development of Pakistan

“13th August 1947, this is all India radio Lahore. Kindly wait for our next announcement.

14th August 1947, this is radio Pakistan, Lahore. HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY.”

After hearing the above statement people of the subcontinent rush towards their homeland with or without whatever they had, as they were already anxiously waiting for this announcement. The county has to build itself from the scratch. Leaders of the time showed their untiring efforts to bring a newborn state into stable version. The founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah went through a lot of tunnels of hardships to make this county’s condition match with other countries. Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the first governor-general of Pakistan, aimed for sustainable development goals in Pakistan. However, the dearth of economics and resources that a nation was facing was not hidden. At the time Independence India denied to share Pakistan’s dues of its wealth which causes disrupt in Pakistan’s development.

Independence of Pakistan was never accepted at that time by British leaders and conflicts were raising as Jinnah refused to Lord Mountbatten’s offer to serve Pakistan being a governor-general. Pakistan was already in bulk of crises there was no food and shelter for the refugees the newly born state was not developed at all. The very first step towards development that Muhammad Ali Jinnah took was to register Pakistan as member in United Nations Organization. Pakistan came into being in August 14 1947 and became a member of UNO on 30th September 1947. This was indeed a massive step towards development. Pakistan was a weak country trying its level best to take steps towards development in each way either its agriculture, economic, industrial development or human resource development.

Soon after the separation the new born state had started to lay its foundations. On the other hand the resources and the assets were not justifiably distributed. Resources and assets were distributed in the ratio of 5 to Pakistan and 17 to India. Luckily Pakistan has got good irrigated land and also major canal systems. The military distribution was also in the favor of India that was 65 to 35 percent. Pakistan could not maintain its standard development at that period.

Furthermore the Korean war of 1952 made rapid increase to mercantile class which helped to achieve higher gains and ventures were made to build the structure of bureaucracy.

For the time being, from 1958-1968 Pakistan marked major benchmark in its history of development. The regains of the country were in the hand of General Ayyub Khan in that era. The economy of Pakistan was raising three times faster comparatively other countries of South Asia. The growth rates were also raised by 20 percent per annum while the agricultural and industrial sector were improving day by day. The growth overserved in industrial and agricultural was such a massive achievement which was achieved first time in the history after the partition. In this era manufacturing sector raises 17 percent and agricultural sector grew by 6 percent. Development in this decade applied a bureaucratic supported capitalism. On the other hand many people named his policies non liberal and started to criticize. Policies resulted high income inequality and this speedy development achievement with the use of East Pakistan. Labor class faced a lot of problems resulted separation of East Pakistan.

The era of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto begins in 1970s with the slogan of “Rotti, Kapra and Makaan”. In his period Bhutto established some financial institutes like banks. Establishment of banks was indeed a step towards development. He also introduce some basic industries to the country. As he nationalize some policies, those policies became the major reason for the loss of industrial units and the faith of investors to invest in Pakistan. For this reason Bhutto’s era was also known as “bad luck era”. His policies created lack of resources and the overall growth was misallocated to 4.8 percent per annum in 1970’s which was 6.8 percent per annum back in 1960’s

General Zia ul Haq took the control over the country in 1977. During this period United States of America was trying to drag Soviet-Union back from Afghanistan. Pakistan somehow participated in that and as result Islamization of Zia were introduced. Well as the country is made on the foundation of religion and being an Islamic Republic Pakistan needed Islamization. Zia introduced Islamization to boost his political support. On the other hand massive foreign aid was received by showing up on the front line against the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the result of investment in Bhutto’s era were positive, the industry started growing hence, in the period of General Zia ul Haq the GDP grew at the average of 6.6 percent per annum. Moreover Pakistan was first time introduced to the structural adjustment program 1982. Also some of the policies were supported by IMF during this time. The country faced double deficit and exchange deficit

tag along with cut back of foreign aid, as Pakistan took loan from SAP and after receiving loan of 3.2 billion US dollars, foreign loans were discontinued by the military government. Pakistan could not manage to return the loan in the given deadline because of the decline in industrial sector which was crucial source of income. This forced the government to look towards Bretton Wood for support and the reaction of this impacted negatively as IMF and World Bank demand Pakistan to increase taxes and cut down public spending which causes downfall in the development of Pakistan.

In the era of Musharraf, investment rate grew by 17.2 percent from 2001-2007 of GDP to 23 percent. The financial obligation or debt was decreased to 16.1 percent from 17.8 percent of GDP. And due to this foreign aid were also allowed to Pakistan much of unilateral as well as bilateral aid was dispatch to Pakistan that is 1.1 billion dollar were sent in 2002 meanwhile in 2003-2004 it was assert that Pakistan is now moving forward and the calamitous era of Pakistan has been ended. Pakistan has achieved massive milestones in the era of Musharraf. The development of Pakistan was showing up in tremendous manner. But there were some reasons for which Musharraf’s was being criticized such as. His period laid on illusion of investment and consumer-led growth. Although the post Musharraf’s era was observed as frightful era for Pakistan. The growth Rate started reducing by 37 percent in 2007-2008. The government was on a critical stage at this moment as Benazir Bhutto was killed and laal masjid incident also happened due to which it faced global financial crisis when Perveiz Musharraf was chief justice of Pakistan. Meanwhile it was now the era of PPP from 2008-2013.

While PPP was in the power, Pakistan faced a lot of turbulence and a natural disaster also showed up which was a flood of 2010. Flood caused a real damage to Pakistan such that if effected agricultural land as well as infrastructure of Pakistan. The land could not produce standard amount of crops which men the backbone of Pakistan was wounded which results downfall in economic by which development of Pakistan was also disrupted and economics rate raised to double digits as growth rates decreased.

Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) came and hold power in 2018. Imran khan came up the vision of ‘Naya Pakistan’ and tried his level best to maintain good relationships with foreign countries. Improve import export and the growth rate was 5.84 in FY18. Meanwhile it was PTI’s era, the world got hit by COVID-19. The progress of Pakistan was somehow better than most of the

countries across the world. The growth rate in FY19 fall till 0.99 and it was recorded 0.38 in FY20

If we talk about agriculture, forestry and fishing, near about one-fourth of Pakistan has fertile a productive soil. Agricultural sector should be given some more attention for the raise of development as agricultural sector plays the role of backbone to any country. On the other hand Pakistan is also blessed with its natural resources and minerals that yet Pakistan hasn’t explore many of its resources.

Agriculture contributed 53 percent in 1947 of GDP while from 1949 to early fifties it was raised to 53.2 percent. Pakistan then became a highly populated country with the population of 30 million where the percent of people living in urban areas were 6 million. With this population massive number of people were working for agricultural production. Almost 65 percent of people living in urban areas choose to work as labor at agricultural sector. Agriculture produces 99.2 percent which contributes to the country’s export and nearly 90 percent foreign exchange earning of Pakistan. The resources of Pakistan especially in east and West Pakistan holds immense water supply and mineral resources. Pakistan has almost 360 US dollar income at early times of 1980’s via its natural resources such as crude oil, coal, natural gas, limestone, and many more. Which helped Pakistan to maintain its head with other countries. The import and export has immense effects on the development. If a country exports less and import more it can cause a serious damage to the economy and vice versa thus, import export plays vital role in the countries development.

Apart from Pakistan’s agriculture, economic, industries, natural resources and other sectors, Pakistan has its roots on many other fields. Pakistan, after the untiring efforts of Doctor Abdul Qadeer Khan and his team, became a nuclear state on 20th January 1972. Giving Pakistan the nuclear power was not less than giving a gun to a soldier. While testing atomic devices Pakistan became nuclear power ranked seventh in the world and the only nuclear power Muslim country. This was indeed a massive step towards development. Prior to this in 1954 and 1956 over billion dollars were received by Pakistan in US military aid which helps Pakistan to develop its military sector and defense capability, and weapons were upgraded while military bases were expended and two of the corps commands were also formed. On the other hand sports has no less success in Pakistan. They are sports which are won by Pakistani players and enlighten the name of

Pakistan around the world. Pakistan won world cup in cricket in the year 1992. Pakistan has won total of 29 international official titles along with 3 gold medals in its national game that is ‘Hockey’ participated in Olympics, the hockey tournaments in which Pakistan got gold medals were held in Rome in 1960, the second gold medal was won at Mexico in 1968 and the third tournament was held in Los Angeles in 1984. Pakistan is a male dominant country and being a male dominant country the women of the country match their shoulders with men in order to make the country developed. Women has given a lot to Pakistan in every field either its sports, education, industries, agriculture or what not. In return Pakistan massive respect. There are separate sectors for women in every field just to make sure their privacy is maintained. Pakistan establish first women university named ‘Jinnah University For Women’ in Karachi, which is especially designed to achieve the vision of educating women of the country. There is no country across the world who has made social and economic development without empowering women. Bangladesh and China gives us the lesson that how they involved their women in awakening era of development of their country. China in 1950s and Bangladesh in 1980s start the route to empower women. Researches have shown that if we compare Pakistani women with Sri Lanka, India and even Bangladesh, Pakistani women are really going well helping their home land to get developed.

Moreover, dams also has contribution towards development of Pakistan. Dams are like keystones to a country’s development as well as a strong source of storing water for the country. By the passage of time Pakistan has built many dams such as Kurram Tangi dam was constructed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the year 2016, Dasu Dam was constructed in the same city of the country in the year 2020, Mohmand Dam was also constructed in the same city in the year 2019 and some dams are still under construction in different parts of the country.

If we compare Pakistan with its neighboring country China, the results shows that China is more developed than Pakistan in every aspect. Either it is with economic conditions, import export, technology or anything, even China had its independence after two years of Pakistan. It is because their strategies and honest government. Pakistan is yet not developed to compete with its neighboring countries viz a viz. there are pros and cons at every stage similarly Pakistan is more developed than some of its neighbor like India and Afghanistan, and also Pakistan is under develop from some countries such as Iran and China. China is one of the most developed

countries across the world, their export rate helps the country to grow faster day by day. Although the countries across the world were drastically hit by corona virus that also started from China in the year 2019. Despite of corona virus, Pakistan performed really well throughout the pandemic era where most of the countries mentioned that how it became impossible for them to survive. The cope up with covid-19 is also a step towards development. The lesson that should be learnt is the strategies that developed countries are implanting and reaching higher development goals.

Since independence, the development of Pakistan has always been in vicissitudes conditions. If we sight from economical point of view the background history of Pakistan seems satisfying. The country faced tons of hardships but made it till 75 years of independence. Although at initial stage country was not so much developed but during the era of Ayyub Khan it maintained the average growth rate to 5.82 percent. But due to unfortunate of Bhutto’s era the marked the growth rate down and could not maintain the required growth rate. Soon in the era of Musharraf country leave no stone unturned and looked forward towards development from 2002-2007. Pakistan drowned into debt by World Bank and IMF and still could not manage to stand economically independent. Despite of this Pakistan has made some visible made some clearly visible developments which include construction of dams, higher tourist record, raise in technology viz a viz other countries and many more. For major development goals Pakistan should mainly focus on the education system and also on the training of the young generation so they could fill their hearts and minds with patriotism and aim passionately for the productive growth of their home land.

Allah almighty has blessed Pakistan with a lot of natural resources and many other things. Pakistan has shown up its development from 1947 till 2022 in every aspect, through GDP, sports, education, tourism, agriculture, technology, infrastructure, and many more other things. Pakistan has learnt from other countries at the time when the country has nothing not it was developed and now Pakistan is at the stage that there are some countries learning from Pakistan. May our country live long.

PAKISTAN ZINDABAD!!!