Islamabad, Pakistan – Some 15 years ago, famous Pakistani pop singer Shehzad Roy released a song, titled Laga Reh (Keep at it), which started with the singer recalling what he saw on TV in his childhood.
“When I was 10 years old, I heard on 9 o’clock news that Pakistan is passing through a critical juncture in its history,” Roy intones. A short, sharp guitar riff and a drum solo follow, after which Roy adds: “When I turned 20, I again heard on the 9 o’clock news that Pakistan is passing through a critical juncture in its history.”
The song was released in 2008, the year Pakistan saw its first election after the end of the nine-year military rule of General Pervez Musharraf. Many observers at the time felt it was arguably the most crucial poll in the country’s six decades of existence, as it faced existential challenges on political, economic, and security fronts.
As I began to write this piece reflecting on how Pakistan fared in 2024, which began with analysts dubbing it the most critical year for the country of 250 million people, I could not help but recall Roy’s song.
I began my journalism career two years after its release, and I often wonder: while so much has changed in the country since 2008, has anything really, truly changed?
Violence; a volatile political landscape; censorship; military ingress; a precariously placed economy; politicians benefitting from the largesse of the security establishment only to turn against it later – it is a pattern that repeats itself without fail.
The country held its general elections in February this year, originally scheduled for late last year.
Global bodies, independent observers and critics panned the vote, many accusing authorities of manipulating the counting — a charge that the government rejected. The election led to the formation of a coalition government that kept out of power former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, even though its candidates — forced to contest as independents after the party was disqualified — won the most seats.
A violent year
Pakistan also saw a vicious escalation in violence, particularly in its northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan, targeting hundreds of law enforcement personnel and civilians. With at least 685 members of security forces losing their lives amid a total of 444 terror attacks, 2024 turned out to be the deadliest year for Pakistan’s civil and military forces in a decade. Nearly 1,000 civilians were also killed.
Overall, the deaths in violent attacks recorded this year were at a nine-year high, 66 percent more than in 2023, according to data compiled by the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), an Islamabad-based think tank.
The country managed to suppress attacks by outlawed armed groups like the Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP, and Baloch separatist groups between 2015 and 2021.
But the frequency of attacks surged after the Taliban in Afghanistan took over Kabul in August 2021.
In December, at least 16 soldiers were killed in an attack by the TTP. Pakistan countered by launching air raids inside the territory of Afghanistan, its western neighbour. The country’s hawkish stance against Afghanistan, accusing it of harbouring TTP fighters, has only complicated diplomatic affairs.
Meanwhile, activists from the impoverished Balochistan province rallied in late July to demand the release of missing people, only to face complete state apathy. Mobile and internet services were switched off for more than a month.
Similarly, in the volatile Kurram region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where sectarian conflict erupted between Sunni and Shia tribes over land disputes, the government’s inability to intervene allowed the conflict to escalate, say many analysts, killing more than 150 people.
Economic respite
While the country managed to stave off an economic catastrophe by averting default, its stability remained on a delicate footing, with economic managers struggling to develop sustainable means for growth.
Under Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, Pakistan managed to secure a 37-month, $7bn tranche programme from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), providing a lifeline to the country’s ailing economy.
Tight fiscal policies also saw foreign currency reserves rise from just more than $3bn in May 2023 to above $12bn. Inflation, which peaked at 38 percent last year, plummeted to 5 percent this month.
Yet, the government appears to have struggled to win over the public’s economic trust. More than 700,000 Pakistanis legally emigrated this year for better opportunities, while 3,000 others risked the dangerous “Dunki” route, ignoring the tragedy of the Adriana sinking that left more than 260 Pakistanis dead in 2023. Another similar incident in December killed more than 40 people.
Experts – seasoned politicians, political economists, social scientists, and veteran journalists – all agree on one core issue: Pakistan’s quagmire stems from a lack of political stability. Specifically, the instability that began on the night of April 9, 2022, when Khan, the charismatic founder of the PTI, was ousted as prime minister through a parliamentary vote of no confidence.
The Khan conundrum
Since then, Khan’s supporters have launched several long marches towards the capital, Islamabad; hurled accusations at the United States for orchestrating his removal; and challenged the authority of the military, previously seen as his primary patron.
He survived an assassination attempt and faced hundreds of legal cases, including charges of sedition, terrorism, and incitement against the military. Khan’s supporters went on to wreak havoc across the country, targeting public buildings, military headquarters, and other installations after his brief detention in May 2023, and more than 100 were subsequently punished through draconian military courts.
He evaded arrests, until he could not, in August 2023. He was convicted earlier this year in cases related to allegedly leaking state secrets, selling state gifts, and an illegal marriage which violated Islamic laws.
Yet, despite all this – his imprisonment, PTI’s iconic cricket bat symbol being outlawed, senior party leaders being jailed, and candidates forced to campaign independently using guerrilla tactics and social media – Khan regained public support in an unprecedented manner, culminating in the PTI’s stunning wins in the February elections.
Pakistan’s ‘great firewall’
Meanwhile, Pakistan wrote the latest chapter in its long history of attempted censorship.
While the PTI government under Khan had procured an online surveillance system in 2018, defence sources revealed to Al Jazeera this year that the country has now acquired Chinese technology to install a China-like firewall to oversee internet usage.
Early signs emerged after the February elections when the social media platform X was blocked as a “security risk”.
Unannounced internet shutdowns followed, restricting access to virtual private networks (VPNs), and severely impeding the country’s internet landscape, a sector that earned Pakistan $3.5bn in 2023.
The coalition government, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, issued contradictory statements, often blaming undersea cable damage, global internet outages, or outright denying any problems.
The golden boy
In a year of grim realities, one spark of positivity lit up the nation on the night of August 8 at the Stade de France in Paris.
Arshad Nadeem, a 27-year-old javelin thrower, broke the Olympic record with a 92.97-metre throw to win Pakistan’s first individual gold medal at the games.
When I met Nadeem at a Lahore gymnasium six weeks before that night, he told me humbly, “I compete against myself.”
For athletes, it might be a good way to rouse themselves and prepare for the competition. But thinking back to that conversation with Nadeem, I tried to put that in the context of Pakistan, its political and military elite, and the perpetual state of instability that afflicts the country.
The famous proverb, “may you live in interesting times”, which is often erroneously referred to as a Chinese proverb, is seen as a curse. Pakistan, somehow, has chosen to be the living, breathing illustration of this.
I, for one, would not mind a slightly different 2025, as a reporter in Pakistan. May we see less “interesting” times in the next 12 months.
