From the front line: A Pakistani socialist looks at the India-Pakistan War 2025

[Editor’s note: Ammar Ali Jan, from Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (Pakistan), will be speaking at Ecosocialism 2025, September 5-7, Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. For more information on the conference visit ecosocialism.org.au.]

On the morning of May 7, when I answered my doorbell and went outside looking for who rang, my neighbour loudly asked me to turn off all my lights. This command signalled to me that we are living through a moment of war. 

Living near the Wahgha border, we heard a deafening noise around 8.30 am, followed by a blast. An Indian Harop drone, made by Israel, struck a close by military installation. We later heard four soldiers were injured.

Armed with a 50-pound warhead, the Harop uses its camera system to track and engage moving targets. The drone can fly for about six hours or about 600 miles after being launched from a truck.

Apart from those that hit targets near our homes, many of the Harop drones were brought down by Pakistani armed forces before they hit their targets. But in most cases, they fell on civilians.  Out of curiosity, hundreds of people then gathered to see where these drones were brought down. People seem to be worried but not panicked.

Many friends and comrades have asked if I think a full-fledged war is now erupting between two nuclear-armed neighbours. My reply has been that war has already started.

The Narendra Modi government launched “Operation Sindoor” to hit nine sites inside Pakistan. The intended targets were madrassas and mosques Modi believes are the base of religious terrorists. 

According to figures released by the Pakistani army, most of the 31 killed in the one-hour attack by more than 125 Indian jets were civilians, including children and women. There would have been more casualties had madrassas not evacuated just after the religious fundamentalist attack in Indian-occupied Kashmir. Twenty-six people, mainly tourists, were killed in the Pahalgam area on April 22.

At that time, my brothers and sisters encouraged me to move from my home in Lahore. I refused since there are military installations or cantonments in most Pakistani cities. In fact, unlike previous wars between Pakistan and India in 1965 and 1971, there has been no mass exodus from the cities.

This is first time Indian missiles have hit nine Pakistani cities. A violation of Pakistan sovereignty, it has been condemned by almost all of the country’s political groups from right to left. But unlike the right-wing political religious parties, most of the left groups demand an immediate halt to the war. Although much smaller in proportion to the Indian left, the Pakistani left was unanimous.

Unlike the mainstream Indian Communist parties who have given up any independence from Modi’s BJP government, there is no warmongering in Pakistan. A May 8 Gallup Pakistan survey reported the majority of Pakistanis are not in favour of war with India; they believe peace should be the goal under all circumstances. However, this may change when the war escalates.

This is second time India and Pakistan has engaged in full-fledge war despite having nuclear weapons. The other time was the Cargill war in 1999. India carried out its first nuclear test in May 1974, and in May 1998 conducted another five tests, declaring itself a nuclear weapon state. Pakistan carried out nuclear tests on May 28, 1998, thus officially becoming a nuclear state. In reality, it means nuclear weapons are not a deterrent to war.

Pakistan has an estimated 170 nuclear warheads, roughly equivalent to those in India. With such undeniably high stakes, India’s decision to strike inside Pakistan for the third time (2016, 2019 and now) reveals that the pride of having nuclear bombs is not a deterrent to war between the two.

Nuclear weapons are the most inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. They violate international law, cause severe environmental damage, undermine national and global security and divert vast public resources away from meeting human needs. It is not a weapon of war but a weapon of total destruction. A single nuclear bomb detonated over a large city could kill millions of people.

While both countries bear responsibility for proxy warfare, the Modi regime has clearly instrumentalised the Pahalgam tragedy to divert from its failures in Kashmir, boost domestic popularity and advance strategic goals regarding the Indus River system and regional hegemony.

Pakistan is accused of supporting the terrorist group responsible for the terrible loss of lives in Pahalgam. However, the present realities paint a different picture. 

Although there is no doubt the Pakistan government supported and promoted religious fanatic groups for decades after Afghanistan’s Saur revolution in 1978, this was with the wishes and whims of US imperialism. 

Since 2022, when the Imran Khan government was dissolved after a vote of no confidence, the military establishment and these fanatic groups has been at odds. There has been an escalation of attacks by fanatics on Pakistan state institutions since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan supports the Pakistani Taliban in its attempts to capture the government. The Pakistani Taliban has carried out bomb blasts, suicidal attacks, occupied areas and forced people to support them. They were strengthened by the Afghan Taliban who gave them NATO weapons left behind when the US left Afghanistan.

In 2024, Pakistan experienced one of its most violent years in more than a decade. Religious fanatics took control of several areas of Pakhtunkhwa province. The Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP) inflicted attacks and causalities on the Pakistan armed forces almost every day. 

Contrary to cooperating with each other, there are now open hostilities. The Pakistani state no longer supports these fanatic groups, who now rely on the Afghan Taliban.

Of course, there are religious fanatic groups still active in Indian-occupied Kashmir. There are questions about the extent of support that might still be lent to them. But it is difficult to believe the current Pakistani government had anything to do with the April 2025 attack. 

The Pahalgam terrorist attack seems to have been the act of an independent religious fanatic group.

The danger is the war could linger on. Both governments have claimed victory. But if it were to continue, it will not be like the ones in 1965 and 1971, when ground forces fought each other. 

Instead, India is using the same tactics as Israel uses in Gaza. Missiles and drone attacks could destroy infrastructure; only after that might India introduce ground forces. But Pakistan is not Palestine. It has a large, well-trained and equipped army, though it lacks the modern weapons India has. 

Clearly the situation is very volatile and unstable. This means anything is possible.

What we do know is that war brings destruction and no one wins. Continuing the war will only result in more loss of lives. But if you listen to the Indian and Pakistani mainstream media, each side is claiming victory.

Durable peace requires respecting sovereignty, ending proxy warfare and demilitarising Kashmir. Any war between nuclear-armed nations would be catastrophic, regionally and globally. 

Progressive forces throughout South Asia must unite against war hysteria and work toward a peaceful future.

We demand an independent inquiry into the Pahalgam attack to establish facts and accountability.

Farooq Tariq is President of the Haqooq e Khalq Party and General secretary of the Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee.