“Borders and Brothers: The Reality of Pakistan vs India Wars”

By: Hamza khan

I was only ten years old when I first heard the word “war.” My grandfather had just turned off the television after watching a documentary about the Kargil conflict. He didn’t say much, but the heaviness in the room lingered like smoke after a fire. I didn’t understand the politics, the history, or the borders. All I knew was that my grandfather’s eyes, usually kind and tired, were suddenly stormy with memories he refused to share.

He was born in 1930 in a village now split by a border he never imagined would exist. Back then, there was no India or Pakistan—only people, families, and fields. His best friend was a boy named Rahim. They would run barefoot through mustard fields, chase kites on the rooftop, and steal mangoes from the neighbor’s tree, laughing as they got caught.

When Partition happened in 1947, my grandfather’s life turned to dust. His family, being Hindu, had to flee to the new India. Rahim’s family stayed behind in what had become Pakistan. They didn’t get to say goodbye. My grandfather never heard from Rahim again.

I often wonder if Rahim grew up wondering the same things: Did my friend survive the journey? Did he make it across the border? Did he remember me?

War is a line drawn by politics but bled over by people.

Over the decades, India and Pakistan have fought multiple wars—1947, 1965, 1971, and Kargil in 1999. Each time, the borders were reinforced, not just with barbed wire and soldiers, but with mistrust, hatred, and loss. Media on both sides paint the other as villains. National pride demands we cheer for our soldiers. And yes, they are brave. But when the dust settles, what remains?

I spoke once with a former soldier, Captain Raza (name changed), who served during the Kargil War. He was Pakistani, and I interviewed him for a university project on cross-border narratives.

“We weren’t enemies,” he told me quietly, “just men with orders. One day I was shooting at an Indian bunker, the next I was pulling a wounded Indian soldier to safety during a ceasefire pause. He looked like my cousin.”

This conversation never left me. Neither did the letter I received from an Indian soldier’s widow, Meera, after I published my project online.

“My husband died during the Kargil War,” she wrote. “He left behind a three-year-old daughter. Every year on his death anniversary, I light a candle. Not to curse Pakistan, but to pray that no other child becomes fatherless.”

Stories like these don’t make it to the headlines. They don’t go viral. They don’t serve the politics of power. But they are real, and they are ours.

Borders divide land, not pain.

We often forget that our DNA doesn’t recognize borders. Neither does grief. Mothers on both sides cry the same way. Children ask the same questions when their fathers don’t come home. Soldiers carry photos of loved ones in their pockets, not flags.

I once read about two families—one Indian, one Pakistani—who discovered through a DNA match that they were cousins, separated since Partition. The families met online and began exchanging messages, photos, and recipes. They couldn’t cross the border, but they broke through something more profound: the walls built inside them by generations of animosity.

The truth is, both nations have been held hostage by unresolved trauma. The ghost of Partition, the shadow of wars, the rhetoric of nationalism—all have kept millions from knowing their neighbors. Fear is a profitable industry.

But amidst the noise, there are voices rising—artists, writers, students, ex-soldiers, and everyday citizens—who choose connection over conflict. Social media pages like "Indo-Pak Peace Project" or platforms like "Aaghaz-e-Dosti" facilitate dialogues between young people from both countries. Letters are exchanged. Friendships are born. And the realization dawns: we are not so different.

What does victory look like when we share the same sky?

In the end, what is the cost of war? Not just the lives lost on the battlefield, but the thousands of stories that will never be written, the friendships that will never blossom, the music never shared, the jokes never exchanged over a cup of chai.

My grandfather died without ever knowing what happened to Rahim. I often imagine what it would have been like if they had met again—two old men in their eighties, sipping tea, laughing at how far politics had come between their childhood mischief.

If war had not split them apart, they might have grown old together. Their grandchildren—me and some young man across the border—might have been friends too.

Borders can claim land, but not brotherhood. That lives in our stories. And maybe, just maybe, the more we share these stories, the more we’ll realize that the real enemy isn’t across the border—it’s the silence that grows between us.