A young Pakistani landowner chooses between trying to implement the MDGs in the village that his family owns, and a quiet life.
Series Editor: Steve Bradshaw
Series Consultant: Jenny Richards
In Pakistan, a feudal prince's family has been making life hell for local villagers for centuries. Rafeh Malik is a young feudal prince who inherited Ratrian, a village in Northern Punjab, on his 18th birthday. Prince Rafeh had a friend from the city: Dawn TV journalist Shehryrar Mufti. And one day Shehryar told him: "Look, man, people just don't buy your act anymore. You can't make out you own these folks." It was apparently a dramatic moment of conversion. The prince claims he now realizes his land-owning caste has been living in the past.
Mufti has told him about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the prince says he's inspired to try and introduce them to his village. But in the process, he risks alienating his family and even the conservative villagers themselves. After all, they all live close to the edge of the troubled North West Frontier and don't necessarily want what the West calls "development."
Will the villagers accept the prince's offer? Will his family stop him? And how genuine was his conversion? In the face of self-doubt, selfishness and conservatism, will he decide to go on?
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