I left Pakistan nearly thirty years ago with two suitcases, a degree, and the quiet, unshakeable belief that distance would never dilute belonging. I was wrong about many things in life, but not about that. No matter how many airports I have passed through, how many foreign addresses I have called home, or how many passports I have renewed, a part of me has remained permanently parked in Lahore’s winter fog, in the emerald manicured lawns of my childhood school, in the restless hope of a country that still feels unfinished.
Distance has a curious way of sharpening the vision while bruising the heart. For those of us who left the shores of Pakistan some three decades ago, departure was never a severance; it was merely a change in geography.
I belong to a generation born in the mid to late 1960s. A generation that has, in many ways, “seen it all.” We were children when the country broke in two in 1971, too young to grasp geopolitics but old enough to sense national trauma in the hushed voices of our elders. We grew up through General Zia’s martial law, absorbing contradictions between public piety and private fear. We watched Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s execution unfold as a national rupture, a moment when the idea of justice itself seemed fragile. Since then, we have lived through a revolving door of governments, military and civilian, each promising renewal, each leaving behind disappointment.
From afar, we expatriates have watched, worried, argued in drawing rooms, donated in times of floods and earthquakes, and sent money home every single month. Today, overseas Pakistanis remit an estimated $40 billion annually, nearly 10 per cent of the country’s GDP. It is a lifeline that props up foreign exchange reserves, stabilises households, and sustains consumption. But increasingly, a painful question shadows every transfer: to what avail?
I count myself among the fortunate. I studied at Aitchison College, an institution often described, not without reason, as one of the finest schools anywhere in the world. I went on to attend top universities abroad, doors opening because of privilege, preparation, hard work, and opportunity. By all conventional measures, I “made it.” And yet, whenever I return to Pakistan, I do not quite feel at home.
It is not the changed skylines or the traffic or even the security barriers that estrange me. It is the persistent sense that we have failed to build an egalitarian society, a place where a child’s future is not pre-decided by the neighbourhood they are born into, the language they speak at home, or the influence their parents wield. I see islands of prosperity in seas of neglect. I see brilliance trapped by circumstance. I see laws that exist on paper and power that operates in practice.
What, then, was the point of independence in 1947 if not to improve life for the many, not the few? Our founders did not struggle so that privilege could calcify and opportunity could narrow. The promise was dignity, justice, and mobility. Somewhere along the way, we settled for survival and symbolism.
We do not want to watch Pakistan drift into that future from the safe distance of another country. We want to see it find its footing, to become a place where our children, raised abroad, might one day choose to live not out of nostalgia, but out of conviction
It would be comforting to blame only one set of actors. But honesty demands a broader reckoning. Military rulers have promised order and delivered distortion. Civilian governments have promised representation and delivered patronage. Political parties speak the language of democracy but often practice the politics of personality. Institutions designed to serve the public have too often learned to serve themselves.
For those of us who live abroad, the emotional toll is compounded by distance. We carry Pakistan in our conversations, in our children’s names, in the food on our tables. We defend it in foreign boardrooms and university halls. We invest in property back home, support extended families, and dream of someday returning for good. Yet each visit leaves us wrestling with the same unease: the system seems designed to exhaust the honest and reward the connected.
This letter is not written in anger alone. It is written in grief and in hope. Because, despite everything, I still believe Pakistan can change. But change now requires more than speeches and slogans. It requires a new social contract, one grounded in accountability, competence, fairness, and justice.
If I may, I want to outline a seven-point agenda, not as an outsider lecturing from afar, but as a stakeholder whose heart, family, and resources remain deeply tied to this country. Consider this a collective appeal from the millions of expatriates whose remittances continue even when faith runs thin.
First, the rule of law must prevail over the rule of individuals. No nation can advance when outcomes hinge on connections rather than statutes. Contracts must be enforced, courts accessible and timely, and no institution, civilian or military, beyond scrutiny and accountability. Investors require predictability, citizens require protection. Justice that is delayed or selectively applied is justice denied.
Education must become the great equaliser. While elite schools will always produce leaders, the future rests in public classrooms. The real emergency is not enrolment but learning. Teacher training, curriculum reform, and technology-enabled access can narrow the divide. Every child, whether in Thar or Islamabad, deserves a genuine opportunity.
We must move from patronage economics to productivity economics. Prosperity cannot be subsidised into existence. Resources should shift from consumption subsidies that favour the powerful towards investments that raise productivity in small and medium enterprises, modernised agriculture, export-oriented manufacturing, and the digital economy. Simplify taxes, broaden the base, and end exemptions for the influential.
Institutions must be depoliticised, and governance professionalised. Merit-based recruitment, performance evaluation, and insulation from arbitrary pressure are essential. Stability cannot reset every election cycle. Civil-military balance should be clarified constitutionally, not contested through confrontation, recognising that national security includes economic strength and human development.
Finally, treat the diaspora as strategic partners, not mere sources of dollars, and commit to cooperative politics on core national goals. None of this is revolutionary. What is revolutionary and urgently needed is sustained, collective implementation.
Legitimacy, whether of governments or institutions, does not come from force or rhetoric alone. It comes from delivering fairness, justice, opportunity, and hope. When citizens believe the system is stacked permanently against them, disengagement turns into resentment, and resentment into instability. There may come a day when events outrun the capacity of any single actor or institution to control them. That is not a threat; it is a warning written repeatedly in the histories of nations that ignored early signs.
We do not want to watch Pakistan drift into that future from the safe distance of another country. We want to see it find its footing, to become a place where our children, raised abroad, might one day choose to live not out of nostalgia, but out of conviction.
This is still my country. Its failures wound me, and its potential still inspires me. We, the expatriates, will continue to send our money, our ideas, and our love. But we ask, in return, for something far more valuable than high-level delegations or symbolic gestures. We ask for a Pakistan that works for the clerk as much as the captain of industry, for the village girl as much as the urban elite.
We ask for a homeland that finally feels like home.