Shadow and Sacrifice: Youth on Both Sides of the Divide
Two Countries, One Pain The Burden of War Borne by the Young
What separates a girl from Karachi and a boy from Lahore? Or a young person from Ludhiana and one from Rawalpindi? They share a language, a style of dress, the same aspirations and the same dreams yet between them lies a line that was drawn in blood in 1947 and has yet to dry.
This is the story of the young people of these two countries who do not know one another, yet live in much the same way. It is the tale of households whose hearth fires have long been extinguished but whose affections refuse to die. It is also the story of a generation raised to the rumble of artillery, who found education a luxury, and who, eventually, closed the door on their homes and took the road to the Gulf or to Europe.
Those Who Do Not Know Each Other
In Pakistan today, there are approximately 54.4 million young people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-nine, representing 29 per cent of the country's total population. In India, that number is many times larger. When considered together, South Asia is home to the largest youth population in the world. But what do these young people actually know about one another?
Very little. Or nothing at all.
The Indian young person knows Pakistan only through newspaper headlines, and their Pakistani counterpart knows India only through the clamour of television channels. On both sides, hatred has been presented as a national duty. Yet the truth is that whenever ordinary people from the two nations have met whether in London, Dubai or the corridors of a university they have so often said: "We are exactly alike."
Love That Does Not Recognise Borders
Despite political tensions, marriages between the two countries continue to take place. Many couples now meet online and, despite every obstacle, strive to build a life together. But the path is strewn with thorns. Pakistani banker Sanjogta Kumari and Indian lawyer Mahender Kumar met on Instagram. After a four-year wait, multiple visa refusals and several cancelled wedding ceremonies, they were finally able to marry in 2023.
Shahida, a Pakistani woman who has lived for years in her Indian husband's home, wished to visit her unwell aunt. But she discovered that if she travelled to Pakistan, she would not be able to return to India. She chose to stay with her aunt and with her homeland because India is now her home. She said: "Whenever tensions rise between India and Pakistan, our lives are affected. In 2001, after the Parliament attack, my marriage was delayed by two years."
Among the Sodha Rajputs of Sindh, it is an centuries-old tradition for Pakistani daughters to be married into families in India. However, since the Pulwama attack, the Indian embassy has been unable to issue visas to these brides.
Billions on Defence, Debt for the People
Given this reality of love, what of the economy and defence?
In 2025, India's defence budget stood at $92.1 billion, an increase of 8.9 per cent from the previous year, making it the world's fifth-largest military spender.Pakistan allocated Rs 2.55 trillion to defence in its 2025-26 budget, representing 14.5 per cent of the total federal budget and 2.2 per cent of GDP. By way of comparison, India's defence budget exceeds Pakistan's entire federal budget.
In the same period, Pakistan allocated just 2 per cent of GDP to education and a mere 1.3 per cent to health. Between 2015 and 2024, Pakistan spent, on average, 17 per cent of its government expenditure on the military the second-highest ratio in the entire Indo-Pacific region. India, over the same period, spent an average of 8.6 per cent.
Guns are being bought. Schools are not being built.
Young People Whose Homeland Could Not Keep Them Among Pakistani youths aged fifteen to twenty-four, the proportion who are not in education, employment or training has reached 30.4 per cent. The consequence is the same as it has always been migration.
According to Pakistan's figures for the 2024-25 fiscal year, more than one million Pakistanis left the country in search of employment abroad. Over 400,000 of these were from Punjab alone.
In 2024, of the 727,000 Pakistanis who went overseas, 58 per cent were unskilled or semi-skilled labourers who travelled to Gulf countries to work in construction, domestic service, manufacturing and transport. They leave their families behind and send the majority of their earnings home.
Today, the number of Pakistanis living abroad exceeds ten million, of whom four million reside in the Gulf states. In the first half of 2024 alone, over 325,000 Pakistanis departed. India's situation is on an even larger scale. The number of people of Indian origin living overseas is 35.4 million the largest diaspora community in the world. Every year, 2.5 million Indians leave the country. Together, the two nations give the world more than three million of their young and skilled people every year.
The Joys They Could Not Share
In Abu Dhabi, there is a Pakistani labourer whose daughter took her first steps while he was absent. In Dubai, there is an Indian engineer whose mother fell ill, but he could not afford the airfare to return. In London, a Pakistani nurse missed her brother’s wedding and had to watch it via a live stream on the internet. The young people of both countries share the same pain: distance from home, separation from family, and the moments that, once passed, can never be reclaimed.
A Final Word
Two nuclear powers increase their defence budgets every year. Every year, more missiles, more fighter jets and more ammunition. And every year, more sons leave their mothers for foreign lands because there is no work at home. Every year, more couples plead outside visa offices because there are so many enemies of love. The young person born in Lahore and the one born in Amritsar both were sung the same lullabies by their mothers. But today, both hold headlines of arms in their hands, not opportunities.
Will there ever be a budget with more books than bullets?
An Article By
Ali Imran Chhatta