the school bullies already have your lunch money, and largely work together, though sometimes they get into small tiffs and very infrequently into major fights. the school allows smaller classroom bullies to operate in each classroom and one or more of the major school bullies gives your classroom bully a small cut in exchange for more or less doing what he wants. Then the door to your classroom is locked from the outside by the school bully, and you have no lunch for about 200 consecutive days. then some other people start begging him to throw some food in the window, which he refuses to do and instead gives a small amount of your lunch money to the classroom bully so he’ll fight with certain people in your class.

then two thirds of your classroom gets flooded, the door is still locked, and no one outside pays attention.

if you prefer sound history to stories, try ayesha jalal in south asia and world capitalism (there’s a booklength version of her essay) or ian talbot or chrstophe jaffrelot or any number of others on the history of pakistan or mushtaq khan on the political economy of pakistan. such interesting facts emerge as: at independence, india inherited 90% of the industry in british india while pakistan inherited 10%; the u.s. and the uk actively promoted militarism and the military in pakistan just after independence, building on what the uk had done during colonialism when pakistan was a border area and punjabis were racialised as a ‘martial race’; pakistan had a relatively successful industrial policy in the 1950s; islamism in pakistan only took force after zia; the military now always runs things in pakistan, even during ‘civilian periods’ like the 1990s and increasing social and economic power and this has been directly fueled by the united states in its anti-soviet cold war funding as well as its ‘war on terror’ funding.

etc etc etc – as in pakistan is a real place with a real history and social context that is part of a broader history and social context; it doesn’t exist solely in the imagination of indian nationalists or the game theorisation of internationalists in the west or the imaginations of pakistani islamists. this is kind of crucial because to me, pakistan currently seems like a country that is being pushed into political instability by external powers, has an ongoing nuclear standoff with a neighboring country and occasional conventional wars, does not have profoundly socially responsive social institutions.

so if you care about such things as peace, indian industrialisation, non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, etc., even if you couldn’t give a f”£k about ordinary pakistanis, it’s probably in your best interests to consider what happens when 1/3 of a country and 20 million people get affected by a humanitarian disaster.

but that’s the realpolitik argument – i think it makes more sense to simply try to help because help is needed

These atrocious acts may go on in India as well, but the fact is India is, and is seen as, a very progressive country. Progressive meaning that it’s constantly striving to empower more and more people. In a poor, developing country which is also democratic, this is an arduous task. But India is committed to it. India is also a dynamic country economically, and very accomplished in its own right.

the largest overall donors were the united states government (@ a quarter of all aid contributed or legally committed up to that point) and the Saudi and British governments (about a tenth each). fourth was individual people and organisations. but if you take the size of the populations into account, the largest donors were scandinavian and gulf arab governments. So the argument that governments of Muslim countries are not pledging any money is ridiculous and totally besides the point.

You can find more up to date data here: http://reliefweb.int/rw/fts.nsf/doc105?OpenForm&rc=3&emid=FL-2010-000141-PAK

My opinion is that Indians and Indians living all through the world should help our friends from the north out. Let’s get some good-will going. This makes me irritated when I found out the Indians only donated $25M or so. That’s an insult, and I know we can do better than this.

www. ahmedquraishi. com/2010/08/21/india-causes-fresh-pakistan-floods/

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