By Khalid Khan
No matter how many sacrifices the public, military men, and security forces make to establish peace and eliminate terrorists, political governments and their favored bureaucracies squander these efforts.
“Governance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa represents two decades of administrative failure, chaos, corruption, and rising terrorism”
Undoubtedly, Pakistan faces external threats of extremism and terrorism, with hostile forces targeting the country, but internal factors fuel the fire. A nation’s sense of belonging is nurtured through literacy, employment opportunities, justice, meritocracy, public safety, dignity, equal citizenship, and a civilized quality of life. When these pillars are upheld, no fissures appear in society that enemies can exploit. Ensuring these fundamental rights is the core responsibility of political governments, which formulate laws and enforce them with the help of state institutions. When governments and institutions fail their duties, unrest spreads among the people. This unrest creates opportunities for anti-state elements to infiltrate, dividing the nation along ethnic, linguistic, political, and sectarian lines. These divisions lead to intolerance and violence, which then escalate into terrorism, forcing the military and security forces to intervene. After enormous sacrifices, peace is restored, and governance is handed back to political administrations. But history keeps repeating itself, trapping the nation in a vicious cycle.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been caught in this tragic cycle for over a decade. This is the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s third consecutive government in the province, yet all progress indicators have reversed. There are no major development projects, routine governance has come to a halt, businesses and employment have collapsed, and corruption and nepotism thrive. Merit has all but vanished, institutions are in decline, and political polarization is at its peak. Education, healthcare, agriculture, industry, energy, environmental sustainability—every sector is suffering. Ethical decay, political deterioration, urban decline, and rural distress have become the new normal. Each passing day takes the province deeper into crisis. Legislative activity is nonexistent, and law and order have deteriorated. Institutions and individuals alike are subjected to allegations and character assassination, with even the Pakistan Army not spared.
The situation in the former tribal areas, now merged into the settled districts, is even more dire. These regions, historically marginalized and vulnerable to terrorism, have once again become breeding grounds for extremism. The merger was intended to accelerate development and integrate these districts with the rest of Pakistan to eradicate terrorism and extremism permanently.
Yet, PTI’s three successive governments, through criminal negligence, corruption, and incompetent governance, have plunged these areas—along with Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa—back into the flames of terrorism. These regions have been ignored at every level, and today, people in the former tribal areas are protesting in desperation.
A recent example of this growing unrest is the movement led by government contractors in Upper South Waziristan. Contractors responsible for development projects have found themselves at an impasse due to a lack of funding. Noor Hassan Mehsud, president of the Contractors’ Association of Upper South Waziristan, convened a grand meeting where serious concerns were raised.
The meeting highlighted how development projects in Upper South Waziristan have stalled due to the unavailability of funds, plunging the local economy into crisis. Contractors lamented that for the past eighteen months, no funds have been allocated for these projects, bringing construction work to a complete halt and leaving thousands of laborers and business owners unemployed. Noor Hassan Mehsud emphasized that contractors play a crucial role in regional development, but without funds, road construction, infrastructure projects, and public buildings remain unfinished. This crisis has also affected traders supplying construction materials, daily wage laborers, and owners of heavy machinery, inflicting severe financial losses—a situation he described as economic murder.
Despite their patience, the contractors declared that further delays were intolerable. They urged Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and other top officials to immediately release the necessary funds so that development work can resume, alleviating the hardships faced by the local population. The people of the region have also joined the contractors in demanding urgent government intervention to ensure that South Waziristan’s development projects reach completion and the local economy stabilizes.
Yet, the grim reality remains that neither progress nor public welfare is on PTI’s agenda. The provincial government, under Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, is entirely consumed by political chaos, confrontation with the federal government, and internal rifts within PTI. The province’s resources and administrative machinery are being exploited solely for personal and political gains. In such an environment, how can terrorism be curbed? How can peace prevail when those in power continue to create the conditions that fuel instability? The military can eliminate terrorists and restore order, but when governance is handed back to those who allowed chaos to take root, it is only a matter of time before the province is once again engulfed in flames.
How long will this game of cat and mouse continue?
How many more sacrifices must the military and security forces make?
It is time for the people to seriously reflect on these questions.
There is a saying that “what men in uniform win in a battleground, it can easily be lost at the negotiation tables if incompetent and corrupt interlocutors represent the public”–this is what Pakistan has been facing for a long.
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this article/Opinion/Comment are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk (DND). Assumptions made within the analysis are not reflective of the position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk News.
