When children grow up hearing that their neighbors and minority peers are existential threats, empathy dies early.

For generations, Pakistan’s school system has done far more than teach kids how to read, write, and pass exams. It operates as a quiet, methodical machinery—one that molds exactly how young Pakistanis view religion, nationalism, history, and, most crucially, those they are taught to see as “the enemy.”

Ideally, a classroom should spark curiosity. It should teach a child how to question the world. But in Pakistan, critics point out a grim reality: the public-school system serves as an assembly line for ideological conformity rather than independent inquiry.

This is not a new debate, but it just took on a sharp, urgent relevance. A major 2025 report by IMPACT-se titled Review of Pakistani Textbooks—authored by Ratnadeep Chakraborty and edited by Madeleine Ferris—blew the lid off the current curriculum.

After investigating 86 government-approved textbooks across Punjab, Sindh, and the Federal Directorate, the study exposed a deeply unsettling reality. Historical distortion, religious exclusivism, and aggressive nationalistic messaging are systematically baked into everything from social studies and Urdu to geography and Islamic education.

The report highlights how India is routinely painted as an existential, permanent threat. Meanwhile, discussions regarding Jews and Israel rely heavily on hostile stereotypes, classical antisemitic tropes, and highly selective historical narratives.

Furthermore, the concept of jihad is frequently framed not as an internal spiritual struggle, but as a noble, militaristic obligation, with virtually zero discussion about the human cost of violence or extremism.

A National Identity Built on Exclusion

This is no sudden shift. It is the continuation of a dark pattern researchers have warned about for decades. Way back in 2003, a seminal study titled The Subtle Subversion revealed that Pakistan’s textbooks were actively promoting intolerance and glorifying militarism.

More recently, a report by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Quality Education vs. Fanatic Literacy, reached the exact same conclusion: discriminatory narratives and exclusionary ideas about citizenship are deeply embedded in both provincial and federal classrooms.

At its core, this is a symptom of Pakistan’s ongoing identity crisis. Ever since the partition of British India in 1947, successive governments have tried to manufacture national unity through religion-centered nationalism. This project peaked in the 1980s under the military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, whose sweeping “Islamization” policies hardwired religious ideology into state institutions—especially the schools.

The fallout of those choices is what children are breathing in today. According to the IMPACT-se report, multiple textbooks explicitly teach that Pakistan was created “exclusively as a free state for Muslims.” While wrapped in the flag of patriotism, this language effectively strips religious minorities of their stakes in the country. It implies that Hindus, Christians, and Shia communities exist completely outside the central national story.

The textbooks pay lip service to equality, but the daily reality for these minority communities is one of severe social and institutional marginalization—a truth completely erased from the classroom.

The portrayal of history is equally black-and-white. Complex historical events are flattened into a simplistic narrative: Muslims are always the victims; Hindus are always the aggressors. The “Two-Nation Theory”—the political idea that Indian Muslims required a separate homeland—is taught as infallible divine truth rather than a debated historical theory.

When children grow up hearing that their neighbors and minority peers are existential threats, empathy dies early. Education built on fear yields an adult population ruled by suspicion.

The Slow Death of Independent Thought

The crisis isn’t just what these kids are learning; it’s how they are being taught. Pakistan’s education system rewards rote memorization over actual analysis. Students get top marks for parroting official state talking points, not for questioning them.

The CSJ report highlights an even more aggressive trend: religious material has spilled far beyond the boundaries of Islamic Studies (Islamiyat). It now shows up in science, social studies, and language textbooks.

Consequently, non-Muslim students are routinely subjected to compulsory Islamic teachings inside mainstream classes. This directly violates Articles 20 and 22 of Pakistan’s own Constitution, which explicitly guarantee religious freedom and protection from forced religious instruction.

The Structural Breakdown

Pakistan is already battling a massive educational emergency. Millions of children are entirely out of school, literacy rates are stagnant, and public spending on education hovers around a dismal two percent of GDP. But the deeper tragedy is what happens to the children who do make it inside the classroom.

When you feed students a diet of simplified history, rigid dogmas, and state-sanctioned hostility, you produce adults completely unequipped for democratic participation or informed citizenship. A society that outlaws questions eventually hollows out its own intellect.

Is Real Reform Possible?

There have been piecemeal attempts to fix the system. The CSJ notes that some provincial boards have tried to introduce more inclusive content. Sindh’s curriculum, for example, features a bit more material on diversity and peaceful coexistence. Reformers continuously advocate for human rights education, peace studies, and comparative religion to be taught from an early age.

Yet, these efforts are drop-in-the-bucket fixes against a massive, rigid structure. The state still treats national identity as something incredibly fragile—something that will collapse if it isn’t guarded by strict ideological conformity.

The profound irony is that this fearful approach completely betrays the vision of Pakistan’s own founder. In his famous speech on August 11, 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah explicitly declared that religion should have nothing to do with the business of the state, and that all citizens would be equal. Today, that speech is rolled out for ceremonial occasions but kept far away from civic textbooks. Instead, patriotism remains fiercely shackled to religious conformity.

Ultimately, Pakistan’s textbook crisis is a mirror of the society it is choosing to build. Schools can either raise a generation capable of critical thought, empathy, and healthy debate, or they can continue to manufacture individuals trained only to repeat inherited grievances. A curriculum rooted in fear might enforce short-term obedience, but it will never build intellectual confidence or regional stability.

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

In its efforts to woo foreign investment and overhaul its image, Pakistan is trying to sell the natural resources of Balochistan to the world.

The Government of Pakistan has imposed a series of restrictions to maintain law and order in Balochistan, the largest and most troubled province of the country. Issuing a notice on 17 May, the Government imposed Section 144 across Balochistan for a period of one month. The notification put restrictions on all public gatherings, including rallies and processions involving five or more people. Covering of faces in public places is also prohibited.

Imposition of restrictive measures in Balochistan vindicates the failure of the Pakistan Military, Federal Government, and the Provincial Government led by Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti to bring the armed struggle of Baloch rebels under control. Pakistan security forces have been incurring huge losses at the hands Baloch militants. On 12 May, in the latest case, a search operation team came under heavy fire from the Baloch militants in Barkhan District, killing five Pakistani military personnel.  

Pakistan’s Balochistan problem has lingered for eight decades. The ruling elite has failed to come up with a mutually acceptable solution to the problem that has led to four Baloch insurgencies in the short history of the country: 1948, 1958, 1973, and 2003. The latest insurgency intensified with the alleged rape of a Baloch doctor, from the Bugti Tribe, by a colonel of the Pakistan Army in 2005. 

The rape took place at Sui, Dera Bugti, in the heavily guarded government-owned natural gas plant. The colonel was never held accountable; instead, the doctor was held captive and threatened to stay silent. This not only provoked the Baloch but also united various tribes to seek justice for a Baloch woman, intensifying attacks on the Pakistan Army. In response, instead of addressing the heinous crime and punishing the colonel, Pakistani forces killed the prominent Bugti tribe leader, Akbar Bugti, in August 2006. 

Naturally, the killing stoked up anger, strengthening Baloch nationalist sentiment and escalating the conflict. Since then, the situation has been compounded further with huge human rights violations, with the adoption of the brutal “kill and dump” policy of the Pakistani State. 

In 2011, a senior vice-president of the Balochistan High Court Bar Association (BHCBA) had warned that if the “kill and dump” policy was not stopped, the situation in Balochistan could go out of control. Over 15 years later, the situation in Balochistan has only worsened further. Even the people who raise their voice on human rights violations of the Baloch people, like the leadership of Baloch Yekjehti Committee (BYC) and their supporters, are sent behind bars. 

The ruling elite remain deluded by the notion that the country’s strong military can help it to end the conflict in Balochistan. That is a grossly miscalculated assumption. Internal reports have time and again underlined the reality in Balochistan. Calling its 2025 report on Balochistan Balochistan’s Crisis of Trust, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) had said in its press release that “The mission’s findings reveal a disturbing pattern of continued enforced disappearances, shrinking civic space, erosion of provincial autonomy and unchecked impunity—conditions that continue to fuel public alienation and political instability.” 

At a time when Islamabad is trying to promote an image of being a regional stabilising force and making efforts to bring the two warring factions in the US-led war against Iran to the negotiation table, the persisting internal instability and Islamabad’s approach towards Balochistan and the Baloch people expose its efforts to portray the country in a positive light. 

Shorn of any credibility that it could utilise to overhaul the country’s image by overlooking conflict in Balochistan and security issues in general, the country’s leadership resorts to the practice of externalising the blame and accusing others of damaging its image. 

In a recent statement, Pakistani Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar issued a long statement on X: “We understand quite clearly that behind such stories are certain elements, mainly the detractors of peace, who are unable to come to terms with Pakistan’s role for peace in the region as well as Pakistan’s continued and successful fight against foreign-sponsored and abetted terrorism.” Tarar stated that it seems some elements could not digest the fact that Pakistan was playing a role in regional stability and making progress in eliminating terrorism. 

Measures like the ones taken in Balochistan are a self-evident acknowledgement that the real situation in the province is worrying. Reality is that Balochistan remains Pakistan’s most deprived and poor province despite being rich in natural resources and having a long coastline. The poverty in Balochistan increased from 41.8 per cent in 2019 to 47 per cent in the Financial Year 2025, way high above the national poverty rate of over 29 per cent.

In its efforts to woo foreign investment and overhaul its image, Pakistan is trying to sell the natural resources of Balochistan to the world. Lately, it has tried to woo the US to invest in the critical minerals of Balochistan, including copper. When Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshall Asim Munir presented rare earth minerals to President Donald Trump while on a visit to the US in October 2025, the Chief Secretary of Balochistan said in a statement in December that “American and other companies are interested in investment in this mineral (antimony, among others), which is more precious than gold and copper.” 

While the government is making ambitious efforts to entice foreign countries to invest and dig minerals from Balochistan, regional parties like the Balochistan National Party (BNP) have raised questions on the laws that allow the extraction of Balochistan’s resources. 

The hard reality is that situation in Balochistan remains abysmal: use of force, threatening and arresting people like Mahrang Baloch and others. This will not resolve the Baloch problem; nor will it divert attention from the issue. The country needs concrete steps, acceptable to the Baloch people, to resolve the issue of continued Baloch resistance.

But the brutal use of force by the Pakistani state against the poorest province of Pakistan is unlikely to change in a country where the military’s domineering presence in politics remains strong. This will keep fuelling public apathy and disaffection in Balochistan and in the absence of any genuine and sincere approach by the state if Pakistan to resolve the issue of Baloch alienation, the situation in likely to aggravate further in the days to come.

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

In this military power grab, the role of Pakistan’s major political parties has been one of facilitation.

Pakistan is living through a quiet constitutional gerrymandering whose ramifications are not loud street protests. Rather, there is a slow and a methodical shift being orchestrated by an increasingly assertive military establishment, which is duly enabled by pliant political parties eager to comply. The objective of this change is simply to transform Pakistan into a military-dominated hybrid authoritarian system with a façade of civilian executive.

The chief architect of this new order is Field Marshal Asim Munir, inarguably Pakistan’s most powerful army chiefs ever. Under his tenure, the military has moved beyond the historical pattern of backstage control and intermittent coups. Instead, the goal now appears to be structural dominance embedded into law, bureaucracy, and constitutional text to make military supremacy not an aberration but the core of the state.

This transformation did not happen overnight though. It began with seemingly smaller amendments to Pakistan’s military laws (Army/Air Force/Navy) in 2023, which were endorsed by the political parties without protest both inside and out of the National Assembly. These changes expanded the reach of military courts, allowing civilians to be tried under military jurisdiction.

This followed the violent anti-government protests of May 9, 2023, when protestors targeted dozens of military installations across Pakistani provinces, including Lahore and Peshawar. Besides hundreds of protestors, the most high-profile target of this expanded legal control has been former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who remains imprisoned alongside his wife, Bushra Bibi, facing dozens of cases that critics argue serve political rather than judicial ends.

From there, the military’s influence has migrated deeper into civilian space. Munir’s consolidation included the time-tested policy of parachuting military officers into key civilian institutions such as NADRA, WAPDA, SUPARCO, among others. The appointment of Lt. Gen. Asim Malik, the Director-General of Pakistan’s powerful intelligence service, ISI, and as National Security Adviser marked an unmistakable shift.

This significant civilian post which traditionally functioned as the bridge between civilian governance and military command was no longer a boundary at all. But the most significant restructuring has come through constitutional amendments. The 26th Amendment, passed in late 2024, expanded the tenure of military service chiefs from three to five years, with potential extensions matching those expanded terms.

This effectively allows a single military chief to shape Pakistan’s governance for more than a decade, as is the case with Asim Munir who seems poised to be in office till 2032 at least. In parallel, the amendment broadened the government’s role in judicial affairs, tightening political oversight over judicial appointments and administration. Judiciary was the last bastion where the military establishment could not otherwise influence directly.

The latest the 27th Amendment goes even further. It formalized Munir’s new role as Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), a new title that elevates the Army Chief as the overarching commander of Pakistan’s military forces. It also granted him an enhanced role in the management of the country’s nuclear assets, otherwise overseen by the prime minister led strategic command.

While Pakistan has long been a nuclear-armed state under tight military control, the legal codification of this role marks a decisive break from earlier ambiguity. As such, the civilian oversight, which was anyway already weak, is now further downgraded.

It is true that power consolidation by military leaders is not new in Pakistan. From Ayub Khan to Zia ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf, all have reshaped the political system in their favor but only after military coups. However, what distinguishes the current phenomenon is how seamlessly key civilian institutions, particularly political parties, have not only accepted this shift but overtly and covertly facilitated this power grab.

Moreover, the 27^th Amendment practically split Pakistan’s highest judicial institution of Supreme Court into two by creating a new Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) while significantly reducing the Supreme Court’s discretionary powers such as suo moto. The amendment’s timing and intent are unmistakable as this restructuring limits the SC’s ability to overview the military-driven changes now being encoded into law.

As such, the judiciary, which was once seen as an unpredictable check on military authority, is now practically subdued. This has made Pakistan’s courts being increasingly viewed not as arbiters of the constitution but as instruments to legitimize the very forces reshaping it.

In this military power grab, the role of Pakistan’s major political parties has been one of facilitation. Far from resisting creeping military dominance in civilian affairs of the state, they appear to be competing for its approval, demonstrating how civilian leadership remained conditional on military favor.

Take the role of Sharif family’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). The party ostensibly became the biggest beneficiary of the military-backed removal of Imran Khan’s government in 2022. Shehbaz Sharif became prime minister for the remainder of the National Assembly’s tenure. Interestingly, it was during this period that the PML-N government appointed Asim Munir as Army Chief bypassing several of his senior officers.

But its reward came soon when the party received the dividends of military’s electoral engineering during the controversial 2024 general elections positioning Shehbaz Sharif to form the government once again. Likewise, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), once the standard-bearer of civilian resistance to military authoritarianism, is willingly playing an equal accomplice to PML-N in facilitating the military’s entrenchment.

What has consequently emerged is a political landscape where parties no longer seek to govern through popular mandate, institutional accountability, or democratic legitimacy, if at all there is any, but through proximity to the military. While the façade of democracy is still visible, but the center of gravity has shifted decisively towards military.

What this translates into is a form of managed system where rituals may remain but the outcomes are predetermined. And the consequences of this system will be far-reaching. It is true that Pakistan has long struggled with the balance between civilian authority and military dominance. But what distinguishes the current phenomenon is how its political class is willingly facilitating the establishment’s creeping dominance and how the military is shedding the façade of its backstage control.

As such, democracy in Pakistan, however fragile it was, is not fading with a dramatic collapse but is being dismantled through amendments, appointments, legal reforms, and political bargains; all in piece by piece.

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

This duality—preaching unity while practicing duplicity—has become Pakistan’s diplomatic hallmark.

When the Taliban stormed into Kabul in August 2021, Pakistan’s powerful intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, appeared at the Serena Hotel and assured journalists, “Everything will be okay.”

His confident smile captured Islamabad’s belief that decades of strategic maneuvering had finally paid off. Pakistan, long accused of nurturing the Taliban, assumed it would now wield decisive influence over its western neighbor.

Four years later, those hopes have turned to ashes. The Taliban’s rise, once hailed in Islamabad as a geopolitical triumph, has become a source of profound insecurity and humiliation.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), emboldened by its ideological kin in Kabul, has unleashed a deadly insurgency across Pakistan’s tribal belt. Hundreds of Pakistani soldiers have been killed in cross-border raids. The Taliban, despite Pakistan’s past support, has refused to curb the TTP.

The so-called “strategic depth” has instead exposed Pakistan’s strategic shallowness. A state that once boasted of controlling its proxies now finds itself hostage to them. The illusion of regional mastery has dissolved into a grim reality: Pakistan is isolated, insecure, and rapidly losing credibility.

Weaponizing Refugees

Having failed to tame the Taliban, Pakistan turned its frustration toward Afghan civilians. In October 2023, Islamabad launched the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan (IFRP), targeting nearly 1.7 million undocumented Afghans. For decades, Afghan refugees had lived, worked, and raised families in Pakistan. Suddenly, they became scapegoats for Islamabad’s security failures.

By mid-2025, more than 600,000 Afghans had been deported in what international observers described as one of South Asia’s largest forced repatriations in decades. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch chronicled chilling stories of police harassment, arbitrary detentions, and family separations.

Pakistan justified the campaign as a counterterrorism measure, accusing Afghan refugees of harboring TTP militants. But analysts saw it differently: an act of political retribution against the Taliban regime. Kabul condemned the deportations as a breach of international law and accused Islamabad of deepening Afghanistan’s humanitarian catastrophe.

This was more than just a border dispute—it was a symptom of Pakistan’s broader malaise. A state that once prided itself on being a refuge for the oppressed had turned into a place of fear and hostility. The moral cost of Islamabad’s Afghan policy was now unmistakable.

Airstrikes and Escalation

Pakistan’s response extended beyond deportations. Under the guise of pursuing TTP sanctuaries, it began conducting airstrikes inside Afghan territory.

In April 2022, bombings in Khost and Kunar killed 47 civilians, mostly women and children. Similar attacks followed in March and December 2024, targeting Paktika and Khost. In January 2025, fresh strikes were launched along the volatile Durand Line. Over a hundred civilians have died since 2021, according to regional monitors.

Each operation fuelled anger and anti-Pakistan protests across Afghanistan. The Taliban government condemned the attacks as violations of sovereignty, accusing Pakistan of hiding its failures behind a counterterrorism narrative.

By 2025, Pakistan’s western frontier was once again aflame—only this time, without American troops to share the blame. The Afghan war that Islamabad once believed it had outsourced had come home, exacting both human and diplomatic costs.

Diplomacy as Deception

The crisis reached a symbolic peak in September 2025, when Islamabad hosted the “Towards Unity and Trust” conference under the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute.

Despite the event’s conciliatory title, the Taliban government was conspicuously excluded. Instead, the gathering featured anti-Taliban activists and politicians, turning what was billed as a dialogue into an exercise in diplomatic provocation.

Just days later, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif labeled Afghanistan an “enemy state”—a stunning reversal from Pakistan’s earlier rhetoric of “brotherhood.”

This diplomatic whiplash mirrors a deeper inconsistency at the heart of Pakistan’s foreign policy. It speaks of a nation perpetually caught between ambition and insecurity, between Islamic solidarity and realpolitik.

Even its domestic realities now echo this hypocrisy.

In early October 2025, a story broke that underscored how deeply investor confidence has eroded under the current administration. Out of 23 oil and gas exploration blocks offered for bidding, no local or foreign bids were received for 22. The only bid came from Mari Gas, and even that was for a small block with negligible output.

Taimur Saleem Khan Jhagra, Pakistan’s opposition leader, wrote “investors know this is an illegitimate govt,” saying no company—foreign or domestic—was willing to invest in a country “without rule of law.” He accused the government of driving away foreign direct investment through arbitrary governance, economic mismanagement, and political repression.

This episode is emblematic of Pakistan’s larger credibility crisis. When even domestic energy firms shy away from state-backed ventures, the problem is not market dynamics—it is a collapse of trust. The same lack of accountability that defines Pakistan’s regional duplicity now poisons its economic foundations.

The Iran Paradox and the Palestine Hypocrisy

Pakistan’s double-dealing extends far beyond its Afghan misadventure.

In June 2025, Islamabad publicly condemned U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, declaring solidarity with Tehran. Yet, only days earlier, Army Chief Gen. Asim Munir had met privately with Donald Trump, reportedly discussing “regional stability.” In a surreal twist, Pakistan went on to nominate Trump for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, effectively undercutting its supposed alignment with Iran.

This duality—preaching unity while practicing duplicity—has become Pakistan’s diplomatic hallmark.

The same contradictions stain its stance on Palestine. While Pakistani leaders have long professed unwavering support for the Palestinian cause, history tells another story. During Black September 1970, Brigadier Zia ul-Haq, later Pakistan’s military ruler, helped Jordan crush the Palestine Liberation Organization, a massacre that claimed thousands of lives.

In July 2025, Pakistan awarded the Nishan-e-Imtiaz to U.S. CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Kurilla, despite his role in coordinating American military support for Israel during its Gaza operations.

At the UN General Assembly’s 80th session, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Daniel Rosen, head of the American Jewish Congress, signaling a quiet but unmistakable outreach to pro-Israel circles.

For a country that brands itself the guardian of Muslim causes, the hypocrisy is striking. From Amman to Gaza, Pakistan’s leaders have consistently traded principle for expediency.

A Consistent Inconsistency

Across every theater—Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, and even its own energy sector—a single pattern emerges: Pakistan’s promises collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.

It seeks influence in Kabul but alienates Afghans through bombings and deportations. It pledges brotherhood with Tehran while courting Washington. It proclaims solidarity with Palestine while decorating America’s military commanders. And now, it claims to welcome foreign investment while creating an environment so lawless that even local companies refuse to bid.

In the end, Pakistan’s gravest betrayal is not of its neighbors, but of itself. The erosion of credibility abroad mirrors the decay of governance at home. As investors flee, allies distance themselves, and insurgents advance, the message is clear: a nation that manipulates every alliance eventually stands alone.

For decades, Pakistan’s generals and politicians have built policies on the illusion of control. The Afghan gamble was meant to cement regional influence; instead, it has exposed a state adrift, distrusted by friends and foes alike.

The “everything will be okay” optimism of 2021 now rings hollow. For Pakistan, everything is decidedly not okay—and the world, finally, has stopped believing its promises.

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

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.