Huzaima Bukhari

Today (August 14, 2026), Pakistan completes 79 years as an independent state. Political sovereignty passed from Westminster in 1947.

We frequently speak about changing Pakistan. Perhaps Pakistan will begin changing when Pakistanis begin changing themselves. That proposition should not be mistaken for naïve optimism. Nor does it suggest that institutional reform, constitutional governance, economic justice and accountability are unnecessary. They are indispensable. But institutions ultimately reflect the human beings who operate them.

The democratic promise of 1947 will remain unfulfilled until self-government reaches the street

A two-page unreported order of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) of Pakistan in the Mirpurkhas Sugar Mills...

Democracy itself has not escaped this culture of contradiction. Elections remain the cornerstone of representative government, yet public discourse increasingly rewards image over substance, slogans over ideas and perception over performance. Political communication is carefully engineered to maximise emotional appeal while avoiding inconvenient truths. Leaders promise transparency through carefully crafted ambiguity and speak of accountability while shifting responsibility elsewhere. The result is a political culture in which appearances often eclipse authenticity. The autistic observer, taking language literally, would struggle to understand why saying one thing while intending another has become accepted as an ordinary feature of public life rather than an exception to it.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” Voltaire Few would dispute that the contemporary world enjoys unprecedented access to scientific knowledge, technological innovation and instantaneous communication. Yet...

Democracy cannot be sustained by elections alone. Elections merely determine who shall govern; constitutional morality determines how they should govern. Nations flourish when public office is regarded as a sacred trust, exercised with humility, integrity and unwavering fidelity to the Constitution.

“All persons possessing a portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust”—Edmund Burke Fifteen years ago in ‘Who should not contest elections’, (Business Recorder, January 7, 2011). it was argued that...

What is required is neither blind defence of the institution nor fashionable denunciation of it. The Security Council

Pakistan’s debt indicators have improved at the margin. They do not establish that its debt-producing political economy has changed