Building on several years of study and work on the region, he examines the looming water crisis, the perilous state of education, the economic meltdown and the danger of an unrealized ‘demographic dividend’ that have been eating into the innards of Pakistan since its creation. He also dwells at length on the Pakistan movement, where the seeds of many current problems were sown – the opportunistic use of religion being the most lethal of these.

With data-driven precision, Devasher takes apart the flawed prescriptions and responses of successive governments, especially during military rule, to the many critical challenges the country has encountered over the years. These, as much as the particular trajectory of its creation and growth, he contends, have brought Pakistan to an abyss where it risks multi-organ failure – unless things change dramatically in the near future.