Every few years, the same script plays out between India and Pakistan.

An attack jolts the region. Soldiers are killed. News anchors erupt in patriotic fervor. Troops mobilize. Diplomatic overtures are scrapped. Borders tense. And then, just as suddenly as the crisis flares up, it recedes—until the cycle begins again.

Nothing resolved. Nothing truly learned—just a well-rehearsed ritual of hostility.

For decades, we’ve been told that this enmity is inescapable—the product of antagonistic histories, clashing religions, and partition lines drawn in blood. But perhaps the better question isn’t why peace remains elusive. Perhaps it’s this: why is conflict so convenient?

The uncomfortable truth is that the India-Pakistan rivalry—especially over Kashmir—has become less about intractable grievances and more about political utility. Tension isn’t merely endured. It’s orchestrated.

In India, nationalism is a political currency

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling party, has crafted its identity around an assertive brand of nationalism. For its supporters, a hardline stance against Pakistan isn’t just policy—it’s performance. After a 2019 suicide bombing in Pulwama killed 40 Indian paramilitary personnel, the Indian government swiftly launched airstrikes inside Pakistan. Television studios morphed into military command centers. Political leaders hailed the retaliation as proof of India’s newfound strength. “National unity,” they declared, “requires national vengeance.”

Not long after, India revoked Article 370 of its Constitution, dissolving Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status. The region was placed under lockdown, communications were cut, and dissenters were detained. Yet the move was lauded as a masterstroke of patriotism. Critics who raised human rights concerns were accused of betrayal.

In this political climate, dissent is easily caricatured as disloyalty. Peace is framed as weakness. Security becomes spectacle.

In Pakistan, the military writes the national narrative

Across the border, Pakistan’s military has long positioned India as an existential adversary. This ever-present threat justifies the army’s oversized role in national life—and its unchallenged control over foreign policy. Civilian leaders govern in its shadow. Defense budgets balloon. Attempts at rapprochement are met with skepticism or outright derision.

Journalists and civil society actors who challenge the military’s dominance risk harassment, censorship, or worse. The armed forces don’t merely guard Pakistan’s borders; they shape its identity. In the military’s telling, only it can safeguard the nation from threats both real and imagined.

This posture exacts a heavy toll, particularly in Kashmir. Pakistan’s historic support for militant groups has led to diplomatic isolation and domestic blowback. Meanwhile, Kashmiris are often treated not as citizens with agency, but as pawns in a larger geopolitical rivalry.

Ordinary people bear the cost

In Indian-administered Kashmir, daily life is saturated with surveillance, checkpoints, and curfews. Arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances have been documented by human rights organizations. But these stories rarely pierce the national media’s nationalist drumbeat.

Pakistani-administered Kashmir, too, faces its own set of constraints. Democratic freedoms are limited, and economic development is often stunted. Families divided by the Line of Control can go decades without contact. The conflict’s human toll is vast—yet too often invisible.

And still, peace isn’t some fringe fantasy. Polls consistently show that majorities in both countries support dialogue, trade, and cultural exchange. In 2019, when the Kartarpur Corridor opened, allowing Sikh pilgrims from India to visit a revered shrine in Pakistan, it was met with widespread joy on both sides of the border.

But peace is brittle. A single bombing, an election season, or a charged TV segment can swiftly unravel years of slow diplomatic gains. When peace is treated as a political concession rather than a democratic right, it becomes perilously easy to withdraw.

The global community looks the other way

International powers are hardly neutral in this conflict. The United States continues to arm both nations, calling for “restraint” during crises while doing little to address the root causes of these conflicts. China, a vocal ally of Pakistan, steers clear of any mediation role. Western democracies largely avoid criticizing India’s Kashmir policy, wary of disrupting lucrative trade deals or strategic alliances.

This cautious diplomacy—more transactional than principled—rewards hawkish posturing and penalizes efforts at compromise.

The media’s role in the echo chamber

Across both countries, the media often fuels the fire. In India, raising doubts about Kashmir policy can invite accusations of sedition. In Pakistan, questioning the military narrative remains a dangerous gamble. In both cases, the loudest voices dominate the discourse, and the few who call for calm are branded as naïve or disloyal. Fear becomes the status quo.

Yet beneath the noise, the yearning for peace remains real. Most people, on both sides, want to live in dignity, not perpetual brinkmanship.

Rethinking the future

If India seeks to uphold its image as the world’s largest democracy, it must reinstate democracy in Kashmir: restoring press freedom, civil liberties, and genuine political participation. If Pakistan wants credibility on the global stage, it must permanently sever its ties to militancy and recalibrate the balance between military and civilian governance.

And the international community must move beyond empty platitudes. This is not just a regional feud—it is a prolonged human rights crisis with implications for global security. Treating it otherwise only perpetuates its permanence.

This won’t be politically easy. It will require courage: to confront national myths, to resist the temptations of performative patriotism, and to put human dignity above nationalist theater.

But change is possible. The India-Pakistan conflict persists not because it is inevitable, but because it is useful. It endures not due to fate, but because too many have learned to profit from its pain.

It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s only this way because we’ve let it be.