Introduction: Pathways to Progress

In the summer of 2006, General Pervez Musharraf was the president, gross domestic product (GDP) growth was an impressive 7 percent and Pakistan was labeled as one of the fastest growing economies of the Asian region.1 Alongside these noteworthy developments, dark clouds loomed on the horizon, threatening to undermine the pristine picture of Pakistan’s economic progress. In newspapers and on television, there was increasing talk about a power crisis marked by electricity thefts, leaky transmission and distribution networks, power outages, rising debts and growing protests. When I traveled to Faisalabad, which is Pakistan’s textile manufacturing heartland often touted as the ‘Manchester of Pakistan’ and where I had conducted research intermittently from 2006 to 2009, talk of electricity blackouts, worker layoffs and plant closures was persistent. The more time I spent interviewing industrialists and labor across a variety of textile-garment firms, both large and small and new and old, the more I learnt that the electricity crisis was of a magnitude that they had never experienced before. Since 2006, Pakistan’s electricity problems have worsened with outages lasting 22 hours per day and affecting industrial and domestic consumers and costing almost 3 percent of the annual GDP. In March 2012, hundreds of textile workers poured into the streets of Faisalabad, burned tires and shouted slogans against the government, complaining of power outages, industry shutdowns and job losses.2