Some of the recently issued global indices and reports depict a grim state of affairs in Pakistan. Consistently plummeting ranking of the country on vital political, human rights and governance indicators bring sheer ignominy for the country among the world community. Dismissal of such reports can proffer an ephemeral escapism, yet the realities are carved in stone and can’t be erased with illusive contentment. Maplecroft’s Human Risk Index 2014, The Global Innovation Index 2014, World report 2014 of Human Rights Watch and Fragile States Index 2014, all paint a pitiable picture of Pakistan.

Maplecroft’s Human Risk Index 2014 has ranked Pakistan as the fourth most risky country in the world on human rights performance scale. Only Syria, Sudan and Congo appear on higher risk side whereas Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Nigeria appear lesser risky on the index. Undeniably, the country has a blotted track record of unremitting human rights violations.

Both, state and non-state actors commit atrocities with complete impunity. A nearly collapsed law and order structure continue to breed militancy, crime and extremism. Target killings, crime against women, violence against religious and sectarian minorities, ransom, extortion, extra-judicial killings, torture in custody, enforced disappearance are salient features of everyday life in the country. Evincing a scant respect for human rights, security apparatus has now been armed with fresh laws to trample human dignity with the entire brute at its disposal.

The country profile posted on the website of Maplecroft reads "Pakistan’s security situation still presents extreme risks to companies operating in the country. A major attack by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Karachi Airport in early June has underscored the substantial risk posed by terrorist groups to vital business infrastructure. Moreover, a large-scale military offensive against the TTP following the airport attack is likely to result in revenge attacks in the short to medium term in Pakistan’s cities. Additionally, violence in Karachi is unlikely to diminish as a confluence of criminal, political and ethnic rivalries played out in large swathes of Pakistan’s commercial capital."

World report 2014 of Human Rights Watch quoting ex-Attorney General Munir Malik says that more than 500 "disappeared" persons were in the custody of security agencies. The report further reads "while the military did not hinder the electoral process, it remained unaccountable for human rights violations and exercised disproportionate political influence, especially on matters of national security and counter-terrorism."

"The deep-rooted security crisis in the country was underscored by the inability or unwillingness of military and civilian institutions to end attacks on the population by militant groups. Islamist militant groups continued to target and kill hundreds of Shia Muslims, particularly from the Hazara community, with impunity. There has been a breakdown of law enforcement in the face of politically-motivated attacks particularly throughout the province of Balochistan and targeted killings in Karachi. The police and other security forces have been responsible for numerous abuses, including torture and other ill-treatment of criminal suspects, extrajudicial killings, and unresolved enforced disappearances of terrorism suspects."

Another report, The Global Innovation Index 2014, ranked Pakistan at 134th number out of 143 countries. Even Bangladesh appears better than Pakistan on the Index. The report quotes the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators 2013 that places Pakistan at the very bottom among 143 countries measured on the indicator of political stability and absence of violence. Nigeria, Syria, Sudan and Yemen appear relatively in the pink compared to Pakistan. The same index ranks Pakistan at 120th number on government effectiveness, at 131st on press freedom and 122nd on rule of law out of 143 countries.

A more prominent and widely debated ‘Failed State Index’ renamed with a mollifying title ‘Fragile States Index’ groups Pakistan with ten most fragile states of the world. The recently issued 10th annual report shows that this is fifth time that Pakistan has got a place in the club of the ten most fragile states. The assessment has been done by considering an assortment of critical indicators including demographic pressure, refugees and IDPs, uneven economic development, group grievances, human flight and brain drain, poverty and economic decline, state legitimacy, public services, human rights and rule of law, security apparatus, factionalised elites and external interventions.

Sifting through all these filters, the country rightfully seems to be highly fragile. Internal discontentment among various segments of society and external acrimonies have made the horizon hazy. It is internal fractures that make the country vulnerable to external shocks. Disgruntled compatriots pose greater fragility for a state than trans-boundary rivals.

Dismissing every incident with a ‘foreign hand’ mantra is losing its luster. A customary state of denial has only enriched the malaise. An objective stock-taking of the past decades is of paramount importance to learn from mistakes and avoid their recurrence. What is being practiced today has inflicted irreparable damage in past.

Pakistan ought to delineate and redefine four entities in the state affairs if it aims to march towards better future. Unless the role and status of religion, security, federation and citizens is redefined, the country would continue to sail through turbulent waters. From foreign policy to curriculum, defining everything with the prism of religion has made the country a hotbed of lunatic extremism that refuses to budge.

Flaunting religious extremists as strategic assets is a proven recipe for catastrophe. This notion has brought Pakistan at a precarious precipice. The country is engulfed by fire of religious obscurantism and it will not be so easy to extinguish it without having a consistent state narrative. Civil and military leadership is oscillating between diametrically divergent narratives and the demarcating line between them has always remained blur.

Extremism can be either adopted fully or abandoned completely. Administering controlled dozes is not an option in such cases. Experiments of such kind only give birth to a Frankenstein that is rumbling in every nook and cranny today. Long overdue unambiguous narrative on extremism is becoming an unavoidable need.

Similarly, security has morphed into every sphere of the state affairs. Spook of insecurity has been haunting the country since its inception. Always resorting to a course of confrontation -- both at internal and external fronts -- has engendered country with a debilitating paranoia of insecurity. This keeps biting national and provincial resources, maul elected regimes, deprive millions from basic necessities and blatantly abuse fundamental rights of citizens. A new paradigm of human security is now in vogue in developed societies. Borders can’t be made secure with millions breathing in profound socio-economic and political deprivation.

Making Pakistan a federation in true sense also deserves urgent attention. The country was promised to be a federation of founding units. However, two-nation theory subsequently eclipsed historic identities of the federating units. Their history, culture and even very identities were forcibly subsumed into a newly-theorised one-nation that lead to a ceaseless schism.

Even after six decades, languages of founding federating units are denied the right of national languages under the pretext of cementing one-nation that existed only in morbid minds of centralist vested interests. A federation turned iron-fist centre thus evolved with a hollow trunk and shallow roots.

An artificially crafted notion of one-nation was smashed in 1971 yet centralist mindset still hinges on its vestiges. The real harvest for such elements is ruthless exploitation of resources of federating units leaving them in ubiquitous penury at the expenses of few islands of prosperity.

Eighteenth Amendment strove to salvage a federation in tailspin but the same has been deceitfully put on a course of retreat by parochial forces. All these factors ultimately take the toll on ordinary citizen for whom life never changed with partition of subcontinent and succession of regimes thereafter.

Nearly seven decades down the road, more than half population toils up the mountain of poverty with no reprieve in sight. Once emerging as an epitome of development, the country is breathing in the bottom of pit after miserably failing on all key indicators of human development. Citizens barely appear at the center of decisions taken in the so-called national interest.

Pakistan is a rare example where citizen’s wellbeing does not feature on the agenda of national interests. Fermentation of all the aforementioned factors has led to a state where the country receives poor ranking on every index and citizens are haplessly staring at heavens to dispatch some relief.