I was invited to a seminar at University of Punjab on 20 June 2025, titled, “Glass half full or half empty: Understanding social and political transformation in Pakistan through data”. The guest speaker was Mr Bilal Geelani, the Executive Director of Gallup Pakistan. I had mixed feelings after listening to Mr Geelani who successfully showcased ‘glass half full’ with the help of data spanning the last 25 years.
Data is a collection of facts, opinions, figures, trends, numbers and patterns. To be data-driven is generally considered good for the stakeholders to analyze the situation at hand. However, it is the individual’s perspective which shapes conclusions from the data under consideration. The very first striking slide was the population growth from 1947 when we started our journey with 33 million and now being 240 million suggests that the country progressed significantly to fulfill requirements of such a huge population. But the fact which surprised me the most was the detail about life expectancy in Pakistan which was 44 years in 1960s and now it is 67 years with an exception of 74 years in the capital city of Islamabad.
This improvement in life expectancy indicates significant development in social and personal life domains. Because, life expectancy doesn’t improve with healthy intakes only, several other factors such as job opportunities, stress management, smoking patterns, health facilities and so on equally contribute to it. This improvement in life expectancy suggests advancement in several sectors. Use of tobacco has detrimental effects on health; data suggests there is significant reduction in the use of tobacco in the last 25 years from 38 percent smokers to 20 percent today which is less than the USA. But still there is a need to further curtail smoking to bring it to the level of most developed counties at least, if not to eliminate it completely.
Alleviation of poverty and spending on education remain prominent concerns for everyone in the country. If you listened to Mr Geelani, the situation of these two sectors is not as bleak as we usually think. He contended that poverty reduced by 25 percentage points in the last 25 years and stands at 20 percent as compared to 45 percent in the year 2000. We know that the GDP of Pakistan has grown substantially over the last three decades from $100 billion in 2000 to around $400 billion today. Now the question is where people spend their earnings and the answer is, in education, especially higher education, where enrolment has gone sky-high from 0.3 million students in the year 2000 to 2.8 million students currently enrolled in HEIs of Pakistan. Higher education is a luxury, if there is such a huge increase in the enrolment of HEIs, both in public and private universities; it means prosperity prevails in the society. The data presented by the speaker on literacy was amazing; our understanding remains that the literacy rate in Pakistan is around 62 percent. But, he argued that the focus of our efforts during the last two to three decades to improve literacy was the young population. If we look at the literacy of our population up to 25 years of age, the data suggests it is 80 percent, which is the result of our effective policies to improve literacy.
Data speaks truth and it suggests significant improvement in the yield of our major crops like wheat and maize. Recently we witnessed an interesting indicator of prosperity in the society, especially in this region, that is, the availability of toilets to households. According to the data, almost 638 million people do not have access to the toilet in India. In Pakistan only 5 percent people do not have access to toilets and that in the rural areas. Mobility stats have also significantly improved over the decades with a sharp increase in motorcycle users.
We have demonstrated our strengths to the entire world during the recent India-Pakistan conflict with exceptional technological expertise, defeating one of the best fighter jet platforms available today. This speaks volumes about our abilities. We only need to propagate our strengths instead of indulging in untoward instances which are not uncommon to any society on this planet. Remember, the glass is half full, so let’s celebrate!
The most interesting part of discussion was the political environment of the country which revolves around people less than 30 years of age. Pakistan’s 50 percent population is less than 30 years old, which is a real strength for the country from both economic and political points of view.
In politics the age group between 18 to 29 years is shaping political discourse because they have started voting significantly during the last two decades. Existing parties, including the PML(N) and the PPP, are continuously losing their vote bank for the last two decades which suggest that they probably failed to understand the sentiment of this segment of population between 18 to 29 years of age.
People in this age bracket do appreciate schemes like laptops and infrastructure development but they consider it their right. These young people aspire for identity and prominence on the global stage, they need a kind of leadership which can represent them with pride and honour. Traditional slogans have lost their appeal and so have conventional political parties.
There is a huge space for new thoughts, novel approaches and a fresh vision to lead the young population of Pakistan. The PTI and the TLP gained popularity in the same segment of society. Existing parties have to completely revamp their image to accommodate the thriving young population of Pakistan; otherwise new players will eventually end their existence in coming years. This is what the data suggests.
There are two factors in the portrayal of a gloomy picture of Pakistan. First the availability heuristics, people believe in what they listen to, every day of their lives. Our mainstream media and social networking platforms both usually promote pessimism in the society, broadcasting negative indicators. We hardly observe these encouraging trends in our mainstream primetime debates. Therefore people start believing in what is available to them to watch.
The second factor is the vested interest of a specific segment of society which aims to win grants and privileges from Western countries and donors. They highlight the undesirable affairs of the society to secure their interests. Therefore the international audience also started to believe in the negativity as a preeminent indicator for Pakistani society.
We have demonstrated our strengths to the entire world during the recent India-Pakistan conflict with exceptional technological expertise, defeating one of the best fighter jet platforms available today. This speaks volumes about our abilities. We only need to propagate our strengths instead of indulging in untoward instances which are not uncommon to any society on this planet. Remember, the glass is half full, so let’s celebrate!
