■A port can open a nation’s doors to the world. But only unity, trust and belonging can keep the nation together.■
The evening is falling over Gwadar.
On the second floor of a five-star hotel, facing the harbour, two bamboo easy chairs stand quietly beside a small bamboo coffee table. Two steaming mugs of tea rest between them.
I sit in one.
“BāBā Tāl” [— the bell-man —] sits in the other.
Beyond the glass, the blue surface of the Arabian Sea is slowly surrendering the colours of the setting sun.
For a few moments, neither of us speaks.
Then BāBā Tāl looks towards the harbour.
“Pull the ropes gently,” he whispers.
I turn towards him.
“The boat has to open its wings.”
And a sip of tea.
“A nation,” he says, “cannot sail safely when some of its own people believe they have been left ashore.”
I look again towards Gwadar.
And suddenly the harbour seems larger than a harbour.
The cranes, the ships, the roads, the port and the blue water are all there — but behind them stands a question far greater than infrastructure:
Can Gwadar become a gateway for Pakistan without first becoming a place where Balochistan feels that Pakistan’s future is also her future?
That is the question this pen has come to ask.
Not to weaken Pakistan.
To strengthen it.
Not to create another wound.
To prevent another axe from striking the body of my motherland.
A writer who chooses the only instrument available to him — the pen — sometimes has to speak when silence becomes more dangerous than disagreement.
My decision is quiet but deliberate:
to put words on paper in the service of the federation, its unity and its shared future.
There is, of course, a question the reader may reasonably ask: what brought me here?
Why have I left my “eyrie” [Eagle’s Nest] — that small rooftop sanctuary high above the F-10 high-rise in Islamabad, where the city usually lies beneath my window and the Margalla Hills keep their quiet watch over my writing?
Why have I brought BāBā Tāl all the way down from that high perch to the far western edge of Pakistan, to sit beside the Arabian Sea?
The answer is simple.
The country called us.
Some places demand to be visited.
Some demand to be understood.
And some demand that you sit quietly before speaking about them.
Gwadar is one of those places.
So Foxy came too.
My “foxy” [old mustard-coloured Volkswagen] seems to have understood the assignment better than either of us. She is always happiest when her wheels are rolling, and the roads of Gwadar seem to have given her a particular kind of freedom — open sky above, the Arabian Sea beside us, and that coastal air coming through the windows, carrying tiny droplets of the sea with it.
Foxy rolls slowly along the road.
No hurry.
No destination announced.
Just the road, the sea and the enormous blue sky.
BāBā Tāl sits beside me.
His brass bells give an occasional chime… chime… chime…
I drive.
He watches.
And somewhere between Eagle’s Nest and Gwadar, something changes.
In Islamabad, we looked down from above.
Here, we look outward.
There, the mountains held the horizon.
Here, the ocean owns it.
There, the city stretched beneath our feet.
Here, the blue Arabian Sea seems to stretch beyond the imagination itself.
Perhaps that is why we came.
Because some questions cannot be answered from a rooftop.
They have to be carried to the shore.
And perhaps some national wounds cannot be discussed from a distance.
They have to be seen where the land meets the sea.
So here we are.
Foxy parked nearby.
Two bamboo chairs waiting.
Two hot mugs of tea.
BāBā Tāl beside me.
And before us, Gwadar — with its harbour, its people, its possibilities, its questions and its enormous unfinished promise.
TAra”BāBā Tāl” looks towards the water.
“Eagle’s Nest is far away,” he whispers.
I nod.
He smiles.
“But Pakistan is here.”
And suddenly, the journey makes sense.
One expression of that purpose has already appeared in my opinion piece, “OWN BALOCHISTAN — COMPLETE PAKISTAN — BRING THE HOPE BACK,” published in The Public Purview on 22 July 2026.
Set in Gwadar and framed as a reflective conversation, that article moved beyond concern and placed a concrete proposal before the country:
An All-Pakistan Conference of Unity — in Gwadar itself.
Not another conference in Islamabad about Balochistan.
Gwadar.
Let the Speakers of the provincial assemblies come.
Let the Chief Ministers come.
Let the Chairman of the Senate come.
Let the leadership of registered political parties come.
But let them come for one purpose above all:
to listen.
Not to lecture Balochistan.
To listen to her.
And when the listening is complete, let the country leave Gwadar with something more meaningful than another routine communiqué.
Let it leave with a Gwadar Declaration.
A covenant between provinces.
Between generations.
And between the State and its citizens.
Its message should be simple:
Bring the hope back.
Open a new era of possibility.
Give breathing space to the common man — especially the Baloch.
Return forgotten dreams to those who have waited the longest.
Because when the federation chooses Gwadar as the place where it comes together, it sends a message far more powerful than any speech:
Every province is an equal partner in Pakistan’s future.
And the port becomes more than an economic asset.
It becomes a place where the nation visibly owns its own future — and walks hand in hand.
There is, perhaps, no better spiritual image for this national journey than the rope.
The Holy Qur’an says:
“And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided.”
— Qur’an, Surah Al ‘Imran 3:103
The verse speaks to unity at a deeper level than politics. It reminds us that togetherness is not merely an administrative arrangement. It is a moral responsibility.
And perhaps that is why the image of the ropes on our little boat refuses to leave my mind.
Many hands.
One rope.
One vessel.
One sea.
Different provinces do not have to become identical.
They have to remain connected.
Alongside the political gathering, the proposal carries a practical measure whose value may outlive the declaration itself: reciprocal student exchanges.
Let young people from Balochistan study in universities across Pakistan.
And let students from Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the federal capital come to Balochistan to live, study and learn.
Not as visitors.
As fellow Pakistanis.
Let them share classrooms, libraries, hostels, sports grounds and ordinary evenings over tea.
Let friendships grow where political speeches often fail.
A friendship formed in a university hostel can sometimes strengthen national integrity more deeply than a hundred official statements.
A student from Lahore may discover that the young man from Gwadar dreams of exactly what he does — education, employment, dignity and a decent future.
A student from Balochistan may discover that the rest of Pakistan is not an abstract centre sitting somewhere beyond the horizon, but millions of ordinary people who also want to be heard, respected and given a chance to live better.
This is how a federation becomes real.
Not merely through constitutional language.
Through human contact.
Through shared experiences.
Through the gradual disappearance of the invisible walls that geography, poverty and political misunderstanding can build between citizens.
And there is urgency in this.
Balochistan’s young generation is growing up in an age in which information travels instantly.
Gen-Z does not experience Pakistan through official speeches alone.
It sees the world through a phone screen.
It compares opportunities.
It watches development elsewhere.
It asks difficult questions.
We should not fear those questions.
We should answer them.
The young Baloch citizen should not have to choose between his identity and his Pakistan.
He should be able to say, without hesitation:
I am Baloch — and Pakistan is mine.
That is not a threat to the federation.
That is the federation’s victory.
And here another colour enters the canvas — the colour of Prophetic wisdom.
Muhammad [Peace and blessings be upon him] taught:
“A believer is like a brick for another believer, the one supporting the other.”
— Sahih Muslim 2585
The image is simple.
A building stands because its individual parts support one another.
Remove enough of the supporting pieces and the structure becomes vulnerable.
Pakistan, too, is a structure.
Its provinces are not competing bricks.
They are supporting parts of one national house.
The same geography that makes Gwadar a potential meeting place of Pakistani hearts also places it at the centre of a much larger strategic triangle.
Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan.
The security of its western frontier.
The growing commercial and geopolitical importance of Gwadar.
These are no longer separate stories.
They are becoming one story.
For several years, Pakistan’s relationship with the Afghan Taliban government has deteriorated, driven substantially by the presence and activities of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and repeated cross-border incidents.
Border crossings have been restricted or closed for extended periods.
The consequences are not merely diplomatic.
They are economic.
They affect trade, transit, people and the strategic calculations of the entire region.
Pakistan has consequently accelerated efforts to diversify its transit options through Iran and China, reducing dependence upon Afghan territory.
And here Gwadar begins to look different.
It is no longer simply a port on the Pakistani coast.
It can become the southern anchor of a wider national strategy.
A place where the western border, the Arabian Sea and the commercial routes towards Central Asia begin to meet.
The geography is there.
The opportunity is there.
But opportunity alone does not build a nation.
Trust does.
And this is where the story of Gwadar becomes inseparable from the story of Balochistan.
Because the more valuable the port becomes, the more important it becomes that the people living beside it feel that they are participants in its future — not spectators standing behind a fence watching the future pass through.
That is the paradox Pakistan must confront.
Gwadar can become strategically priceless while remaining emotionally distant.
And no country should make that bargain.
A port can be protected by security.
A corridor can be guarded.
A terminal can be built.
But a federation cannot be secured permanently by concrete and cordons.
It must be secured in the hearts of its citizens.
There will, inevitably, be outside interests.
There will be those who look at Balochistan’s geography and see opportunity for themselves.
There will be those prepared to exploit grievances, magnify alienation and turn legitimate frustration into a weapon against Pakistan.
We should neither exaggerate this factor nor dismiss it.
Foreign interference becomes dangerous precisely when it finds a local wound through which it can enter.
So the answer is not simply to search for the hand outside.
The wiser answer is to heal the wound inside.
Remove the opportunity for the outsider to exploit our people’s disappointment.
Give the young person a reason to stay.
Give the citizen a reason to trust.
Give the province a reason to believe that development means participation.
Then the foreign hand finds a much smaller opening.
BāBā Tāl has been quiet.
He lifts his tea mug, now almost cold.
Then comes another whisper:
“Darvesh, a locked door may keep an enemy outside.”
He looks towards the harbour.
“But an open heart leaves him nothing to enter.”
The sun has disappeared.
The first harbour lights are beginning to glow.
And somewhere beyond them, the blue sea has become dark.
But the boat is still there.
Waiting.
Its ropes are still in our hands.
The question is whether we have the courage to pull them together.
Perhaps the time has come to stop asking whether Gwadar can become important.
It already is.
The more important question is:
Important for whom?
For international shipping?
Certainly.
For regional trade?
Potentially, enormously.
For Pakistan’s strategic position?
Without doubt.
But the most important answer must be:
For the people of Balochistan — and through them, for the people of Pakistan.
That is the test.
Because if the port prospers while the people beside it remain spectators, Pakistan will have built an economic asset without fully building a national asset.
And that would be a tragedy of our own making.
The federation should therefore make one promise at Gwadar — and make it publicly:
No major future for Gwadar without a meaningful future for the people of Gwadar.
This does not mean that every demand can be accepted.
It does not mean that every political position is correct.
It does not mean that the State abandons its constitutional responsibilities or its duty to protect citizens.
It means something more fundamental:
The people must have a visible stake in the future being built around them.
Let local entrepreneurs participate.
Let local fishermen be heard.
Let young people receive the training required by the industries that Gwadar is expected to attract.
Let universities across Pakistan open their doors to Baloch students — and let Balochistan open its universities and institutions to students from the rest of the country.
Let the exchange of people become as important as the exchange of goods.
That is how a strategic corridor becomes a national corridor.
There is an old temptation in national politics: to believe that unity means everyone agreeing with everyone else.
It does not.
Unity means that despite disagreement, people still believe they belong to the same house.
Pakistan is a large house.
Its rooms are different.
Its languages are different.
Its cultures are different.
Its histories are different.
But the roof is shared.
And when the roof begins to leak, the sensible family does not argue over which room is more important.
It repairs the roof.
That is the spirit in which I speak of Balochistan.
Not as a problem province.
Not as a security file.
Not as an economic corridor.
But as a living part of Pakistan.
Perhaps we should also change the language with which we discuss Balochistan.
Instead of repeatedly asking:
“What does Balochistan need from Pakistan?”
perhaps we should ask:
“What does Pakistan need to do so that Balochistan can contribute all that it is capable of contributing?”
The difference is enormous.
The first question places the province in the position of a petitioner.
The second recognises it as a partner.
And partners do not merely receive.
They participate.
They create.
They invest.
They innovate.
They lead.
They dream.
Gwadar can become a laboratory for precisely this new thinking.
A maritime university.
A world-class fisheries and marine research centre.
A logistics and shipping academy.
Vocational institutions linked directly with the port economy.
Digital-work hubs for young people.
Scholarship programmes connecting Balochistan with universities throughout Pakistan.
National student exchanges.
Business incubators.
Special opportunities for local entrepreneurs.
And a transparent system through which citizens can see how major development projects affect their communities.
These are not merely economic policies.
They are federal policies.
Because every young person given an opportunity is one more citizen who can imagine a future within the federation.
Every student who makes a friend in another province is one more bridge.
Every local business that grows beside Gwadar is one more family with a stake in peace.
Every Baloch graduate who returns home with new skills becomes a living link between Balochistan and the rest of Pakistan.
That is strategic depth of a different kind.
The kind that cannot be measured on a military map.
And here the pen must say something uncomfortable.
If Pakistan wants Balochistan to reject the narratives of those who seek to separate it from the federation, Pakistan must make the alternative visibly better.
Not merely safer.
Better.
More hopeful.
More dignified.
More prosperous.
More participatory.
A young citizen should not have to be persuaded by slogans that Pakistan is his future.
He should be able to see it.
In his school.
In his university.
In his internet connection.
In his employment opportunity.
In his hospital.
In his local business.
In his ability to travel.
In his ability to speak.
In his ability to dream.
That is how patriotism becomes organic.
At this point, a voice from the West enters the conversation — not as a replacement for our own wisdom, but as another window through which to view the same human truth.
John Donne wrote in Meditation XVII:
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
The words were written centuries ago, yet the idea remains alive.
No citizen is an island.
No province is an island.
And no part of a federation can be treated as though its troubles belong only to itself.
If one shore is weakened, the whole national coastline feels the storm.
If one generation loses hope, the whole country eventually pays the price.
If one province feels forgotten, the federation itself becomes poorer.
BāBā Tāl stands up.
The bells sewn into his robe give a faint sound in the quiet room.
He looks towards the harbour.
“The strongest rope,” he whispers, “is the one made from many threads.”
He touches the bamboo arm of his chair.
“Break one thread, and perhaps nothing happens.”
He pauses.
“Keep breaking them, Darvesh — and one day the rope is gone.”
Outside, a light moves slowly across the dark water.
Perhaps a boat.
Perhaps a ship.
Perhaps simply another reminder that the sea never waits for our political arguments.
It keeps moving.
Pakistan must move too.
But it must move together.
The western frontier.
The Arabian Sea.
Gwadar.
Balochistan.
The provinces.
The young generation.
The economy.
The federation.
These are not separate pieces of a puzzle.
They are parts of one national picture.
And that picture can become either a map of opportunity or a map of missed opportunities.
The choice is ours.
I return to the central proposal.
An All-Pakistan Conference of Unity in Gwadar.
Let it not be another ceremonial gathering.
Let it be the beginning of a process.
Let the participants listen to the people.
Let them identify measurable priorities.
Let them establish timelines.
Let them create mechanisms for accountability.
Let them announce the Gwadar Declaration not as a political trophy, but as a promise.
And then let the nation return to Gwadar again and again — not only when there is a crisis.
Come when there is progress.
Come when there is an investment.
Come when a university opens.
Come when a new generation graduates.
Come when a Baloch entrepreneur launches a company.
Come when a fisherman sees his livelihood improve.
Come when a student returns from another province carrying memories and friendships.
Come when the port handles another ship.
Come simply because Gwadar is Pakistan.
There is, however, one final responsibility that belongs to the pen.
It must remind the country that unity cannot be postponed until after prosperity arrives.
We cannot say:
First build the port.
First complete the roads.
First attract the investors.
First secure the corridors.
And then, one day, we will sit down and ask the people how they feel.
No.
The human foundation must be laid alongside the physical foundation.
Otherwise, we may discover that we have built an impressive gateway without building the national trust required to pass through it.
That would be an unnecessary tragedy.
Pakistan has already invested too much — financially, strategically and emotionally — in the promise of Gwadar to allow that promise to become disconnected from the people of Balochistan.
The answer is not to abandon the port.
The answer is to bring the people closer to its future.
There is another simple idea that deserves consideration:
Let the success of Gwadar be measured not only by ships and cargo.
Measure it by lives changed.
How many Baloch students received scholarships?
How many local young people were trained for port-related employment?
How many local businesses entered the supply chain?
How many fishermen saw their livelihoods protected and improved?
How many young entrepreneurs established businesses?
How many students from other provinces spent meaningful time studying in Balochistan?
How many Baloch students built friendships elsewhere in Pakistan?
How many families can honestly say:
“Gwadar has made our future better?”
These are not soft measurements.
They are national-security measurements.
Because prosperity that reaches people creates loyalty that slogans cannot manufacture.
And perhaps this is where Pakistan can demonstrate something to the wider world.
That a strategically important port does not have to become an island of infrastructure surrounded by a sea of deprivation.
It can become a model.
A port where local people are trained for the jobs created by the port.
A province where investment produces visible opportunities for its youth.
A region where national and provincial institutions work together instead of speaking past each other.
A place where the federal government does not merely arrive with projects, but remains present through partnership.
A place where the Baloch citizen does not stand outside the gate asking what is happening inside.
He is inside.
He is working.
He is studying.
He is building.
He is participating.
He is helping Pakistan sail.
The world is watching strategic geography.
We should be watching human geography.
A map shows roads.
A map shows borders.
A map shows ports.
But only people can tell us where hope is rising and where it is disappearing.
That is why the voices of Balochistan’s young generation must become part of the national conversation.
Not occasionally.
Continuously.
Create forums where young Baloch citizens can speak directly with policymakers.
Give them a place at development tables.
Invite criticism without automatically treating criticism as hostility.
Listen to their ambitions as carefully as we listen to their grievances.
The State does not become weaker by listening to its citizens.
It becomes wiser.
BāBā Tāl has returned to his chair.
The night has settled over Gwadar.
The harbour lights shimmer on the water.
He looks at the two mugs.
“Tea is finished,” he says.
I smile.
“But the conversation is not.”
He nods.
“That is how nations survive.”
A pause.
“They keep talking before they start fighting.”
I look towards the dark sea.
Perhaps that is the whole lesson.
Keep talking.
Keep listening.
Keep correcting.
Keep building.
Keep giving people reasons to believe.
Pakistan’s strategic future will not be decided in one conference.
Nor will Balochistan’s problems disappear because a declaration is signed.
The Gwadar Declaration would therefore not be an ending.
It would be a beginning.
A commitment that must be followed by budgets, institutions, timelines and accountability.
A promise must eventually become a programme.
A programme must become a project.
A project must reach a person.
And when that person is a young Baloch citizen standing in Gwadar and looking towards the sea, he should be able to say:
“Yes. This future includes me.”
That single sentence may be worth more to Pakistan than a thousand speeches.
The boat is ready now.
The ropes are coiled.
The sails are waiting.
The wind has begun to move across the water.
I look at BāBā Tāl.
He looks at me.
Neither of us needs to say much.
The country knows what it must do.
Pull the ropes together.
Open the wings.
Let the boat sail.
Not away from Balochistan.
Not over Balochistan.
With Balochistan.
And let Gwadar become what it has the potential to be:
Not merely Pakistan’s gateway to the world,
but a gateway through which Pakistan rediscovers itself.
The pen has offered one constructive path.
An All-Pakistan Conference of Unity in Gwadar.
A Gwadar Declaration.
Reciprocal student exchanges.
A development agenda that puts Baloch citizens visibly inside the future of their own province.
A national strategy that understands security and inclusion as partners, not competitors.
None of this requires Pakistan to surrender its sovereignty.
It requires Pakistan to exercise sovereignty intelligently.
None of this requires abandoning security.
It requires making security sustainable.
None of this requires weakening the federation.
It requires making the federation worth belonging to.
And perhaps that is the real meaning of “OWN BALOCHISTAN — COMPLETE PAKISTAN — BRING THE HOPE BACK.”
Own it not as possession.
Own it as responsibility.
Complete Pakistan not merely on the map.
Complete it in the hearts of its citizens.
Bring the hope back — not as a slogan, but as a lived reality.
The last light has disappeared from the horizon.
The harbour is dark except for scattered points of light.
The sea is still moving.
The boat begins to move too.
One rope.
Another rope.
Another hand joins.
Then another.
The sails rise.
And somewhere in the darkness, BāBā Tāl’s bells whisper one final sentence:
“Darvesh, a nation sails safely when every hand aboard knows the boat is theirs.”
Perhaps that is our destination.
Perhaps that is our duty.
And perhaps, from the shores of Gwadar, Pakistan can begin again.
Not divided by the waves.
Carried by them.
■□■□POETEARS■□■□
[ coined by T. Hejazi-where the tears become poetry and poetry becomes tears]
Let every shore be equal, every hand upon the rope,
Let every young heart carry its inheritance of hope.
The sea may test the vessel, the winds may bend the sail,
But nations sail together when their people’s dreams prevail.
■■■