On 4th May 1947, Quaid e Azam stated that the British partition plan had given him a “mutilated, truncated, moth-eaten Pakistan”. In 1971, Pakistan was further truncated with the creation of Bangladesh, this time at the hand of its arch-enemy India. Alas, Pakistan is again facing a similar situation and this time it is India and Afghanistan that are conspiring to further truncate Pakistan by fueling the insurgency in Balochistan.

Pakistan came into being a disadvantaged state especially compared to its larger and stronger neighbor India. Though Pakistan was granted about 24% of the total land mass of the Indian subcontinent but got only 10% of its industrial base and 16% of its financial assets. The mainstay of the economy was agriculture, yet the income generated through it was not sufficient enough to generate industrialization. Jute export was a major source of foreign exchange earnings but there was not even a single Jute mill in Pakistan; all the Jute mills were in India. Pakistan was to get 750 million rupees out of the 4 billion rupees in the reserve bank, but only 200 million were transferred.

In addition to this, the massive refugee influx in the first months of independence and conflict on Kashmir exacerbated its sense of insecurity as a state The Pakistani leadership believed that India had not accepted the partition wholeheartedly and would continue to threaten Pakistan’s existence to achieve Akhund Baharat. This made Pakistan a security state giving the military a major role in devising policies,........

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