In War, No One Wins

Dr Rizwan Rumi
In the soft shadows of dusk, as sirens scream across border towns and mothers hold their children close, the haunting truth of our times echoes louder than the thunder of cannons: in war, no one wins. Nations may claim triumphs in speeches and strategic positions on maps may shift, but beneath the surface of these so-called victories lie the graves of sons, the silences of grieving families and the scars of a humanity endlessly betrayed by its own impulses. No border is worth more than a human life. No ideology can justify a child’s tears. And yet, time and again, history watches as humanity forgets this truth.
The India-Pakistan conflict, now over seventy-five years old, has become more than just a geopolitical rivalry. It is a wound stitched into the soul of the subcontinent. With each passing generation, that wound festers anew-not just through official wars and military skirmishes, but through the relentless psychological and emotional cost of living in the shadow of hostility. From the Partition in 1947, which displaced over 14 million people and claimed up to two million lives, the tally of loss has always outweighed the claim of victory.
Every soldier who dies at the border belongs to a family. Behind each name etched on a memorial wall stands a mother who prays for peace, a father who lives with pride laced in pain, a wife who will never hear his voice again and children who will grow up knowing their father only through photographs. And this story is not limited to one side. It repeats with haunting symmetry in the homes of Indian and Pakistani families alike. If war has taught us anything, it is this: the grief of a Kashmiri mother is no different from that of a Punjabi father or a Bengali widow. The tears do not change color with nationality.
Yet, amidst this shared humanity, conflict continues to burn. In 2024 alone, reports documented more than 300 ceasefire violations across the Line of Control. Villages in Kupwara and Poonch were shelled and civilians, including children, were forced to flee their homes. Schools were shut down. Livelihoods were lost. And the psychological trauma, though unreported in official figures, will linger for years. These are not merely statistics-they are real people whose lives are ruptured, whose futures are stolen.
The media often becomes an unintentional accomplice to conflict. The drums of war beat loudest on television screens, where narratives are crafted to inflame passions, demonize the ‘other,’ and reduce complex human experiences to jingoistic slogans. Headlines that should be calling for dialogue instead become battlegrounds for blame. In the cacophony of nationalism, the voice of peace is drowned. What gets forgotten is that peace is not weakness; it is resilience. It takes far more courage to extend a hand than to raise a fist.
One must ask, what has this endless hostility achieved? India and Pakistan are both nuclear-armed nations. A full-scale war today would not just be tragic-it would be catastrophic. According to a study published in Science Advances, a potential nuclear exchange between the two countries could kill over 125 million people and plunge the planet into a climate crisis, with soot in the atmosphere reducing global temperatures and leading to widespread famine. This is no longer about borders-it is about the survival of the human race. And yet, even with such knowledge, we flirt with fire.
The tragedy is that both nations have so much to gain from peace. United, they represent over 1.6 billion people, a shared history rich with culture, art, music and poetry. The Sufi shrines, the Mughal architecture, the Ganges and the Indus-they all whisper of a time when co-existence was not only possible but celebrated. Imagine the trade, tourism, education, healthcare and cultural exchanges that could thrive if only the subcontinent could shake off its chains of suspicion. Imagine the shared research on climate resilience, the joint eradication of poverty, the combined defense against global threats like pandemics. But such dreams are constantly sabotaged by the politics of hatred and fear.
At the heart of the matter lies a question too often avoided: who benefits from war? Certainly not the poor. Not the youth. Not the displaced. War serves the interests of a few while devastating the lives of the many. In both India and Pakistan, military budgets soar while farmers struggle, healthcare systems falter and education remains underfunded. The cost of one modern fighter jet could educate thousands of children. The cost of one missile strike could build hospitals and provide clean drinking water to entire villages. And yet, we continue to choose destruction over development.
It is time to reject the narratives of enmity that have been handed down to us like a cursed inheritance. It is time to ask hard questions of our leaders, our media and ourselves. What kind of future do we want to leave for our children? One where they continue to inherit our hatred or one where they learn that despite our differences, peace is both possible and necessary?
Let us remember the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who once wrote in the ashes of war:
“Nisar main teri galiyon ke ai watan ke jahan”
“Chali hai rasm ke koi na sar utha ke chale”
These lines do not speak of glory. They speak of sacrifice. Of pain. Of a people tired of bloodshed, yearning for dignity and life.
In war, no one wins-not the soldier, not the civilian, not the future. Only the graveyards grow and the world becomes darker. It is in peace that life blooms, that nations rise, that humanity redeems itself.
As citizens, thinkers and human beings, we must dare to choose peace-not just as an ideal, but as a strategy, as a right, as a legacy. Let the subcontinent not be remembered for the wars it waged, but for the peace it forged despite the odds. For in war, no one wins. But in peace, everyone does.

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