Comment by Riaz Haq on November 25, 2014 at 4:25pm

Aansoo is a 20-year-old student in the final stages of a bachelor's degree. She is the only person in this village with more than a smattering of education. Her mission is to change that: "I'll make these children doctors," she says. "I'll make them teachers and engineers."

The kids in Aansoo's cattle shed are from Pakistan's Hindu community — a marginalized, sometimes victimized, minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim nation. Their village has for centuries subsisted on the tiny income produced by picking cotton and green chilies for feudal landlords.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/11/25/364981722/in-pakis...

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 27, 2016 at 4:04pm

Remote northern #Pakistan village Gojal transformed by #education , #CellPhone, #Internet, new highway http://on.natgeo.com/2dPriY5 via @NatGeo

PASSU, Pakistan—Sajid Alvi is excited. He just got a grant to study in Sweden.

“My Ph.D. is about friction in turbo jet engines,” Alvi says. “I will work on developing new aerospace materials—real geeky stuff!”

Alvi’s relatives have come to bid him farewell as he prepares to leave his mountain village and study in a new country, some 3,000 miles away.

“We will see you again,” one of them says as they hang out in the potato field in front of Alvi’s house. “You know you won’t get far with a long beard like that. You look like Taliban!”

Alvi, dressed in low-hanging shorts and a Yankees cap, is far from a fundamentalist: He’s Wakhi, part of an ethnic group with Persian origins. And like everyone else here, he is Ismaili—a follower of a moderate branch of Islam whose imam is the Aga Khan, currently residing in France. There are 15 million Ismailis around the world, and 20,000 live here in the Gojal region of northern Pakistan.

I’ve been visiting Gojal for 17 years, and I’ve watched as lives like Alvi’s have become more common here. Surrounded by the mighty Karakoram Range, the Ismailis here have long been relatively isolated, seeing tourists but little else of global events. But now, an improved highway and the arrival of mobile phones have let the outside world in, bringing new lifestyles and opportunities: Children grow up and head off to university, fashions change, and technology reshapes tradition. Gojal has adjusted to all of this, surprising me every time I return by showing me just how adaptable traditions can be.

With these photos, I hope to add nuance to our understanding of Pakistan, a country many Westerners associate with terrorism or violence. People have suffered from this reputation, and many feel helpless in trying to change it. The Pakistan I’ve seen is different from that popular perception. I returned there this summer with my family and focused my attention on a young and forward-thinking community in Gojal, a place I know well.

I first came here in the summer of 1999. I was 25 and my girlfriend and I bought one-way tickets to Pakistan. We were looking for inspiring treks (the Karakoram Range has the highest concentration of peaks taller than 8,000 meters). Back then, we were among the roughly 100,000 foreign tourists to visit northern Pakistan each year.

We stayed for months, opening new passes, learning the language, and exploring the Karakoram, Hindu Kush, and Pamir. I kept returning, but over the years, I saw the number of fellow hikers plunge. The tourism department now records only a few thousand foreign visitors each year.

“Following the terrible September 11th attacks, anyone involved in tourism had to sell their jeeps or hotels; no tourists dared to come here anymore,” says Karim Jan, a local tour guide.

With each return visit, I noticed other changes. While outsiders were rare, the improved Karakoram Highway, now able to host vehicles other than Jeeps and 4x4s, brought in local tourists from south Pakistan, and southern cities became more accessible to the Wakhi.


Young men and women began leaving to study in these cities, and they came back for summer holiday dressed in new, hip fashions. Shops multiplied along the road, selling new spices, sugary snacks, and sodas. Biryani rice, a favorite dish from Punjab, now often replaces the traditional turnip soup or buckwheat pancakes during celebrations.

But despite what I’ve seen change on the surface, the spirit of Gojal is very much the same.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 15, 2018 at 10:23pm

Sindh’s glorious model village of Tando Soomro


https://dailytimes.com.pk/299466/sindhs-glorious-model-village/

https://youtu.be/DBMN1lYb95A

Tando Soomro, a small town located some 15 kilometers from the Tando Allahyar city of Sindh, is a versatile and model village which is the abode of different qualities and a magnificent beauty.

‘Tando’ is a prefix used in the names of many cities and towns of Sindh, for example, Tando Muhammad Khan, and Tando Allahyar. Historically, there has been a lot of debate; some researchers believe that the word has been derived from Sindhi word ‘taando’ that means ‘ash’, while others believe that ‘tando(s)’ were the cantonments of Talpur rulers.

As I stepped in the village, I witnessed a large boundary wall of some 10-feet in height covering a vast area. “Our village is secured by a boundary wall from two sides with private security check posts at the entrance of the village and one needs to confirm his identity and the purpose of his visit before entering,” my host and resident of the village Ghulam Akbar Rojhani explained.

We followed our friend’s vehicle through the wide, clean and cemented streets of the village. One of the things that amazed me was that most of the sewerage system was underground and had a grill on it.

Thanks to the education and unity among villagers and most of the affairs of the village are run by the committee. Many of the residents are well-known agriculturists and some are even serving on important posts in Pakistan as well as abroad. These villagers are encouraged to make voluntary contributions in the village committee fund for the provision of facilities in village-like spending on education, health unit, streets, playgrounds, and sewerage.

The committee appointed by villagers is further divided into different sub-committees for education, health, sports, and security. These sub-committees look after the domain. To ensure transparency, an annual meeting of the committee is held where progress report is shared with villagers along with a record of collections and spending.

While visiting different streets, one can see small homes of laborers and farmers, as well as the bungalows of landlords. They are all availing the same basic facilities. Though a majority of the village population belongs to Nizamani community, it is also home to many other castes and tribes. There is peace among Muslims and Hindus without any discrimination. This village is united and multicultural at the same time.

Literacy ratio of the village is better than many other villages and towns of rural Pakistan. Many youngsters of the area are serving in the private as well as government sector after completing their basic education from this very village and higher education from some of the top universities of Pakistan.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 18, 2019 at 7:39am

A #Library Thrives, Quietly, in One of #Pakistan’s #Gun Markets in #Tribal Area. The Darra Adam Khel Library, less than a year old and with more than 2,500 books, offers residents a respite from the #arms bazaar that dominates local life. #FATA #KP 
https://nyti.ms/2RmnQ9w

It has even caught the attention of the market’s arms sellers. Noor Ahmad Malik, sitting inside his gun shop, has gotten interested in books about India and Pakistan and Islamic history, calling the library the “best thing that happened recently for the people here.”


Darra Adam Khel was under Taliban control for years until the Pakistani Army cleared it in 2010. Still, it has been regularly targeted by militants, including a suicide bombing in 2012 that killed 16 people, and mosque attacks in 2010 that killed more than 60. With a population of more than 100,000, it is still largely no-man’s land, where Pakistani law wasn’t applicable until the merger of tribal areas in the neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province last year.

Now the military is helping Muhammad build a new library that can accommodate up to 65 people, seeing it as a way to help residents recover from years of traumatic violence.

“People are still reeling from the militancy, which has killed hundreds of civilians and soldiers,” said a government official serving in the area, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak with the news media. “They are more prone to fear and stress, particularly among children, and now the availability of books is a good option for knowledge and education.”


In the nine months it has been open, it has drawn about 240 members, who pay 150 Pakistani rupees, about $1, a year. Thirty members are women, even though Darra Adam Khel is a conservative area where women are not allowed to go outside unaccompanied. They select books using the library’s Facebook page.

One of them is Shifa Raj, Muhammad’s 11-year-old daughter. A sixth grader and avid reader, she helps her father deliver books to the female members of the library.

“I told girls in the school that we have a library in our area: If you are interested, I will provide membership forms,” she said. “The response was remarkable.”

Muhammad considers the Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai “our pride,” for her efforts to champion education for girls and becoming the youngest Nobel Prize laureate.

“I was born here,” Muhammad said. “I want the world to remember Darra Adam Khel with a good reputation, not for guns but for the books.”

Comment