Murky Faces

 Written By: Behram Khan Shad

It is wonderful that youth is holding degrees, but it will make you more than wonder that they are jobless. Unemployment has become chronic to us. Although, it is prevailing in every society of the world yet its scale and intensity vary country to country and also within a country. For developed countries, it’s not a trivial matter, but for developing world, it’s a dominant trepidation need to sort out. In the history, the solvent nations of today’s world once have undergone with severe consequences of this issue. The global depression of 1930 badly smacked the US markets as a result; unemployment rate became rampant which finally compelled the then US leadership to halt loans and aids to foreign countries. Within the short period of time, they enabled to mitigate and overcome the problem of unemployment with bold and practicable policies. If not exaggerated, it is an evils pool, from where social evils breed up to hit on the very roots of the society.  Hence, without addressing the root causes of unemployment, which need structural change in the policies of government, the silent devil of unemployment gradually undermines every organ of human society. From here, nations get start to dwindle in the hand of centrifugal forces, which further leads to splinter in their national integrity.

Pakistan is entangled of contemporary issues. Terrorism, corruption, bad governance, border issues, provincialism, and ill distribution of national wealth and resources are posing serious threat in the smooth development of Pakistan. In this threatening situation, the problem of unemployment further adds to intensify the situation more volatile in Pakistan. It is a bitter reality that Pakistan is suffering from its historical blunders in the policy making and inherited colonial despotic mindset colored the political scenario in Pakistan as a worse competition to gain political power which subsequently kept aloof our politicians from their prime objectives and so, this failure of statesmanship galvanized different public sufferings like unemployment. We need to search out very minutely that why unemployment is prevailing in Pakistan while having resources and opportunities in the way of development. The answer to this question is very logical in the words of US writer Dale Carnegie that “the development and prosperity of any nation can’t be judged on their national resources rather than that how they can act in the time of crisis”.  It is correctly applied upon the Pakistani nation because despite having many resources of development to uplift our nation, we are still stumbling. The reason behind this phenomenon is that we proved unable to respond in the time of crisis charismatically rather to aggravate crisis.

The unemployment rate is very high in Pakistan. The substantial number of our doctors, investors, engineers, skilled labors and other intellectuals are abroad as a fortune seeker because they have no opportunities in Pakistan to pursue their quality of life. Besides this, the foreign investors and NGOs are afraid to step into Pakistan. Our tourism industry and civil society, which to some extent can gulp the virus of unemployment, has become rusted due to unpredictable situation in Pakistan. Hopefully, ongoing military operation will renovate our defaced national picture before world’s nations. Yearly from the universities of Pakistan, hundreds and thousands of graduates and masters degree holders came on the ground with enthusiasm and hopes to join professional life. Unfortunately, when they see all around, they get shock because there are seldom opportunities to absorb themselves in the society. The government sector is already crippled which is squeezed in jaws of such alligators that they are swallowing national resources recklessly. This is the snapshot of the main streets of Pakistan. The story about federal’s organs is very pathetic, which are not included in the mainstream of Pakistan. In these areas, unemployment rate is skyrocketing which further perpetuates the sense of deprivation among youth.

In this connection, the youth of Gilgit Baltistan is scrambling badly in the marginalized society of today’s world which is harsh slap on the faces of those, whoever eulogizes democracy. The term freedom is very narrow to us. The concept of human rights, which are including like political rights, socio-economic rights, right of equality, freedom of speech and freedom of self expression is existed but with suffocating one. This insensitiveness is prevailing in the region where succeeding generation look at each with murky faces.

The population of Gilgit Baltistan is more than 2 million increasing with high rate. The first ever university established in 2002 from where annually more than thousand students complete their formal studies. Moreover, from the rest of the different universities of Pakistan, more than seven hundred students of Gilgit Baltistan complete their formal studies yearly. Both in government and civil sector have no such capacity to induct this aggregate figure yearly is need of hour to contemplate for the government of Gilgit Baltistan without chanting hollow slogans. To this end, any short term policy is unrealistic to meet the challenges of unemployment. Just to advertise some positions in different departments of government is a ridiculous answer of this question.  It is grounded in actual fact that development must occur within a resources of society and it can’t be borrowed from outside.  In other words, any concept of development, which has no resemblance with the resources of certain society, can’t be realized. To ascertain this point, comparative advantage is an economic term which favors a higher relative efficiency in the production of particular good in a country as opposed to another. In this perspective, when we see, what are the main driving forces of development in Gilgit Baltistan, which may subsequently overcome the challenges of unemployment in the region? The region of Gilgit Baltistan is thoroughly mountainous. But, the nature has endowed the region with rich natural resources.  First, abundance of water resources is the advantageous point to make the region prosperous. According to the research, Gilgit Baltistan has the capacity to generate 40000MW electricity from hydro power plants on cheap expenses. This will not only root out the energy crisis of Pakistan but also export electricity. Second, Gilgit Baltistan is the region of enrich mineral resources. Different sorts of minerals are explored and still there is need of research for further explorations. Foreign investors are keen interested to invest in the field of mineral resources which will generate huge revenue with job opportunities for the people of GB. Third, we need to flourish our tourism industry which may play vital role to mitigate the challenges of unemployment. The tourism industry of GB is very promising like memories of ancient Silk Route, second highest peak of the world K2 and largest glaciers are strong potentials of our tourism industry to attract the foreign tourists in the region. These are the lines upon which, we need to embark our innovative thoughts to get real development where unemployment will remain not more than a word in the region. The other way is to mourn on our fate for next centuries.

Pamir Times

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Pamir Times is the pioneering community news and views portal of Gilgit – Baltistan, Kohistan, Chitral and the surrounding mountain areas. It is a voluntary, not-for-profit, non-partisan and independent venture initiated by the youth.

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