Drone on
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THERE was a time when aerial photography was possible only from a helicopter; the exception was the KMC fire brigade snorkels, in the service of the MQM, covering party events. Then came drones, and soon no wedding shoot was complete without these contraptions buzzing inside the marquees, capturing guests at different stages of chewing, gulping, slurping, and spilling.
It was a matter of time before these flying demons were put to use for espionage and war. While gluttons fantasised about drone-dropped pizza and fiction writers toyed with plots involving target-killing drones, the invention was also put to good use for crop surveys, forestry, and pest management.
Russia and Ukraine have deployed swarms of drones against each other, and the recent Pakistan-India spat saw drone warfare. Depending upon their size, utility, and sophistication, these could be suicide weapons or the sort that fly back to their bases, that is, if they dodge the anti-drone drones. Among other types, some foreign outlets claimed that Pakistan deployed the Turkish-made Yiha-III and Songar drones. An internet search puts the price of a single unit of the latter between $24,000 and $50,000. India reportedly used the much more expensive Israeli-made Harop/Harpy, the Polish-made Warmate, and the indigenously produced Nagastra-I. The Israeli variants could cost anywhere between $0.5 million and $4m apiece, depending on capability and service contracts.
With the US attacking Venezuela and eyeing Iran, with whom we share a border, and Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE vying for regional supremacy, and Israel attacking anywhere in the region at will, Pakistan has entered regional defence pacts. Some look at these pacts as the beginning of a Muslim Nato, only the ‘bloc’ is chock-a-block with Greenland-type enticements to put paid to any such unifying mechanism. Remember how Saddam Hussein was armed and encouraged by the West to think that he could just saunter into Kuwait and help himself to its oilfields.
Human development must get most of the profits.
There is a slight glimmer of hope, although a long shot. For the longest time, I have believed that one way to ensure the Muslim states don’t get played against one another and the rest of the world is to establish a joint administration of the holy mosques under a representative body of the Muslim world. The rest of the country could be administered; however, the citizens decide. Why, you may ask, would it work? Well, if a collective defence of the sacred sites is desirable, then a collective administration should be considered as well. If any Muslim country does it in return for bilateral gains only, then it is neither fulfilling a religious duty nor contributing to the peace and stability of the region and the world.
In days gone by, the armed student wing of a party was named the Thunder Squad, apparently to strike fear into its opponents’ hearts. Hardly a day passes without one country or another expressing its desire to purchase squadrons of JF-17 Thunder fighter jets. The lightweight, all-weather, day-night aircraft is a joint venture between the Pakistan Aeronautics Complex, Kamra, and Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation of China. According to the PAC site, 58 per cent of production is carried out in Pakistan and the remainder in China. No official numbers are available on the price of these jets, though some reported estimates range between $25m and $30m each. According to media reports, multiple contracts with various countries for the sale of JF-17 Thunder could amount to $20 billion.
If true, one wonders whether the proceeds from these exports will go into the national kitty and be distributed to the federating units through the National Finance Commission, or whether these receipts will be ringfenced for defence purposes. No matter how innovatively the military-industrial complex raises funds to establish and run the defence infrastructure, it should not claim discretionary control over the proceeds. Public investment and an extremely uneven playing field at the expense of the private sector have helped its development. Human development must get a lion’s share of its profits.
The IMF has projected that social sector spending will continue to decline until 2030. We don’t need a lender to tell us that the population will grow unchecked, that rates of wasting and stunting among children will persist, that polio will not be eradicated, that traders will not be taxed, and that the salaried will continue to simmer in the pot until they rise to the top, belly up. One can continue to drone on about being a hard state to the point of brittleness. The thunder needs to produce some rain for the parched land, the only motherland we have.
The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satirical essays titled Rindana.
Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2026
