There is a war on in Pakistan
It has been since 2001
Note: I wrote this while the war was underway. As I publish this, a fortunate (and hopefully permanent) ceasefire is in effect.
Pakistan’s unusual reaction to the war between India and Pakistan (2025) is reminiscent of the period of the US-Afghan war. Take a scan of the traditional and social media, and you would see Pakistanis react to rage and hate with memes. Life hasn’t deviated from the norm by too much. After each incident of an innocent life being taken or destruction of property, it doesn’t take much for people to reset, as shown by the dozens turning up for morning prayers hours after a mosque was bombed in Muridke.
There is a war on, not a localised skirmish, and the first of its kind since 1971. Back then, people braced themselves for the worst. Blackouts and curfews were enforced. People clung to the radios, devouring every update they could get, and went about their day with great unease. Today, people cling to the news, but they also turn it off and go about their day with nothing weighing on them. Isn’t that odd? To an outside observer, this will seem so.
During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the US conducted a proxy war. Mujahideen, as they were called back then, were trained by the Pakistani Military and armed by the CIA. Movies like Rambo 3 were made about the war. Mujahideen were disorganised and had very few resources, but they persevered. As soon as they won, the world immediately forgot about them until September 11, 2001. I was in my early teens when that happened and couldn’t comprehend what that meant.
As the US-Afghan war started, Pakistan stood with the US, and the Mujahideen saw this as an act of betrayal. They were now known by many different names: militants, Islamists, jihadists, extremists or simply terrorists. In Pakistan, these militants first tried to go against the military but failed because they were outmatched and outgunned. They then went after police who were way underfunded, but that wasn’t enough for them, and they started targeting civilians. Either people were with them or they were against them. There was no middle path. For the next 15 years, it felt as if someone had bobby-trapped the entirety of Pakistan. A bomb could go off anywhere at any second, be it a marketplace, a bank, a university, a mosque, a park, it didn’t matter.
Every week, I would return from school or college to see the TV informing us that X number of people were killed and Y number of people were injured. I do not exaggerate. It really was a new attack each week. At first, it ate away at my soul, it angered me, and it sadened me, but eventually I became numb to it. Yes, it might happen to me at any moment or my family or friends, but I can’t control it, so why worry? All other Pakistanis, in the same way, went into a coping state. When my mutual friend was killed by an attack carried out by militants in a mosque during a Friday congregational prayer, my social media feed was filled with grief and fury. A week later, exams approached, and everyone got busy. Life had reset itself quite quickly.
I experienced three suicide attacks in my proximity. The first one was at a bank close to my high school in Rawalpindi. The 1st of every month, hundreds of government employees would line up to withdraw money from their bank accounts. They were all humble breadwinners who lived paycheck to paycheck until many of them were killed that day.
The second happened at the Police Academy close to my university in Islamabad. The explosion in the distance rocked the campus buildings and shattered windows. We evacuated to see black smoke rising from the north. A similar attack took place in the Police Academy in Lahore. This led to a joint operation by the Police and the Army, which inspired the film Waar.
The third and closest one also happened while I was at university. Two militants entered the neighbouring International Islamic University campus and one of them detonated himself, killing students. Widespread panic spread on my campus, and the students were evacuated home. After three days off, we came to unrecognisable university grounds. Wrought iron grills stretched along the boundary were covered by brick walls. There were sentry towers on all corners, and we entered the campus ground single file, the security guards’ eyes boring into ours. But once again, the claustrophobia of the first day back faded away, and everything became normal once again.
The attack on the university set a new precedent for the militants. Several other educational institutions were attacked. The last one happened in December of 2014 when a school in Peshawar was raided. The attack was so brutal that the entire class of year 9 class was wiped out. The only survivors were students on leave or those who were covered in their classmates’ blood, their bodies indiscernible from their dead friends.
That was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The Pakistani Military escalated its aggression and wiped out most militant groups. However, it came at a cost. Many people who lived in the areas where militants hid became refugees in their own country. After that, attacks that used to happen weekly became a rare occurrence. The militants were so desperate to cause havoc that they once even tried to accept responsibility for an explosion that turned out to have been caused by a malfunctioning diesel generator.
People who have lived and grown up during the decade and a half of security instability are no wonder calm and collected. They also understand that the perpetual animosity will bring nothing but pain on either side. We teach history by glorifying ourselves and our effort in the wars we fought, which, although understandable, also sows a never-ending seed of hate, racism and prejudice. Some people can unlearn it, but others are surprisingly indoctrinated to the degree that the hate flows in every neuron in their brain.
I don’t wish to become numb to cope ever again. I hope better sense prevails, and I hope that our coming generations are smarter than we are at recognising that we have spent enough time in conflict. It brought us nothing.
If you liked reading this, you might also like the book I wrote about the Indian subcontinent and Pakistan’s history through the eyes of my grandfather: http://thekeeperofthelighthouse.com/
