A close friend recently returned from Islamabad where he has settled because of his employment. As we spoke of his hectic work schedule, he began to lament the ‘lethargic’ attitude of the people of Potohar. I laughed, not at the people of Potohar, but at the familiar grumble I often get to hear from such individuals. I call it the settler’s spirit.
This lens is not confined to domestic migration. During a visit to Sindh’s Thar region, my hosts, a family of successful businessmen who had migrated from India at the time of Partition, expressed similar sentiments about the locals. The narrative was identical, only the geography was different.
Perhaps the most telling example comes from my time in Cambridge where I was pursuing my doctorate, and was an active member of the Pakistani community there. I had a friend who drove a cab for long hours. He shared his ambitious plan to soon move his entire family from Rawalpindi to the United Kingdom.
Talking about the British people, his comments were amazingly identical. “They are lethargic. They only work five days a week and spend the rest blowing all their money,” he had remarked.
This is surely a global phenomenon, observable in both national and trans-
national migrations. The diaspora, the migrants, the newcomers, they live a completely different life; one dedicated to a single, all-consuming goal of somehow ‘settle’ in their new environs.
Those who are already settled, enjoy different privileges. They do not face the immense pressure of buying a new home in an inflated market, navigating complex visa systems, or uprooting an entire family. Their pace of life is not dictated by survival, but by stability. They can afford a five-day work week; they have the luxury of spending their earnings on leisure.
The act of comparing the relentless hustle of someone in the ‘sprinting’ phase of settlement with the steady jog of an already-settled community misses the point entirely. If you observe the third generation of those same settlers, their thinking patterns, spending habits, and way of life often mirror the indigenous population they once criticised. Why? Because they are no longer settling; they are settled.
This mindset of the settler versus the settled is a critical dynamic that needs addressing. Labelling an entire community as ‘lethargic’ based on the frantic, often unsustainable, pace of a newcomer is a recipe for misunderstanding and ethnic conflict. It creates an ‘us versus them’ divide where none needs to exist.
The problem is certain, and it is found everywhere, from global metropolises to domestic towns. The solution lies in recognising that pace is not a measure of character, but of circumstance. The sprint of settlement and the marathon of a settled life are two different races.
Judging one by the rules of the other helps no one. We need to handle this serious misperception with care, fostering empathy over accusation, lest we allow these casual generalisations to harden into lasting, tricky and meaningless conflicts.
DR MOAZAM KHAN DURRANI
BAHAWALPUR
