AS we close 2025, it is time to take a hard and honest look at the lay of the land of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Nearly 78 years after independence, Pakistan’s politics remains deeply unsettled. Of these years, approximately 33 were spent under four periods of direct military rule, with the remainder under various shades of indirect or hybrid regimes. It took 23 years for the country to hold its first general elections. To date, Pakistan has had 29 prime ministers — including caretakers and repeat tenures — yet not a single one has completed a full five-year constitutional term.

Decline is not destiny. All these crises are man-made and reversible.

Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated in 1951. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed in 1979. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007. Former PM Imran Khan has been incarcerated for nearly two years and sentenced to a cumulative 51 years.

Externally, Pakistan has fought four major wars with India — in 1947-48, 1965, 1971, and 1999 — and continues to experience border tensions, including earlier this year in May. The dismemberment of the country in 1971 remains a major national trauma. In 1998, Pakistan became one of the world’s nine nuclear-armed states.

Demographic pressures have compounded these challenges.

In 1947, West Pakistan’s population was approximately 32.7 million; today Pakistan’s population is close to 250m. East Pakistan, with a population of around 40m in 1947, as Bangladesh is now roughly 177m people. Pakistan’s population growth has outpaced its ability to govern, grow, educate, employ, and provide basic services.

The key........

© Dawn