Michael Rubin
India is not only the world’s largest democracy and most populous country, but it is an industrial powerhouse soon to overtake both Japan and Germany to become the world’s third largest economy. India’s success highlights Pakistan’s failure.
Rather than pull Pakistan up, generations of Pakistani leaders instead chose to try to tear India down. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency promoted separatism in Kashmir and sponsored terror groups that used Kashmir as an excuse to target Indians far beyond Kashmir’s borders.
Pakistan’s strategy failed. It has now been more than five years since the Government of India revoked Kashmir’s special status granted under Article 370. Pakistan was furious, many Western human rights groups sputtered, and Western diplomats wrung their hands, but Kashmiris thrived. Integration disempowered feudal lords who suppressed the population. Security improved. Subsequent months showed the Islamists to lack the legitimacy they once claimed and too many Western diplomats assumed. Cinemas opened, national universities opened local branches, girls competed in sports, women entered politics, and Kashmiris resumed their rightful place in India. That Kashmiris thrive in India but remain impoverished under Pakistani occupation haemorrhages Islamabad’s pretence to speak on their behalf.
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