The Republic of Shortcuts: A National Tragedy in Three Acts
There is a particular kind of madness in Pakistan that no medical handbook has yet classified. It is the feverish desire to possess everything, money, respect, titles, power, prestige, without lifting even a modest finger. We are a nation permanently perched at the edge of a running stream, shouting “Do not waste water!” while simultaneously demanding a pipeline of champagne. Our moral contradictions have now matured into a national philosophy: want everything, earn nothing.
Welcome to Pakistan, where everyone loves the destination and despises the journey.
Act I: The Scholars Who Don’t Study
Begin with the universities, those temples of learning that increasingly resemble wedding halls booked for academic ceremonies. Students want degrees the way one wants a designer outfit: without knowing who stitched it, what it means, or how to wear it properly. Assign homework? They melt. Demand reading? They revolt. Expect thinking? They collapse entirely.
And yet these same students dream of gold medals, foreign scholarships, and government jobs that will provide them both status and air-conditioned offices. The average university WhatsApp group resembles an underground resistance movement, plotting the overthrow of assignments like they are foreign invaders.
When parents demand to know why their child is not studying, the answer is always the same: “Teacher acha nahi.”
Convenient. The entire educational system is collapsing, but the only thing they truly want to improve is the marking scheme.
Act II: The Public Servants Who Won’t Serve
Then we have the public servants, an interesting species that has mastered the art of being present without participating. The country is full of officials who consider themselves reincarnations of Mughal governors, entitled to tribute, protocol, and unearned deference. Their desks are graveyards of files; their offices, theatres of bureaucratic cruelty.
But watch how quickly their energy revives the moment a “chai pani” envelope appears. The lethargy evaporates, productivity skyrockets, and decisions once frozen in administrative ice suddenly thaw under the warm glow of illicit cash. Pakistan may lack electricity, but bribery has never faced a power shortage.
Act III: The Politicians Who Want Applause Without Accountability
Politicians, of course, bring this theatrical tragedy to its grand finale. Each election season, they rise like phoenixes, not from ashes, but from corruption investigations. They promise Scandinavian governance with subcontinental enthusiasm, and the public, in a moment of collective amnesia, claps like an applauding seal.
These leaders treat accountability the way vampires treat sunlight: avoid at all costs. They steal in the name of development, spend in the name of progress, and rule in the name of democracy, all the while acting wounded when questioned.
Whenever anyone dares to ask for transparency, they respond with great philosophical depth:
“Yeh hamla meri siyasat par nahi, mulk par hamla hai.”
Exactly. Criticizing their corruption is now equivalent to treason.
A Society Addicted to Shortcuts
The truth is uncomfortable but unavoidable: Pakistan’s real crisis is not economic, political, or institutional; it is moral and behavioural. We have become addicted to shortcuts like a nation hooked on a cheap sedative.
We want the prestige of honesty without the inconvenience of being honest.
We want world-class cities without paying taxes.
We want rule of law, but only when the law rules against someone else.
We want a better Pakistan, but not so badly that we would actually do something about it.
Even our national prayers reveal the philosophy: “May God fix everything.”
God must be tired. He gave us hands, minds, resources, opportunities and we outsourced all of them to dua.
The Diagnosis: A Culture of Entitlement Without Effort
Nothing changes because no one believes the change should begin with them. Everyone, from the illiterate voter to the imported-suit minister, believes they are the victim. Accountability, in Pakistan, is a mirror no one wants to stand in front of.
The national curriculum needs only one chapter now:
“Hard Work: Myths and Legends.”
The Remedy: Bitter but Necessary
Pakistan does not need another speech, committee, or five-year plan. It needs a cultural exorcism, a ruthless purge of our most cherished habits: laziness, entitlement, corruption, and self-deception.
Here is the bitter medicine:
Reward merit brutally. Promotions, admissions, recruitment, everything must be competence-based, not bribe-based.
Punish corruption publicly. Not through poetic NAB press releases, but through actual convictions.
Make universities academic again. Mandatory reading, mandatory writing, mandatory thinking. Students won’t like it. Perfect.
Digitize government fully. Reduce the human interaction that fuels bribery.
Teach civic shame. Every child should learn that littering, cheating, and breaking laws are not personality quirks, they are national crimes.
The Curse and the Cure
Pakistan is not doomed, but it is dangerously close to becoming a museum of wasted potential. The tragedy is not that our people lack talent; it is that they lack the discipline to use it. Our national anthem speaks of a “shadow of God,” but shadows do not build nations. Work does.
If Pakistan is ever to rise, it must first kill the fantasy that progress can be achieved without effort. Until then, we will remain exactly what we have become: a country full of people standing beside a running stream, issuing moral advice while refusing to bend down and fill a single cup.
