A Pakistan in India: Ready to explode

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A neighbour that we all despise. A country that was called ‘Global Migraine’ Madeline Albright, former US secretary of state. She was quoted as “My own sense is Pakistan has everything that gives you an international migraine. It has nuclear weapons, it has terrorism, extremists, corruption, very poor and it is in a location that is really, really important to us.” 

It will not be wrong to say that a similar state also exists in India as well, just remove the terrorism characteristic, rather replace it with gangs and crime. A state that is not less than a migraine, but holds humongous importance for India. A huge landmass that is as large as Pakistan in terms of population but is approx one-third of it in area. Unfortunately, has GDP even lower than that of our neighbour’s.


A state that is nothing but a bummer to India’s growth. While most of the states in India are showing trends of a shrinking population, this state is growing at a whopping rate of approx 2.7%. Appalling, this place has been matching our deeply despised neighbour for all the wrong reasons. Recently released National Family Health Survey 5 data reveals that 37.5%, that is almost half of the state’s population is living in poverty. It is quite close to beating Pakistan as recent data by World Bank shows a similar trend in the Islamic Republic, where 39% of people are living under poverty line. 


Irony at its best, this state sends the most number of MPs to Lok Sabha, and the party who rules the state, rules the country. The state, as most of you must have guessed by now, is none other than Uttar Pradesh. The leader of all the laggards, which has only Bihar as the other contender competing with it for the last position on a majority of indicators.


Noise of empty utensils can soon make India go deaf

Courtesy: The Hindu

These are the finding from recent NFHS 5 phase 2 data, which has quite successfully held mirror to the Hindi heartland. In the report by NITI aayog, there have been many surprises, some on the good side, and many on the grim side. While West Bengal and Punjab have performed astonishingly well than what was expected, the BIMARU states have owed up to their reputation of being the deadweight. Though states being called bimaru might sound rude to people of these respective states, but some euphemisms are so close to truth that experts find being proven right rather appalling.


But this is not where the bigger problem lies, but it lies in the future. With a new parliament being built with a capacity of 888 Lok Sabha MPs and the process of delimitation due in 2026, it seems like laggards will be deciding the future of the whole country. If the condition for determining constituencies is kept the same as it was before the first general election, it will be nothing less than a curse for India. 


Anyhow, it will not be wrong to claim that progressive states will be punished for delivering on their promises while the poor, indulged in identity politics and forced into quagmires of false hopes by their leaders, will be deciding the future of the country, which, going by these factors, seems to be quite dark.


Location: New Delhi, Delhi, India

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