Making martyrs

Shahzad Sharjeel 

November 19, 2025 

DAWN

AS far as the anointed go, saints in the Sufi tradition have it easy. You could be declared one in life and then continue to dispense generosity and blessings from the afterlife. Martyrdom, on the other hand, has a significant drawback: it must be earned with one’s life, as the ‘immortal’ status can only be awarded posthumously, in all traditions. It’s strange, then, that martyrdom, a status considered far higher than any other, can be granted to anyone these days.

The right-wing, MAGA influencer Cha­r­lie Kirk, who was shot dead at a rally on the University of Utah campus in September this year, is being fashioned as a martyr. The NYT recently ran a piece on the req­uired ingredients for a good martyr, especially for conscription into an immediate political purpose. It listed public, dramatic, and innocent deaths, a cause attached to them, and a movement to glorify and capitalise on them, as a must for this recipe.

The word ‘shaheed’(martyr) inspires awe, passion, admiration, and absolute respect. Before any competing words, tropes, and honorifics are introduced, consider the context of this piece: the transcendence of this Arabic word into not just the vocabulary of non-Arabic speakers but also into their body politic, narratives, identities and collective conscience. As long as it was attached to an Abu this and a Bin that, it could be hung on the obsession of ‘Islamist fundamentalists’ with the promised afterlife, as opposed to the ‘rationalist fascists’’ rejection of anything beyond the material world. The lines seem to be blurring now.

Street-corner banners could be seen in Surrey, British Columbia, proclaiming ‘Shaheed Jathedar Hardeep Singh Nijjar’. Singh was a Sikh separatist shot dead in Canada in front of the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in June 2023. The Indian government claimed that lax policing and appeasement of domestic votes had made Canada a safe space for ‘jihadists’. Some may see it as cultural appropriation, and others as their handlers’ stamp on Sikh separatist movements for invoking shahadat. It’s important to remember, however, that in Sikh history, the fifth Guru, Arjun, is considered the first shaheed. He was tortured to death during the Mughal emperor Jehangir’s reign for refusing to renounce his faith.

The origin of the word ‘shaheed’ comes from ‘shahadat’, which means to bear witness. In the context of martyrdom, it is closely tied to monotheistic faith and, by extension, the concept of the afterlife. Sacrificing one’s life to fulfil duties stemming from the verbal shahadat grants the individual the status of Shaheed — the highest a believer can aim for — promising eternal life and companionship of the holiest on the Day of Judgement. While this idea has inspired some who believe they are fighting for a just cause to face unimaginable challenges, its misuse has also led to the rise of suicide bombers.

It’s strange that martyrdom can be granted to anyone these days.

Invoking martyrdom turns victims into heroes whose reward is hoped to be in the afterlife, making current calls for justice seem petty. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s execution in 1979, although widely regarded as a judicial murder, has not been overturned by a court of law. In the court of public opinion, at least among his supporters, he has long been considered a shaheed. A university established to honour his legacy includes the suffix ‘Shaheed’ in its name, as does a political party founded by his son after he broke ties with his sister, Benazir. Yet, his most notable creation, the Pakistan Peoples Party, recently sought to have a resolution passed by the National Ass­e­mbly declaring ZAB a ‘national martyr’. Strangely, his nemesis and tormentor, Ziaul Haq, the military dictator under whom Bhutto was executed, is also portrayed as a shaheed. The MQM has designated a graveyard in Karachi as Shuhuda Qabristan (martyrs’ cemetery), where party workers and leaders, particularly those who suffered violence, are buried.

As we consider the idea of supreme sacrifice and eternal redemption in the afterlife, it’s natural to think about the exemption from prosecution in this life that beneficiaries of immunity might enjoy. While our parliament has currently limited such exemptions to a few individuals, the Israeli Knesset, in March 2023, debated a bill from far-right factions calling for immunity from prosecution for all soldiers. The reason behind this proposed exemption is that all soldiers risk their lives, and the fear of legal action and consequences might prevent them from performing their duties without fear. The bill was put on hold. Opponents of the proposal, including the attorney general, pointed out that such legislation could leave exempted individuals vulnerable to international prosecution, including at the International Court of Justice.

The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire essays titled Rindana.

shahzadsharjeel1@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2025

 

Pakistan As A Consequence Of The Partition Of British India In 1947 – Analysis

 October 6, 2025

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

Pakistan as a country

Pakistan is a country located in the northwest of the Indian sub-continent. It borders Iran on the west, Afghanistan on the north-west, China on the north-east, and India on the east, with the direct exit to the Arabian Sea. 

Physically, from the rest of Asia, Pakistan is separated in the north by the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and the Himalaya high ring of mountain chains. Other mountain ranges are going down on the Pakistani western side to the Arabian Sea. Below them is the long and broad valley of the Indus River. The Province of the North-West Frontier contains the strategically very important Khyber Pass, which is very high. Toward the south is the Punjab plateau. It is watered by the tributaries of the Indus River, where wheat is grown. However, to the east is the Thar Desert. It is important to stress that between the Sind Desert, which covers part of the Indus delta, and Baluchistan in the western hills, there are large reserves of natural gas and, to a certain extent, oil, which is also found in Punjab.  

Pakistan has a predominantly agricultural economy. The focal export goods are raw and processed cotton, cotton fabrics, and rice. Other agricultural products include sugar cane, wheat, and maize. Livestock-raising is important too. Textiles are an important part of the Pakistani industry and are substantially contributing to Pakistani exports. Other industries include chemicals, cement production, fertilizer, and food processing. 

Population

The inhabitants of Pakistan are about 88% Pakistani Muslims, while there are about 11% Indians (Hindi). Of all the other ethnic groups, Baluchistanis are the most numerous. Baluchistan, as a province, is the least populated. With the partition of British India in 1947 into Pakistan and India, Pakistan received a predominantly Muslim population as well as a larger number of Indians, and vice versa. In the period from 1947 to 1950, population exchange between Pakistan and India, including ethnic cleansing, reached the scale of several million inhabitants in both directions. In Pakistan, the official language is Urdu (the Muslim variant of the Hindi language), which in 1972 replaced English as the official language. However, several other local/regional languages ​​are in use. In 1970, 80% of Pakistan’s inhabitants were illiterate, which caused a lack of professional and educated staff, and this was especially felt in the administration and economy. 

For the sake of more comprehensive education and the reduction of illiteracy, in September 1972, 176 private colleges were nationalized. There were three universities in Pakistan then. About 15% of the population lived in cities, while there were 10 cities with over 100,000 inhabitants. The capital of Pakistan was Rawalpindi from 1959, while today it is Islamabad. Until 1959, the largest city in Pakistan was Karachi. Today, Pakistan has a population of 251 million in an area of ​​881,913 sq. km. The GDP is 373 billion dollars, while the GDP per capita is almost 1500 dollars.

State organization

With the division of the British colony of (British) India into two states, India and Pakistan, on August 15th, 1947, Pakistan received the status of dominion, and according to the constitution of February 29th, 1956, it became a republic – the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, composed of two federal units: West and East Pakistan.

By the military coup of October 1958, the constitution was abolished, and a new one was adopted in March 1962. This new constitution provided for a federal system of government, a presidential system of government (the president must be a Muslim and is elected for 5 years), a National Assembly of 156 deputies (78 deputies from each of the two federal units) and two capital cities: Islamabad in West Pakistan (seat of the central government) and Dhaka in East Pakistan (seat of the National Assembly). However, the constitution from 1962 was repealed on March 25th, 1969, and only partially reinstated on April 4th, 1969. 

A turning point in Pakistan’s history was the separation of East Pakistan from West Pakistan in December 1971, when East Pakistan declared itself an independent state under the name Bangladesh. Thus, the new state of Pakistan included only the territory of the former West Pakistan. In January 1972, Pakistan left the British Commonwealth.

A modern history of Pakistan up to the Partition in 1947

Pakistan is a country that came under British colonial control in the first half of the 19th century, when it became part of (a Greater) British India. Interestingly, its name is derived from the word “pak” (ritually pure) in the Urdu language. In other words, it means “Land of the Pure”. However, it is as well as an acronym for its most important component peoples: Punjabis, Afghans, Kashmirs, Sindhis, and the peoples of Baluchistan.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were only a several moves towards independence. One of the reasons was that those people living in the north in Punjab and Kashmir have been great beneficiaries of the British Raj, and occupied important posts in the administration and army of British India. It was among the more disadvantaged Muslim minority in north-central India that a Muslim cultural and political identity began to form, mainly due to several reformers and organizations like the Muslim League, a party founded on December 30th, 1906, in Dacca. Originally, the party fought for separate Muslim representation at all levels of government. The party claimed to represent the grievances and demands of the entire Muslim community within British India. 

Under its leader, Jinnah, the Muslim League issued several requirements for greater rights of Indian Muslims in a vast country of British India in which Muslims at that time accounted for some ¼ of the total population. Nevertheless, this political demand became all the more urgent with the increasing momentum of the Indian National Congress (the INC) under M. Gandhi, which made self-government or even independence under a Hindu-dominated government all but inevitable during the 1930s. In the first decades of its existence, the Muslim League pursued the dual aim of winning greater rights of self-government from the British colonial power and of winning greater rights for Muslims within such a British system. In order to achieve the first aim, the Muslim League cooperated with the INC, with which it allied itself in the Lucknow Pact of December 1916. However, the League was largely ineffective in the 1920s, when it claimed to have some 1.000 members in the whole of British India. This led to a decade in the 1930s of a major revision of the political goals of the Muslim League and the organization itself for the sake of appealing to the disparate Muslim community. 

The League, in 1930, addressed its annual conference to demand, for the first time, a separate Muslim state in the western portion of British India. This demand became gradually accepted, particularly after the Muslim League’s catastrophic showing in the 1937 elections, when it gained only 104 out of 489 Muslim seats. Therefore, its leader, Jinnah, now sought to broaden its popular base. On March 23rd, 1940, the requirement for a separate Muslim state became accepted as the official party’s policy in the coming years. It was known as the Pakistan Resolution or the Lahore Resolution, which, in fact, warned that if conditions for Muslims, especially in areas with a Muslim minority, did not improve, Muslims would lay claim to separate states as their homelands. The very idea of separate Muslim states referred to the western provinces of British India and East Bengal. The Muslim League in 1944 claimed over 2.000.000 members. The League got in the 1945−1946 elections 75% of the Muslim vote. Therefore, the Muslim League got a popular mandate for the creation of a separate Muslim state in the western regions of British India. This task was finally achieved by the creation of an independent Pakistan on August 15th, 1947. However, initially dominant in Pakistani politics, after the death of its party’s leader, Jinnah, the Muslim League lacked an integrative force and soon dissolved into various groups in the coming decade.  

All the countries of South Asia have been troubled by the special position of minorities and of regional groups. The Indian government’s attempt to foster Hindi was soon faced by demands for a new structure of states on linguistic lines, and from the 1950s onward, state boundaries have been rearranged. However, the linguistic feeling remained strong, especially in South India in Madras State, which was renamed Tamil Nadu. Before 1947, Pakistan formed part of British India, but following the British withdrawal from the Indian sub-continent in 1947, Pakistan was created as a separate state, comprising the territory to the north-east and north-west of ex-British India in which the population was predominantly Muslim. In Pakistan, linguistic and regional demands were initially resisted, and the separate provinces of West Pakistan were amalgamated as One Unit. However, regional loyalties forced a return to the old provinces, representing linguistic regions, in 1970. In East Pakistan, the strength of Bengal culture and grievances against the dominant West Pakistan elite fostered a demand for autonomy and later for independence.  

The Partition in 1947

For the reason that no agreement could be reached on a unified form of independence, a decision was required about the partition of the Indian sub-continent. The areas in the northwest with a Muslim majority were allowed to choose separation and the formation of a new state of Pakistan. The provinces of British India, which were affected, voted either through their elected representatives or by plebiscite. The rulers of the princely states within British India chose whether to join the independent state of India or where their boundaries marched with the new partition line, Pakistan. Punjab and Bengal were separately partitioned. Independence came to India and Pakistan in August 1947, to Burma in January 1948, and to Ceylon in February 1948. 

In India, it was fraught with problems from the beginning. The major part of the Indian sub-continent wished to remain united under the leadership of Nehru and the Indian National Congress. However, the explosive situation and the impossibility of securing agreement between Congress and the Muslim League led by Jinnah forced the hand of the Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, and on August 14th, 1947, the sub-continent became partitioned and the new state of Pakistan (physically composed of two parts) came into existence. The princely states (500+) have been left to the individual decisions of their rulers, who could, in effect, join either India or Pakistan if their boundaries marched with the new partition lines.

For both India and Pakistan, the first question was the delimitation of frontiers between the new states. However, this question particularly affected the provinces of Punjab and Bengal, where the populations were so mixed that partition seemed the only feasible solution (like in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s). But the boundary award cut through areas which in Punjab were occupied by rich farmlands populated by Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus as neighbors.   

Nevertheless, the partition of British India soon led to the high rank of violence between Hindus and Muslims as communal riots followed, and a two-way exodus started, with Muslims moving west and Sikhs and Hindus moving east, with more than 1 million people killed. Around 7.5 million Muslim refugees fled to both parts of Pakistan from India, and around 10 million Hindus and Sikhs left Pakistan for India. The partition of Bengal produced similar results. Overall, some 500.000 people lost their lives. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, President of the Muslim League, became Pakistan’s first governor-general (President). The new state was composed of the western provinces of Baluchistan, Sind, Punjab, and North-West Frontier (or known as West Pakistan). Separated by Indian territory was the eastern half of Bengal, which also belonged to the newly proclaimed independent Pakistan (or known as East Pakistan).

In addition to the resettlement of the refugees, the governments had to integrate the 500+ princely states. Most princes were persuaded to accede, promptly, to either India or Pakistan. Hyderabad resisted and became absorbed only after the action by the security forces (police). The ruler of Kashmir as well as hesitated, and an invasion of tribesmen from the Pakistani North West Frontier Province followed. The Maharaja then acceded to India, subject to a plebiscite of the Kashmir people, but Pakistan supported the tribal invaders. The situation was only stabilized by the mediation of the UN in 1949. 

The new state of Pakistan was, from the very beginning, confronted by plenty of problems. The most immediate of these was extensive migration (around 17.5 million people), as a consequence of the partition of British India into a Hindu and Muslim state. In addition, Pakistan contested its borders, as it competed with India over control of Kashmir. This confrontation has led to hostile relations with India up to today and the conduct of three Indo-Pakistani Wars. Moreover, Pakistan suffered as well from the tension between the majority of the population living in East Pakistan and the important posts in government, administration, and the military being occupied by officials from the wealthier and better-educated West Pakistan. These problems have been compounded by the total lack of any tradition or history as a single, unitary state. On one hand, East Pakistan (or East Bengal) was relatively homogeneous, but on the other hand, West Pakistan was composed of regions with widely different economies and ethnicities and with different degrees of religious observance. Some tribes of the North-West Frontier had devout observance of Islam and a history of autonomy within the former British colonial system. They have been contrasted with the more secular elite of Punjab, which had been well integrated into the British colonial administration.   

A contemporary history of Pakistan since the Partition in 1947 up to 9/11

The problem of finding a compromise that would create a viable, integrated, and constitutional entity bedeviled Pakistan during its existence. Pakistan continued to be formally ruled by the 1935 Government of India Act until 1956. The country’s liberal constitution became opposed by the fundamentalist Muslims, and in 1951, the Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan was assassinated by an Afghan fundamentalist. In 1954, a state of emergency was declared, and a new constitution was adopted in 1956. However, the new political settlement failed to stabilize the country sufficiently to prevent the 1958 army coup, led by Ayub Khan. It was an attempt to adopt a multiparty system, but it failed, and consequently, Ayub Khan imposed martial law in 1958. He, in fact, abolished the recently established democracy but without much resistance, and devised a second constitution in 1962. 

On the other hand, Ayub Khan’s decade of power produced economic growth, followed, however, by political resentment as the two parts of the Pakistani state have been physically separated by a thousand kilometers of the territory of the independent and hostile Republic of India. Allegations by the Bengalis in East Pakistan against West Pakistan’s disproportionate share of the state’s assets led to demands by the Awami League, led by Mujibur Rahman, for regional autonomy. Nonetheless, in the following civil war in 1971, the Bengali dissidents defeated the Pakistani army, with help from India. It resulted in the establishment of the new state of Bangladesh in the same year. 

In 1965, Pakistan attempted to infiltrate troops into Kashmir. In the fighting which ensued, India made some gains, but in the agreement afterward reached in Tashkent under Soviet auspices, both countries agreed to return to the status quo. His precipitation of a costly and unsuccessful war with India over Kashmir in 1965, and increasing economic difficulties in Pakistan, finally led to his resignation in 1969. Relations between Pakistan and India continued to be tense, however, and rapidly worsened in 1971 when Pakistani military President, Yahya Khan, cruelly repressed the demands for autonomy in East Pakistan (East Bengal, later Bangladesh), which led to 10 million refugees crossing over into India. 

In 1970, the first-ever general democratic election has been organized, which brought to power in Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party. However, these elections were won by the Awami League in East Pakistan. Therefore, the West Pakistani political establishment, led by Yahya Khan, refused to hand over power and sent military troops to secure control in East Pakistan. This action caused a short but extremely violent civil war, and led, after Indian military intervention in December 1971, which supported the Bangladesh guerrilla with powerful military forces, which defeated the Pakistani army within two weeks, to the independence of East Pakistan as Bangladesh. Zulfikar Bhutto, as the new President since 1971, created a populist and socialist regime. His program of nationalization, public works, and independence from US financial help failed to overcome the negative effects of the oil price shock of 1973, leading Pakistan into an economic crisis. He introduced constitutional, social, and economic reforms, but in 1977 was deposed in an army coup led by Zia-ul-Haq and later executed.   

Zia-ul-Haq improved Pakistani relations with the USA after the Soviet invasion of neighboring Afghanistan in 1979, when Pakistan came to host up to three million Afghan refugees, followed by bases for Afghan guerrillas. US military and civilian assistance led to high economic growth in the 1980s. However, Zia-ul-Haq died in a 1988 plane crash. His successor, Ishaq Khan, supervised the transition back to democracy, with the 1988 elections won by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir Bhutto. She failed to establish control over the country and was dismissed by Khan in 1990 on charges of corruption. However, she became re-elected in 1993, but once again struggled to maintain control in a country plagued by crime, the international drugs trade, and the growing assertiveness of some of the Pakistani provinces (Baluchistan and Sind) and tribes (North West Frontier Province). 

Benazir Bhutto became dismissed by President Leghari once again on formal charges of corruption and mismanagement in 1996 and was finally succeeded by Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (leader of the Islamic Democratic Alliance) in 1997, who proceeded to strengthen his position by changing the constitution, which limited the power of the Prime Minister (the PM). Nevertheless, he as well as confronted the judiciary, which he sought to conciliate towards his policies. Ultimately, in 1999, he sought to introduce Islamic law in Pakistan, but this attempt led to widespread demonstrations, while at the same time, the deteriorating economic situation had already eroded Sharif’s popular support, and for the reason of his pro-Western position during the First Gulf War/Desert Storm, 1990‒1991. His order to the army to withdraw forces from Kashmir and his dismissal of Musharraf led to a successful army coup, headed by Musharraf himself, who suspended the constitution, moved to put Pakistani political and judicial institutions under military control, and tried to stabilize the economy to placate international creditors. After establishing control, Musharraf’s regime became more liberal. However, it happened only after 9/11 (in 2001) that his regime became welcomed in the Western international arena. His decisive support of the US War on Terrorism brought great foreign policy benefits and enabled him to gain very much-needed Western international loans. Nevertheless, his pro-US stance was criticized by many Islamic fundamentalists and radicals in Pakistan, so that needed to temper by a moderate stance towards radical Islamist groups in Kashmir. In 1998, Pakistan carried out a series of underground nuclear tests in response to a similar program by the focal regional enemy – India. 

The political situation in Pakistan remained turbulent, including intra-ethnic violence in Karachi, followed by national economic problems. Pakistani industrial expansion emphasized the private sector and consumer goods. Nonetheless, unemployment rose more rapidly than new production, and up to 70% of the population is still dependent on agriculture. Both governments of India and Pakistan have been putting greater emphasis on better yields from the soil. Though the rate of growth remains slow, both India and Pakistan have succeeded in attaining self-sufficiency in food. Yet some 40% of the rural population remains undernourished because their income is very low.  

Finally, from 1947 up to 1971, there were three Pakistani-Indian Wars: the First (1947‒1948); the Second (September 1st‒23rd, 1965); and the Third (December 3rd‒16th, 1971). These Pakistani-Indian wars were the result of unresolved issues, but especially border-territorial ones, between Pakistan and India that appeared after the British division of the Indian subcontinent, i.e., of British India, in August 1947 between these two states. As a consequence of the Third War, Pakistan lost its eastern territories, on which the new state of Bangladesh was formed. After the war, the general balance of power on the Indian subcontinent changed in India’s favour. India, also improved its strategic and geopolitical position. Nevertheless, the region of Kashmir has been left to be he apple of discord between Pakistan and India to our da

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic is an ex-university professor and a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies in Belgrade, Serbia.

Unaccountable Big Brother

Usama Khilji 

 September 13, 2025 

DAWN

TWO revelations this week have highlighted the gaps in privacy rights and data protection in Pakistan.

One is the news that the personal and sensitive data of millions of Pakistanis is being sold publicly for a small amount, including that of the interior minister! Second is an investigative report by Amnesty International detailing the expansive technology-enabled state surveillance in Pakistan. The common thread between the two revelations is that they are both illegal and violate the fundamental rights of dignity and privacy in Pakistan.

The leaks of personal data that can be bought online include national identity card details, passport data, travel history, location etc. This is extremely alarming, as apart from privacy, this is a security failure. This can enable criminal activity, blackmail, fraud and even worse occurrences against anyone. How is sensitive personal data that citizens are forced to trust the state with so easily accessible?

What are the privacy and data protection protocols at Nadra, FIA, telecom companies and other government institutions that store this data? Why is it not stored in encrypted form with limited authorised access? And what consequences will those who sold this data in the black market face — especially the ones who enabled these leaks from the government databases?

Similarly, the Amnesty report details the level of mass surveillance that the state is carrying out. Citizens’ phones and computers can be turned into listening devices; conversations, emails and location data can be accessed without oversight or judicial authorisation, and there is no legal redress for those targeted.

Though the audio leaks case in the Islamabad High Court brought to the fore the Lawful Intercept Management System (LIMS) that snoops on citizens’ phone conversations, the Amnesty report tells us that the technology was developed by a German company, Utimaco, and supplied thr­ough a UAE company called Datafusion.

The Web Monitoring System (WMS) was supplied by a Canadian company Sandvine (now AppLogic Network) in 2018, but has been replaced by “new technology from China-based Geedge Networks, utilising hardware and software components supplied by Niagara Networks from the US and Thales from France … to create a new version of the firewall”.


The state’s surveillance certainly has a chilling effect.

These details show how a sophisticated system — which resulted in slower internet speeds by almost 40 per cent in 2024 and grave economic losses — acquired from multiple countries has created these illegal and unconstitutional surveillance systems in Pakistan.

The report details that LIMS is mandated by the Pakistan Tele­communications Authority (PTA) to be installed across telecommunication networks by private companies, allowing security and intel forces “to tap into it and access consumer data”. The report further details that the WMS also “allows authorities to block VPNs or any website deemed to be ‘unlawful’ content by the authorities”, showing the technical and logical link between surveillance and censorship.

This surveillance certainly has a chilling effect, as it is used to target political opposition, activists, journalists, and anybody the state deems worthy of snooping on, with complete impunity. The frequent incidents of financial scams and frauds that citizens have been reporting further prove the leaks of data that have become routine, and there seems to be little redress for these crimes once financial fraud has occurred against citizens.

The National Cybe­rcrime Investigation Authority must play its role of spreading awareness but also ensure that culprits of financial fraud are punished in order to deter such common practices of fraud. The PTA must ensure that no surveillance system is misused against citizens as LIMS is reported to be doing, and PTA’s licensees must also respect the laws and the Constitution rather than becoming accomplice in mass surveillance.

Whereas the state carries out surveillance under its perceived notions of security, the lack of legal cover for these invasive surveillance systems and the leaks of data that make personal details into a market commodity show how insecure and unsafe these systems really are.

A data protection law is a fundamental necessity to govern the right to privacy of Pakistanis that is afforded under Article 14 of the Constitution, and further expanded by several precedents in the superior judiciary, such as in the Benazir Bhutto case in 1988, the Ghulam Hussain case in 2010 and the Justice Qazi Faez Isa case in 2024. The Fair Trial Act, 2013, permits digital surveillance only after a warrant from a magistrate is granted; not the kind of mass surveillance that we are experiencing now.

The Amnesty report also highlights the violation of United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights which require both states and companies to respect human rights, including in their exports. The sale of spyware and surveillance technology shows how states such as the US, France, Canada, the UAE and China violate these principles by allowing export of technology that carries out mass surveillance with no regard for citizens’ fundamental rights.

As the Amnesty report recommends, there is a dire need for a comprehensive legal framework that regulates surveillance to ensure that it is targeted and proportionate, and subject to independent oversight. Parliament must play its role in conducting a transparent inquiry into the illegal surveillance systems in Pakistan, and legislate to regulate this industry under its oversight. Parliament must also move forward on the Personal Data Protection draft that has been debated since 2020 but has not yet reached a stage where it can be enacted.

The leaks will also have a dire impact on the business community, which could, instead, have benefited from a strong data protection regime that, in turn, would have encouraged more foreign investment in the IT sector, as well as enabled the security of the vast amounts of data stored and processed by businesses, organisations, hospitals and educational institutes.

A state that surveils without oversight and leaks without consequence erodes the trust of its citizens. The security of citizens must be paramount for the state. And a post-26th Amendment judiciary must act to safeguard citizens’ rights if it is serious about disproving allegations of being controlled by the executive.

The writer is director of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy forum for digital rights.
X: @UsamaKhilji

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2025

PAKISTAN

Impending crises

OPINION

Dr Niaz Murtaza 

September 2, 2025 

DAWN

WE may be among the most crisis-prone nations globally. In this writer’s view, we have faced nearly 30 crises since 1990 or one every 14 months on average. This includes political crises when the ruling set-up or its head were removed in contentious circumstances (seven); economic crunches that led us to the IMF (eight); natural and health-related calamities like earthquakes, floods and Covid-19 (four); internal or external security challenges (five) and crises due to street unrest (five).

This sorry status arises from the state’s predatory, security and autocratic bent. The economic crises arise as our predatory rulers induce fickle growth via high twin deficits. The external security crises reflect the hold of hawks on both sides of our eastern border. The internal challenges come from the gripes of excluded ethnicities or our tolerance in the past of violent groups to gain a regional security edge. The political crises and street unrests relate mainly to establishment feuds with politicians. Natural crises cause excessive harm as our rulers eschew disaster management. Economic progress requires peace and economic stability, which need political stability, which, in turn, requires political legitimacy. So, a prolonged loss of political legitimacy lies at the root of all our crises.

The longest crisis-free phase after 1990 was 2001-2005 when a military-led set-up induced questionable stability via fickle US aid and repression. But it only delayed and magnified the inevitable crises that erupted during our first polycrisis from 2005-08. We witnessed the 2005 earthquake, the start of Baloch and TTP violence, Benazir Bhutto’s death and street unrest, and the 2007-08 economic crisis the set-up caused. They led to its fall despite its macho aura of invincibility and debatable claims of progress.


Flawed policies are fomenting future trouble.

The Baloch and TTP-linked crises have raged on since then. The frequency of crises has gone up. The PPP inherited the 2007-08 economic crisis that was boosted by the 2008 global recession. It witnessed the mega floods of 2010 and the removal of its prime minister in 2012. Its government caused an economic crisis in 2013. The PML-N inherited the economic crisis, faced the PTI dharna in 2014, lost its prime minister in 2017 to court decisions, and caused an economic crisis itself in 2018. The PTI inherited the problems, faced Covid-19 in 2020, caused an economic crisis in 2021 and saw its prime minister removed through a no-trust vote in 2022. This started our second polycrisis with floods in 2022, mismanaged economic crisis, PTI protests till 2024, spikes in militant violence and war with India in 2025.

Given the internal boost from the war, resurgent ties with the US and (fickle) economic stability, this hybrid set-up is claiming stability and invincibility. But Pakistan is the humbling ground of many a haughty regime that exuded sham invincibility. In trying to escape the strong pull of the root causes of crises, it faces the same insoluble puzzle as past set-ups — achieving elusive stability. Repression may only delay the inevitable and cause a bigger polycrisis.

Flawed policies are already fomenting future trouble. The failure to fix our perennial external deficits may cause an economic crisis as growth picks up. Given the government’s inability to fix the deeper causes of insecurity, our three external and local security foes may jointly try to inflict more violence. If civilians are supposed to forego democratic freedoms in order to fortify the ‘same page’, it may, instead, lead to cracks and divisions in the regime, ie, establishment-civilian, the PPP-PML-N, intra-PML-N, and cause a political crisis. Gre­ater autocracy may spark national ang­er against oppr­es­sive policies, which may ignite Arab Spring-type prote­sts. Natural crises remain a wildcard given the neglect of disaster control.

So, despite the rulers’ incumbency plans, based on dubious assumptions of durable stability, we may be an external shock away from an economic crisis, a terrorist attack away from war, a spark away from street unrest, a civilian refusal away from a political crisis and a big monsoon season away from a natural crisis. Such events may quickly negate the desperate attempts to exude an aura of invincibility that set-ups with low legitimacy need badly and that cause their fall.

A crisis-weary nation can see an end to the recurrent crises only through political legitimacy based on fair polls and civilian sway. Otherwise, with external, economic, demographic, security and natural threats set to increase in the coming decades, we may become even more crisis-prone.

The writer has a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in political economy and 25 years of grassroots to senior-level experiences across 50 countries.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com
X: @NiazMurtaza2

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2025

What holds Pakistan back?

A narrow elite, resistant to reform, prioritises its own interests over that of the people.

Maleeha Lodhi

September 1, 2025

DAWN
The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.


PAKISTAN is one of the most over-diagnosed countries in the world. It has long been apparent what needs to be done for the country to achieve its promising potential. Its problems are well known. So are its solutions. But why have these solutions never been applied? Why has little been done to address the structural problems? Why have much-needed economic, educational and institutional reforms never been implemented? What is the impediment? What holds Pakistan back? What blocks meaningful progress?

Two words may answer these questions. Elite capture. Elite control of state power and of much of the country’s resources which enable overlapping elites to influence governance, politics and the economy as well as receive unwarranted benefits from such control — all at the expense of the public and without its consent.

A narrow, oligarchic elite has dominated the country’s politics and protected its interests with scant regard for societal welfare. A few hundred families have dominated virtually all of Pakistan’s legislatures, including the present ones, maintaining their grip on power through generations. Dynastic politics is emblematic of this. Party and electoral politics continues to be dominated by wealthy families, clans and networks of regional and local ‘influentials’. Even those from non-elite backgrounds are co-opted into elite culture.

This has remained largely unchanged despite economic and social changes of recent decades that have gradually been transforming the national landscape. These changes include greater urbanisation, rise of a larger middle class, shift in the economic centre of gravity from the countryside to urban centres, emergence of a diverse civil society and a more ‘connected’ and informed citizenry, thanks to the spread of technology. But politics and the political system have yet to be aligned with such changes. Instead, the old mould of control by entrenched elites continues. Politics remains a competition and power struggle among the political elite. Because power not purpose drives such politics it is bereft of ideas or any vision for the future.

This power elite has resisted meaningful reform — whether land reform, tax reform or reforms in governance. It has ‘rentier’ characteristics: using access to public office as a means of leveraging state resources to transfer wealth and acquire unearned income.

Elite capture has meant governance challenges have multiplied over the years, leaving the country with daunting problems of state solvency, security and mounting energy and water shortages.

Elite dominance is obviously not unique to Pakistan. It is a phenomenon elsewhere too. Elites are found in all societies, and countries everywhere are run by them. But it depends on what kind of elites they are and the nature of elite capture — whether it helps or hinders societies and economies to grow and prosperity to be shared. The extent to which privileged elites control politics, governance and the economy in Pakistan makes it distinctive. So does the way this prevents mobility and perpetuates the relatively limited pool of decision-makers. Another distinct characteristic is the intersection and symbiotic relationship between political and military elites.

The military whose social background is increasingly middle or lower middle class often counterposes itself to the traditional political elite as a meritocratic institution that offers social mobility and functions on the basis of professionalism, which it does. But the alliances it forges are with the very political elite it criticises and sees as self-serving, venal and inept. The status quo interests of both are what bind them together. Both use patron-client relationships to reinforce their ascendancy and protect their privileged position.

There has been extensive discussion in the country about the politics and economics of elite capture and its consequences. UNDP’s National Human Development Report of 2021 found that economic privileges given to Pakistan’s elite groups, including the political class, corporate sector, feudal landlords and the military amounted to around $17. 4 billion or about six per cent of GDP. Among the stark, deep-rooted inequalities identified by the report are that the richest 20pc own almost 50pc of the country’s income while the landed elite which constitutes 1.1pc of the population owns 22pc of cultivable farmland. The report notes that both the urban and rural rich have strong representation in parliament. Powerful groups, it says, capture much more than their fair share through favourable policies and structural discrimination.

The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics has conducted extensive research on elite capture in different areas and its implications, while urging a nuanced debate on this. Its bimonthly publication of August/ September 2024 was dedicated entirely to this, with rich contributions from economists and other social scientists. Among PIDE’s research findings are that elite capture perpetuates/ widens inequality, constrains economic growth, limits the development of human capital, leads to lack of economic productivity and impedes social mobility. It produces substantial losses to the economy and results in stagnation. Poor governance is inescapable when policy decisions are made to further the interests of the elite rather than the public.

Rosita Armytage’s book, Big Capital in an Unequal World: The Micropolitics of Wealth in Pakistan (2020), alsogenerated much debate on elite capture.It profiled Pakistan’s business and industrial elite and offered insights into its ‘uppermost’ elite, and its networks and methods that help to maintain its position and reinforce inequality. The author finds Pakistan a compelling case of elite power, which, like many developing countries, is run by an oligarchy of economic and political interests and is afflicted by high levels of instability. This instability is encouraged by powerful families that benefit from it through the ‘culture of exemptions’, which enables members of the elite to buttress their positions and thwart competition. The book argues that major wealth in the country is concentrated among a limited number of families that dominate the principal political parties and leading firms and have family links with senior echelons of the military.

Amply clear from all of this is that unless public welfare, not the interests of a narrow, privileged elite, becomes central to the enterprise of governance, Pakistan cannot achieve its full po­t­ential. This choice, more than anything else, will determine the country’s fate and fortunes.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2025

Hard knocks

MISOGYNISTIC MEDIA

Muna Khan 

Published August 24, 2025

DAWN

The writer is a journalism instructor.

THERE’S a lot that is wrong with the media but let’s take a moment to be grateful for the English press not having a sordid tabloid side to it. I’ve heard about acts like inappropriate images of Benazir Bhutto and Nusrat Bhutto being thrown from planes which, I’m told, weren’t widely reported in the English press. The Urdu press is another beast, and now social media is the new tabloid magazine. I’m grateful this paper’s website calls out all forms of misogyny against celebrities and politicians, but of course we have a long way to go.

Misogyny is so deeply ingrained that I’m always surprised when I hear women spew hatred at Malala Yousufzai, Sharmeen Obaid and Maryam Nawaz — this axis seems to get under everyone’s skin. Patriarchy has no gender as the feminist bell hooks [sic] wrote.

Tabloid culture is alive and well and flying the flag high for misogyny in the West. I was reminded of this while watching the newly released two episodes of The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. You may remember the story of the American student charged with the sexual assault and murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007.

She was convicted in 2007 and then acquitted in 2011 as was her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. They were retried in 2011 and convicted again before being acquitted by the supreme court a year later.


What is ‘reclaiming your story’ about?

Sollecito did not garner the kind of media frenzy Amanda did because — you guessed it — misogyny. Tabloids had a field day calling her ‘Foxy Knoxy’ and painting her as a sexual deviant. I watched the two episodes because I was curious as to why this story was being dredged up again. Hasn’t it all been written, televised, pod-casted, Vlogged, already?

It turns out that Amanda Knox is behind this project and wants to reclaim her story. She is one of the producers as is Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern who nearly brought down Bill Clinton’s presidency. She too has been the subject of many documentaries and wants to reclaim her narrative, ie, recreate her ‘brand’.

What happens to other people’s perspective when you are reclaiming your story? Is it fair to Meredith and her family; is Amanda profiting from this terrible thing that happened to Kercher and also her? And, what is this ‘reclaiming your story’ about? I keep seeing this all over social media with influencer types telling you to change your narrative. Is it helpful — ie, stop playing the victim — or could it send you down a harmful path where you stay in a state of victimhood, unable to break a cycle of negativity?

Since I began teaching at university-level almost nine years ago, I’ve noticed two things: one, it’s someone else’s fault I’m late, unable to do the assignment, not interested in being here, etc. The second is the inability to apologise, which ties into holding oneself accountable. This, unfortunately, isn’t limited to students. A driver banging into your car will not say sorry, nor will the restaurant who serves you unhygienic food, and you can forget about that Vlogger selling you lies. You have to demand apologies now and you may not get them.

To return to Amanda Knox’s new show — she has every right to tell her story because she has always maintained her innocence and wants to clear her name. We learn as much about her naivete as we do about the Italian justice system’s desperation to pin the blame on someone, as well as how media framing can drive narratives. Per­ha­­ps the most brutal lesson was that ul­­timately Am­­anda had the money to make this TV ser­ies which I’m gues­s­ing Kercher’s fa­­mily did not. Justice is not blind.

Reclaiming your narrative is a powerful tool in the context of marginalised voices whose stories rarely get told. I don’t really care that rich white women, wronged by their systems, are using it to set the record straight, but it is upsetting that theirs are the only stories that get the airtime they do. There’s a renewed interest in JFK Jr who is the subject of a documentary and docudrama, 26 years after his death.

Has Hollywood run out of stories? I know we love to depict women as damsels in distress but every now and again we try to break that mould.

Whose stories get told in Pakistan and whose voices are suppressed? Your first thought will likely go towards political parties currently out of favour. Let me remind you how when they were in power, they repressed voices. When they return — and we know they will shamelessly bend the knee — they will repress again. I’d love to see the cycle break but I doubt it will so I channel my energy watching bad TV shows. So you don’t have to.

X: LeadingLady

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2025

Token feminism in development

Saeed Ahmed 

Published August 22, 2025 

DAWN

WOMEN in Pakistan constitute 48.5 per cent of the population but face systemic disadvantages in education, healthcare and economic participation. To realise the country’s full potential, increa­sing women’s economic participation is critical.

Pakistan hit rock bottom in the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Index out of 148 countries, with 56.7pc gender parity; it has closed only 2.3pc of the gap since 2006. It ranks below Sudan, Chad, Iran, Guinea and Congo. In South Asia, Bangladesh holds the 24th position, demonstrating a far more favourable gender equality landscape. This is the second year in a row that Pakistan’s gender parity score has declined.

This alone is a damning indictment of the little progress made — despite millions being poured into gender equality initiatives by international development agencies. However, the deeper problem is not lack of funding, but the misuse of a noble narrative to justify wasteful development programming. It should lead to deep introspection about why gender equality efforts keep failing.

Take, for example, the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) initiative with Pakistan’s National Transmission and Despatch Company to increase female participation in technical and leadership roles.

A $182,000 technical assistance grant — part of the broader Power Transmission Enhance­ment Investment Programme — was awarded to support ‘gender mainstreaming’ through drafting a workplace gender policy, training 20pc of female staff and auditing an internship programme. This reads more like an HR department’s annual plan than a serious development intervention. Any functional organisation with a competent HR team can perform such tasks.

So why is our ailing power sector the testing ground for gender experiments scripted in distant multilateral offices?

The broader problem is a development culture that rewards symbolism over substance.

This is not an isolated case. ADB partnered with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to develop a Wo­­men Entrepreneurs Finance Code under a Wom­en-Inclusive Financial Sector Development Prog­ramme funded through a $5.5m grant and $150m loan.

In June 2025, another $350m loan was app­ro­ved to support women’s access to finance and provide credit to women-led micro SMEs. The code, launched with fanfare, is merely a declaration of intent to close financing gaps by designating a leader to monitor data and introduce targets.

While gender-responsive finance is a valid policy goal, was this multimillion-dollar donor intervention truly necessary when the SBP already has the legal mandate, institutional capacity and technical expertise to design such policies? Or is this just donor funding chasing headlines, not solutions?

Has the central bank run out of ideas to promote financial inclusion, which it championed until a decade ago when the Economist Intelligence Unit rated Pakistan’s microfinance regulatory framework the best in the world in 2010 and 2011, and the third best in 2013 and 2014? Either way, such supply-driven initiatives only weaken state institutions.

ADB has been involved in Pakistan’s financial sector since 2000, when it launched a $150m microfinance sector development programme to provide financial services to the poor, especially women. The World Bank is also actively involved in gender empowerment projects, focusing on education, economic participation and access to fin­ance.

In March this year, the World Bank approved a $102m loan to enhance access to microcredit and support the resilience of the microfinance sector. ADB and World Bank have extended loans for the same purpose for over 25 years. Similarly, bilateral donors continue to fund gender empowerment initiatives. The UK’s FCDO-owned Karandaaz also invests in profitable banks and established corporates to increase access to SME finance, including for women entrepreneurs.

This unneeded donor exuberance in Pakistan’s most profitable financial sector underscores a lack of interest in addressing core development challenges. These initiatives mainly advance the careers and networks of donor staff, consultants and local counterparts. There is clearly a problem when aid becomes a lucrative industry. It absolves the government of its responsibility to work for the welfare of its citizens. This aid addiction — fostered by international donors — has contributed to institutional decay, economic stagnation and insurmountable debt.

In fact, the actual outcomes of donor programmes implemented over the past decades show deteriorating trends. Pakistan’s credit-to-GDP ratio fell from 27pc in 2008 to 9pc in 2024 — the lowest among emerging countries. Credit remains concentrated in large corporates, with nearly 70pc allocated to manufacturing.

This reflects banks’ disconnect from the broader economy as well as the ineffectiveness of SBP regulation and donor involvement in the financial sector. More troubling is the steady decline in SMEs’ access to finance; their share of total private sector credit dropped from 17pc in the mid-2000s to just 6pc in 2024. The number of SME borrowers also declined from 185,000 in 2007 to 172,000 in 2024. Most financing is directed towards medium enterprises.

The broader problem is a development culture that rewards symbolism over substance. Pakistan’s addiction to foreign aid has fostered a policy environment where any externally funded programme is welcomed without scrutiny. Frivolous projects are designed to please donors, not solve real problems, reflecting waste and abuse. Whether in foreign-funded tax reforms, energy sector financial sustainability projects, or gender mainstreaming campaigns, the pattern is consistent: poor design, poor results.

Tragically, these projects are celebrated with MoUs, photo-ops, and social media hype, while the women they claim to empower remain invisible. This isn’t just inefficient — it’s unethical. Tokenism empowers donor staff, consultants and policymakers, not women; it reduces gender equality to a funding checkbox. Worse, they hide behind bizarre buzzwords like ‘gender-responsive climate finance’ or ‘gender-transformative value chains’ — jargon-masking emptiness.

We must not confuse real gender empowerment with bureaucratic parody. Genuine change means women’s access to education and healthcare, legal rights (especially inheritance), protection from violence, and more women in the workforce — not elite seminars, lavish launches, or pricey consultants churning out reports that nobody reads. Pakistan needs genuine reforms, not donor-driven theatre. And it is time we start calling out the phoney feminism that masquerades as development.

The writer is the author of The Shady Economics of International Aid. He is a former senior adviser of the IMF and ex-chief economist of the SBP.

dr.saeedahmed1@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2025

Olympic champion Imane Khelif denies ‘malicious’ claims of retirement

Reuters

Published August 21, 2025


Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif has denied claims made by her former manager that she has retired from the sport, saying she is still training regularly.

Algerian Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting were in the spotlight at the Paris Games last year over their eligibility after they had been disqualified from the 2023 World Championships by the IBA, which said sex chromosome tests had ruled them ineligible.

However, they competed in the women’s category in Paris after being cleared by the International Olympic Committee, with both winning gold medals in their weight classes.

Khelif has not competed since her win in Paris.

In an interview with French newspaper Nice-Matin on Wednesday, Khelif’s former manager Nasser Yesfah said she had “left the world of boxing”.

In a follow-up interview with the same newspaper hours later, Yesfah clarified he was only referring to Khelif’s boxing commitments in the city of Nice, where she was previously part of the Nice Azur club.

Khelif criticised Yesfah’s comments in a post on Facebook on Wednesday.

“It is based solely on statements made by a person who no longer represents me in any way, and whom I consider to have betrayed my trust and my country with his false and malicious statements,” Khelif wrote.

“I have never announced my retirement from boxing. I remain committed to my sporting career, training regularly and maintaining my physical fitness between Algeria and Qatar in preparation for upcoming events.

“The publication of such rumours is intended solely to disrupt and damage my sporting and professional career.”

Khelif had been due to compete in a World Boxing tournament in the Netherlands in June, but opted to skip it shortly after the governing body initially announced its plans to introduce sex testing for all boxers in its competitions.

World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst later apologised after Khelif was named in their announcement on mandatory sex testing, saying her privacy should have been protected.

Khelif, 26, has repeatedly said she was born a woman and has a long history in female boxing competitions. In March, she said she would defend her title at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.