Dhaka hosted Dar, Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Senator, on his recent two-day official (not bilateral) visit to Bangladesh. Warm handshakes, official photographs, talk of opening hearts, and even visa-free travel for diplomatic passport holders dominated current affairs shows on Pakistani TV channels and social media. For opportunistic and impatient commentators, a "paradigm shift" had also occurred after thirteen years of dormancy.

On paper, it seemed like the genesis of a new epoch. Six star-studded Memorandums of Understanding, a cultural exchange programme, promises of trade facilitation, joint think-tank work and the launch of the so-called "Pakistan-Bangladesh Knowledge Corridor" offering 500 scholarships, a quarter of them in medicine, are being hailed as "very productive" and "landmark" by both governments.

What is missing? Is this all so genuine? Where are human reckoning and empathy? Can the media, civil society and civil bureaucracy develop the capacity to see the longstanding wound that lies beneath this jubilant façade? Has any fearless analyst looked at the discordance: diplomatic declarations flourish, but unsolved human suffering worsens.

The "stranded Pakistanis" — rather, the stateless people, some of whom have endured statelessness for over five decades — are yet to see the light of acknowledgment, let alone restitution. Is this what we call progress? Or does it imply that some........

© The Express Tribune