| THE THORN OF DEMOCRACY Pakistan has one leg shorter than the other; it leans on imports to keep itself upright. Nowhere is this more visible than in the continuing trade imbalance that yawns wider and wider each year. The prices of commodities that it has to import, such as oil and petroleum products, increase disproportionately to the value it receives for its exports. If there has been any diversification, it has been in its sources of supply which now include India, from whom Pakistan had begun to import its tea with sugar. |
| The one commodity that is unlikely to find a place in the trade list of commodities that could be imported into Pakistan is Indian-style Democracy. Nowhere is that more apparent than at Wagah border, where democracy stops at the white line than divides India and Pakistan. The same colour of coolies carry goods on similarly bowed shoulders to the same border, and from it on the other side. The only difference is that one set of coolies has been exercising his vote in free and fair national elections, and the other is still hoping to. |
| What is it that can cause a democratic tradition to blossom on one side of the border, and yet fail to take root in identical soil a few feet away on the other? [EXTRACT] |
| Published in DAWN 30 Jan.2006. |
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