THERE is a word in Urdu, beyhisi, that has no precise English equivalent. It means something between numbness and indifference, the condition of a person who has seen enough suffering that it no longer registers as something requiring a response. Pakistan’s ruling elite has achieved a collective beyhisi of remarkable consistency. They announce austerity measures in the morning and board private planes in the evening. They speak of the people’s sacrifices in parliamentary speeches delivered from podiums that cost more to maintain than a schoolteacher earns in a year. They reduce ministers’ salaries by 25% and then claim Rs 200 billion in annual savings while the circular debt stands at Rs 4.7 trillion and 107 million Pakistanis live below the poverty line. The arithmetic does not add up but indifference does.

The data describing ordinary Pakistani life in 2026 is not complicated. Real wages have declined by 27% since March 2022. Unemployment stands at 18.8 million, with 6.7 million youth entirely idle. The poverty headcount remains at a ten-year high despite GDP growth of 3.7% that the government announces with celebratory fervour. Nearly 20% of the population has an insufficient caloric intake. 40% of children under five suffer from stunting. These are not numbers from a conflict zone or a failed state. They are numbers from a country whose stock exchange index crossed 169,000 points and whose finance minister presents budget documents to a noisy National Assembly while describing........

© Pakistan Observer