Thinking About Size?

Off late, I have developed an interest in the affairs of Kashmir, a beautiful place, still a part of India!! At present the protests of the people belonging to Kashmir valley are much in news in the electronic media; I have also chosen some Kashmiris as my friends on a very popular social networking website, even though I have had very few friends belonging to it in real life and that I never had an opportunity to visit Kashmir, Jammu or Ladakh (the three distinctive parts of the J&K state of India). I did some recent research on the history of the discontent in Kashmir, I have gone through a rather informative blog of a Kashmiri Journalist, Nasser A Ganai and then thought about it a bit. What I gathered is that the people of Kashmir did not wholeheartedly wanted to be Indians, they have desired independence from the Indian State for long, but the popular opinion has been suppressed by the much more powerful Government of India for the last sixty years. I thought a bit about size and shapes of physical object and published replies to many question about them in a popular science mag, the Science Reporter, about a decade back. But at present my thoughts are directed toward sizes on independent countries. I am wondering if small countries are indeed sustainable in todays world. More specifically, that suppose Kashmir got its independence from India and Pakistan, will it be successful in fulfilling the aspirations of its population for long? My thoughts were triggered by the reasons behind the callousness of the Indian government towards the aspirations of the people belonging to Kashmir. As usual I undertook some research through the Internet and found that: largest countries, (in terms of population) are China and India. By coincidence China and India have the two highest rates of economic growth in the world. (China about 10.9%, India 7.0%) However, this does not prove that populous countries will always have the highest rate of growth. For example, if we went back to the 1960s, it was likely China had a negative growth rate during the disastrous great leap forward of Mao where up-to 20 million died of starvation. One reason why China and India have a fast growth rate is that there is a lot of catching up to do. e.g Chinas old state owned industries were very inefficient and at the moment there are many potential efficiency gains. The number of people in a country is not important, the key issues is how the economy is organized and whether a countries natural resources are utilized. In a sense, Chinas high population is helping the countries economic growth. There are so many Chinese workers willing to work for low wages, the labour supply curve is almost perfectly elastic; this has enabled Chinese exports to remain very competitive.

Richest Countries and the Size of A Country

Another interesting question to ask is whether the richest countries in terms of GDP per Capita have high populations? 1. Luxembourg $56,380 2. Norway $51,810 3. Switzerland $49,600 4. United States $41,440

5. Denmark $40,750 6. Iceland $37,920 7. Japan $37,050 8. Sweden $35,840 9. Ireland $34,310 10. United Kingdom $33,630 So size is not necessarily and impediment to economic growth of some countries even when they are rather small. But, then my thoughts turned to small countries surrounding India: Sri Lanka, Burma, Bangladesh and Nepal. None of these countries, except perhaps Sri Lanka can be said to have demonstrated their success for human development. But, then Sri Lanka is an island country surrounded on all sides by nothing else then the Indian Ocean, Nepal has common border with India and China alone; India is rather a benevolent neighbour, because it is inhabited by Hindus predominantly. Similar is the case with Bangladesh, it has a common border with India and is otherwise a coastal area. But suppose Muslim dominated Kashmir were to become independent, firstly its size would be minuscule (without the area presently identified as Jammu and Ladakh), secondly it would be surrounded by three large countries, India, Pakistan and China. India and Pakistan would not be expected to be very sympathetic to it for obvious reasons. It would always suffer of insecurity because of the nefarious designs of its nearest neighbors. Even though it is often termed as the Switzerland of the east, will it be equally successful economically? I had some doubts and searched a bit more on the Net till I found a research paper entitled Size Matters for Growth: Government Size, Country Size, and GDP Growth. According to this paper, small countries cannot be expected to have sufficient economic growth, because they do not have enough surplus funds for investment for it. A large fraction of the funds generated by taxes is used for salaries of the government servants. Then there is always a greedy and powerful section of the population that would exploit the resources for its personal gain. Kashmir at present has a lots of pristine beauty, but imagine it being commercialized many times then at present to generate sufficient revenue for its growth and security. What then is the best possible solution for its young population that is sick of the exploitation and suppression they face almost daily? The Kashmiris, who are now clamoring for independence from India, should recognize that they are not the only segment of the Indian population that is facing such treatment. There are many undeveloped poor regions in India, who are facing similar problems. I have in mind poor tribal people of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand etc. These areas as we all know are witnessing violence of Maoist militia. In fact it is a fact of life, that the rich and powerful would always exploit the poor uneducated people as much as they can, till they protest vehemently and are brought in limelight by the media, that is hungry to get as much power it can. A possible plausible solution would be to part of larger conglomerate of nations, a union of states like the European Union, Soviet Union or USA where people are free to fulfill some of their aspirations for freedom, but still are under the umbrella of a big enough government that provides security from wolves of the world and help during natural calamities. Is it possible that Indians learn some lessons about novel modes of public protest from Kashmiris; who in turn realize that it may be far more profitable to strengthen their brotherly relations with Indians at large who though may appear to be indifferent to their sufferings, if only because they are themselves used to similar treatment from the powerful Indians. But, that may not be the only possible solution, look at the difficulties that larger unions are facing nowadays!! Rakesh Mohan Hallen