Pakistan: failing, failing, failing…

BAHAWALPUR: This is with reference to Aakar Patel’s article “Pakistan: failing, failing, failing…” (June 23).

Regarding the matter of whether Pakistan is a failed state or not, no it isn't — but it will eventually fail for a combination of reasons other than political. Firstly, there is the demographic. The population bomb has already gone off and we now live with the reality that there are going to be twice as many people in Pakistan in under 30 years than there are now. Then there is the Himalayan glacier melt — the glaciers that serve the Indus river system are retreating fast and the retreat is accelerating. Within 50 years the IRS will be a trickle. Allied to this is increased desertification and rising salinity that is taking agricultural land out of production. Food insecurity will reach ever upwards and long-term famine is going to be a feature. There is little sign that governments are going to take steps that might mitigate some of the worst effects of all of these. Dams are not going to be built; population control is a distant dream and developments in arid agriculture too slow to make a significant difference; plus the drift towards extremism will stifle development.

There is unlikely to be a catastrophic collapse, more a slow deterioration that will hit some parts of the population harder than others. There will be civil unrest and some cities may destabilise under the sheer weight of population and inadequate infrastructure, but this is not a country that is ever likely to see a full-blown popular mass uprising. The innate sense of fatalism and the cultural desire for conformity make revolution most unlikely. The system of elected feudalism and the rule of the establishment will persist for the rest of the life of the nation, and any development towards true democracy will be checked by a system that invests heavily in the status-quo. But as we are, no we are not failed. It's coming, and there is no stopping it now – we missed too many chances – and we have perhaps 50 years before a final collapse. Which is far enough away for nobody to worry about, isn't it? So nobody will.

Published in The Express  Tribune, June 24^th, 2010