Development is an accepted goal and trajectory of societal progress. The model of development are the societies of the Global North.

The world is imagined and experienced as a world divided between two major blocs of countries, i.e., Global North and Global South, with neither including Russia and China.

North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia broadly constitute the West or the Global North bloc, and the rest of the countries form the "Third World" or Global South bloc. There are visible and remarkable differences in the standard of living and technological advancement between the two blocs.

The Global North is developed, while the Global South is primarily underdeveloped. The salvation of the Global South is seen in its progress to attain the same stage of development as the North. There are many myths and perceptions regarding how the Global South countries can also develop.

Here an effort will be made to bust these myths, take a cursory, critical review of development history, and raise fundamental questions.

Let us examine the common perceptions about the development and underdevelopment of these blocs.

Why is Europe developed?

Many reasons for the development are presented, such as the Global North has advantages in the market, small populations, a liberal and rational setup, good governance, and a scientific approach.

Why did the Global South not develop?

Many justifications and causes are advocated for the underdevelopment of the Global South, such as that people are generally lazy, huge populations, people have too many children, people hold backward cultural values, poor soils, bad governance, and corruption.

Some of the standard views and myths are the following;

• if rich countries are rich, it's due to their talent and hard work;

• if developing countries are poor, they have no one to blame but themselves;

• and the western development approach holds that economic development occurs in a succession of capitalist stages. Today's underdeveloped countries are still in a stage sometimes depicted as an original stage of history through which the now developed countries passed long ago. So, at some point, the Global South countries will reach that stage and become prosperous and wealthy nations like Europe.

The history of Global South and Global North countries has been discussed by Andre Gunder Frank in his article titled "The development of underdevelopment”. According to him underdevelopment is not original or traditional. It is a state of economy and society that has been imposed by the colonizers on these societies during the past 500 years. This imposition continues today.

This approach has been internalized in the Global South by most intellectuals, economists, development experts, and politicians because it represents the philosophy of the capitalist systems and their vested interests. This approach, however, completely ignores the history of development and underdevelopment.

So, if the past histories of the Global North and South were different, one could ask the question: were the living standards in the Global North and South different? Let us examine history with respect to the living standards of the Global North and South.

The contemporary living standards of the Global North are far superior compared to the Global South countries. However, historical review shows that in the 16th century at the start of colonization, there was no appreciable difference in income and living standards between the Global North and the Global South. If anything, people living in the Global South were by and large much better off than those in the Global North.

What happened after the 16th century? How did Global North countries become developed, and the Global South become underdeveloped and impoverished?

Jason Hickel discusses this question in his book titled The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquests to Free Markets. The European powers (Global North) had been controlling vast regions of the South since as early as 1492. Europe's industrial revolution was only possible because of the resources they extracted from their colonies. Gold and silver from the mountains of Latin America provided capital for industrial investment. It also provided the money to buy land in the East, which led them to transfer their labour power from agriculture to industry. The plunder of Latin America left 70 million Indigenous people dead. In India, 30 million people died of famine under the British Raj".

India's development under the British Raj

In his book Inglorious Empire: what the British did to India, Sashi Tharoor^[3] wrote that from 1618 to 1707, India under Emperor Aurangzeb was economically stronger than England. According to Sashi, India's revenue was 10 times more than England's during this period.

There is a prevalent misconception that during colonial rule, the British developed India. The historical evidence does not support this delusion.

Let us take the example of the state of industry before the British colonized India. Sashi mentions that Indian industry was destroyed, as was Indian trade, shipping, and shipbuilding.

Before the British occupation East India Company arrived, Bengal, Masulipatnam, Surat, and the Malabar ports of Calicut and Quilon had a thriving shipbuilding industry, and Indian shipping plied the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Marathas even ran a substantial fleet in the sixteenth century. The Bengal fleet in the early seventeenth century included 4,000 to 5,000 ships of 400 to 500 tons each.

To reduce competition after the capture of Bengal in 1757, the East India Company and the British ships that they contracted were given a monopoly on trade routes, including those formerly used by the Indian merchants.

Let us discuss another example from India's steel industry, which shows how the colonial power changed the course of Indigenous development for its own economic interests. Sashi has cited that "The British were unalterably opposed to India developing its own steel industry. India had, of course, been a pioneer of steel as early as the sixteenth century. After colonization, the British learned as much of technology as possible and then shut down India’s metallurgical industries by the end of the eighteenth century."

There is another myth about British colonial power educating Indians. This myth portrays that all people of India were illiterate before the British colonized them. Sashi, contrary to this fallacy, brought in interesting facts and figures. According to him, "The British left India with a literacy rate of 16% and a female literacy rate of 8%—only one of every twelve Indian women could read and write in 1947."

Educating the masses was not a British priority. American writer and historian Will Durant points out: "When the British came, there was a system of communal schools, managed by the village communities throughout India. The agents of the East India Company destroyed these village communities' schools and took no step to replace the schools even today (1930) – they stand at only 66% of their number a hundred years ago. There are now in India 730,000 villages and only 162,015 primary schools. Only 7 % of the boys and 1 percent of the girls receive schooling, i.e., 4% (?) of the whole – such schools as the government has established are not free but exact a tuition fee which looks large to a family always hovering on the edge of starvation."

Sashi has documented facts and figures regarding Indian textile manufacturing as well. According to him, "Britain's industrial revolution was built on destroying India's thriving manufacturing industries. Textiles were an emblematic case in point. British systematically set about destroying India's textiles manufacturing and export, substituting Indian textiles with British ones manufactured in England."

Further, Shashi wrote that "The extinction of Indian textile manufacturing under the British colonial raj is a typical example where colonial masters not only used the crude destruction methods of demolishing the Indian manufacturing units, breaking thumbs of the weavers but used most sophisticated modern techniques of imposing duties and tariffs of 70 to 80 percent on whatever Indian textiles survived making their exports to Britain unavailable. Indian Textiles were remarkably cheap, so much so that British manufacturers unable to compete. The soldiers of East India company systematically smashed the looms of Bengali Weavers".

"The India world export share was 27 percent before British colonized, and due to British colonial policies, it fell to 2 percent. In the words of East India Company stalwart administrator Lord William Bentinck "the bones of the cotton weavers were bleeding in the plains of Indus."

India, under British colonialism, did not develop or progress. Instead, people by and large faced harsh economic conditions. Contrary to this many believe that India, under colonialism, developed and became prosperous. Sashi has reviewed the historical records and mentioned that there were several famine during British colonial rule and has quoted the following list of major famines, which negate the impression that the British Raj brought prosperity and well-being to the Indian people.

Famine fatality figures are horrifying: from 1770 to 1900, about 25 million Indians died. The famines of the 20th century probably took well over 35 million lives.

More questions on development

In the context of development, two other pertinent questions also require discussion.

First, while capitalism was a source of development for the Global North countries, yet the advent of capitalism in the Global South did not bear the same fruit, rather it ended up with underdevelopment. What happened? What were the causes of the underdevelopment of the Global South?

Was it the result of century-long participation in the process of world capitalist development? Did the contemporary relationships seen in the Global South result from its natural development or were they created by the advent of colonialism?

Andre Frank, in his article, addresses the above questions. According to him, "The economic, political, social, and cultural institutions and relations we now observe in the Global South countries are the products of the historical development of the capitalist system no less than are the seemingly more modern or capitalist features of the national metropoles of these underdeveloped countries."

Secondly, he emphasized that "Underdevelopment is not due to the survival of archaic institutions and the existence of capital shortage in regions that have remained isolated from the stream of world history. On the contrary, underdevelopment was and still is generated by the same historical process that also generated economic development or the development of capitalism itself".

Andre Frank is right in saying that the economic, political, social, and cultural institutions and relations as seen in the Global South countries are the product of the capitalist system. The primary purpose and role of these institutions was to serve the colonial capitalistic interests instead of native demands and requirements.

Development and Pakistan

The great idea of self-reliance and industrialization has been buried and laid to rest in the Global South. In Pakistan, ever since the 1950s, international monetary institutions (IMI) have been emphasizing maximization of earning as fast as possible through exports. In contrast, capacity building, the composition of exports, and self-reliance are not the goal.

This brings us to some critical questions. Has this society improved over the past 170 years since the British occupied Punjab in 1849, and what is the yardstick for measurement? Is it GDP growth, incomes, technology, or consumer goods like TV, air conditioning, fridges, cars, electricity, modern medicine, mobile phones, or computers? Are these the goals or the means to livelihoods, nutrition, food, health, literacy, security, language, culture, and relationships?

In real terms, it seems that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank strategies have resulted in increased poverty and food insecurity. The country is becoming more and more dependent on capitalist countries; its agriculture and industry and its sovereignty are weathering away at a fast rate.

All that Pakistani people earn through hard work goes for debt servicing. The monster of debt is now dictating on all spheres, whether its economic development, politics, or culture. In his article "Globalisation and Pakistan's Dilemma of Development", Canadian-based academic Hassan N, Gardezi has very rightly pointed out that "Foreign debt is the main lever used by donor countries and multilateral aid organizations to break resistance to the imposition of external economic agendas and development policies."

Capitalism offers money and technology as the means to the country's goal, but these have become the goals in themselves, creating regression instead of improvement.

Hassan concludes in his article that this technology and globalization have deprived Pakistanis of livelihoods, language, and culture in real terms. Food and water have been contaminated, inequality and the race for status has created extreme insecurity and widespread mental illness, and destroyed relationships. Thus, in Andre Gunder Frank's words, it is, in fact, the development of underdevelopment.

Was underdevelopment in Global South a natural condition?

Underdevelopment in the Global South is not a natural condition, but a result of how Western powers organized the world system over hundreds of years. 

A critical review of history shows that the Third World societies before colonialism were independent, sustainable, and sovereign. Colonialism made grassroots-level changes in these communities' economy, politics, and culture, tied them to mercantile capitalism, and deprived them of their natural development path.

With the development of capitalism, the Global North invented IMIs, which allow the Global North to control and manipulate the Global South economies and their politics for their economic and geopolitical interests. The requirements of these international institutions force Global South nations to adopt neoliberal antipeople policies.

Under such pressure and setting, the Global South nations cannot formulate Indigenous, nationalist pro-people economic and political policies and are bound to abide by the conditionalities set by these institutions. With the implementation of these policies, these institutions have achieved their goal of “structural adjustment” of the economies of the Third World and created a dependency in all spheres of life in the Global South countries such that these countries now cannot refuse their diktats. Colonialism has continued, rather intensified even, after the so-called independence of former colonies by colluding with local ruling classes and hoodwinking the "Third World" people and intellectuals to create dependency in the name of development.

The development model in the Global South today is are primarily "dependent" in nature and character. Its fundamental purpose is to safeguard the economic and geopolitical interests of the Global North. In the Global South, it creates dependent capitalism, dependent industrialization, dependent agriculture, dependent livelihoods, dependent health, dependent education, and a dependent mindset. It erodes the indigenous social and cultural roots and sovereignty.

The critical review of India (sub-continent) history indicates that the loss of sovereignty and the advent of dependency initiated with colonialism continues under todays’ neoliberal policies. The development plans and policies are not made for the well-being of the Global South nations but to fulfill the needs and demands of neoliberalism. Because of these policies, most Global South countries appear to be autonomous but, in real terms, have lost their sovereignty and have become dependent in nature and character. 

Agriculture and industry are two main pillars of the development of a nation. The Global South’s current policy on agriculture and industry is not serving the national interests and demands but rather fulfilling neoliberalism's economic and geopolitical requirements.

The Global South nations have become a service sector where Global North finds cheap hardworking labor cheap land, agricultural produce and minerals. Moreover, it has a free hand in dealing with the non-existent stringent environmental legislation and policies. These policies and practices result in ever increasing economic and cultural impoverishment in the Third World.

History shows that development is primarily a political and cultural issue related to the question of sovereignty of a nation. A nation cannot develop unless it is economically and culturally sovereign and can make its own decisions and politics in its national interest. Evidence shows that the question of Development is, directly and indirectly, related to the question of sovereignty of a nation.