In September 2017, during a moderated discussion organised by the New York based Asia Society, Pakistan’s then Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif mentioned that "A whole generation in my country doesn’t remember what Pakistan was like 40 years ago.”

Elaborating on his observation, Asif said that Pakistan “was a liberal country in which people could read [and] different sects could live together- Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Shias, Sunnis, etc; they were all Pakistanis,” and lamenting “Now it’s a tragedy- tragedy on a national level.”
This matter-of-fact revelation throws up the obvious question-who’s responsible for precipitating this “national level” tragedy precipitated by burgeoning communal and sectarian intolerance? The answer isn’t too hard to find as the same had already been articulated seven years earlier by none other than Pakistan’s ex-President and former army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf.
Readers would recall that in his 2010 interview with Der Spiegel, Gen Musharraf had proudly admitted “We [the Pakistan army] poisoned Pakistani civil society for 10 years when we fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It was jihad and we brought in militants from all over the world, with the West and Pakistan together in the lead role.”
As far as India is concerned, the Pakistan army has taken extraordinary pains to not only keep but further aggravate the Hindu-Muslim divide. Portraying a ‘Hindu India’ as an existential threat to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan helps Rawalpindi in projecting itself as the ultimate bulwark against India’s hegemonistic designs, and this in turn gives the army quasi legitimacy to wield extra-constitutional authority and sweeping powers. Some examples:
Remember Gen Pervez Mushrraf admitting in 2016 how the then Pakistan army chief Gen Raheel Sharif helped him get off the Exit Control List that allowed him to flee the country by “releasing the pressure exerted on courts from behind the scenes”?
In 2018, didn’t Islamabad High Court’s senior judge Justice Shaukat Siddiqui reveal how “In different [court] cases, the ISI [Pakistan army’s spy agency] forms benches of its choice to get desired results [judgment]”?
Let’s return to the question of who is ‘poisoning’ Pakistani society.
In 2017, when Tehree-e-Labbaik Pakistan [TLP], a far-right Islamist populist political party, organised a protest in Fayzabad [Islamabad] against the Nawaz Sharif government, it was the Pakistan army that brokered a settlement deal between the government and TLP with the agreement being signed by Maj Gen Faiz Hameed of ISI as “guarantor.” Unbelievable but true.
Things became even more bizarre when Maj Gen Azhar Navid Hayat was caught on video distributing cash-filled packets to protesters. Not only this, he also was heard endorsing Pakistan army’s solidarity with the anti-government protesters by saying “Aren’t we too with you too?” He even assured them that “God willing, we’ll get all of them [arrested protesters] released.
While reporting this incident, BBC reporter M Ilyas Khan rightly mentioned that “the [video] footage is being interpreted by some as rare evidence of the “soft spot” the military [in Pakistan] is believed to have for religious groups whose support can be mobilised against mainstream political parties.”
Doesn’t the fact that TLP was briefly banned for its violent activities in 2021, and once again on October 23 for being [as per the Pakistan Prime Minister’s Office] “involved in terrorism and violent activities” expose Rawalpindi’s dirty underbelly? Doesn’t the Pakistan army’s cozying up to a dubious group like TLP tantamount to ‘poisoning’ Pakistani society?
Fast forward to 2025 and one finds that the Pakistan army unabashedly continues to pursue its toxic self-serving agenda of “poisoning” the minds of their countrymen by inciting communal animosity.
Just six months ago, while addressing the Convention for Overseas Pakistanis didn’t Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir stress on fundamental contradictions and irresolvable incompatibilities between Hindus and Muslims, and even asked the audience to ‘educate’ their children on the “stark differences between Hindus and Muslims”?
Coming from a person who US President Donald Trump opines is “a very important guy in Pakistan,” such Hinduphobic remarks don’t bode well for Pakistan which has a rapidly dwindling Hindu minority community that is already being subjected to institutionalised persecution.
In its report titled “Under Siege: Freedom of Religion or Belief in 2023/24” Human Rights Commission of Pakistan [HRCP] has made some disturbing disclosures such as:
Freedom of religion or belief remains under constant threat in Pakistan, with religiously motivated violence and discrimination increasing yearly.
Hindu and Christian women and girls, particularly in northern Sindh, remain highly vulnerable to grooming and abduction.
As identified earlier by the HRCP fact-finding mission, discrimination against religious minorities in Sindh-home to the majority of Pakistan’s Hindus-continues to rise.
Religious minorities face unemployment, arbitrary legal cases and assaults, compelling them to remain silent out of fear of retaliation.
The Pakistan army’s ongoing programme of ‘poisoning’ Pakistani society continues unabated and the disquieting fact is that it seems to have even altered the outlook of people considered were to be mentally more accommodative and possessing a discerning mindset.
For example, the same Khawaja Muhammad Aziz who in 2017 had bewailed the sunset of communal and sectarian harmony in Pakistan by stating that “the junta [Taliban leaders] there [in Kabul] has elements that have visited India and visited their temples,” is today talking just like a rabid religious bigot. Once again, unbelievable but true!
Lastly, the 2023/24 HRCP report also mentions that, “Orthodox and regressive interpretations of the majority religion [in Pakistan] continue to be weaponised to target individuals, destroy lives and suppress freedoms [of minority community members].”
Hasn’t Field Marshal Munir done exactly this through his “we were different from Hindus in every possible aspect of life” rant?

Email:------------------------------nileshkunwar.56@gmail.com