Written By: Hurish Shah
Published By:ANI News Agency
Every year on August 14, Pakistan celebrates its Independence Day with green flags, national songs, speeches and patriotic messages. We proudly declare that Pakistan is an independent and sovereign country.
But there is a question we must have the courage to ask:
Are We Really Free?
Freedom is not merely about having a flag, borders or sovereignty. True freedom means living with dignity, justice, security, opportunity and hope.
When we look around Pakistan today, a number of painful questions emerge.
Child Labour
When Childhood Is Lost to Work
Pakistan continues to face the painful reality of child labour. Children who should be in classrooms, carrying schoolbags and building dreams are often seen working in workshops, hotels, markets, factories and homes.
A child should not have to choose between education and survival.
If poverty forces children to work instead of study, we must ask ourselves: What kind of freedom are we celebrating?
A truly free society must protect the childhood, education and future of every child.
Kashmir
A Question Still Waiting for Justice
Kashmir remains one of the region’s longest-standing and most painful disputes. The political rights, dignity and future of the Kashmiri people continue to demand meaningful attention.
Pakistan has consistently expressed its support for the Kashmiri cause. However, the issue requires sustained diplomacy, international engagement and peaceful efforts focused on human dignity and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.
When we speak about freedom, we cannot ignore those who have lived for decades with an unresolved question about their political future.
Petrol and Gas
The Rising Cost of Survival
For ordinary Pakistanis, inflation is not merely an economic statistic. It is a daily struggle.
Rising petrol and gas prices affect almost every aspect of life. When fuel becomes more expensive, transportation costs increase, businesses face higher expenses and the prices of food and other essential goods often rise as well.
Gas and electricity bills place further pressure on already struggling households.
For many families, the question is no longer about a better lifestyle. It is about simply managing the next month.
If people cannot afford their basic necessities, how free do they truly feel?
Unemployment
Degrees in Hand, But No Jobs
Pakistan’s young population is one of its greatest assets, yet unemployment remains a major concern.
Young people complete degrees, develop skills and enter the job market with dreams of building successful careers. But many struggle to find decent employment.
A young graduate should be thinking about innovation, entrepreneurship and building a future not wondering how to survive without a job.
Pakistan does not need more promises to its youth. It needs merit, skills development, investment and real employment opportunities.
Seats Being Sold
Where Is Merit?
Whenever people begin to believe that political, educational or professional opportunities can be obtained through money, influence or connections rather than merit, public confidence in institutions suffers.
A talented young person from a poor family should never feel that success belongs only to those who can afford it or have powerful connections.
Pakistan needs merit not influence.
If seats, opportunities or positions are treated as commodities, we are not only damaging institutions; we are damaging the dreams of an entire generation.
Missing Persons
Who Will Give Their Families Answers?
The issue of missing persons is not simply a political or legal debate. Behind every case is a family living with uncertainty.
A mother waits for her son. A wife waits for her husband. Children wait for their father.
Every citizen, regardless of political affiliation, ethnicity or region, deserves due process, lawful treatment and answers through transparent legal mechanisms.
Silence cannot heal a family’s pain.
Justice requires truth, due process and accountability.
Another Innocent Life Lost When Will Justice Come?
Pakistan has witnessed too many cases in which innocent people have been brutally killed and their families left demanding justice.
Public outrage may dominate headlines for a few days. Social media reacts, statements are issued, and then another story takes over.
But for the victim’s family, the story never ends.
There is an empty chair at home. There are unanswered questions. There is grief that does not disappear.
The demand is simple:
We want justice.
Justice should never depend on wealth, political influence or media attention. The law must protect the powerful and powerless alike.
Child Marriage
A Stolen Future
Child marriage deprives children particularly girls of education, health, independence and the opportunity to make decisions about their own futures.
A child should be in school, learning and developing skills not being forced into adult responsibilities before she is ready.
Protecting children means protecting their right to education, safety and a dignified future.
Acid Attacks
An Attack on a Woman’s Life and Dignity
An acid attack does not simply injure a woman’s face. It can permanently change her health, confidence, career and entire life.
Such violence raises serious questions about women’s protection and the effectiveness of law enforcement.
A society cannot call itself civilized while women continue to live under the threat of violence.
Justice must be swift, protection must be real, and perpetrators must be held accountable.
Child Abuse
Who Will Protect the Most Vulnerable?
When an innocent child becomes a victim of sexual abuse, an entire family suffers.
Children deserve protection, education and safe environments. They must be taught that they have the right to speak up and seek help.
The identity or influence of a perpetrator must never determine whether justice is served.
No child should be left unprotected.
Women’s Safety
Can Women Truly Feel Safe?
A woman should feel safe at home, at work, on public transport, in markets and on the streets.
Yet harassment, violence and sexual crimes continue to raise serious questions about women’s safety in Pakistan.
Development is not measured only by highways, buildings and economic figures.
A country’s real progress is also measured by whether its women can live without fear.
Balochistan
A Province Cannot Be Reduced to a Label
Balochistan is home to millions of Pakistani citizens. It is unfair and dangerous to reduce an entire province or its people to the label of terrorism.
There is an important distinction between individuals who commit acts of violence and ordinary citizens who peacefully demand education, employment, development, dignity and justice.
The grievances of citizens must be heard.
National unity is not built through labels. It is built through trust, inclusion and justice.
Government and the People Why Is the Distance Growing?
Ordinary Pakistanis are struggling with inflation, unemployment, expensive utilities and the rising cost of basic necessities.
At the same time, there is growing public frustration over the perception that political and economic elites remain disconnected from the daily struggles of ordinary citizens.
If people believe that those in power are more concerned with personal interests and wealth than public welfare, trust in government inevitably declines.
Public office is a responsibility, not a pathway to personal enrichment.
Hunger
Can a Hungry Person Be Truly Free?
The most basic meaning of freedom is the ability to live with dignity.
If a daily wage worker cannot afford enough food for his family, if parents have to choose between medicine and groceries, and if children go to bed hungry, then economic freedom remains incomplete.
Freedom from hunger must be part of national freedom.
So, Are We Really Free?
Pakistan is an independent, sovereign and nuclear-armed country. But the true strength of a nation is not measured only by its borders, military power, buildings or celebrations.
It is measured by the lives of its weakest citizens.
If children are working instead of studying, young people are unemployed, petrol and gas prices are crushing household budgets, women are unsafe, children are abused, innocent people are killed, families wait for missing loved ones, merit is questioned and citizens in Balochistan feel unheard, then we must look beyond the celebrations and examine ourselves.
Freedom is not simply the right to wave a flag.
Freedom means justice.
Freedom means education.
Freedom means employment.
Freedom means security.
Freedom means food.
Freedom means merit.
Freedom means the right to speak and be heard.
And above all, freedom means that an ordinary Pakistani should feel that this country belongs to them and that the state exists to serve them.
This August 14, we should certainly celebrate Pakistan. But we should also make a promise: to build a country where no child is forced to surrender childhood to labour, no woman lives in fear, no innocent victim is forgotten, no family is left without answers and no citizen is denied justice because of poverty, identity or lack of influence.
Pakistan won its independence in 1947.
But the struggle to make freedom meaningful in the daily lives of every Pakistani continues.
Are we really free?
Perhaps this is not a question we should ask only our government.
It is a question we must ask ourselves.
Pakistan Zindabad.
your question worth millions. how can i feel that i am free ?