The Subcontinent of Sub-Saharan Asia

South Asia is just not prepared to enter the 21st century. It does not invest enough in its people.The rest of the world is heading towards peace and prosperity, but India and Pakistan would not know it. Despite the crushing poverty of their respective populations, the two countries are spending $20 billion a year on defence, twice as much as Saudi Arabia, a country 25 times wealthier. Both countries have six times more soldiers than doctors. Pakistan recently bought two French submarines at a cost of $ 1.2 billion, and India deploys missiles while millions live on pavements..How tragically comic that after bleeding their economies to fund defence expenditures, the two governments beg and submit to all sorts of conditionalities from international lending institutions. The economic costs of the continuing confrontation between Islamabad and New Delhi are prohibitive, but policy-makers in the respective capitals seem unable to recognise what is obvious to everyone else, that human security is the most important element of national security..Some say that there is a need for balance of terror in South Asia. But where should that balance be set? If people are sleeping on pavements, ministers have no business shopping for modern jets and howitzers. While children suffocate in windowless classrooms, generals go about in air-conditioned jeeps. Nations might accumulate all the weaponry they want, but they have no strength when their people starve..The World Bank, in a report on "the wealth of nations" which studied 190 countries, points out that 16 percent of the wealth worldwide comes from physical capital (buildings, roads, machineries), and 20 percent from natural capital (minerals, forests and other resources). Fully 64 percent of the wealth of nations is human capital. Yet, as we collect hardware and exploit our natural resources in South Asia, we do not bother about people. We all want to be South Korea, but that country invests $130 per person every year in basic education. Malaysia spends $128. India invests nine dollars, Pakistan three, and Bangladesh two..With India and Pakistan leading the way, South Asia trails behind while the rest of the developing world surges ahead. Even Sub-Saharan Africa´s basket case is doing better than South Asia in some sectors. Their average adult literacy rate is 55 percent, compared to South Asia´s cumulative 47 percent. Also, 800 million South Asians do without elementary sanitation, fully 380 million are illiterate, and 300 million drink from ponds rather than taps. The scale of social deprivation and human despair is tremendous..Global military expenditures, which were at one thousand billion dollars in 1987, are down to $750 billion dollars today, a reduction of $4 billion each year. Only two regions increased their expenditures, the two poorest in the world: again Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Every other region, including the Middle East and Latin America, reduced spending. These facts are not known, and have to be highlighted so that policymakers are embarrassed into action..South Asia is just not prepared to enter the 21st century. It does not invest enough in its people..Goddess of Growth.India hopes to be a regional superpower, but cannot become one with the scale of sheer poverty that exists. Indian policy-makers must mull over the Chinese growth rate of 12 percent, and see how China is investing in its people. The lesson of Cold War rivalry is not that capitalism triumphed over communism, but that political power not backed by economic strength is unsustainable. The Soviet Union collapsed because it could not feed its people; all its tanks, submarines and secret service meant nothing. Today, India has the largest number of poor people in the world. If it can manage to deliver social justice while it maintains or expands its defence expenditure, then India is welcome to become the regional superpower. But it cannot, and thus, should choose between bread and guns..Fifteen years ago, in 1980, the ratio of military to social spending was highest in Iraq (eight times), Somalia (five times) and Nicaragua (3.5 times), Yet, none could effectively defend its national security when the challenge came. On the other hand, Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948, and now spends one-third of its national income on education, nutrition and health. Today, it is the only prosperous democracy in a troubled Central America..However, economic growth alone is not enough, there has to be distributive justice. Three decades ago, Pakistan had one of the highest rates of growth in the developing world, 7 percent a year. So, why were people protesting out on the streets? The reason was that economic growth had not touched their lives—income distribution was skewed against the poor. In West Pakistan, where most of the growth occurred, it was in the hands of landlords and industrialists—all of 22 families dominated the economy. The lesson was clear: you have to stop worshipping the goddess of growth, put people at the centre, enrich their lives, and provide them with options..Amidst all the gloom, South Asia itself provides examples of the dynamism that can be released when human lives are made the focus. In Bangalore, once they started training people in computers, the industry took off and India is now the second largest exporter of software in the world. It presently sells a billion dollars´ worth, and may top five billion by 2000. Before 1971, what was then East Pakistan did not have significant industry. Bangladeshi businessmen went into ready-made garments, put their skills into it, and today the country has out-competed India and Pakistan, and is exporting two billion dollars worth of garments to North America and Europe..Towards Civilian Rule.India and Pakistan must take the lead and turn South Asia away from the abyss. The SAARC organisation, which has remained an exercise in protocol without substance, must be energised. Each member of SAARC must agree under a multilateral agreement to cut five percent of military spending annually, and to earmark the money released for education and health..Why spend a million dollars a day to contest the frozen heights of Siachen? Why not withdraw the troops a few miles down the ridgeline, continue to argue across a table, and save some money? Both India and Pakistan must also come to an understanding on the nuclear issue, rather than keep embarrassing each other in front of others at United Nations forums, so that an enormous packet of funds can become available for social needs..The existing political structures of India and Pakistan are not conditioned to accept proposals such as these, for they require too much rationality and statesmanship. For this reason, the people should take the lead, through energetic advocacy and use of the increasingly powerful and borderless media. It is time for civil society to conduct, what I call, a "bypass operation" around reluctant politicians, who are never willing to stake their lives and reputations for social justice..Of course, there are tremendous vested interests in the power structures of the two countries, among policy-makers and military generals. That is a given. People are hesitant to challenge defence expenditures because it is camouflaged under the shroud of national security. There is little understanding of the social opportunity costs of buying more and more sophisticated armaments. But why should we assume that these things are immutable?.Everywhere outside our Subcontinent, people are leading change, which comes about much faster today because ideas cross borders much more easily. However, someone must generate those ideas. A movement of civil society is not possible without information, which must be generated by researchers and scholars and disseminated by journalists and activists. Change of the kind that is required can never be brought about by governments, political parties or armies, because they all have vested interests. Only the people of South Asia have the potential to change the complexion of South Asia..The swamp of human despair can become a frontier of human hope once we begin to invest in education, training, and the spirit of the people..Return of the Native.As an economist, Mahbub ul Haq started his career with the National Planning Commission of Pakistan, where he served from 1957 to 1970. He then joined the World Bank, and returned in 1982 to serve as Finance Minister under President Zia-ul Haq for eight years, "probably too long", as he told Himal South Asia..Since 1990, Mr Haq has worked with a team of experts to produce the annual UNDP Human Development Report, with its emphasis on improving the quality of human lives rather than merely upping economic growth rates. "After years doing the UNDP report, I decided that the real challenge is in this part of the world, in South Asia, with its social deprivation and human despair," says Mr Haq..And so, he moved to Islamabad and established the Centre for Human Development in Islamabad, from where he plans to produce annual human development reports specifically for South Asia. The documents, says Mr Haq, will be candid and hard hitting, and governments will be forced to pay attention. "I shall present the reports to the SAARC summits, go to the leaders of all seven countries, and try to convince them that they should invest a little less in arms and more on people.".Simultaneously, Mr Haq also hopes to organise meetings of opinion makers from all over the Subcontinent: "You´ve got to lift the intellectual curtains which separate these nations." The UNDP´s Reports have had significant impact on governmental policies around the world, according to Mr Haq. "Whether it is possible to be as successful in South Asia, we will find out."