Pakistan’s ex-Prime Minister, Shahid Abbasi, turned towards me.
“What’s your 9/11 theory?” I threw out my question to him from behind my cup of tea, perched in his living room post-dinner buffet at his home in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Al Jazeera journalist had left a short while ago. Her departure lent casualness and intimacy to the room, making my question wholly appropriate. The 27 of us leaned forward, anticipating the soundbite that would cap our first day of spring break—Harvard Pakistan Trek edition.
A week prior, I had very little idea of what my spring break would entail other than a ghastly 17-hour flight, Google Image photos of Islamabad and Lahore, and the excitement of beginning to fast for Ramadan. Various changing lists of students had been floated around, with names from the College, Kennedy, Business, Divinity, and Medical Schools. Yet, I knew fewer than a handful of the people on the trip and even less regarding the itinerary. I left Boston with a sort of blind faith, which, over the course of the week, turned out to be well rewarded.
How is it that you can come to know a country in just seven days? I know Pakistan in hazy sunlight by its warm air streaming across our skin as we race to the Palace of Mirrors on the back of the painted rickshaw. Knowing comes from bargaining for jhumka earrings in the small shops that lean higgledy-piggledy against Badshahi Mosque’s walls. It comes from wearing the bright new orange shalwar kameez attire I bought with a fistful of 5,000 Pakistani rupees. It is waking up bleary-eyed to the sound of the adhan cutting through the darkness at 4:45 a.m., realizing I’ve missed the pre-dawn sehri meal.
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I know Pakistan by kneeling down, head to the ground in prayer, next to a woman and child reciting the same Arabic verses as me and knowing that should I turn to them later, there will be no shared tongue for conversation. It is by looking at the cows lined up as our bus drives past the country auction held amidst the fertile green rice paddy fields. It is observing the marshes’ water levels that lie well below the edges of the riverbank, patiently waiting for the next monsoon. It is seeing the myna birds flit through the ornamental red flowers of the blooming Gulmohar trees that line well-groomed avenue streets.
Knowing is whispering to each other in the alcoves of the restored Mughal Shahi Hammam about sidling away to play Ludo board games in the illegal shisha lounge. It is bringing the scarf across my newly washed, cut, and blow-dried hair, having emerged from the salon post-massage-and-facial, face gleaming, wallet hardly touched. It is watching sugarcane juice be squeezed for me and spooning nutty kulfa-almond ice cream into my mouth on Haveli’s rooftop under a full, heaving red moon. It is sitting with my new friends, who last week were strangers, as hot coals are delivered under the table by waiters to keep the cool night’s air at bay.
And the food! Oh, the food! Every morning, we woke at 4:30 a.m. to a hotel buffet with chicken karahi, keema, chickpeas, and an omelet station. Iftar dinners, hosted by organizations including the Harvard Club of Pakistan and the Fulbright Program, were another glorious buffet. Korma, biryani, nihari, paya, rosh malai—a spicy, rich, endless eating with eyes and mouths. Behind the counter, fresh kebabs and marinated meats are grilled in large batches. In front, warm, crispy, thin jalebi are served, doused in syrup. All is washed down by copious amounts of tea.
More formulaically, or more “Harvard-ly” perhaps, you also know a country through its politics, legal systems, and economy. The Kennedy School students are clearly very good at what they do, and sitting beside them at meetings with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Qazi Faez Isa, the ex-Prime Minister Shahid Abbasi, and the first and only female judge on the Pakistan Supreme Court, Harvard alum Ayesha Malik LL.M. ’99, we started to cobble together an image of Pakistan.
Corruption and poor governance are arguably the trademarks of developing countries. There are many pockets to line and egos to stroke. Often, grappling with and unraveling the true wielders of power takes some time, but not so in Pakistan. It became apparent from our first day that the ultimate authority is the military. From dining in a military-owned restaurant to observing a Supreme Court case against the army, to hearing politicians openly bemoan the chokehold the military has around their necks, we came to terms with the reality of the pseudo-democracy enforced in Pakistan.
The military operates hospitals, schools, roads, agriculture, natural disaster responses, energy, and every other facet of life. They remain a constant force, even as politicians are jailed and new governments are brought in. We asked plenty of questions—the whys and whos and so-whats—and every actor with their own biases and agendas would present a new answer. People offered up their truths candidly but carefully. One person got up mid-conversation whilst eating with me to quickly walk around the room to gather who could possibly be eavesdropping before returning and speaking even more guardedly than before.
To set the backdrop to our visit, Pakistan held its general elections in February, just a month prior. Despite former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), winning the highest number of seats, Khan remains imprisoned, and his opposition, Shehbaz Sharif, was sworn in as PM instead. We listened as politicians besmirched each other and touted themselves as the shiny new thing. We spoke of potential military coups as an ever-present, forever-looming possibility.
We would return to the hotel, aggregating in rooms to debrief, packed in, eyes sparkling with outrage and amusement. “Is it even possible to fix Pakistan’s democracy?” “Isn’t a military dictatorship actually preferable?” “Can you believe the gall of that man?” my fellow trekkers would exclaim, not really in the pursuit of answers, but simply to digest much of the absurdity of the day’s main “yappers.”
Not that the situation is hopeless; it is quite the contrary. An entire day in Islamabad was dedicated to policy, during which the Trek group split into different policy areas. Some students went to a novel health clinic, others to a school in a slum, and a few to the Human Rights Watch headquarters. I found myself, quite fittingly as a Londoner, at the British High Commission. We all coalesced again at Tabadlab, a consulting firm and think tank working in the hopes that Pakistan can be better. That day, I wanted to have the same job as every person I met.
My focus area was energy and climate change. Pakistan struggles with energy scarcity, flooding, and heatwaves, all exacerbated by global warming. It is clear that the extent of Pakistan’s problems, in fact, the entire world’s problems, are too big to be solved by one individual alone. As Mosharraf Zaidi, Tabadlab’s founder, expressed, we’re “fucked.” Yet, through diplomacy, philanthropy, business, academia, politics, and law, all the people we met in Pakistan strive for small change. This is their personal struggle or “jihad,” as Chief Justice Isa put it. The Pakistani people are a resilient lot, and I left humbled and inspired.
It is also in a place like Pakistan that you understand the power of the Harvard name and network. The access we had for hours at a time to influential figures to probe and converse would never have been remotely possible for me as an average tourist. In what world would the Chief Justice spend three hours of his time simply lunching with us and avoiding questions like the great lawyer he is? Or would the first and only female judge of the Supreme Court, Malik, meet us for a morning conversation? Or would we be welcomed for a wonderful lunch and a remarkably forthright chat at the British High Commission, if not for Sam G. Sherman MPP ’20, Harvard Kennedy School alum?
I left iftar dinners at the Harvard Club of Pakistan and Fulbright Pakistan Program with long contact lists and promises to stay in alumni homes the next time I visit Pakistan. Many of us made promises to come back.
Yet it had become quite clear that many Pakistan Trekkers’ parents had been, and still were, opposed to the trip. Our group consisted of students from all different ethnicities, religions, and nationalities—a visual motley group with an unusual number of six-foot-plus individuals towering over the locals. Thus, we all came with different pre-formed notions of Pakistan.
For many Americans, the country is viewed solely through a security lens. According to American perspectives, a New York Times Connections game for Pakistan’s group of four might include Osama Bin Laden, Afghanistan, the Taliban, and Malala Yousafzai. Yet, when I forwarded on the email for this trip back in November, my father replied 13 minutes later to say, “I think you should really try to go on this trip if you can.”
As a British-Bangladeshi Muslim who grew up in London with many Pakistani friends, I did not share many of these American apprehensions. Pre-1947 Partition, we were all one India and pre-Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, we were West and East Pakistan. My family had served in the Pakistani military, attended university in Pakistan, and fought in the war against Pakistan. Our histories are intertwined. Thus, in many ways, getting to know Pakistan felt like an opportunity to get to know myself, and every person we met would ask about our respective backgrounds.
Two other Bangladeshi Harvard students were on the trip, and our backgrounds garnered responses that differed widely from Pakistani to Pakistani. “You guys kicked us out!” said one Harvard Law School (HLS) alum. “The loss of Bangladesh is a deep source of shame which my family still feels keenly,” said another HLS graduate. “My Bangladeshi sister—my compatriot,” another woman said as she folded me into a hug.
Most startling of all, however, in the National Assembly of Pakistan (their Houses of Parliament equivalent), an exhibit on Pakistan’s history contained a noticeably glaring omission: for the year 1971, a single depiction of a rope broken in two with the caption “Less Said the Better.” Truthfully, this cut me deeply. My week in Pakistan grew a love in my heart for it. In an alternate universe, I, too, would have been a Pakistani. Walking around, I looked almost indistinguishable.
Just as I am a Harvard student and Bangladeshi, so too am I British. My voice labels me as such. I currently lead the Harvard British Society as Prime Minister, and part of my responsibility, I feel, is to be frank about Britain’s colonial legacy. England’s handprints leave no stone untouched in Pakistan. Colonial influence endures in architecture, law, theater, and schooling. Lahore lies just 30 miles from Amritsar, the holiest city in Sikhism. The two cities are now forever separated by Britain’s hamfisted border lines that cut through the land willy-nilly, as arbitrary as a bloodstain on the wall and resulting in the death of millions.
Along with the meddling British, the US and China did equally pop up in conversation. Pakistan has long played a role in US-China relations since the Cold War, caught in the middle of both superpowers. Pakistanis spoke of the Chinese and Americans as their “neo-colonialists.” Who to court for investments? A ménage à trois perhaps? As Harvard students, we were told that for too long, Pakistan’s place in the geopolitical landscape had been viewed through a unidimensional lens in the U.S. I write this account partly in the hope that I can hammer home how full-bodied and wonderfully complex Pakistan—the fifth most populous country in the world—is, just as I have come to understand it.
I find it very difficult to convey clearly the amount of gratitude I hold for the organizers of Pakistan Trek. Every day served as evidence of their labor of love. Sadiq Soofi ’25, Ahmed Raza HKS MPA ’24, Hamaad Mehal ’23 – ’24, and Abdullah Shahid Sial ’27 would appear like shells of themselves at the day’s end on the bus, shattered clearly by their efforts to pull together a thousand strings, people, and nightmarish logistics to ensure that we felt incredibly safe, constantly delighted, and so thoroughly well acquainted with Pakistan.
At the end of one day, at a Qawwali classical music night, as the instruments played and the singer sang, our eyes all closing, we tried desperately to remain awake just to feel that utter contentment for a second more.
Taybah Crorie ’25 (taybahcrorie@college.harvard.edu) strongly recommends you join Harvard Pakistan Trek next year. Don’t worry—you’ll always be escorted by police with big guns.