The road less travelled

Pakistan is on the verge of revolutionary transition where everything require drastic overhauling, the entire system of more than 50 years has become stale and rotten, many institutions have become outdated and irrelevant if we see through the lense of this ever changing, ever evolving world, our strategies for educational reforms, health sector improvement, gender equality, online safety have proven to be obsolete. For a small exercise let’s investigate how many scientists or scientific inventions have the ministry of science and technology has made during last 10-15 years, after Dr Abdus Salam,s Nobel prize in physics in 1979 there have been only one scientific software inventions in 1985 named BRAIN by Basit and Amjad Alvi in Lahore in 1986.

There are 284 universities which are affiliated with HEC and out of 284 only 18 universities have QS world universities ranking because only 1% of our GDP is being spent on education sector. The reasons remain the same, corruption, lower faculty salaries, below standard infrastructure, outdated curriculum, and last but not the least political instability.

According to JCI (joint commission International) and WHO only 3 hospitals of Pakistan have been accredited the rest remain far below the international standards because of underfunding, urban rural gaps, workforce issues and quality and safety systems.

There has been legislation and popular slogans, but the implementation ratio has been very low. If we look at gender issues, children’s rights, energy crises, water, and sanitation issues, the situation is alarming.

But the biggest amongst all is terrorism and weaponized information.

International journalists often ask why Pakistan imposes restrictions on media, particularly independent voices and digital platforms. The answer lies in the country’s prolonged exposure to terrorism and its unique geography. Pakistan has faced sustained militant campaigns for decades and is currently fighting the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and affiliated groups operating with sanctuaries in Afghanistan, while simultaneously confronting the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) and other insurgent networks.

The human cost remains severe. According to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), combat-related deaths in 2025 rose roughly 73-74 percent to around 3,400 – the highest in a decade. Security forces suffered 664-677 fatalities, the highest annual toll since 2011, while civilian deaths reached approximately 580. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa only has absorbed a disproportionate share: official reporting has recorded thousands of terrorism-related incidents and well over 1,100 deaths in recent periods, including hundreds of security personnel. UN monitoring reports have estimated around 6,000 TTP fighters based in Afghanistan, contributing to repeated cross-border attacks and Pakistani counteroperations. The Global Terrorism Index has consistently ranked Pakistan among the countries most affected by terrorism, with the TTP listed among the world’s deadliest groups.

In this environment, unrestricted platforms – including certain YouTubers and digital commentators in and outside Pakistan – can amplify narratives that undermine counter-terrorism efforts, glorify or soft-pedal militants, or erode public support for security operations only for money. KP’s literacy rate stands at roughly 55-58 percent, below national

and Punjab averages, with significant numbers of out-of-school children. Extremist networks have long exploited educational and informational gaps. While Pakistan has made some progress on education despite nearly two decades of conflict, these structural weaknesses persist and create space for radical messaging.

Pakistan’s security forces absorb most immediate casualties. Their operations aim to prevent militant groups from consolidating further control in border areas and expanding toward major population centers. Soft approaches that ignore active sanctuaries, daily attacks on civilians and security personnel, and the risk of broader spillover have repeatedly failed. Restrictions on certain content and platforms are therefore framed as calibrated measures required by the scale of the threat and the need to protect citizens, rather than abstract opposition to free expression.

Every country balance security and media freedoms according to its specific conditions. Pakistan is attempting institutional recovery and economic rebuilding while fighting active insurgencies on multiple fronts. Containing the threat in KP and along the Afghan border is presented as necessary both for domestic stability and for preventing larger militant expansion that could affect the wider region. The daily toll on security personnel and civilians provides the concrete context for why Pakistan’s approach to media and information in conflict zones differs from standards applied in lower-threat environments.

International media should be careful and avoid creating, building and promoting a narrative through organized disinformation campaigns by the supporters and facilitators of terrorists and extremist organizations po against Pakistan without visiting, witnessing and hearing the true stories from locals

Now that emergency and governor rule has been implemented in KP after considerable amount of peace offerings to former PTI government and leaders, repeated offers of dialogues, multiple attempts of reconciliations from the government and Pakistan People,s Party, repeated reminders from the federal government to PTI provincial government to focus on safety and security of the province rather daily a different announcement of protests, marches strikes and unrest for release of their leader. It is now apparent that things will go in the right direction from this point. Now the focus of the new administration of KP seems to be on improving the security situation of the province first and rest will follow automatically; they believe economic and social growth is only possible if your borders are secured. But this seems to be a difficult path as Taliban led TTP has already condemned emergency and threatened to fight back which clearly shows why they felt comfortable with previous regime and attacking our forces freely while PTI provincial government’s priorities were different.

But it is a long way to go, it’s just a start. Things are tough in our homeland from ground to bottom; the entire country is facing multiple challenges.

Pakistan’s location makes it a target for hybrid campaigns from multiple directions Indian narratives on terrorism and Kashmir, selective Western framing, and regional disinformation. During Marka e Haq May 2025 India-Pakistan, digital platforms saw coordinated use of

recycled footage, deepfakes, and amplified hashtags. Pakistani responses emphasized verifiable evidence, geolocation, official briefings by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), and open communication rather than information blackouts. Officials presented physical and logical rebuttals and briefed international audiences on what they characterized as false-flag or exaggerated claims. During the war entire world saw unprofessionalism, frustration and mental hysteria of Indian media who constantly lied to their people about self-presumed victories.

Our forces under the patronage of Field Marshal Asim Munir’s visionary leadership and guidance are fighting the terrorists who want to sabotage global peace on every front, whether its Raw sponsored BLA or TTP facilitated and backed terrorists in KP or religious extremists in Punjab, the world’s favorite field marshal has become the source of Pakistan’s pride and dignity everywhere.

This is our way the geography requires not mirroring every adversary tactic, but prioritizing fact-based counternarratives grounded in the actual situation on the ground border realities. Pakistan has also issued public advisories on misinformation during crises and developed institutional capacities to contest narratives. The strategic goal is to deny adversaries the ability to define Pakistan solely through conflict while advancing its own story of connectivity and resilience.

Pakistan will not solve its problems by adopting the security doctrines, economic models, or information strategies of countries that do not share its borders, history, or constraints. Its path is the less travelled one, maintaining credible deterrence that prevents major war, converting geography into corridors rather than fault lines, contributing to UN peacekeeping while defending its own strategic space, and answering weaponized information with evidence rather than echo chambers.

This is not isolationism. It is strategic self-reliance suited to a state that sits at the center of multiple overlapping threats. If managed with consistency economic growth, institutional stability, and continued investment in both deterrence and connectivity Pakistan’s location can become an asset for regional peace rather than a perpetual source of tension.

We are the travelers of the less travelled road as we have chosen a hard and difficult path, path to endure hardships on behalf of the entire world, a path to sacrifice our lives to save millions of lives, a path where more sacrifices will be asked and there may be no reward at the end, but it is a path of the righteous ones, a path towards peace and stability, towards progress and growth, as Robaert frost said and one day Pakistan will tell this to the world with utmost pride,

I shall be telling this with sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence,

Two roads diverged in some wood, and I

I took the one the one less travelled by

And that has made all the difference.

Ayesha Manzoor Wattoo Director General Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority