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IT’S not like any of us here in Pakistan are strangers to heartbreak, but even so it was particularly saddening. In a recent article, columnist Chris Cork wrote about what he called The Missing, the uncounted ones who are quietly, unobtrusively, for fear of their lives, having to leave the country under the clear and present danger of persecution.
‘Leave’, in fact, is not the right word. As Mr Cork put it, “Escape means leaving behind everything that you have lived and worked for your entire life. You take with you only what will fit inside your baggage allowance. … You lock the door as you leave, knowing the key in your hand will never turn the other way again. And you disappear.”
Christians, Ahmadis, Hindus, Sikhs — “The minorities of Pakistan are leaking slowly out of innumerable wounds, death by a thousand cuts, every cut inflicted by the knives of intolerance,” he wrote.
There is no denying the fact that every day, in many myriad and grievous ways, the Pakistani state fails its own. This would be appalling wherever it might occur; but given the narrative that has been built up around the creation of this country — that Partition was engineered because of the fears of the Muslim minority in India as it then existed — this is even more ironic and shameful.
Still, the Pakistani state and society are not short of features that incur shame; let’s take the lament as given, for now. Let’s consider, instead, another segment of the population that is also having to escape, to the equal detriment of the future of the country, and is causing little to no remark.
Given Pakistan’s particular circumstances, people face persecution not just on the basis of faith, and from state and non-state actors both. The fact of your being a woman can lead to your becoming a target. A journalist that outs or states uncomfortable truths will find himself at risk sooner or later. This is a country where a prime minister was executed and another brazenly murdered; where the governor of a province was killed by a man in his own security detail for raising his voice over the persecution of a Christian woman.
So it is that amongst those who are unobtrusively leaving or preparing to leave, if they can, are people such as writers and artists, poets and novelists, musicians and academics. They are escaping because even though they may not sense an immediate threat to their lives or persons, the world they live and breathe in is under increasing threat: the world of ideas.
The number of topics people shy away from speaking their minds on has increased to a shocking degree in just a few years, the margins of debate restricted to ever-narrowing proportions. The novel you finally got published, the artwork you put on display, the play you acted in, the research you are carrying out, any one of them might get you in trouble.
And while your life or health might not be in immediate danger, that can become an option very quickly; Malala Yousafzai, after all, was shot because of her belief in the idea that women should receive an education.
If that sounds like a grim situation, here’s what makes it even worse: people that deal in ideas and creativity, even if free of any hint of potential controversy, can increasingly not see a viable professional future for themselves in Pakistan.
The musician whose only ambition is to write fluffy songs about love cannot earn a living in a country where public concerts cannot be held because of the security risks. And so, they are squeezed out, and not necessarily have a better future abroad. Our love-song writing musician, after all, or playwright, both of whom have a potentially countrywide audience here, can only work on the fringes in a country where Urdu is not commonly spoken.
Another category of people making the same decision is the highly qualified professional elite, doctors, bankers, lawyers, etc. One of the top-ranking medical colleges in the country recently highlighted the issue: its best graduates are all leaving the country, having the qualifications that allow them to step across continental borders and find employment.
Meanwhile, there was some months ago a newspaper article that spoke of how the ‘hardship’ medical posts in the US — in the rural areas and the small towns and hamlets — are filled by Pakistani and Indian doctors, nurses, medics etc. This part of the world provides the people that are the backbone of the healthcare system in those areas, it said.
The flight of intellectual capital is a banal sounding term. But its consequences are serious indeed.
The writer is a member of staff.
