After a year of economic turbulence, Pakistan’s economy seems to have crawled out of intensive care. Inflation has cooled. The current account is no longer haemorrhaging. The rupee has stopped fainting. The doctors in charge—whoever and wherever they are—deserve a polite golf clap.
Of course, deep structural flaws remain, and the recent budget did little to suggest reformist ambitions, but that’s a story for another day. For now, it’s fair to say: things were bad, they’re less bad now. Celebrate? Sure. Overstate? Apparently, yes. Fabricate? Why not!
One might assume that a government enjoying full-spectrum dominance—with the judiciary nodding, the military saluting, and the opposition napping—wouldn’t need to invent good news. There’s real stuff to work with. But Islamabad, ever the overachiever in narrative control, just can't help itself.
Take, for instance, the recent spectacle over the Henley Passport Index. The Government of Pakistan’s official X account proudly declared, “Pakistan’s Passport Earns Global Recognition”, hailing it as a “notable milestone in Global Mobility.” Sounds impressive—until you read the fine print: Pakistan ranks 100th out of 103. Only Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are below. Global mobility, indeed—just not forward.
Officials even credited “new e-gates” at domestic airports for this international breakthrough. One imagines a team of bureaucrats proudly scanning their own passports at Islamabad Airport and calling it a visa-free success.
Never mind that Pakistan’s “global mobility” score of 32 means visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to just 32 countries—a list that could double as a geography quiz most Pakistanis would fail. Go ahead, try finding Tuvalu, Niue, or Palau Islands on a map—or even spelling them. When your mobility milestone includes access to Vanuatu, Micronesia, and Montserrat, the only thing moving globally is the punchline.
Faced with ridicule, the post vanished. Deleted. No clarification. No accountability. Just a digital puff of smoke.But wait—there’s more.
Another round of chest-thumping emerged from a supposed “Bloomberg Intelligence Global Emerging Market Default Risk Ranking,” where Pakistan, topped the chart. Yes, Pakistan’s default risk outlook has improved. Credit default swaps have narrowed. Ratings agencies have softened their tone. But why let nuance get in the way of a perfectly viral slogan? By no stretch of imagination does this indicate Pakistan being the “most improved economy” in the world as headlines have had it.
It would be funny, if it weren’t so tragic.
Because here’s the real scoreboard: 44 percent of Pakistanis live below the poverty line. 52 percent of households still use firewood to cook. 22 percent don’t have a kitchen. 25 million children are out of school. In a country with such staggering deficits in human development, spending energy on barely believable self-congratulatory fiction should be—at best—a footnote. At worst, a farce.
Here’s hoping that simply pointing out the bare minimum doesn’t irk the “hybrid.” Then again, satire is only dangerous when it holds a mirror.
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