2023: Pakistan’s Trials & Tribulations

Ishtiaq Ahmed (Part 1)

London: Every year brings new challenges to Pakistan. Nothing is certain and predictable in a country that is still finding its feet and direction.

The past 76 years have been fraught with short-lived returns to democracy, persistent military interventions, and internal political and civil crises. Well! You may not be surprised to learn that nothing much has changed in the last 12 months of 2023. In fact, the country’s political and economic stability look even more distant now than ever before.

Let us remind ourselves of some of the key events and developments of 2023. It is not possible to list all in this short piece, but I have selected those that, in my opinion, will continue to represent major challenges for Pakistan in 2024 and beyond.

January was a defining month for 2023. It triggered off some events that were to define the course of the nation for the next twelve months.

Year 23 started with two intelligence officers, including the director of the provincial counterterrorism department, being shot dead outside a restaurant in Khanewal by a suspected Pakistani Taliban. In the same month, we witnessed the bombing of a mosque in Peshawar, killing 100 people and injuring 170.

This was to be a prelude to more terrorist-motivated incidents in the months to follow. These two and other incidents that followed remind us that the country continues to be shackled by the evil of terrorism, despite the relevant agencies pretending that the reality is otherwise.

Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban, now that they are in control of Afghanistan, continues to be on the knife edge and remains fluid and circumstantial.

Read More:https://thepenpk.com/the-global-impact-of-senseless-violence/

On January 3rd, the government ordered the closure of all shopping malls and retail markets by 8.30 pm daily as part of an energy conservation plan to offset the energy crisis. The price of electricity almost doubled and trebled in the subsequent months to a record level, yet the load shedding remained unabated.

The impact of this on the economy and households has been nothing short of a catastrophe. The failure of the national grid earlier in the year, leaving 220 million with energy, was an indication of the poor state in which this vital component of the energy family is. Any improvement in the situation is not in sight.

The country’s energy crisis continues to deepen, and the government seems to have no clue or strategy in place to rescue the energy industry and get it back on track. The situation with gas and petrol is no different, yet the unit prices for all three have climbed to an unaffordable level for millions of citizens on or below the poverty threshold.

On January 5th, Pakistan was shaken by a 5.8-magnitude earthquake. More of the same was to follow in March. Natural disasters have almost become annual occurrences for the country, but there doesn’t appear to be any serious forethought to minimise the impact of these on people.

Of course, natural disasters are often unpredictable and related to causes beyond control, but at least there should be a strategy and fit-for-purpose infrastructure in place to mitigate the worst impact of these.

The country has not recovered from the severe flooding of 2022, which displaced millions, but those affected are still waiting for state help some two years later, despite a $10 billion aid package from the international community.

January 29th witnessed the Lasbela Bus Crash, in which 41 people were killed when a bus went off the bridge and burst into flames in Baluchistan. Similarly, 51 people were killed in the Tanda Dam incident in the Kohat District of KP. At least 17 people were killed in a bus and truck crash in Kohat.

Read More: https://thepenpk.com/jaranwalla-an-eye-opener-to-extremism/

The list of incidents like these for the year is endless. The country’s overall transport infrastructure—road, railway, and air—remains dysfunctional. The roads are generally in a poor state and accident-prone.

Traffic management is haphazard, with the least concern for public safety.Travelling by rail and plane is no better and, in many ways, more dangerous. In a country where the majority of the public is reliant on public transport for mobility, work, and business, the public transport infrastructure is inadequate and in disarray.

On February 6th, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered the ban on Wikipedia to be lifted, three days after the website was banned for alleged anti-Muslim and blasphemous content. This is very symptomatic of the  ‘toxic’ reactionary approach by the country’s political leadership that continues to plague Pakistan, which undoubtedly sends out wrong messages to the nation’s religious zealots and bigots, thus placing the safety of faith and non-faith minorities at risk. The lynching of Waris for alleged blasphemy on February 13th in Nankana Sahib district was symptomatic of political leaders inciting and exploiting public emotions

In March, the Lahore High Court ruled that Pakistan’s sedition law was unconstitutional because it violated free speech. The court took the view that this archaic law, a legacy of the colonial era, was “inconsistent” with the Constitution. Pakistan’s record on free speech is hotly contested and under intense scrutiny.

The killing of Arshad Sharif in Nairobi in dubious circumstances in October 2022 dominated the debate regarding the safety of Pakistani journalists at home and abroad. It is reported that 97 journalists and media workers have been killed between 1992 and 2023. The story doesn’t stop here. Human rights workers and those working for equality, fairness, and justice for marginalised groups are continuously at risk.

On March 31st, eleven people died in a food distribution stampede in Karachi. This is symptomatic of shortages of food, escalating prices of staple items, the collapse of the economy, low-level and irregular incomes for many, and soaring unemployment. This should not be happening in a country that, until recently, was self-sufficient in food. The rest is in the next part of the article.

The author is a British citizen of Pakistani origin with a keen interest in Pakistani and international affairs.

The article is the writer’s opinion, it may or may not adhere to the organization’s editorial policy.