Pakistan at 79: The ones who can, still leave 

In mid-August 1947, British rule ended in India and the land was divided along religious lines, into a Hindu-majority India, and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. It’s well documented how rushed the Partition plan was, splitting religiously plural communities that had lived side by side for hundreds of years. It resulted in one of the world’s largest migration crises. 
 
At least 15 million people were on the move. Hindus and Sikhs toward India, and Muslims toward West and East Pakistan, which later became Bangladesh. It’s believed that at least one million people were killed in the communal violence during the lead up to and post partition. Some historians put the number as high as two million. 
 
These figures make it hard to argue how seismic an event Partition was for south Asia — so seismic that in the years that followed many people found themselves at crossroads in the two newly formed nations. People like my own paternal and maternal grandfathers: Wali and Sikandar who ended up in Pakistan. 
 
For them they had been uprooted once before, leaving land as a means of survival. So, the idea of being on the move once again really didn’t seem so frightening. Especially if it was for the pursuit of knowledge, academia or economic prosperity. Something both my grandfathers were in desperate search for.

 In 1949, Wali Muhammed Gill, migrated to study Veterinary Science first in the UK and then pursue scientific research in the US. His masterplan, like many others of his time, was to earn enough money to then settle back home. This is something he attempted to do in the early 1960s, however he barely survived a year in Pakistan. A Pakistan that was a teenager, suffering from underdevelopment and failed plans. He would later explain to my father that he couldn’t adjust to society after living abroad for so many years, and so he moved back to the UK once again. He remained there for the rest of his life, passing away in 2000 and visiting Pakistan only infrequently.

Sikandar Abbas Bokhari left later. In the mid 1960s, he first ventured to Libya, working in Benghazi for several years; which at the time had a shortage of medical professionals. 

After half a decade in north Africa, Sikandar then moved to the UK to specialize in Psychiatry. He tells me after specialization he and my grandmother wanted to move their family back to Pakistan, intending to settle in Lahore. 

He applied for a teaching role at a leading Institution in the city, but was proposed an Assistant professorship. At the same time he was offered a consultant role in the UK. With the position in Lahore not what he had hoped for, he says the choice was effectively made for him, and so the family remained in the UK.

Moving for both men was clearly the easy part. And Sikander, similar to Wali, believed he too would return one day, but he never did. For almost 30 years he has not visited Pakistan — the last time he thinks he ventured to the country was in 1997.

In brevity these are the journeys of my paternal and maternal grandfathers to the UK and their indefinite stays in new lands that became their own. And while that is the end of their stories in Pakistan, it is now just the beginning of mine. Working here as a journalist I have often thought what would have happened had they remained in Pakistan. 
 
Well, I am certain that I would have not been born. 

He told me he wanted to study the mind to understand people better. I often wonder how Pakistan might have benefited from his expertise, had it been a country he could have called home again.

Sara Iram Gill

 It would have been extremely unlikely my parents would have met, hailing from entirely different backgrounds but also different Muslim sects. I am more resolute in this thinking since living here because I’ve seen how much these distinctions can matter: your religion, your ethnic group, your class. 
 
However, what I have taken away most of all from my brief time here is how many of the people I encounter, even my friends within the country, how desperately they want to leave. Now it’s no secret that Pakistan since its independence has experienced a brain drain. My grandparents are really just one of millions of families who left the country in pursuit of economic opportunities. 
 
Yet it’s a trend that does not seem to be diminishing in any form. 
 
A study by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics in 2023 revealed that nearly 62 percent of young professionals would prefer to work abroad if given the opportunity. Between 2022-2025 around 2.9 million Pakistanis did just that and left, according to data from the Protectorate of Emigrants.
 
It’s also important to note that this is indeed a migration pattern that Pakistan benefits from. Roughly $41.6 billion US dollars in remittances in 2025-2026 were sent back to the country, reported the State Bank; that’s almost 10 percent of its GDP. A staggering amount in reality, and a cushion the economy desperately needs to battle rising inflation and debt. 
 
An economy that struggles despite Pakistan having the 12th largest military in the world. And while the country grows older, its development has not matched: suffering from pervasive societal issues, from a lack of government spending in health and education, to religious persecution, the rising threat of terror and a growing battlefield of contesting claims of national identity. The list can go on. 
 
Perhaps given all this, it is not surprising that those who can, leave. Successive Pakistani governments have done little to motivate people to stay in a country where opportunity can feel so scarce and life so precarious. 
 
Both Wali and Sikandar left for those reasons.
 
While penning this piece I asked my grandfather, Sikandar, who is now 90-years-old, once again why he left. 

He told me he wanted to study the mind to understand people better. I often wonder how Pakistan might have benefited from his expertise, had it been a country he could have called home again.

An earlier version of this article, as submitted by the writer, mistakenly stated that Sikandar Abbas Bokhari considered returning to Pakistan after his time in Libya before subsequently moving to the UK. The timeline has been corrected.

-Sara Iram Gill is an international journalist and reporter whose work focuses on amplifying voices from underreported regions and marginalized communities.