What is independence?

Independence is more than a date on the calendar or a memory of sacrifice. It is a living responsibility, renewed every day through justice, opportunity and a shared commitment to the nation’s future.

When Pakistan came into being seventy-eight years ago, it was not given as a gift. It was won through vision, unity and the resolve to build a homeland where faith, discipline and shared purpose would underpin a better life for all.

But independence was never meant to be static. Each generation inherits not only the benefits of sovereignty but the duty to advance it. This means moving beyond survival mode. For decades, our people have shown extraordinary resilience. Yet resilience without progress becomes a loop, not a ladder. True independence means creating a foundation on which the next generation can climb higher.

That foundation is stability that allows them to grow, innovate and thrive. Without it, we condemn ourselves to a cycle where the best and brightest are forced to seek opportunity elsewhere.

This brain drain is one of our greatest challenges. Pakistan’s doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs and technologists are celebrated abroad. They strengthen health systems, empower tech companies and drive innovation in countries that welcome them, while their homeland remains in need of the very skills they possess.

The pattern is clear: our people succeed when given the chance. The question is why that chance so often comes from somewhere else. The answer is not a lack of ability or ambition; it is the absence of an environment that rewards merit, supports enterprise and protects stability over short-term gain.

If this continues, we risk becoming a nation of economic nomads, a population whose children and grandchildren remain strangers in other lands, forever seeking approval and never truly rooted. That is not the legacy the founders envisioned.

This land has carried the weight of history for thousands of years. The Indus Valley civilisation, as old as Egypt and Mesopotamia, thrived here. Empires rose and fell, yet the land and its people endured. That endurance should be our advantage, but history alone does not build a future. We must decide what binds us to this place now, what common cause justifies staying, working and building together.

Shared ideals must replace factional interests. We need an economy that rewards effort and innovation, not connections alone. We need the law to protect all citizens equally, so that people trust their state as both a shield and a partner. And we need a civic culture where disagreement is not treated as betrayal.

Independence also demands maturity. A nation in its 78th year can no longer act like an adolescent, pulled in every direction by impulse and emotion. It must step fully into its responsibilities, pragmatic in planning, clear in purpose and disciplined in action.

This is the shift that can reverse the brain drain, revive enterprise, and give our youth reason to believe they can build their future here. The entrepreneurial spirit is already in our people. It simply needs an environment where effort is met with opportunity, and where stability is guarded as a national asset.

As we mark another year of independence, let us remember that sovereignty is not only the ability to defend borders. It is the capacity to build a life within them that is worth defending. That requires each of us, citizen and leader alike, to think not only about what we can take from this country, but what we can add to it.

If we can agree on a common direction, Pakistan can move from surviving history to making history. The founders gave us the chance to stand on our own. It is now our task to ensure that, for the generations to come, this is not just a place where they were born, but the place where they chose to stay, to build and to belong.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer's own and don't necessarily reflect Geo.tv's editorial policy.

The writer is the son of the late Senator A Rehman Malik, and the head of the PPP’s Digital Media in Islamabad. He tweets/posts @UmarRehmanMalik

Originally published in The News