Two Taxi Drivers in Dubai, and the Story of a Forgotten People

How two chance conversations with Pashtun drivers led me to question Pakistan’s energy wealth, regional inequality and the resilience of ordinary families.
Sometimes, the Most Important Conversations Happen by Chance

Yesterday, while travelling around Dubai, I had two conversations that stayed with me long after the journeys had ended.

Both were with taxi drivers. Both were Pashtuns from Peshawar, Pakistan. I met them separately, entirely by chance.

What began as ordinary conversation gradually opened a window into a world of inequality, deprivation and remarkable human resilience.

The first driver spoke about his homeland, about the discovery of natural gas in the wider Pashtun region, and about how people in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Waziristan continue to struggle for something as basic as electricity.

He told me that some communities receive electricity for only about two hours a day.

He spoke about the marginalisation of Pashtuns and expressed a deep sense of injustice: that a region capable of contributing valuable natural resources to Pakistan should have people living without dependable access to essential services.

I listened with curiosity, but also with some disbelief.

Could this really be happening in a country with established hydroelectric infrastructure, significant natural gas discoveries and decades of national development?

Later that day, I found myself in another taxi.

Remarkably, the second driver was also a Pashtun from Peshawar.

Our conversation turned towards similar subjects. He, too, spoke about prolonged electricity shortages, describing supply lasting perhaps two to four hours a day in the circumstances familiar to his family.

But he added something that changed the direction of my thinking.

His family had installed solar panels at home.

They had decided that they could not continue waiting for reliable electricity from the public supply system. Their children needed light to study, and the household needed a dependable source of power.

So they had found their own solution.

The first driver had introduced me to a grievance. The second had introduced me to an adaptation.

And together, they left me with a question:

What happens when ordinary citizens must become their own infrastructure providers because the institutions responsible for serving them have failed?

From a Conversation to an Investigation

When I returned, I began researching what the two drivers had told me.

I wanted to understand whether their experiences reflected isolated circumstances or something deeper.

I looked into natural gas discoveries in North Waziristan, electricity generation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the distribution of electricity across Pakistan, the history of the former tribal areas, and the political and economic marginalisation of Pashtun communities.

What I discovered was more complicated than a simple story of one province exploiting another.

But it was also deeply troubling.

There is a documented history of political exclusion, inadequate infrastructure, delayed investment and unfulfilled development commitments in the former tribal areas.

And there are now confirmed natural gas discoveries in North Waziristan, even as communities in the wider region continue to report inadequate public services.

Natural Gas Beneath the Ground, But What About the People Above It?

North Waziristan is no longer merely an area of speculative energy potential.

Natural gas has been discovered and commercial production has begun.

Mari Energies Limited, a publicly listed Pakistani energy company whose largest shareholder is the Fauji Foundation, has participated in developing gas fields in the Waziristan region.

The Shewa field commenced production in 2025, followed by further production from Spinwam in 2026.

A pipeline approximately 230 kilometres long was developed to connect the Shewa area with Daudkhel and the wider gas infrastructure.

These are significant achievements.

They demonstrate that natural resources can be identified, capital can be mobilised, engineering projects can be completed and valuable energy can be transported to the national economy.

But this raises an uncomfortable question.

If a country can build infrastructure to transport natural gas out of a region, why can it not demonstrate comparable determination to provide reliable electricity, education, healthcare and economic opportunities to the people living there?

I am not suggesting that the discovery of gas automatically entitles every household to free electricity. Nor does a gas pipeline serve the same purpose as an electricity distribution network.

But the comparison is about priorities.

A government’s success should not be measured solely by the economic value it extracts from a region.

It must also be measured by the opportunities and quality of life it creates for the people who live there.

Electricity: Produced in One Region, Consumed in Another

One of the most interesting claims made during my conversations concerned electricity.

The drivers spoke of the contrast between the electricity shortages experienced by communities in the Pashtun region and the more reliable supplies enjoyed in parts of Punjab.

My research established an important distinction.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa contributes significant hydroelectric power to Pakistan’s national electricity system. Major hydropower facilities in the province are not necessarily located in Waziristan itself.

Once generated, electricity enters an interconnected national network and can be consumed elsewhere, including Punjab.

There is nothing inherently improper about this arrangement. National electricity networks exist precisely because electricity generation and consumption do not always occur in the same place.

The injustice arises when some communities remain chronically underserved while others enjoy far more reliable supplies.

Pakistan’s electricity regulator, NEPRA, has criticised the practice of loss-based load shedding, under which areas with high electricity losses or poor payment recovery can experience extended outages.

Such policies can punish paying consumers alongside non-paying consumers.

This does not establish that every household in Waziristan receives only two hours of electricity daily. That was the experience described to me, not a verified district-wide average.

Nevertheless, the broader problem of prolonged electricity shortages and unequal service provision is real.

And it raises a fundamental question of citizenship.

Should a child’s ability to study depend upon whether the family can afford private solar panels?

The Historical Marginalisation of the Pashtun Tribal Areas

The deeper I looked, the more I realised that the problem could not be understood through electricity or gas alone.

For decades, the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas, including North and South Waziristan, existed under a separate administrative and legal system.

This system, inherited in significant part from British colonial rule, restricted ordinary political and judicial protections.

The tribal areas were formally merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2018.

But decades of institutional exclusion cannot be reversed merely through a constitutional amendment.

Schools, hospitals, roads, judicial institutions, investment networks and employment opportunities take years to build.

And if adequate funding does not follow political reform, the promise of integration risks remaining incomplete.

There have been documented disputes and shortfalls concerning development funding promised to the former tribal districts following the merger.

This suggests that the region’s difficulties are not simply geographical or security-related.

They are also institutional and political.

Is Security the Explanation, or Has It Become an Excuse?

One explanation repeatedly offered for Waziristan’s slow development is insecurity.

There is substance to this argument.

Militancy, armed conflict, displacement and attacks on infrastructure have imposed genuine costs on the region. Energy companies have reported security-related delays to pipeline construction and drilling activities.

It would be irresponsible to dismiss these realities.

But it would be equally irresponsible to treat insecurity as a complete explanation for decades of underdevelopment.

The historical exclusion of the tribal areas predates much of the contemporary conflict.

Moreover, insecurity and underdevelopment can reinforce each other.

When communities lack educational opportunities, reliable infrastructure, employment and effective public institutions, their vulnerability to instability can increase.

And instability, in turn, discourages investment.

The cycle continues.

My question is therefore not whether security problems exist.

They clearly do.

My question is why successive governments have not demonstrated sufficient success in breaking the cycle.

Security is not merely a condition that must exist before development begins.

Effective governance, education, economic participation and public confidence can themselves contribute to lasting security.

Punjab, Political Power and the Question of Pashtun Marginalisation

The first driver spoke with a strong sense that Pashtuns were being treated unfairly within Pakistan.

This led me to examine a more politically sensitive question.

Has the concentration of power within Pakistan’s political, military and administrative institutions contributed to the marginalisation of Pashtun communities?

Historical research has documented the disproportionate influence of Punjab within important parts of Pakistan’s state structure.

But I believe we must be careful to distinguish institutions from entire populations.

Ordinary Punjabi citizens are not collectively responsible for the decisions of governments, military leadership or economic elites.

Nor are all Pashtuns equally excluded from national power.

The issue is more complex than one ethnic community acting against another.

It concerns how political influence, economic resources, public investment and institutional accountability are distributed within the state.

Nevertheless, where communities experience persistent disadvantage, their grievances should not be dismissed merely because those grievances challenge powerful institutions.

The test of a functioning federation is not simply whether resources are shared nationally.

It is whether the benefits of belonging to that federation are shared fairly.

A Family’s Solar Panels: Resilience or Institutional Failure?

Of everything I discovered, I kept returning to the second taxi driver.

His family had installed solar panels so the children could study.

At one level, this is an encouraging story.

It demonstrates initiative, resourcefulness and an unwillingness to allow difficult circumstances to determine the children’s future.

But there is another way to interpret it.

A family has had to invest its own money to compensate for a basic public service that it cannot depend upon.

And what happens to families who cannot afford solar panels?

What happens to children whose parents cannot purchase batteries, inverters or alternative electricity systems?

Do those children simply have fewer opportunities to study?

Private adaptation can be admirable.

But it must not become a justification for public failure.

Resilience is a remarkable human quality. It should never become an excuse for governments to neglect their responsibilities.

The second driver was not merely describing an electricity problem.

He was describing the extraordinary lengths to which parents will go to protect their children’s opportunities.

And I found that deeply moving.

Who Benefits From a Region’s Natural Wealth?

The discoveries in North Waziristan introduce another important dimension.

Natural gas production creates economic value.

That value may be distributed through company revenues, taxes, royalties, employment, infrastructure spending and other public finances.

The important question is how much of that value ultimately improves the lives of local communities.

Do the people of North Waziristan receive meaningful employment opportunities?

Are local schools and hospitals being improved?

Are electricity networks becoming more reliable?

Are roads and public infrastructure being developed?

Are royalties and development allocations reaching their intended beneficiaries?

These are questions that should be answered through transparent public records, not political slogans.

I do not yet have sufficient district-level financial data to conclude exactly how much economic value is generated in Waziristan and how much returns to its residents.

But that absence of readily accessible information is itself a reason to demand greater transparency.

The discovery of natural wealth should create an opportunity for shared prosperity, not merely another source of revenue flowing through institutions distant from the people whose land contains those resources.

What Governments Must Be Accountable For

My research has led me to believe that the failure is not confined to one institution or one administration.

The federal government has responsibilities concerning national energy policy, resource revenues and development commitments.

Provincial institutions have responsibilities for development priorities, public services and local administration.

Electricity distribution companies must be accountable for the reliability and fairness of supply.

Regulators must ensure that consumers are treated lawfully and equitably.

And successive political and administrative leaderships must answer for the long-term consequences of underinvestment.

Security challenges do not eliminate these responsibilities.

They make effective government more necessary.

Development must be judged not merely by the construction of pipelines or the announcement of investment projects, but by measurable improvements in people’s lives.

Two Drivers, Two Perspectives, One Larger Lesson

I began this journey in Dubai without intending to investigate Pakistan’s energy policy or the history of its tribal areas.

I was simply travelling in taxis.

Yet two conversations with two Pashtun men from Peshawar led me into questions of political power, economic justice, natural resources and human dignity.

One man spoke about what his community had been denied.

The other spoke about what his family had done to overcome those limitations.

One represented grievance.

The other represented adaptation.

Both represented a desire for a better life.

I came away thinking that development should not be measured only in megawatts, kilometres of pipeline, barrels of oil or cubic feet of gas.

It should be measured in the opportunities available to ordinary people.

In whether a child can study after sunset.

In whether a family can depend upon electricity.

In whether a young person can find meaningful employment without leaving home.

And in whether citizens believe that the institutions governing them are working for their benefit.

I also thought about the irony that these two men were working thousands of kilometres from home, in Dubai, speaking to a stranger about the difficulties faced by their families.

Their individual reasons for working abroad are their own. I cannot assume that electricity shortages or political marginalisation caused them to migrate.

But their stories reminded me that behind every debate about development are real families making real decisions about how to build better futures.

My Final Reflection

Natural resources can make a country wealthy.

But they do not automatically make its people prosperous.

Infrastructure can carry energy across hundreds of kilometres.

But it cannot, by itself, create justice.

And security can protect development.

But security cannot be used indefinitely as a substitute for development.

The people of Waziristan deserve the same dignity, opportunity and dependable public services as citizens anywhere else in Pakistan.

That is not an argument against Punjab or against any other community.

It is an argument for fairness, accountability and equal citizenship.

I started with two chance conversations in Dubai.

I ended with a question that I believe applies far beyond Pakistan:

What is the true meaning of national development if the people living closest to a country’s natural wealth remain among those least able to enjoy its benefits?

And perhaps an even simpler question:

Why should a father have to buy his own electricity system just so his children can study?

— Samrat Bhandari

Dubai, United Arab Emirates