The two-nation theory: Between India and domestic discontents

Shortly before the Pahalgam massacre, Pakistan’s Army Chief General Asim Munir reiterated two-nation theory in his abrasive speech that stressed on the irreconcilability between Hindus and the Muslims. His statements stirred a debate on both, the present-day relevance of the idea of Pakistan and his reasons for choosing the Overseas Pakistani Convention as a platform to share his thoughts. Firstly, as Pakistan remains embattled with domestic challenges, Munir’s speech, contrarily seemed to address Pakistan’s ethnic and regional fault-lines that are no longer distracted by anti-India rhetoric. Secondly, the memories of Imran Khan-led insurrection in May 2023 remain fresh in the Army’s institutional memory. The Army is desperate to mend ties with the overseas Pakistani community, which had long been captivated by Khan’s charisma.

It would not be wrong to attribute the gruesome killings in Pahalgam, that claimed 28 innocent lives, to Munir’s provocative statements. After all, the victims were targeted based on their religious identities. Besides similar such killings in the past (Chittisinghpora being a prime example), they also remind us of the tribal invasion of 1947, which unleashed a widespread massacre of non-locals by religious zealots with the aim of forcefully annexing Jammu and Kashmir into Pakistan.

Speaking to an international news channel shortly after the Pahalgam killings, Defence Minister Khwaja Asif justified the support for terror outfits as dirty work for the US and the West that was forced on Pakistan for decades. Though a not new admission, it sought to drag the international community to sympathise with Pakistan’s alleged inability to control rogue elements and even share part of the blame with the West for pushing it into extremism.

Though a common rhetoric used by Pakistani generals and politicians in their conversations with the western media, such accusations discount the centrality of fundamentalism in state’s political trajectory since its creation. Beginning with the tribal invasion of Jammu and Kashmir that sought to galavanise the national mood against India, fundamentalists were quick at identifying the Ahmadiyyas as their existential enemies, resulting in the first ever anti-Ahmadiyya riots of Lahore in 1953. In fact, only a day after Munir’s speech, a member of Ahmadiyya community was lynched by a mob in Karachi.  

Ironic as it may sound, Munir’s stress on Muslim-Hindu difference comes at a time when millions of Pashtuns and Afghan refugees are being forcefully deported to Afghanistan along with ongoing military operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Pakistan Army’s decision to expel them stems from the resurgence of the TTP, much against the high hopes from the Afghan Taliban to act against the group. Pakistan’s periodic air strikes on the Afghan soil on the pretext of eliminating terrorists indicates its frustration with the Afghan Taliban regime and the impossibility of controlling the TTP’s growing menace. According to the Global Terrorism Index 2025, the TTP emerged as one of the world’s top four deadliest organisations.

In neighbouring Balochistan, the state’s incarceration of peaceful activists and accompanying internet shutdown across the province reveals deep insecurities on the growing popularity of the new generation of activists. Pakistani authorities were quick to blame India for the recent hijacking of the Jaffar Express, while failing to acknowledge the swelling numbers of highly educated Baloch youth taking up arms. The new face of Baloch resentment is no longer confined to the tribal chieftains; it embraces cosmopolitanism and possesses a deep knowledge of the Baloch history. 

The last few years have witnessed a convergence of voices from Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that question the growing militarisation and the virtual absence of civilian institutions. As a result, the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), that united the entire Pashtun community through peaceful means, stands banned. The Baloch Yakjehati Committee faces similar challenges, with its leader Mahrang Baloch behind the bars. It is also worth noting that time and again, the military and civilian leadership have demonstrated their willingness to negotiate with the TTP, while having zero-tolerance for peaceful activists. 

The resentment in KP and Balochistan begs a larger question tied with their complicated integration into Pakistan in 1947.While the state continues to address these problems through more militarisation and surveillance, such policies only reopen uncomfortable questions on the ideological foundations of Pakistan. Added to this is Pakistan’s over-reliance on Chinese megaprojects and the CPEC, and the accompanying promise to emancipate the region from the politico-economic crisis. 

General Munir’s speech may have rightly served its role to an echo chamber comprising of his fellow colleagues and mainstream political parties scrambling for the Army’s attention, but his reiteration of the two-nation theory may not find any sympathy with the civil society or the masses of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Balochistan.  

The author holds PhD in Modern History from the University of Oxford 

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