Adil Najam
The results to our most recent ATP Poll – on the biggest threats facing Pakistan’s future – may be the most surprising results to have come out of any ATP Poll ever.
As in any poll one can quibble about which categories should or should not have been chosen. If, as some have suggested, we combine the category on “corruption and bad governance” (150 votes, 21%) with the category on “incompetent political leaders” (143 votes, 20%) then our own politicians, bureaucracy and establishment becomes the biggest threat (combined 293 votes, 41%). But even with that so, nearly as many people voted for what is now the top answer – religious extremism and violence is the biggest threat to Pakistan (286 votes, 40%). There is, indeed, a strong recognition of the internal wars being fought in and against Pakistan today!
Although 711 is a decent sized sample, this is a blog poll and should not be taken any more seriously than that because the sample is self-selected and non-scientific.
However, the real surprise here is not what people voted for, but what they did not vote for. For example, despite all the rhetoric and chest-beating one hears, only 40 votes (5%) felt that “USA and the West” are Pakistan’s biggest threat. Even more surprisingly, only 21 votes (3%) felt that India – the supposed arch-nemesis of Pakistan – is the main threat facing Pakistan today. With 19 and 18 votes (3% each) the categories of “Economic and resource challenges” including poverty and “Ethnic and Provincial fault-lines” make up the bottom.
So, what is happening here. Why did “India” or “The West” not get more votes even though the discourse most often talks about them? What does it say that the largest threats identified – more than 80 percent of the total vote – is in three categories that are all internally driven? Have new threats increased in size, or have old ones receded in impact? Thoughts, dear readers?
I think Farrukh has hit the nail on the head by pointing out that if the poll had asked for top 3 threats, the results might have been different. Some of the answers that have received very few votes might have gotten a lot more then.
Also, there is a sample bias in favour of english speaking people, though I’m not sure how different the results from a more representative sample might have been.
I also think this was a very good poll, because it asked for what the biggest threat was one had to choose. I would certainly say that all the others are also threat and certainly US interference is very bad. But clearly there is no greater enemy of Pakistan today than the Taliban murderers.
I agree with others that biggest threat to Pakistan are the extremists and terrorists.
One of your best polls ever bc it forced people to prioritize and not waffle with slogans.
One of the very serious crises brewing in Pakistan is the growing water scarcity. As we all know, water is essential for sustaining life.
Last summer, farmers in agricultural heartland of Pakistan began to notice the levels of both the river and groundwater starting to fall.
Pakistan has blamed India, saying it is withholding millions of cubic feet of water upstream in Indian-administered Kashmir and storing it in the massive Baglihar dam in order to produce hydro-electricity.
As is often said, the India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir is much more about Indus water than about a piece of land. The headwaters of the Indus River are located in Kashmir. Whomever controls the headwaters, controls the river. The Indus is vital. It brings green fertile life wherever it flows. The Indus begins in Kashmir, then flows through Pakistan, then flows into mainland India. If India chose, since Kashmir is controlled by it, they could dam the Indus and change the flow of the river, as they are apparently doing at Baglihar over Chenab. Without fertile land to grow crops, Pakistan would become a desert and its people would starve.
The Obama plan envisions persuading Pakistan to stop focusing military resources on its regional rival, India, so it can concentrate more on fighting insurgents in its FATA region. This goal may be especially hard to achieve given the longstanding Kashmir dispute, the history of three wars in South Asia in more than a half century