One world, two nuts

Here’s a question for far greater minds than mine to answer: Why hasn’t North Korea, which lays claim to all of South Korea, behaved like Pakistan, which lays claim to only a very tiny portion of India? 

After all, in most other respects there is little to choose from between them. They are like two peas in a pod.

Thus, both got rid of their colonial masters around the same time: Korea in 1945 and in 1947 Pakistan got created. Both were the result of a partition. 

One partition was caused by common but reluctant consent. The other was caused by Russia and America. And therein lies an irony.

The British thought India and Pakistan could govern themselves. The Russians and the Americans thought that Korea was unfit for self-rule.

So the British walked away leaving India and Pakistan to it. But the Russians and the Americans created two protectorates — one each in the North and the South of Korea.

In the event, while India and South Korea showed they could govern themselves, Pakistan and North Korea have shown they can’t, not quite.

Pakistan immediately went to war against India — just two months after breaking away. North Korea went to war against South Korea in 1950. In 1953, its army was roundly defeated. Korea formally broke into two in 1953. 

The same thing happened to the Pakis­tan army in 1971. Pakistan broke into two.

The Koreans now have the demilitarised zone (DMZ). We have the LAC (Line of Actual Control), now called the LOC (Line of Control).

The Russians groomed the North Korean Army and armed it. They even helped out with nuclear technology. 

The Americans didn’t go that far but th­e­y did arm Pakistan to the teeth. They also turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s progress towards nuclear weapons in the 1980s.

In the 1990s, the Russians dumped North Korea as a huge nuisance. The Americans dumped Pakistan for the same reason — also in the 1990s.

Freed from American pressure, Pakistan tested its nuclear weapon in 1998. North Korea tested its in 2006.

Today, both have become Chinese protec­torates. China has a veto on international cooperation against these two countries.

The North Korean economy is in a me­ss. The Pakistan economy is also in a mess..

The differences

But major similarities end here. North Korea, after some initial acts of terrorism, gave it up in 1983. Pakistan started developing terrorism exactly then, in fact, in the same month — October. 

North Korean troops indulged in some minor transgressions of the DMZ and the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea. But Pakistan, the lakhs of minor skirmishes apart, has gone the whole hog at the LOC — not once but four times. On that score, at least, it is the bigger nutcase.

Another difference: The North Korean army knows its limits and has behaved itself. The Pakistan army, in contrast, has no concept of limits and has been causing mayhem wherever it can, including within Pakistan. Its Jihadi groups are like those country made handguns of North India: They can fire in both directions.

However, in mitigation, Pakistan chooses its head of government via elections. North Korea takes the hereditary route. 

But the real power in both countries lies with the army. Pakistan’s prime minister app­oints the army chief and is then controlled by him. 

In North Korea, the top guy heads everything but is just as vulnerable to the army’s power. If the army wants it can depose him in a jiffy.

In Pakistan, there is active politics, a vibrant civil society, a reasonably free press, an excellent judiciary and a general longing to be rid of the army yoke. In North Korea, it is the very opposite. 

Pakistan has a great sense of humour. North Korea has the Great Leader who decides when a citizen may laugh.

The paradoxes

There was a time when the US dandled Pakistan on its knees and treated North Korea like a wild hooligan. Now it is the other way around.

North Korea is being pulled out of its 65-year isolation by, of all countries, the US. In contrast, Pakistan is being pushed in­­to it after 65 years by, of all countries, the US.

Russia, which had always treated Pakistan as a pariah, is now trying to prevent this isolation thing. And China is picking up the debris of the old relationships, more so in Pakistan than in North Korea.

In the end, though, everyone has a bad feeling about all this because neither North Korea nor Pakistan can be trusted. They are like that only, total nutjobs because, as has been well said, while other countries have armies, in Pakistan and North Korea the armies have a country.