There was a period of competition when we were young and our society was quite backward. The impacts of autocracy had not been erased and a certain section of our society was still in the superstitious grip of the tyranny of the immediate past. The rulers of Chitral of the later time had died one after another ( 1936 to 1954) when four of them had passed away but the imprints of their rule and the cruelties of their adherents had not been forgotten but the dawn of political Raj or political agent known as Mulki, had ushered in an era of enlightment when primary schools were opened in the state and especially in the far flung valleys where boys were taught books of various kind under any large tree and a new system had started to take roots. The people of the valleys concerned saw boys going to schools with a TAKHTA in their hands, a bottle of mud ink, a hand made pen etc. this was a new phase in the history of the state soon after the fall of the ruling family. The common man liked it very much but the members of the ex ruling family fretted and showed their anger in every possible way, cursing one of the rulers of their own stock. At that time one man asked another about as what is Pakistan and what will be our fate? The other replied that Pakistan means that every one of us will lie as he likes- some with their heads upwards and others with their heads downwards, and no Boli, no, Thangi, no Barbara, no Ashimat, no begaar,no bodyguard. This was a great news and too good to be true for the other who then got up, jumped a few times and lay down as liked without any fear of the dreaded Charbu who used to harass him and his fellows time and again.
In the new phase of this history many had seen clerks known as Mirza or Munshi who were high officials in their eyes and they wanted to send their sons to schools to learn letters and get some respectable jobs but the boys did not like the school discipline and played truant. Only a few, due to strong control of their parents continued their academic work and reached middle standard examination . Soon after that exam. they were picked up in different departments and began to receive monthly salaries that was a motivation for the rest of the boys who were reluctant to go to school either due to weak control of parents or due to beating of the teachers which was very common then. This phase continued up to 1966/67 and then high schools began to be established in important towns and eager parents sent their sons for education up to SSC. I do remember that at middle school there were three girls in our school but at high level there was no girl student . Trend of female education was practically nil. The boys came from distant villages and the state had allowed grain to each student from some distant village as ration and a cook had been appointed to cook for the students living in the boarding houses.
Now the situation has changed completely and no child is seen in the villages in the morning time except babies. But this has also raised unemployment and shows the failure of the government to provide jobs to the youth. It is clear that govt. jobs are limited but she must open opportunities to learn skills. Continued unemployment is a cause of unrest among the youth who can create problems and long continued unrest and hungry stomachs breed germs of revolution. Those who can change their attitude may get one or another job of any small category but all such minds of high educated youth cannot be marshaled because there is no such govt. institution to help them and divert their energy to positive activities and this absence of govt, guidance may lead to wide scale unrest among a crowd of jobless but energetic FORCE that cannot be controlled easily and this phase is dangerous for many reasons and in order to ease this youth tension and rebellious propensity the govt. is requested to make early arrangements for an unemployment allowance as soon as possible to avert subversion that is looming on the horizon.
