There is nothing new about progressives in India and Pakistan calling for peace between the two countries. We have continued to swim against the extremist tide that insists on eternal war between eternally warring nations. The hawks were winning from the beginning, but after the brief military exchange in May 2025, the voices of those invoking the common interests of ordinary people on both sides disappeared almost completely.
Once upon a time, the ideological battle was fought between easily identifiable segments; Professional intellectuals, state and corporate media, the political classes, etc. Last year’s conflict made clear that social media platforms are now the most important, with 1.75 billion people on both sides of the border being the main protagonists in constructing and spreading narratives.
Simply put, the same young masses who share real material interests are on the front lines of an ideological war in which everyone across the Radcliffe Line is an enemy.
</figure>
Young people are easily drawn into this narrative, as succinctly demonstrated in a recent article in these pages about the “rage machine,” because hate sells, especially when there is money to be made via legacy and social media platforms alike.
Hate-filled rhetoric drowns out the shared struggles of young people.
But hatred is also spreading because a large number of young people in India, Pakistan and the rest of South Asia are experiencing economic hardship and increasingly subject to repression. Their pent-up anger can then be directed toward the proverbial “enemy.” There have been no “Generation Z” revolutions in Pakistan and India like those in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, but the material deprivation and accompanying expressions of class anger are acute nonetheless.
Let’s put this in context: According to conservative estimates, 600 million Indians are part of the active labor force, a figure of about 80 million in Pakistan. Annually, between 12 million and 15 million Indians and 4 million to 5 million Pakistanis join this workforce. The vast majority of these millions can only find precarious and often highly exploitative work in the so-called “informal sector.” While Pakistan’s industrial base is thin, the combined strength of India’s IT, textiles, pharmaceutical and other industries is able to absorb about one in ten young Indian workers into formal and relatively secure jobs.
The situation in peripheral rural areas from Balochistan to Jharkhand is also remarkably similar; Millions of peasants, herders, forest and mountain dwellers and fishermen face expropriation while ancient ecosystems are deliberately destroyed through the nexus of state capital. All this is done in the name of developing productive forces, disseminating brilliant new security technologies and creating tourist havens for the middle-class consumer.
Naturally, this middle-class consumer is largely imagined as belonging to metropolises dotted with air-conditioned plazas, pristine highways and elite neighbourhoods. But the capital contains its own surroundings; The millions who live in the katchiabadi of Karachi and Islamabad mirror those who live in the sprawling slums of Delhi and Mumbai. The fact is that the relentless, violent evictions that Islamabad is witnessing at the moment have been repeated in India’s major cities over and over again.
Our common present extends to the assumed common future. It is now known that climate change threatens our region more than any other region in the world. However, floods, smog, extreme heat waves, wildfires and other frequent collapse events, which afflict the most vulnerable in both countries, are not solely due to historical emissions from Europe and its settler colonies. The system of government in both countries protects the propertied class while exacerbating environmental crises. In any case, getting the countries of the Western heartland to pay climate compensation requires all South Asian countries to adopt a common cause.
India is a much larger country than Pakistan. The Modi regime and the hardline Hindu right have created huge armies of trolls to stoke hatred, mostly against Pakistan. It has also used religion as a weapon against Muslims, scheduled castes and other persecuted groups in India. The BJP’s recent victory in what was once a communist stronghold in West Bengal underscores how deep the tentacles of Hindutva have spread.
On the other hand, generations of young people in Pakistan have grown up with a militaristic ideology that portrays India as the arch enemy. This has been the primary justification for diverting public resources away from the welfare of workers towards the enterprise.
It’s not about who blinks first. It concerns the awareness and well-being of most people of this region. The tidal waves of hatred will eventually sweep us all away.
The writer teaches at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.
Published in Dawn, May 8, 2026
