AI Generated Summary
- India and Pakistan were born almost as twins — separated by an arbitrary border, bound by a shared colonial past, and launched into the modern world with battered economies and fractured societies.
- India has surged into the ranks of the world’s most powerful economies and largest democracies, while Pakistan has faltered, burdened by political instability, economic crises, and the persistent shadow of its military establishment.
- India spent $86 billion on defence in 2024, the fifth-largest in the world, compared to Pakistan’s $10.
In August 1947, the British Raj loosened its imperial grip, and two nations emerged blinking into the light of independence. India and Pakistan were born almost as twins — separated by an arbitrary border, bound by a shared colonial past, and launched into the modern world with battered economies and fractured societies.
Seventy-eight years later, the symmetry has collapsed. India has surged into the ranks of the world’s most powerful economies and largest democracies, while Pakistan has faltered, burdened by political instability, economic crises, and the persistent shadow of its military establishment. The story of these two nations is no longer one of parallel journeys, but of diverging destinies.
The Economics of Divergence
When Britain departed, both India and Pakistan inherited economies stripped bare. Historian Angus Maddison estimated that India’s share of global GDP had collapsed from 24.4 percent in 1700 to just 4.2 percent by 1950. The plunder was staggering: an Oxfam report in 2025 estimated that the British extracted $64.82 trillion from India between 1765 and 1900 alone.
The real turning point came in the 1990s, when India dismantled its licence-permit-quota system and embraced market liberalisation. The reforms unleashed entrepreneurship, foreign investment, and technological innovation. Annual GDP growth surged to 7–8 percent, pulling hundreds of millions out of poverty. By June 2025, India had become the world’s fourth-largest economy — more than ten times Pakistan’s $0.37 trillion — and is projected to overtake Germany by 2028.
Pakistan’s economy, by contrast, has stumbled from crisis to crisis. Reliant on foreign aid and repeated IMF bailouts — the 2024 programme was its 24th — it struggles with high debt, low reserves, and anaemic industrial output. India’s foreign exchange reserves now exceed $688 billion; Pakistan’s barely touch $15 billion. Per capita income in purchasing-power terms tells the same story: India’s is nearly double Pakistan’s.
The divergence is not just in numbers but in self-confidence. India increasingly frames itself as an engine of global growth. Pakistan, mired in fiscal fragility, risks being defined by its dependency.
Military Power: Unequal Guardians
The rivalry between India and Pakistan has been as much martial as economic. Four wars, countless skirmishes, and a near-permanent state of military alert have shaped both nations’ identities. Yet even here, India’s lead is widening.
In 2025, Global Firepower ranked India the fourth-strongest military in the world; Pakistan stood at twelfth. India fields 1.46 million active troops, more than double Pakistan’s 654,000, and backs them with 1.15 million reserves and 2.5 million paramilitary personnel. Its arsenal includes 4,201 tanks and over 148,000 armoured vehicles, compared to Pakistan’s far smaller fleets.
In the air, India’s advantage is equally stark: 2,229 aircraft, including Rafales, Su-30MKIs, and indigenous Tejas fighters, against Pakistan’s 1,399. India operates six aerial refuelling tankers; Pakistan has four. Both nations are nuclear powers — India with 180 warheads, Pakistan with 170 — but India’s declared “No First Use” policy stands in contrast to Pakistan’s more ambiguous nuclear posture.
Military expenditure tells its own tale. India spent $86 billion on defence in 2024, the fifth-largest in the world, compared to Pakistan’s $10.2 billion. For India, the military is part of a broader vision of national power; for Pakistan, it has too often been the central — and stifling — arbiter of politics.
Democracy and Its Discontents
Both countries began with democratic aspirations. India held its first general election in 1951–52; Pakistan’s came nearly two decades later, in 1970. Since then, India has remained a democracy, fully intact. In the 2024 general election, 945 million people were eligible to vote, making it the largest democratic exercise in human history.
Pakistan’s democratic story has been troubled. Military coups in 1958, 1977, and 1999 interrupted civilian rule, and even in peacetime, the army and its powerful intelligence service have exerted decisive influence over national policy. In 2025, rumours of another coup swirled after army chief Asim Munir elevated himself to Field Marshal.
The difference is not merely institutional. India’s political culture, for all its partisanship, has nurtured a stable transfer of power through elections. Pakistan’s has repeatedly been reset by force.
Women’s Rights: Miles to Go, Miles Apart
India’s progress outpaces Pakistan’s. The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Gender Gap Report ranked India 131st and Pakistan 148th. In Pakistan, the scale of gender-based violence is staggering: in 2024 alone, over 24,000 cases of abduction and kidnapping were reported, alongside more than 5,000 rapes and 500 honour killings — with conviction rates under 2 percent.
The figures suggest not only a gap in legal outcomes but a deeper divide in political will, public discourse, and grassroots activism.
The Cultural and Sporting Arena
In cricket, the subcontinent’s most fervent theatre of rivalry, India dominates. Ranked the world’s top ODI team in 2025, it eclipses Pakistan’s fifth place. Their Champions Trophy clash in Dubai earlier this year drew a record 206 million television viewers — a testament to the enduring emotional charge of their encounters.
Beyond cricket, India’s sporting rise has been steady. Its athletes have won 41 Olympic medals since 1900, compared to Pakistan’s 11. This is partly a function of investment in sports infrastructure and partly an outgrowth of India’s growing middle class and corporate sponsorship base.
Culturally, India has leveraged its soft power — from Bollywood to its vast diaspora — to project influence far beyond its borders. Pakistan’s cultural output, while rich, remains constrained by political instability and smaller global networks.
Two Nations, Two Futures
The contrast between India and Pakistan in 2025 is not inevitable — it is the result of choices. India’s turn toward economic liberalisation, its investment in education and technology, and its insistence on maintaining electoral democracy have compounded over decades. Pakistan’s periodic military rule, economic mismanagement, and overreliance on strategic rent — trading geostrategic location for foreign aid have trapped it in a cycle of dependency.
That divergence is accelerating. India is positioning itself as a central player in the emerging multipolar world order, deepening ties with the United States, Europe, and East Asia while courting investment from the Gulf. Pakistan, despite its strategic location, risks marginalisation, dependent on IMF tranches and political patronage from Beijing and Riyadh.
Yet the two nations remain bound by geography, history, and — most importantly — the aspirations of their people. For Pakistan, India’s trajectory need not be a taunt; it could be a blueprint. For India, Pakistan’s struggles are a reminder of how easily democratic and economic gains can be squandered.
Independence and Interdependence
As India celebrates August 15 and Pakistan August 14, the anniversaries invite both pride and reflection. Independence is not a static achievement but a continuing project. For Pakistan, the task is more urgent: to restore economic stability, reassert civilian supremacy, and rekindle the promise of 1947.
Seventy-eight years ago, both nations stood at the same starting line. Today, one is sprinting ahead; the other is struggling to stay in the race.
