Daily Times

Switzerland is a country whose economy is based on state sponsored tourism. States do not indulge in any of the activity which is devoid of public support. Public private partnership is not a corporate term; it is a political term rather a term of political economy or more precisely the local political economy.

Taliban phenomenon disturbed the local political economy of FATA and there appeared pashteen movement with the connivance of the ever lurking serpents. Social mobility and the structures weaved around kith, clan and kin are more important for tribal societies or societies based on acute sense of peculiarity.

A book ‘happiness hypothesis” demonstrates well that one can construe happiness if right ingredients are melted in a cauldron, called society. No one can be happy alone, it is a collective thing. Pakistan rides well on the happiness index, but ground realities might indicate a different story.

A unique type of social engineering is taking place in the Pakistani society. Out of all the major four ethnic identities, three are at the recluse and one the pashtuns are at the fanning out , spreading to every city of the country due to disturbance in their areas and a severe hit to the local political economy. The collapse of the hujra in pashtuns owing to war on terror is resulting into a sort of societal crisis.

Societies, cultures and communities are always a byproduct of a constant which is the geography. History is the new inscription on the page of geography again and again, almost in concentric circles. Adventures of tom sawyer, the Arabian nights and muqadammah of ibn- a- quldoon speak out loudly the importance of adventurism and geography. Pakistan is not strategically important because it has Gawader, Pakistan is important for the reason that it has many strategic corridors.

The most important is the northern areas of the country. When Mr Modi came to power in India, he did take many rudimentary steps to put the gloss on vajpaie’s shinning india.

Modi tasked dehli based think tank, IDSA to conduct a study on Himalayas. A document of intent was published with the name ” the strategic Himalayas”. It concluded that without dominating the complete Himalayas and the states in outreach, India can not rise and shine.

There is a sort of dash-o-nine in the making by all the emerging powers of the region. Simultaneously three things are happening in northern areas , one new great game is being staged here, secondly, the sociology of the area is changing , which has not happened in the last two thousand years, thirdly the ecological degradation is on the move.

The signs are visible once one enters the area after crossing babusar, on Astore axis the most beautiful prairies on earth, the deosie and the minimerg stands victim as there is a significant reduction in flora and fauna, these places are also the natural fields of the world rarest herbs.

These herbs are even being used worldwide for scientific research. Downhill journey from burzil to minimerg is a stroll in one of the gardens of adens, where after every two kilometers there is a different type of wild flower adorning the prairies with their colorful abundance.

At sakurdu axis the glaciated cover is diminishing by every passing day. The breath taking Burzil pass, the jewel of the area and the reason of inaccessibility which actually preserved the culture is no more a barrier. Incidentally there is no place on earth as beautiful as burzil pass at mid june.

On hunza gilgit axis there is now lot of movement by the people from down country, but unfortunately there is no social mobility taking place except the young generation of the area leaving for greener pastures of finical survivability. The FATA lost its elders and hujra in war against terror and northern areas are losing its young generation.

It seems that the mountains are aware of this fact and babusar, the burzal and the kunjrab wants to say something, almost as if these want to talk with men, men of substance and actual stature. These are the places where men meet the mountains. The social contract between mountains and men has to be renegotiated.

People and strategic pundits should add a clause in the new contract that they can extract minerals, they can use all the waters, they can have the gem stones but they should not disturb the flora and fauna of the area.

This has to be done now; otherwise the damage due to complacency demonstrated on emerging water crisis will be compounded to a level where everything strategic will be lost. Northern areas of Pakistan are the microcosm depicting Indus saga of more than three thousand years.

The rock inscription outside Hunza is the testimony of the ancient crossroads. A federal ministry of frontier regions cannot do all being a monolithic hierarchy, a grand strategy to preserve geography, ecology and culture is to be made.

Like the roaring burzil river near kamri, time is waiting in all of its three dimensions; only thing to be done is to select few able men who can walk a talk with the mountains.

Published in Daily Times, June 24^th 2018.