib. yet bangladesh has relied on uts army for governance like pak has and in fact bangladesh has also copied pak army by appointing technocrats to power.

pak army must be doing something right for others to copy its strategy.

Daydreaming
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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

Pak and BD both suck, while India is the largest democracy and a economic and military powerhouse.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

You are not alone in saying "You all look brown, so why you have different names" type racial and stereotypical analysis. Writers like Tom Friedman commit the same blunder.

The same Tom Friedman doesn't go to Europe and say "You all look white, so why you have so many different systems of government".

Systems of government evolve over time, and they are driven by complex set of historical and cultural factors.

Anyone with some basic knowledge knows that British-India was a collection of many many states with unique culture, and history.

Still one could lump them together in four distinct regions.

  1. The central northern region of British India,
  2. The central Southern region of British India
  3. Eastern border regions
  4. Western border regions.

Region #1, #2 , and #3 (minus E. Bengal) were combined and they gave birth to modern day India
Region #3 and 4 were combined and they gave birth to the then Pakistan.

Fast forward 30 odd years and Regions #3 and #4 went their separate ways and now they are BDesh, and Pakistan respectively.

Each of these regions have further divisions and thus differing trends towards democracy.

And those trends are driven by very complex set of drivers that include the level of industrialization, agriculture, religion, the level of nationalism, the role of military, the history of schools, and above all the degree of submissiveness to the authority.

But the biggest factor driving the trends is the relative size and strength of army.

Had Indian army not played its strong role against Nizam, Junagadh and later militant movements in Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Andhra etc., Indian state would have gone into an emergency state the same way as Pakistan has.

Just remember why Indira had to clamp emergency. And believe me it was just one state out of 25+ that almost brought down the whole dhoom-cracy drama.

Pakistan being 1/10 of India had to face off much larger amount of internal and external anarchist factors.

These factors may or may not have anything to do with 4 ana membership, or someone wearing dhoti vs. 3 piece Western clothes.

So the people who love dhoti, should move to India, and leave the followers of 3 piece Western clothes in Pakistan. Thank you.

Please welcome Innocent Smile as your new poetry forum mod
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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

There were no Taleban or anarchists when Pakistan was born. Yet the beurocrats like Ghulam Muhammad, Mushtaq Gormani and miltary men like Genral Akbar tried to derail and topple the government, finally killed Liaqat Ali Khan and took over the Pakistani governemnt. To this day tehy have had the strangle hold on civil society and now Pakistan is in perils.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

you are right if you measure economic power by the hunger of its citizens:

http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?autono=304449&leftnm=4&subLeft=0&chkFlg=

“…The country, which takes pride in its remarkable transformation from ship-to-mouth existence to having been till recently a net food exporter, has been ranked at a lowly No. 96 among 119 developing countries, well below all its neighbouring countries with the solitary exception of Bangladesh. Even much poorer countries like Nepal and Myanmar and an economy like Pakistan have been ranked above India, indicating that the incidence of hunger there is far lower than in India. Equally worrisome is the fact unveiled in the IFPRI’s report, entitled “The World’s Most Deprived”, that the fight against hunger that produced good results between 1992 and 1997, lost steam subsequently and failed to show any further improvement in the nutrition status till 2003, the period covered by this report…”

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

Well if the level of intellect has down to "suck", then the best suggestion is not to have a long discussion.

Prejudiced minds are very hard to convince. And it is funny how people make up their minds first, and then open a thread. That kind of stuff hardly brings about positive discussion.

Indians and anti-Pakistanis ignore that India even being "largest democracy" still suck when compared to similarly sized China.

Different states within India vary greatly in terms of human development, economic activity, and quality of life. Just visit Bihar and you'll know how it sucks compared to Andhra Perdesh. And still the both are part of the same "largest democracy".

So yes, if your only purpose is to open a thread, and beat Pakistan, well go ahead make my day!

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

its very simple. the Indian army never got involved in politics and pakistani army just couldn't stay away from politics.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

There is no way to justify thousands of rapes of women and killings of innocent bystanders no matter whose ancient letter you dig up. Neither in Bangladesh nor the bi-annual religious violence in India.

But thats not what the topic is about.

Jinnah died very soon after 47. Gandhi died early as well, but Nehru was the head of the government and lived 17 years. Once the momentum of democracy and public accountability builds up, its power is almost impossible to stifle. Then we had some individuals who thought they were bigger than the country, had huge Christ complexes, and thought they were the saviors of the nation. Ayub, Zia, and the usurper Mush.

SO I admire your nationalistic fervor Antiobl. I love Pakistan too, but I think we need to wipe away the propaganda. The army failed us whenever it announced elections. Those of you older than 30 must remember Zias promise of elections in 90 days. The usurper Mush said he only wanted to get democracy back on track.

We had a brief period from 85 to 96 when we had 5 elections. Leaders were being rotated, and then came another one of the Generals with an ego thinking he was put on earth by God to save the nation.

India has economic disparity but the people get a chance every 4-5 years to choose. And the people have the right to make a bad choice, or a good choice. The Pakistan people have no choice.

2 Likes
Timepass
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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

Who says Pakistan is not a democracy?

Let us not impose Greek style demonrazy in Pakistan.............leave that for Greece............:)

The most qualified party to lead any country is the one that has dedicated patriots who have pledged to serve the Nation's interest.........

If you look around in Pakistan.......The Armed force are the only truely Organized Patriots......:)

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

Oh Bhai sahib,

Army is the last resort in case of emergency. Indians used army rule in troubled states. It is just the number of troubled states was lot fewer than the Un-troubled ones.

You think Army is not the ultimate power in Kashmir? Then you must be living in some dreamy world far far away in a good looking galaxy.

Similarly if Pakistani intellectuals want democracy, then do not allow anyone to create instability and anarchy. You will see that army will stay in the cantonments.

It is funny that our leftie intellectuals create fasad and then say how come army came in, how come army came in.

So get your act together, do not create fasad, and you will have democracy in no time if that's your true goal.

On the other hand, if democracy talk is just for talking point, then we'll have these threads going on and on and on.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

so if pak politicians are such jeffersonian democrats, why do they fight among themselves? why did opposition not accept the results of 1976 elections under bhutto and turn to agitation instead? and why did nawaz shareef want to turn himself in to an ameerul momineen and why did bb and imran khan welcome musharraf's coup against nawaz?

also ataturk lived for a long time after creation of turkish republic but that did not prevent turkish army from overthrowing governments. if the length of founding father rule was the main criteria for democratic rule, then turkey would have been a stable demcocracy like india.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

in Pakistan- anyone who comes, drop their lil demo of craziness.

btw iconoclast uncle, you want technical answer or you just want aesthetical take?

technical has more to do with constitution :smack:

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

You are right. India has lots of flaws that seems to have been glossed over by its recent economic success. Indian economic disparity is one of the worst in the world. The Indian army has constantly been fighting one insurgency after another since 47. However the Indian army is ordered by the politicians to go into a state.

Once again, I think India was lucky enough to have Nehru for 17 years. We were unlucky that we got off on the wrong foot. Once in a while if we got into a real the mess, its understandable that the army comes in and holds some elections like the army chief, Aslam Baig.

unfortunately all our Generals were not like Aslam Baig.

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Re: Why India Became a Democracy and Pakistan Did not

Iconoclast:

[quote]

Muslim League: Formed by more effluent of the Muslims in India, Nawab Salimullah, Nawab Waqarul-mulk and its first President was Tha Agha Khan III. It was largely a diaorganized body till 1930's. The 1931 annual sessiona at Delhi, only 75 members attended. The President was elected in the annual meetings that were largely low key affairs, held in private houses. President was elected every three years.

Quaed-e-Azam: Meticulous and elegantly dressed in western clothes, hardly spoke a language other than English. His appearance and demenour were aloof from the ordinary Muslims of India.
[/quote]

You think THIS is why Pak did not become democracy?

Sorry but that is a DUMB analysis from someone who knows nothing about Pakistan's history. It may be from an Indian.

India became a democracy because it already had democratic traditions, while Pak was in full control of feudals. These feudals killed Quaid and Liaquat because they knew they were hurdles in their control of the country.