.. by Prof Rahmat Karim Baig

The local people of Chitral have become lazier these days except a few youth with high IQ but the rest are generally mediocre. It is natural that all the humans have never been of the same level of intelligence; some are sharp, some dull, some stingy, some extravagant etc. but equality is not the law of the natural system. Here in Chitral we are more prone to laziness than other communities around us  such as Pathans, gujoors or even Kalash- have always lived with us since long.

We have got many negative aspects of social life as pointed out by many foreign writers though some of them are overstatements. We have got no large Farms, wide scale skills, mineral deposits in our control etc. so we have to rethink our strategy about our future and the future of our posterity. The overseas jobs of labrourers, the semiskilled workers, is not bringing enough cash and what we get from that source is spent on marriages, buying a 5 marla plot in the cities and then building a house where our savings fall to zero level. This is a part of the vicious cycle of poverty. When a bread winner of a family is in the middle east the children naturally  remain under the loose control of the house wife and she cannot educate or control them the way the future trend demands. They either leave the education in the middle or qualify with poor grades that proves useless. We have to develop our human resources to the best possible limit.

What we have got to do is to maintain:
— Our cultural values of the old men of Chitral
— Love of the land and its location as a great asset, work harder and harder in every walk of life.
— Give technical education to the majority of our children in the numerous disciplines as needed by the current market trend such as various trades and skills etc.
— Education of all the disciplines of Sciences to compete in the world job markets
— General education to compete in the Defense and Civil services of the country. I mean education! education of all disciplines but quality education; but not only quality education but SUPERIOR quality education in all fields to overtake the rivals.
— Education is the key to our future as far as I envisage. What we have presumed quality education at this moment is available in all the cities so it cannot equip us in superior way.. we have to raise ourselves to superior level.
— We have to be tourist friendly. As Chitral has got great tourism potential in a very large scale and we can attract the tourist market across the globe, with our good services and professionalism. That needs honesty, integrity, cleanliness, discipline, punctuality and such other credits that would speak for us silently. .. Prof. Rahmat Karim Baig, Chitral 18 July 2022