2026 begins on a very depressing note. It is cold and freezing, and frankly, I love the cold over the heat. For many Pakistanis, this chilling January is signalling an even worse year ahead.
Iqbal Hussain, the renowned painter in Lahore, died on 22 January. I wasn’t a fan of his art per se—the ladies of Heera Mandi, evocative, and those disquieting gazes. The deep, ugly pain they lived through so powerfully captured made my skin crawl. I don’t know, but his art troubled me. May he rest in peace.
I have been receiving many calls from those worried about the thousands abandoned on snow-packed roads of Tirrah and Kurrum, forcibly evicted and going nowhere.
Do we know where Tirah is?
It is where my ancestors came from; perhaps some have heard of the Khyber Pass, once the barrier between the other side of the world and our side. Tirah is on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, between the Khyber Pass and Khanki Valley, northwest of Kohat town. Home of the Afridis and Orakzai Pashtun tribes.
Colonial accounts have written extensively about the people of the Khyber, especially the Afridis; they regarded them and their areas as impenetrable and fiercely independent. Pashto poetry, oral and written, considers the women of this area as the epitome of beauty. Khushal Khan Khattak’s poetry defined beauty as an Afridi woman’s eyelashes. Yes, a sense of culture, music, poetry, dance, and aesthetics exists amongst tribal societies. What do Pakistanis care to learn, read, or inquire about them? Who all are considered Pakistanis?
Tirah folks have been left to their own devices for most of our independence. This area has remained tribal, far away from the modern life of Pakistan or the 20th century. They may have become independent of colonial British rule, but for all intents and purposes, they have remained in a time warp. Little modern education or opportunities exist to navigate the 21st century.
This has been a choice the state of Pakistan made. Convenient for those who continue to use what is euphoniously known as ‘state assets’ for activities in regional great games. Millions should remain in the dark ages.
We only glimpse their lives when half a million Tirah residents are on the road in the freezing winter—and even then, only through social media
Few have tread here, and frankly, there is no incentive for those who make decisions to develop this area. One would need serious democracy and pro-poor policies to include these residents in the bodipolitik of the collective modern Pakistan. When the state abdicates its responsibilities towards citizens, such as the basics, modern education, and opportunities, the locals are left to their own devices. Resultantly, many have travelled and ‘settled’ outside Khyber, all the way to Karachi, making their marks in cricket, commerce, the bureaucracies (my uncles), civil and military (my grandfather, cousins), judiciary (my cousin), and even in national politics.
But those left behind have done what they could, given the circumstances.
Where there is no modern social or political infrastructure, they have operated in pre-modern tribal environments. The majority, like in any society, just want to live in peace and be able to eat three square meals a day. Those with a little more ambition or opportunity have traded under the radar of the tax man or inadvertently become pawns in other people’s wars. What choices do such citizens have when no one has bothered to seek their opinions on any matter? Have they been asked about decisions which impact them, their loved ones, and their communities?
The member of parliament from here couldn’t explain who gave the eviction order for these millions to shift out of the area. Locals all stated the order was from the military, who effectively rule this area.
Since the so-called integration of the tribal areas into the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province formally, little has changed. There has been no effective functional local government or court system to facilitate and enable citizens; rather, the old colonial rule book has continued, utilising tribal point men engaging with local military commanders or a bureaucrat as an intermediary. It was quite telling to hear the PTI government officials and members of parliament, who remain clueless about who ordered this eviction notice.
Sadly, the victims are always women and children, doubly deprived without any recourse or consideration. Who has ever asked Tirah residents what they want or how they imagine a better future looks? When was the last time we heard a story or a report coming from this part of Pakistan? NEVER.
We only glimpse their lives when half a million Tirah residents are on the road in the freezing winter—and even then, only through social media.
Both the federal and provincial governments have taken absolutely no responsibility for their eviction. They are relying on the fact that for 78 years, Pakistanis didn’t care about Tirah—why would they today?
For state managers, the people of Pakistan are not measured by their human development indicators or potential to contribute towards our collective welfare, but rather by the land they live on. Similar to Balochistan, most Pakistanis associate it with its vast treasures beneath 44% of Pakistan’s landmass.
Tirah apparently also has vast, valuable minerals?
What is the value of one single Pakistani citizen? We had this debate when General Musharraf sold Pakistanis to the Americans once upon a time; we never finished that conversation, but it has resurfaced again.
No plans were made to accommodate these thousands of citizens when the order to vacate their lands and homes was executed. Whether in the heart of the capital, Islamabad, where Muslim Colony residents were also bulldozed ala Israeli style, or the mighty Afridi tribesmen, once your frontier, violently removed in the middle of winter, lock, stock, and barrel, with a barrel, as the rest of us watch in complete numbness.
The dismantling of Pakistan is what we are witnessing. First, the weakening of the educational and health systems produces weak and dependent citizens. Then we saw the systematic destruction of the political and justice systems by an unrepresentative and illegal parliament, and now the attack on its own citizens, while the rest of us watch.
Who is helping the freezing citizens of Tirah—the local government, the provincial government, politicians, NGOs? Who? No one. Why? I don’t know. I literally do not know why no one is assisting. How is it possible? Is the value of life in Pakistan so little? Or is this not part of Pakistan? The land is, but not its people? I need an explanation because the apathy is disquieting.
Looking at the social media clips of children freezing, plastic bags on their tiny frozen feet, and their gaze piercing my heart gives me the shivers, a reminder of the late Iqbal sb’s works.
Who forgets what is experienced?