AH Challenge: Turkish-style Pakistan

After reading about how Mohammed Ali Jinnah apparently wanted to model Pakistan on Turkey and who was also influenced by Atatürk's writings:

Your challenge, should you accept it, is to make Pakistan become the Turkey of South Asia, with a POD no earlier than the Partition of India. Bonus points if Pakistan adopts the Turkish alphabet, or a adapted variant thereof, for Urdu.
 

Germaniac

Donor
I see it very unlikely. Unlike Turkey, which was facing a backwater and poor nation in Greece, Pakistan's biggest threat was a larger and more present threat in India. Pakistan's military industrial complex was an essential part of how it became what it is today.
 
I see it very unlikely. Unlike Turkey, which was facing a backwater and poor nation in Greece, Pakistan's biggest threat was a larger and more present threat in India. Pakistan's military industrial complex was an essential part of how it became what it is today.

On the other hand, Turkey had the USSR on its border.
 
Pretty hard to do. Turkey's advantage is it's proximity to Europe, and therefore access to it's markets, investment and tourism. Pakistan is surrounded by poor neighours with no appetite for Pakistani exports or money to invest.

Then there is the dispute in Kashmir and Soviet war in Afghanistan driving the people crazy.

The best case would be solving the security problems and having a pro-business, religiously moderate government. Even so it wont be like Turkey.
 

Keenir

Banned
Pretty hard to do. Turkey's advantage is it's proximity to Europe, and therefore access to it's markets, investment and tourism. Pakistan is surrounded by poor neighours with no appetite for Pakistani exports or money to invest.

it has India and the rest of the British Commonwealth.

and if it has to, Pakistan could build the markets in its neighbors.


Even so it wont be like Turkey.

Turkey under which Administration?
 
Pretty hard to do. Turkey's advantage is it's proximity to Europe, and therefore access to it's markets, investment and tourism. Pakistan is surrounded by poor neighours with no appetite for Pakistani exports or money to invest.

How about the United States? Historically, the United States was one of Pakistan's allies.
 
Turkey under which Administration?

Well, let's see, maybe either Turkey under Atatürk, İnönü, or Menderes. Take your pick. Me, I'd go for a cross between Atatürk and Menderes (since Menderes was more or less pro-business and was a religious moderate).
 
So we're talking about a Pakistan that is Western-oriented and militantly secular to the point of infringing on the legitimate rights of its citizens?
 
Turkey is an ethnically homogenous country (I'll leave Kurdish problem aside for now, they're barely 15% of population), which does not need an external crutch of religion to support it. In fact, modern Turkey had been born from ashes of Ottoman Empire with emphasize on being secular state. Pakistan, on the flip side, is motley collection of ethnicities and tribes, linked together by Islam and not much else. Therefore, regardless of Jinnah's dreams, I can't see Pakistan becoming Turkey of Indian subcontinent. Bangladesh, on the flip side, is more than capable of doing so and might be in it's way to Turkish model. So, as sacrilegeous as it sounds, Pakistan should repeat fate of Ottoman Empire for Punjab or Singh to become Turkey.
 
it has India and the rest of the British Commonwealth.

and if it has to, Pakistan could build the markets in its neighbors.
India is just as poor as Pakistan. The Commonwealth is much too far away to have the level of impact as Europe on Turkey.

Pakistan started out as an undeveloped country with next to no infrastructure. Countries like that can't build markets abroad. I'm not saying Pakistan can't be much better off than OTL, but to get to Turkey's level would be highly unlikely.
 
How about the United States? Historically, the United States was one of Pakistan's allies.
The Turkey to Europe metaphor is comparable to the Mexico to US relationship. They benefit from being the near-abroads of economic superpowers. Pakistan's only near by major friends are China and the Gulf Arab states. The former was poor until recently, the latter had no technical or managerial expertise to offer.

Pakistan is an ally of convenience, one that US never saw important enough to invest substantially in. Still if Pakistan had not turned Islamic and unstable, it could have taken the call center market India dominates today.
 
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did you tell the native Azeris and Syrians and Shias and Bulgars and Russians and Armenians and Greeks and various nomad groups this?

We're talking about modern Turkey, post-Lausanne. Turkey in the immediate post-WWI period became the precursor for what would happen 20 years later in Central and Eastern Europe, with massive population transfers involving millions of people. Also, Turkey came out of the 1919-23 period as the undeniable victor under the leadership of Atatürk, but it most definitely came out of it as a new "Turkish" nation, quite a part from its multi-cultural Ottoman past.
 

Hendryk

Banned
After reading about how Mohammed Ali Jinnah apparently wanted to model Pakistan on Turkey and who was also influenced by Atatürk's writings:

Your challenge, should you accept it, is to make Pakistan become the Turkey of South Asia, with a POD no earlier than the Partition of India.
I'm not familiar with Jinnah's political plans but I'm surprised to hear he considered modelling Pakistan after Turkey. The whole point of setting up Pakistan as an independent country to begin with, was to give a separate homeland to the Indian subcontinent's Muslims. It was intended as a country based on religious affiliation, which was the opposite of post-Ottoman Turkey.
 
Just think, Turkey would even more stronger ties to the west if 100,000 troops had swept over the border into northern Iraq. Sorry im a Turkophile, they should be allowed in the EU already. :rolleyes:
 

Ak-84

Banned
I don;t think MA Jinnah would have wanted any part of kemalism, he had a narrow view of it in OTL.

Pakistan did alright generally, went from NO industry to having a pretty decent industrial base, from having a famine every year to a food surplus.

Its a bit of a difficult thing to accomplish making Pakistan more secular. Pakistan became more conservative due to the rise of the lower middle class which would not have happened if there had been no development.
 
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