The India-Pakistan division and the current rhetoric surrounding the violence exemplify how conversations about extremism are highly unproductive
By GEETIKA MAHAJAN — [email protected]
When the British left South Asia in 1947, they left a tangible legacy of colonialism behind. The following partition of India into India and Pakistan was one of the most violent conflicts of the 20th century, and its consequences are still impacting people on both sides to this day. Tensions between the countries manifest in bursts of violence that fuel political campaigns, debates and hatred on both sides of the border. Throughout the Hindu-Muslim diaspora, the rhetoric surrounding these events only further reinforces division and ensures that though the original colonists may have left, their legacy of violence continues to destabilize both nations.
In India, a movement of retributive violence against Muslims, referred to as “bulldozer justice,” started out on the fringes of the right-wing and crept its way into the speeches of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The purpose — to punish any violations of land regulators in India by bulldozing their property — has disproportionately affected Muslin farms, houses and places of worship. Around 70% of targeted properties between the years of 2021 and 2023 belonged to Muslims, according to Human Rights Watch. The strategy itself is not effective at anything besides further reinforcing anti-Muslim sentiment in India and anti-Indian sentiment in Pakistan.
Across the border, Pakistan engages in its own kind of othering. The seemingly omnipresent “Indian threat” has granted the Pakistani military a disproportionate role in Pakistan’s fragile democracy. By leveraging constant threats of an attack from India, the government enables military coups, military governance and a bloated defense budget. In 2024, Pakistan scored 35 out of 100 on Freedom House’s Global Freedom Index, wherein “interference by the military in civilian institutions” was cited as a major factor for the country’s low score.
The most recent pattern of escalating violence centers around an attack in India-administered Kashmir, where 26 Hindus were killed. The Indian government blamed Pakistan for the attack and retaliated, targeting parts of Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, leaving 26 dead and 46 injured. Both governments have invoked discussions of extremism to justify their actions, preceding and postceding these attacks.
The two ever-competing nationalist voices leave no room for nuance within discussions centering on the religious and political conflict. Constantly ignoring the issues within their own country, while characterising the other as the looming threat, has allowed internal mismanagement to go unchecked. Furthermore, it silences those caught in the crosshairs of the conflict itself.
“The competing narratives of India and Pakistan leave no room for the Kashmiri voice, which is silenced even in the global imagination,” author Ather Zia said in her book, “Resisting Disappearance: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir.”
Conversations surrounding the division between the two nations center around extremism in a way that turns religious groups into symbols. Politicians create stories about victims and the “dangerous radicals” targeting them, turning a nuanced history into a means to an ideological end and achieving no meaningful resolution in favor of stoking animosity. The discourse favors caricatures, and, consequently, the rhetoric and violence on both sides grows more extreme, more bloody and more harmful to the nations’ citizens.
Written by: Geetika Mahajan — [email protected]
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