In the midst of the ongoing tussle between India and Pakistan that has drawn the attention of most of the countries in the world who are now asking both the countries to exercise restraint fearing the world might eventually fall into a nuclear war, much comparison has been made of the military strengths of India and Pakistan and Pakistan, beyond the number of Nuclear weapons, falls very far comparing to India.
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And that is perhaps the reason that the puny country keeps giving nuclear attack threats to India time and again because it knows where it stands comparing to India in other spheres.
In this article, I am not going to make yet another comparison of the military strengths of the two countries but rather I am sharing with you the perspectives of a few Pakistanis who answered the question ‘What are the things Pakistanis think that the Indians are good at as compared to Pakistanis?’ asked on Quora and the responses made by the Pakistanis make all the sense.
Note: The answers/views given by the Pakistanis that you are about to read have been kept unedited to retain their originality. Ignore the errors, if you notice any.
On Bollywood:
1. Bollywood. Enough said. Well not enough. Comparing Bollywood to Lollywood is like comparing Ambani’s 2 billion dollar skyscraper mansion in Mumbai to the slums a few km away. Actually that is not accurate. Bollywood is way better than Lollywood than Ambani’s mansion is to a slum. Really. (Khalid Omar, Pakistaneologist)
2. Biggest film industry in the world. I mean I don’t have to elaborate on this. Though I don’t watch Bollywood but keep it up guys. (Hassan H Khan, My name is Khan and I am a Pakistani.)
On Women’s Rights and Empowerment:
1. India has many, many women’s rights issue but Pakistan has many more issues. For example, the Indian government doesn’t tolerate large groups of armed men who go around blowing up hundreds of girls’ schools, let alone shooting them in the head. (Khalid Omar, Pakistaneologist)
2. India is slightly better, as educated, confident and independent girls from Indian side are much more common than across the border, although villages and semi urban areas are having same problems. (Anonymous)
On Information and Technology:
1. Pakistan is way behind India in producing IT experts. That can easily be proven by number of IT people from India working in big Companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft. We are 1 generation behind India in IT. (Imran Jawaid, Concerned Citizen of Pakistan)
2. What the Indian government is doing with UID is incredible. It is one of the most important things happening in the world today, and it is being done with Indian talent and expertise, built over decades of an incredible IT boom. (Khalid Omar, Pakistaneologist)
On Army:
1. The Army stays in its barracks in India. Forget routine military coups, they don’t even go around telling the government how to run India. That is a VERY GOOD THING. (Khalid Omar, Pakistaneologist)
On Cricket:
1. Cricket seems a wash, but in India there is an actually vibrant domestic cricket thing going on. In Pakistan domestic cricket is a bit like having domestic servants – people know they exist and international players spring from them, but know as much about that process as how tea magically appears. (Khalid Omar, Pakistaneologist)
2. Indian Domestic Cricket is far better than Pakistan. We have lots of monopoly and corruption in Pakistan Cricket Board. I know these things exist in Indian Cricket Board as well but overall structure of Indian Domestic Cricket is better than Pakistan. (Imran Jawaid, Concerned Citizen of Pakistan)
On Governance:
1. Having an international backbone: The Indian government, bad as it can be, often tries to do things from an Indian point of view.
The Pakistani government often does whatever an international power wants it to do, long as there is a large cheque attached with the request, whether mindlessly supporting American wars, Saudi wahabism or selling large tracts of agricultural land cheaply to multinationals.
A good example is India banned Saudi’s from hunting Houbara bustards in India because a royal raped a girl, while in Pakistan when the same thing happened the Pakistani government just looked the other way. (Khalid Omar, Pakistaneologist)
2. Federalism and decentralization: State governments in India have real power and can actually do things. In Pakistan all state governments can do is go begging to the locally posted Army commander, or throw strikes. In widely disparate countries like India and Pakistan, for all its drawbacks, it is a good thing for individual states to have real power. (Khalid Omar, Pakistaneologist)
3. Election System: After every election there are rigging allegations in Pakistan. And mostly they are not wrong allegations either. Our voting system is so much corrupt. Despite we are computerizing our Police, education, hospitals and many other fields. But government never let the election system to get computerized. (Imran Jawaid, Concerned Citizen of Pakistan)
4. Judiciary System: India has better and much more Independent Judiciary System than Pakistan. Despite Judiciary movement in Pakistan, our courts are not free, they are too much influenced by the Politicians. There is hardly ever a judgment against any corrupt politician or any big person. On other hand we have seen Indian Judiciary giving verdict against big actors as far my knowledge. (Imran Jawaid, Concerned Citizen of Pakistan)
Miscellaneous:
1. Making motorbikes and scooters: Damn India is so much better at that! If you were ever to compare prices and choice b/w the Pakistani and Indian market for two wheeled transports you would break down and cry at the sheer madness that Pakistan doesn’t save it’s middle class a tonnage of money by importing some scooters from India. (Khalid Omar, Pakistaneologist)
2. The Tata Group and many other conglomerates: India has it’s share of sleazy businesses but companies like Tata do the country proud. Pakistan has no equivalent of a pretty clean, world-class large business. (Khalid Omar, Pakistaneologist)
3. Freedom to travel: Indians are far more welcome to many more countries around the world than Pakistani’s. Blame 9/11, or burgeoning western hatred for Islam, or whatever, but it is much harder to get a visa to anywhere if you are Pakistani. (Khalid Omar, Pakistaneologist)
Bottom line is, not every Pakistani is illogical and keeps head buried into the sand because the truth is hurting and not aligns with his/her expectations. There are people who can see beyond the misleading propaganda and actually have the courage to speak in favor of the country that their nation sees as an archenemy for absurd reasons.
Let’s end the article here. But if you want to read more, follow this link.