For Pakistan’s small Sikh community, long associated with sacred shrines and historical memory, but seldom with state authority, it marked a rare breakthrough.

Pakistan is often described as an Army with a state rather than a state with an army. In such a system, even seemingly routine decisions, such as military promotions, can carry deep political meaning. One such case was the promotion of Lt Col Harcharan Singh in February this year, as the first Sikh officer in Pakistan’s history to attain this rank. Months later, it still merits attention, not because it was merely unusual, but because it revealed how identity, military power, and regional politics continue to intersect in Pakistan.

At one level, the promotion was politically noteworthy and institutionally revealing. For Pakistan’s small Sikh community, long associated with sacred shrines and historical memory, but seldom with state authority, it marked a rare breakthrough. Yet in Pakistan, where the military remains the country’s most powerful institution, promotions are seldom read only as personnel decisions. They can also be instruments of strategic messaging.

Advancement within Pakistan’s armed forces carries prestige, influence, and political meaning beyond what most civilian institutions can confer. For a minority officer to rise in that structure is therefore no minor development.

Harcharan Singh’s own journey helps explain why the event resonated so widely. 

Born in 1987 in Nankana Sahib: the birthplace of Guru Nanak and one of Sikhism’s holiest centres, he came from a town central to Sikh religious consciousness worldwide. He later studied at the prestigious Forman Christian College in Lahore, one of Pakistan’s oldest and most respected institutions, historically known for producing political leaders, diplomats, academics, and public figures across communities.

Afterward, he reportedly cleared Pakistan’s Inter Services Selection Board and entered the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul, through the 116^th Long Course. When commissioned in 2007, he was widely described as the first publicly known Sikh officer to receive a regular commission in the Pakistan Army since Partition.

He was initially inducted into the Army Ordnance Corps, a technical branch responsible for logistics, stores etc. Subsequently he joined the 12^th battalion of Baloch Regiment, indicating movement into a more operational environment linked to field command structures. In professional militaries, such trajectories matter. They reveal whether representation remains ceremonial or extends into the institution’s core functions.

By that measure, Singh’s promotion is meaningful. But it is placed within a broader strategic context.

Pakistan’s Sikh population is small, commonly estimated to be no more than 15,000. Yet its political value exceeds its demographic size. Unlike other minority communities, Sikhs occupy a space where faith, geography, memory, and India-Pakistan rivalry converge. Pakistan hosts some of Sikhism’s most sacred sites: Nankana Sahib, Kartarpur, Panja Sahib. Few states possess custodianship over the sacred geography of a community whose largest population lives elsewhere.

Islamabad has increasingly recognised the utility of that reality.

The Kartarpur Corridor, opened by former PM Imran Khan in 2019, was welcomed by pilgrims as a humanitarian and religious breakthrough. It was also an exercise in modern soft power. It allowed Pakistan to project tolerance, engage Sikh sentiment directly, and shape international perceptions at relatively low strategic cost. 

That same logic helps explain why Sikh inclusion carries a different strategic weight from the inclusion of other minorities. Sikhs constitute roughly 1.7 to 2 percent of India’s population, but their national influence exceeds numbers alone. They are economically prominent, politically mobilised, globally networked through a substantial diaspora, and historically overrepresented in India’s armed forces relative to population share. Their presence in Punjab, India’s border state adjoining Pakistan, adds another layer of geopolitical relevance.

Unlike Christians or Hindus, Sikhs offer Pakistan something rare in geopolitics: a minority constituency with emotional relevance inside India, religious relevance globally, and sacred geography inside Pakistan. 

This is why Pakistan’s engagement with Sikh politics has never been merely domestic.

During the militancy years of the 1980s, Pakistan’s security establishment was widely understood to have provided sanctuary, training, financing, and logistical support to Khalistani militant networks operating against India. Over time, the methods evolved from covert infrastructure and cross-border facilitation to diaspora outreach, information campaigns, and symbolic religious diplomacy. The objective, however, has often appeared consistent: keep Punjab politically sensitive and India strategically vulnerable. 

Seen in that light, Harcharan Singh’s promotion is about more than minority advancement. It reinforces outreach to Sikh communities abroad, complements Pakistan’s custodianship narrative over Sikh heritage sites, and projects institutional openness at a time when the country continues to face scrutiny over blasphemy laws, discrimination against Christians, insecurity among Hindus, and the constitutional exclusion of Ahmadis.

That leads to a more difficult question. If this promotion is evidence of broad-based inclusion, why has no Christian, Hindu, or other minority officer publicly emerged with comparable prominence in the Army’s visible hierarchy? Are others less capable, less deserving, or simply less useful to the state’s strategic narrative?

This is where representation shades into selective inclusion.

Institutions sometimes elevate a few exceptional individuals not only to reward merit, but also to project an image of systemic openness and institutional inclusivity. One success story can be amplified as proof of reform. Yet symbolic mobility for a handful does not necessarily amount to structural equality and inclusion of minorities. 

None of this diminishes Harcharan Singh’s personal achievement. Rising through a rigid military hierarchy requires discipline and competence. But in Pakistan’s case, it would be simplistic to read the episode solely through the language of diversity and one individual’s calibre.

As with many political gestures in Pakistan, the significance of this promotion lies not only in what it reveals, but in what it may conceal. The deeper story is about how states convert identity into influence. Pakistan’s handling of Sikh symbolism: from Kartarpur diplomacy to selective representation in the army, suggests a maturing soft-power strategy in which minority visibility serves not only domestic optics, but wider geopolitical aims vis-à-vis India. 

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

The world must confront an uncomfortable truth: Pakistan does not merely fight extremism—it manufactures it, repurposes it, and unleashes it on its own people.

For decades, Pakistan’s security establishment has perfected a dangerous strategy: using extremist groups as tools of statecraft. While presenting itself as a frontline ally in the “war on terror,” Islamabad has quietly nurtured violent networks to crush dissent, manipulate politics, and control narratives. Nowhere is this duplicity more visible than in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest yet most neglected province, where Daesh-linked groups and sectarian militias operate under the shadow of state protection.

Daesh Sanctuaries in the Heart of Balochistan

Daesh has publicly admitted to having sanctuaries in Mastung and Khuzdar, two regions that were once strongholds of sectarian militants. Instead of dismantling these extremist hubs, Pakistan’s establishment allegedly repurposed them for political utility. Militants who once targeted Shias were redirected towards suppressing Baloch nationalists and silencing voices of dissent.

These sanctuaries offered more than mere safe haven. Training camps, recruitment networks, and financial channels enabled extremists to extend their reach across the province and beyond. Evidence points to these camps being linked to suicide bombings in Sindh and massacres of Hazara Shias in Quetta, demonstrating that Balochistan’s militancy is not isolated but integrated into a nationwide terror infrastructure.

The Rise of Shafiq Mengal: From Extremist Recruit to State Asset

A central figure in this playbook is Shafiq Mengal, son of former Balochistan Chief Minister Naseer Mengal. After leaving Aitchison College, he immersed himself in a Deobandi seminary and developed links with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group long accused of enjoying state patronage. By the mid-2000s, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had reportedly recruited him as a pro-state tribal leader.

Mengal founded the Musalla Diffa Tanzeem, a militia that became synonymous with abductions, torture, and extrajudicial killings. His death squads targeted activists, students, and poets who championed Baloch rights. What began in Khuzdar soon spread to Wadh, transforming peaceful regions into hubs of sectarian terror. Under Mengal’s leadership, extremists flourished, often acting with complete impunity.

Pakistan’s “Kill-and-Dump” Strategy

Since 2008, Balochistan has witnessed a grim pattern of disappearances and executions, a policy critics describe as “kill-and-dump.” Death squads like Mengal’s were instrumental in executing this strategy on behalf of the state.

A grenade attack on a Baloch Students Organization (BSO-Azad) rally took place in 2010. This was followed by targeted assaults on cultural events, which killed and crippled young participants. Abductions and executions of minors, such as Balaach and Majeed Zehri, further deepened the climate of fear.

Each incident reinforced the perception that Pakistan’s security agencies outsourced their dirtiest operations to extremists. This outsourcing provided deniability to the Army while terrorizing Baloch civil society into silence.

The impact of these networks was not confined to Balochistan. Suicide bombings in Sindh’s Shikarpur, targeted killings of Hazara Shias, and assassination attempts on political leaders like MQM’s Khawaja Izhar-ul-Haq all traced their roots back to Wadh’s training camps.

In 2016, the first captured Daesh suicide bomber confessed that he had been trained in Wadh, and that his explosive vest was assembled by a handler named “Maaz.” Such revelations highlight how Balochistan’s extremist infrastructure fed directly into Pakistan’s broader sectarian and political violence.

The Double Game of Pakistan’s Establishment

The strategic logic behind nurturing militias becomes clear when examining their political utility. Baloch nationalist leaders, students, and intellectuals became primary targets of Mengal’s squads. Writers, poets, and activists who articulated demands for rights were branded “Indian agents” and eliminated.

Even established politicians, including Sardar Akhtar Mengal, accused the Army of arming and protecting militias to suppress nationalist movements. The complicity extended deep into the political class. Caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bughti, for example, has been accused of maintaining his own militia. This convergence of politics, militancy, and military patronage reveals how entrenched the system has become.

Pakistan’s security establishment has long practiced a dangerous double game. While presenting itself to Washington, Brussels, and Riyadh as a committed partner against extremism, it simultaneously sustains militias for “strategic depth.” In Balochistan, these groups are deployed to weaken nationalist movements. In regional politics, they offer Islamabad leverage in Afghanistan and India.

Figures like Shafiq Mengal are the byproduct of this strategy: once extremists, later repackaged as state allies, always indispensable for maintaining control. Meanwhile, dissenting voices are silenced through fear, exile, or assassination.

The Real Terror Factory

Behind the headlines lies a deeply human tragedy. Families of missing persons gather daily in Quetta and other cities, holding photographs of sons, brothers, and fathers who vanished at the hands of militias or security forces. Their peaceful protests are often met with indifference—or outright repression. Even demonstrations in Islamabad demanding accountability have been crushed, underscoring the hypocrisy of Pakistan’s claims to democratic governance.

Civil society remains caught between the hammer of the Army and the anvil of extremists. While families demand answers, groups like Daesh and Mengal’s militias operate with apparent freedom, enjoying access to weapons, vehicles, and funding.

Balochistan offers a sobering lesson in how states can manufacture and weaponize extremism for political ends. The Daesh footprint in the province is not merely about sectarian violence; it reflects a deeper policy of political engineering and state-backed terror.

The career of Shafiq Mengal illustrates this dangerous nexus. From jihadi recruit to Army asset, his rise exemplifies how Pakistan’s establishment uses extremists to crush dissent, control politics, and maintain its dominance.

The world must confront an uncomfortable truth: Pakistan does not merely fight extremism—it manufactures it, repurposes it, and unleashes it on its own people. Until this duplicity is acknowledged, Balochistan will remain a killing field where freedom is strangled, and extremists act as the silent enforcers of military power.

This wasn’t the clean espionage of Hollywood—it was messy, lonely, and treacherous.

He was just 23 years old when he vanished from India—not into thin air, but into a role so consuming, so dangerous, that it would take everything from him, even his name. He resurfaced across the border in Pakistan as Nabi Ahmed Shakir, a young Muslim law student from Islamabad.

Behind that façade was Ravinder Kaushik, a deeply trained Indian intelligence operative, who would go on to penetrate the Pakistani Army, rise to the rank of Major, and live a double life of immeasurable risk—for a country that would eventually forget him.

Today, as borderlines tighten and intelligence wars evolve into digital domains, Ravinder Kaushik’s human story rises from the pages of history as a haunting reminder: the greatest spies aren’t found in surveillance rooms or drone footage. They walk among enemies, living lies to protect lives.

From Spotlight to Shadows

Born on April 11, 1952, in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, Kaushik was no ordinary boy. A gifted actor and orator, he made waves on the theatre circuit during college. At SD Bihani College, his moving mono-act of an Indian soldier withstanding enemy torture caught the attention of RAW recruiters. It wasn’t just a performance. It was prophecy.

In 1973, RAW—India’s external intelligence agency—recruited the 21-year-old and subjected him to a rigorous two-year training regime. He learned Urdu, Islamic customs, Pakistani etiquette, and the subtle mechanics of espionage. The transformation was so complete that he underwent circumcision to pass as a true Muslim. And with that, Ravinder Kaushik ceased to exist.

A Life in Enemy Ranks

Kaushik arrived in Pakistan in 1975, posing as Nabi Ahmed Shakir. He enrolled in Karachi University to study law, building a convincing civilian front. Soon after, his academic record earned him a place in the Pakistani Army’s Military Accounts Department—a move that stunned even the most hardened RAW veterans.

By 1979, he was a Major—the first Indian agent to infiltrate the Pakistani military at such a level. He married a local woman, Amanat, and had a child, solidifying his cover. But what his family in Pakistan never knew was that every day, he lived in silent service to India, secretly sending classified troop positions, war strategies, and operational blueprints across the border.

For four years, from 1979 to 1983, his reports helped India thwart potential wars and cross-border threats, saving untold numbers of civilian and military lives. So vital was his intelligence that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi herself reportedly called him “The Black Tiger.”

But even the perfect spy can only balance for so long on a wire stretched over fire. Kaushik’s deception wasn’t digital—it was human. He prayed like a Muslim, celebrated Eid, played cricket with Pakistani officers, and kept fasts during Ramadan. His intelligence dispatches were transmitted through invisible ink, dead drops, and relays via agents in Kuwait and Dubai.

This wasn’t the clean espionage of Hollywood—it was messy, lonely, and treacherous. In an age with no GPS trackers or secure satellite phones, one misstep meant death.

And that step came in 1983.

RAW sent another agent, Inyat Masih, into Pakistan to re-establish contact with Kaushik. But Masih was caught, and under severe torture by ISI, he revealed Kaushik’s identity. A trap was set. Believing Masih’s ruse, Kaushik walked straight into it.

He was arrested instantly.

Torture, Silence, and Prison Walls

For the next two years, Kaushik was kept in Sialkot under intense interrogation. He was tortured—physically and mentally. But he never broke. He never betrayed another name, another mission.

In 1985, he was sentenced to death, but the Pakistani Supreme Court commuted it to life imprisonment. He was shuffled between prisons—Sialkot, Kot Lakhpat, Mianwali—slowly fading behind iron gates.

His only connection to the outside world came through smuggled letters to his family in India. In one of them, he bitterly wrote: “Had I been an American, I would have been out of this jail in three days.”

But India was silent. No rescue mission. No diplomatic plea. Only a whisper of gratitude hidden behind red-taped silence.

In November 2001, after 16 years of suffering, Kaushik died in Mianwali Jail—from tuberculosis and heart disease. No last rites. No coffin. He was buried anonymously inside prison walls, forgotten by both the land he served and the one he infiltrated.

Why Ravinder Kaushik Matters Today

His story inspired films like Ek Tha Tiger and Romeo Akbar Walter. But none bore his name in the credits. None sought permission from his family. Even here, he remained a ghost—honored in shadows, yet denied in daylight.

Within RAW circles, he is still legend. Yet the public memory barely stirs when his name is spoken. No roads, no medals, no memorials.

What then, is the value of sacrifice, if not remembered?

His story isn’t just about India or Pakistan. It’s about the human price of patriotism, the emotional toll of espionage, and the invisible wars that shape nations long before formal declarations.

In an era of artificial intelligence and cyberwarfare, Kaushik’s legacy reminds us: spies are still flesh and blood. They love, cry, ache, and break—but never on paper. Only in prison cells, through ink-smudged letters, and whispered names.

Ravinder Kaushik didn’t just serve India. He became the border. Every day he lived in Pakistan was a day India remained one step ahead. Yet, when he needed a voice, he heard none.

We owe him more than silence.

It is time India writes his name in textbooks. It is time children learn that freedom sometimes wears enemy uniforms. That sometimes, the greatest patriots are those we never know existed.

May we say his name louder now: Ravinder Kaushik. May we salute the man who became The Black Tiger—and gave his roar in silence.

Speaking at the Convention for Overseas Pakistanis in Islamabad—with Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in attendance—General Munir declared that Pakistan was created on the basis of “every possible difference” between the two religious communities.

“Our religion is different. Our customs are different. Our traditions are different. Our thoughts are different. Our ambitions are different,” Munir said, invoking the ideological foundation laid by Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the 1940s. “You must tell this to your children so that they never forget the story of Pakistan.”

But this “story” is not just about differences—it’s a carefully preserved narrative used by Pakistan’s military establishment to maintain a stranglehold on power, distract the public from economic failures, and perpetuate enmity with India. It is a story that has long come at the cost of regional peace, minority rights, and Pakistan’s own internal harmony.

Munir’s speech, delivered with a religious tone befitting his reputation as a “Hafiz-e-Quran”, did little to hide the Army’s obsession with defining Pakistan solely through what it is not—India. His remarks reflected the establishment’s enduring dependence on the ideological rhetoric of 1947, a time when the wounds of Partition were still fresh, and the world had not yet seen the consequences of such rigid identity politics.

A Doctrine Past Its Expiry Date

The Two-Nation Theory has not aged well. If anything, it collapsed under its own contradictions in 1971, when Bangladesh—originally East Pakistan—broke away in a bloody war that exposed the myth of religious unity. Despite sharing the same religion, East Pakistanis rejected the economic and political dominance of West Pakistan, shattering the illusion that Islam alone could form a cohesive national identity.

And yet, here we are in 2025, with the head of Pakistan’s most powerful institution lecturing overseas citizens to hold tight to that expired ideology. What purpose does this serve, other than reinforcing xenophobia, hostility, and a warped sense of nationalism rooted in exclusion and antagonism?

Critics across the globe have not held back. Indian strategic expert Aditya Raj Kaul accused Munir of “exposing his hate for Hindus and India,” while prominent Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui called the remarks an attempt to “brainwash youth” with dangerous falsehoods.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma called the speech a reminder of the stark ideological divide between the two nations, urging India to stop harboring illusions about reconciliation with its western neighbor.

The Real Jugular: The Army’s Grip on Pakistan

Munir’s speech also touched on Pakistan’s usual talking points—Kashmir and Balochistan. His threat-laced comments about Baloch rebels further illustrated how the military sees dissent as terrorism, rather than a call for justice. Kashmir, once again called Pakistan’s “jugular vein,” is less a heartfelt issue and more a strategic tool—one that sustains the military’s budget, influence, and unchallenged supremacy in Pakistan’s political life.

As Delhi-based journalist Rishi Suri rightly pointed out, Kashmir has become more of a “business model” for Pakistan’s generals than a national cause. Strategic analyst Sonam Mahajan summed it up bluntly, “Kashmir is Pakistan’s jugular vein, which explains why Pakistan has been in the ICU for 78 years, sustained only by IMF oxygen and jihadist morphine.”

An Unyielding Establishment in a Changing World

The tragedy of General Munir’s speech is that it wasn’t surprising. It’s the same tired script the Pakistan Army has relied on for decades—where religion is used to unify, enemies are used to justify military supremacy, and history is rewritten to prevent progress.

Pakistan’s establishment had a choice. It could have embraced a narrative of peace, coexistence, and modern statehood. Instead, it chose to double down on identity politics rooted in fear and historical grievances.

By clinging to an outdated and divisive ideology, General Asim Munir and the Pakistan military aren’t just looking backward—they’re actively obstructing the possibility of a forward-looking, inclusive, and stable Pakistan.

And perhaps that is by design. Because in a truly democratic and progressive Pakistan, the Army might no longer be the most powerful voice in the room.