08/08/2026
I was born and raised in Balochistan as a Punjabi. It is an identity I have carried like both a home and a question.
I grew up among histories that were not always mine, but whose wounds were close enough to become part of my conscience, the wounds of the Baloch, the Pashtun, and the Hazara. At the same time, I learned that to many people, the word Punjabi does not describe a person, a family, or a life. It becomes shorthand for Punjab (Privileged Province of Pakistan), for power, for the Establishment. Before I could be known as myself, I was sometimes made to answer for an entire structure.
There were moments when this left me feeling homeless in every direction: too Punjabi for some, too rooted in Balochistan for others. I also had to confront the uncomfortable truth that I carried my own inherited biases. Empathy did not arrive in me as purity. It had to be built, slowly, painfully through listening, unlearning, and accepting responsibility for the privileges I possessed.
As a media practitioner, I could not allow that discomfort to become an excuse for silence. My profession demanded that I stand beside those whose stories were buried, distorted, or deliberately unheard. To amplify the voices of marginalized communities was not to speak on their behalf, but to help make room for their own words to travel.
Still, there is a quiet ache I carry. When Punjabis or other minorities in Balochistan have suffered, our pain has often been met with silence, as though solidarity belongs only to the identities considered sufficiently oppressed. That silence has wounded me, but it has also clarified my responsibility.
I have learned that justice cannot be selective and empathy cannot be transactional. I must acknowledge my privilege without erasing my people, and honour others without abandoning myself. Perhaps I will always feel slightly exiled from the idea of home. But I have found a kind of belonging in choosing, again and again, to stand where conscience asks me to stand.
(Sabeen Malik, 29, Pakistan)
