Nothing scares Pakistanis more than the possibility that India could succeed and Pakistan fail | The Indian Express

Nothing scares Pakistanis more than the possibility that India could succeed and Pakistan fail | The Indian Express

Written by Tavleen Singh |Updated: August 18, 2019 7:37:22 am

Tavleen Singh, a leading Columnist associated with The Indian Express. Find all Columns from Tavleen Singh here.

Nothing scares Pakistanis more than the possibility that India could succeed and Pakistan fail

The core problem is that if India becomes a mighty economic superpower and Pakistan remains a bankrupt nuclear power, then the whole exercise of breaking India to make a nation for the ‘pure’ could become meaningless.

There is nothing that the military men next door would like more than to see the Indian economy collapse once more into that socialist sluggishness that kept us behind Pakistan right up to the end of the Licence Raj.

Some years ago when relations with Pakistan were in a good season, the Indian cricket team went on tour to the Islamic Republic. When they played in Lahore, many Indian cricket fans crossed the border to lend the team support. The Indian economy in those days was bursting with animal spirits. So among these fans were Indian industrialists who descended in private jets. A Pakistani friend said later that it was when they saw those private jets arrive that they first realised how far ahead of Pakistan the Indian economy had gone. It was good to see, she added, that it was not just Arab billionaires who were having all the fun. But, I knew from the way she said this that actually most Pakistanis were not happy about this.