Introduction: Military, Monarchy enrich themselves, public gets poorer: think-tank

The Strategic Foresight Group (SFG), a Mumbai based think-tank, has in a study said that Pakistan and Nepal, India�€™s two immediate neighbours, have always concentrated on enriching themselves when their military or monarchy were in power.

The SFG, in its latest report �€˜The Second Freedom-South Asian Challenge 2005.2025�€™, said that Pakistan�€™s economic life has always improved when its military leaders secured external aid or exported manpower. However, the report, under the heading �€˜His Majesty, His Military�€™, said that this economic health deteriorated when the external support system weakened.

However, any boon the Establishment in these two nations receives does not translate into profits for the general public. �€œSo long as these two institutions dominate the two countries, the rest of the population, except the small charmed circles around the monarchy and military, can be certain of gradual impoverishment. Economic democracy does not matter,�€ the Pakistani newspaper The News quoted the SFG report as saying. The SFG report further stated that while Pakistan and Nepal were under the spell of their military and monarchy, India and Bangladesh had bureaucratic systems that could sound the death-knell for industrial growth in the two countries.

�€œIndia and Bangladesh it appears do not need the monarchy or military to distort the economy They have bureaucrats who can inspect, arrest, squeeze entrepreneurs and kill their entrepreneurial sprit. India�€™s inspection Raj will deliver an opportunity loss of US $2,000 billion in missed industrial growth over the next two decades,�€ the report added. The SFG report added that at the current state of human development, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh were almost 30 years behind their East Asian neighbours, and added that the informal trade in the subcontinent was in the hands of smugglers.

The report said that of the US $2 billion informal trade between India and Pakistan, almost half was traded through third countries like Dubai, nations in Central Asia and Afghanistan, with the rest being through informal cross-border trade.