Pakistan’s young people rue 75 years of power struggles in a country ‘no one wants to own’

The South Asian nation has a huge youth population, but many feel powerless to effect change in a country ruled over by a tiny, elderly elite

Even the self-avowed patriots gave a laundry list of reasons for not living there – as many of its best and brightest said they were ready to leave

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Supporters of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was ousted earlier this year after he lost favour with the military establishment, chant slogans in Karachi on July 22. Photo: AP

Published: 4:00pm, 31 Jul 2022Updated: 7:05pm, 31 Jul 2022

Pakistan marks the 75th anniversary of its independence on August 14, but its young people are in no mood for a celebration.

Nearly two-thirds of the country’s estimated 230 million population – the world’s fifth largest – are younger than 35, yet they have practically no say in how things are run.

Today, just as it has been since soon after the nation’s birth in 1947, the real decision makers are the army generals, politicians and judges, who are locked in a seemingly endless power struggle even as the economy is stumbling.

Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, aged 61, is often referred to as the ultimate arbiter of power in the South Asian nation. Photo: AP

The scores of young Pakistanis who responded to a question by This Week in Asia on Twitter, which a number of popular media personalities kindly shared to a wider audience, were without exception deeply saddened by the state of their nation – voicing near identical concerns about its perpetual political and economic instability.

When asked about his future prospects, 32-year-old supply-chain professional Raja Ali Magsi said he felt “not good at all”.

“The country has become a playground for elites who are busy playing their petty games,” said Magsi, who was born in Shikarpur – a town in southern Sindh province famed for its pickles – raised in the port metropolis of Karachi and previously worked in the Middle East for six years.

He said the powers-that-be were “ignoring the prospect of the country defaulting” on its burgeoning debt repayments and imports bill, as it teeters on the edge of a foreign-exchange reserve crisis of the kinds already seen in Sri Lanka.