A Quick Glimpse at Woes of Pakistan
In August 2022, the sky in Mansehra witnessed four young men waiting for their deaths amid the catastrophic flood swiping away their beloved land, Balochistan, mercilessly. The painful hours on the rock where they clung for dear life were filled with dread, but hope was yet knitted into their hearts as they looked for tangible signs of help from locals and concerned authorities. Watching their heart-wrenching demise, the country was filled with sadness and a sense of helplessness for the residents of flood-prone areas.
After a year or so, when the scars of other saddening experiences from the previous year had not fully healed, Battagram district offered another piercing view. About 597 feet above the ground, a cable car carrying seven students and a teacher to their school in northern Pakistan strangled in midair. A young heart patient and his fellows continued to dangle in the chair lift several hundred feet above the ground for roughly thirteen hours. The agonizing hours ended when a military operation, a unique operation of its kind, finally managed to rescue them all. The nation hasn’t forgotten how daunting it was to watch helplessly as the young ones were torn between the hope of being rescued and the trauma of approaching death.
The first example begs the concerned departments to recognize how defenseless a disaster-prone area can be. It has been reported that the amount of rainfall in 2022 exceeded three times the national average recorded rains. Natural disasters, thus, can wreak havoc no matter how far a country has progressed in its development. However, once a country has established its economic roots, resiliency during a catastrophe becomes easier and far less time-consuming.
The Battgram incident, on the other hand, depicts the lack of infrastructure facilities, potentially the biggest impediment to the overall performance of every sector. It is, quite reasonably, the cause of slow economic growth as well as the effect of downturns in the economy. More importantly, however, the Battgram incident screams out about the unexplored, unseen, and unheeded perils and trails in some parts of Pakistan.
The stories of Pakistan’s challenges do not end here. Pakistan’s path towards realizing its vision is marked and impeded by a number of factors, including but not limited to political instability, energy and currency crises, a deeply ingrained citizen’s mindset, the slow system responses, the pressing need to prioritize defense, and the inadequate facilities of health, education, justice, industrialization, and tourism. Residents of Pakistan’s overlooked areas suffer the most, for they are already enveloped by financial and social woes.
Hope and the Future of Pakistan
Foreign analysts are constantly reminding Pakistanis of the bleak economic growth prospects in their country. Amidst the prevalent inflation, almost all sectors in Pakistan attest to how difficult life has become. While envisioning the future, the questions nagging as pressing thoughts are: What promises does hope have to offer Pakistan, especially to its impoverished areas? Is hope, in other words, an unrealistic way to live in Pakistan? Is it even reasonable to hope for a gleaming future in Pakistan?
On the surface, the answer may not appear to be evoking hope resoundingly. However, after peeling the layers enveloping the country’s history and the present, the answer turns out to be inclined toward positivity. The fact that there is no other direction for an out-of-school child working with his father in a roadside restaurant for a living is what makes him complacent about his life. He would not be seeing his future in his father’s present if he had been given an alternative, optimistic, and possibly secure path to follow. In other words, the deprived children in Pakistan, a country with 22.8 million out-of-school children, have a passionate gleam but not a directive mindset.
Formal education primarily serves to broaden one’s perspective on life and cultivate a growth mindset. However, Pakistan’s history is also laced with self-taught professionals coming from modest backgrounds. To name a few: Addul Sattar Edhi, Arfa Karim, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Muniba Mazari, and Samina Baig. The discerning line between a nation’s present and future, therefore, is the aspirations it has cultivated among the nationals and the deliberate initiatives. As Stephen P. Cohen, the author of the book The Future of Pakistan, so rightly says,
“Hope is neither a policy nor a planning factor, but it is intimately related to success and failure.”
The Firm Ground for Hope in Pakistan’s Overlooked Areas
Aside from intrinsic offerings of hope, the landscape of ongoing projects speaks volumes about all that is not yet lost for Pakistan. The literacy rate has improved with the advent of the internet in the country, albeit being lower than the ideal level. The educational initiatives of governments are being recognized globally. Pakistan’s freelancers are putting the country’s name internationally in a bright light. The CPEC has greatly improved the infrastructure already. Almost all sectors owe their growth to improved infrastructure.
Minerals, gemstones, and possibly new energy sources are being found; however, it is high time to manage the current and emerging resources appropriately. For the impoverished provinces, for example, Balochistan, some projects, such as Riko Diq, essentially promise economic growth. With the shift of governments and economic landscapes, the focus also shifts (in most cases, briefly) from one project to another. Since the recorded data serves as a foundation for future prospects, the focus may shift back when realization dawns or funds can be reserved.
Therefore, despite the challenges of the present, hope breeds aspirations, and aspirations open up the doors for even residents of small towns or rural areas to have the same opportunities as people from big and developed cities. For example, a special quota is reserved for all the provinces and affiliated divisions of Pakistan in Central Superior Services (CSS) and other higher government jobs.
The merit qualifiers secure their jobs regardless of the locality they belong in as well. On the 75th anniversary of Pakistan, for instance, the Higher Education Commission organized an essay writing competition, and students hailing from all over Pakistan secured positions and prize money. One additional advantage that the residents of Pakistan’s overlooked areas have over others is less competition and less saturation in the fields they are skilled in and the careers they are passionate about.
There’s no lack of potential in Pakistan. Given the same opportunities, Pakistanis can perform on par with, if not better than, those from the West. See freelancing, for example, where Pakistan ranks as one of the most popular countries in the field. Thus, in the challenges Pakistan is grappling with, the most pressing thing is direction, which is what hope has to offer.
Conclusion
Regardless of how daunting the current circumstances in Pakistan seem, hope is the road forward, giving a positive direction and a reason to work. Furthermore, the potential opportunities in Pakistan are being explored, which promises an improved future landscape. The world’s history teems with nations overcoming the gaping vacuum in their financial panorama.
Pakistan’s economic growth in its initial years stands as an example. Considering that it has a much higher literacy rate than it did at the beginning and better access to global knowledge and experience, there is no reason why today’s Pakistan, with its secure direction, cannot overcome these obstacles. Pakistan therefore has a solid foundation for aspirations of positive change as well as the natural resources and human capital to realize them.
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Fiza Bibi Ameen is a gold medal qualifier in BS Physics from Riphah International University, Islamabad. She also contributed a prize-winning submission to the HEC inter-university essay writing competition held in 2022. She enjoys researching and writing about science, technology, and informative topics in various niches. She is also a freelance writer.