Armed convoys are rumbling toward Pakistan’s border with India. Fighter jets are slicing across the sky. Television screens are filled with warnings of impending conflict. National leaders are vowing a decisive response to any military action.
But beneath Pakistan’s drumbeat of defiant declarations as tensions erupt with India, a weary Pakistani public sees war as the last thing the country needs.
The gap between official talk and civilian exhaustion reveals a country grappling with deeper fragilities. Economic hardship and political resignation course through everyday life.
On university campuses and in living rooms, conversations are less about battles and borders and more about inflation, unemployment, a political system that feels unrepresentative and a future clouded by uncertainty.
“It makes me feel uneasy,” said Tehseen Zahra, 21, a university student in Islamabad, the capital, a week after a terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir inflamed the longstanding enmity between India and Pakistan.
“I get that leaders want to show strength,” she added. “But talking about war feels like too much. We already have too many problems. We need peace, not more trouble.”
