India and Pakistan went to war last week. I was in India on 22 April when the tragic terrorist attack in Pahalgam (in India-controlled Kashmir) happened, and in Pakistan as India was contemplating an attack on Pakistan in response to its alleged involvement in Pahalgam, and when the attacks were finally launched on the morning of 7 May. There is much to write about – from the hugely problematic policy decisions that choose war over negotiation (especially if the aim is to end terrorism, war is not the solution), to how war looks to ordinary people caught in it. But perhaps what needs to be reiterated most is the waste that war represents – of lives, of resources, of development budgets, and of peace efforts and cooperation, for which all space now feels lost.
The distance between India and Pakistan – stuck to each other through a shared culture, a common history, and a long border that lies merely 30 mins from my home here in Lahore – seems larger today than it has ever done in the past. This is because it was a war of narratives as much as it was of aerial dog-fights, drones, and missile attacks. It created a distance between the two countries so wide that it was able to swallow reason and nuance whole.
‘The first casualty of war is truth’
It’s an old adage – the first casualty of war is the truth, and it seems, also nuance. This past week in the sub-continent brought into glaring relief the fact that war now plays out on our TV screens and our cell phones. We expect to see each live update as it happens, even if we know that media outlets are not allowed to report the details of war, especially not before operations have occurred, and that even then, we may never know what the truth is, especially on losses incurred. Yet, everyone watched, because how can you not? We watched as news lost all nuance or concern with the truth. Media outlets reported the other side as entirely wrong, aggressive, and irresponsible, while their own side was acting as responsibly as could be expected and had the full force of moral authority behind them.
There was a lot of variation across electronic media. Some news channels dispensed with any concern for verifying the truth and reported the total annihilation of cities and key sites on the other side, even as citizens in these parts posted videos of life going on as normal. Pakistani news outlets were debunking fake news on Indian news outlets and vice versa. Others verified facts and reported slowly, but even in these cases it was striking that they dispensed with objective language in reporting facts and ground realities. Instead, the reporting was presented with opinions and peppered with adjectives – the ‘belligerent’, ‘deplorable’ and ‘untrustworthy’ country next door, their ‘cowardly’, ‘dastardly’ and ‘irresponsible’ attacks, their completely ‘mad’ and ‘laughable’ media. Even the most responsible and calm of media outlets resorted to reporting in this manner. It was difficult to assess what was really happening, especially if you were watching news media on both sides. Each attack by their own country was “retaliatory” and successful; every attack by the other side was “unprovoked” and “failed”.
Populist narratives
Both countries are ruled by right wing governments, and both have relied heavily on the use of populist narratives as part of their repertoires of rule. This creates a politics in which either the whole is true, or no part of it. This seems to have lent itself in war time to being able to sell sweeping characterisations of the other side, and an inability to see how anyone on that other side can believe what their governments/militaries are selling. “Can Pakistanis not see that their government supports terror groups and sponsors terrorist attacks in neighbouring countries”, asked Indian commentators and friends. “How can Indians believe anything that comes from populist, authoritarian Modi and his ‘Godi media’ [literally, ‘lap media’ and a play on the word Modi], who everyone knows does this before crucial elections”, asked Pakistani commentators and friends.
These opinions are enough to remove other nuance from analyses. War unifies, and in this case, unifies by disappearing accountability and removing any tendency to question the narrative from one’s own side. This makes sense to most – war is not a time to show weakness and ask unnecessary divisive questions that can weaken one’s government/military at a critical time. But this is also dangerous – it places unchecked power in the hands of people we think of as dangerous in peacetime.
Restraint from both countries
And yet, there was an unmissable positive in all this. The restraint demonstrated by both countries needs to be acknowledged. There are enough issues between the two countries for this to have been a long-drawn-out conflict, such as that in Ukraine. Yet, even as they attacked each other, both governments maintained a language of restraint and that they were only retaliating to provocation from the other side and were not the aggressor, and did not want to be seen as an aggressor. This is a heartening fact that speaks volumes for what each government thinks its people want. It was clear in the rhetoric on both sides that while they thought their citizens wanted decisive action that reinstated each state’s supremacy after each attack, they needed to maintain at least the language of acting responsibly and only in self-defence.
A ceasefire was announced on 10 May. It has largely been respected by both sides since and it seems will continue to hold. Both sides had gained enough, or inflicted enough damage, to declare victory. But the costs of war are real. Billions have been spent on demonstrating military might and what Pakistan terms “re-establishing deterrence”. These costs will now be recuperated from budgets that are already unable to provide for the millions of incredibly poor people who struggle daily in each country. Defence budgets in both countries are already disproportionately large, especially in Pakistan, but the alleged success of operations, and the need to replenish and further build high-tech weaponry will be enough to argue for increases.
Human development
The 2025 Human Development Report came out on 6 May – the same week of India’s military strike on Pakistan. India had climbed from 133 (of 193) in 2024 to 130 on the global Human Development Index (HDI). Pakistan had remained at 168, leading the group of countries in the “low human development” category. The difference is significant – India has always ranked higher than Pakistan on the HDI but this distance has grown over the last two decades. Yet, the situation of both countries is sobering – there are only 25 countries in the world that rank lower than Pakistan, a country that prided itself on being ranked in the medium human development category until recently. India prides itself on being a global rising power but sits only at 130 – well below Sri Lanka at 89 and tied with Bangladesh – with wealth inequality rising across its population. Neither country can afford the costs of war.
And yet, the logic of war will remain. Conflict, as we know, has a political economy –unpopular leaders facing uncertain election battles (the case of India), unpopular militaries trying to regain popular support (the case of Pakistan), and countries looking for markets and testing grounds for their weapons (the case of China, France, USA, UK), can all gain from it. For them there is victory. Ordinary citizens can only lose wars, in terms of lives but also in terms of diverted resources, and their own depleted will to hold their warring, populist leaders accountable for what they are not delivering – development.
