Something unusual is unfolding in Pakistan. Not dramatic enough to dominate headlines, but too coordinated to dismiss as coincidence.
After nearly two decades, Basant has quietly returned to public discourse in Lahore. Alongside it has come renewed conversation in some Pakistani circles around Sikh history, pre-Partition Punjab and older neighbourhood identities associated with Lahore's multicultural past. Reports and local discussions around possible restoration or greater public acknowledgment of names such as Krishan Nagar, Dharampura, Lakshmi Chowk and Jain Mandir Road have reinforced the impression that parts of Pakistan's establishment are attempting to foreground a softer civilisational narrative rooted in the city's layered history.
Christmas celebrations last year also received unusually visible state patronage. Minority outreach, interfaith symbolism and carefully curated cultural nostalgia have all begun surfacing with striking frequency. Maryam Nawaz, in particular, has repeatedly leaned into the language of old Punjab, shared heritage and cultural continuity in ways that would have appeared politically insignificant a few years ago, but now seem part of a broader pattern.
Separately, these developments would mean little, but taken together, they point towards a carefully managed effort to soften the harder edges of Pakistan's ideological image.
According to multiple Pakistani sources familiar with elite thinking in Islamabad, the exercise is closely tied to the evolving positioning of Asim Munir. The objective, they suggest, is not necessarily to transform Pakistan's power structure, but to gradually recast its public face. Munir, long perceived through the prism of ideological conservatism and military hardline instincts, is now being projected in quieter ways as a stabilising and internationally acceptable figure.
Within sections of the Pakistani military establishment, retired Lt Gen Nazir Ahmed Butt, currently serving as chairman of Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau (NAB), is increasingly described as an intellectual influence behind this recalibration. Pakistani interlocutors speak of a growing recognition within the establishment that the country's accumulated reputation for sectarianism, intolerance and perpetual instability has started carrying strategic costs abroad.
And Rawalpindi has rarely changed out of introspection. It changes when legacy strategies begin generating diminishing returns.
The old model, where geopolitical utility insulated Pakistan from reputational consequences, no longer functions as comfortably as before. Islamabad needs Western financial space, Gulf confidence and diplomatic room at a moment of prolonged economic fragility. An international image excessively tied to radicalism and ideological rigidity complicates all three.
That partly explains the emergence of what many Pakistani insiders privately describe as recalibration.
The distinction matters.
The deeper assumptions of the Pakistani security state do not appear to have changed much. What seems to be changing is the effort to make them appear less ideological and more palatable abroad. Groups such as Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, whose blasphemy politics and street radicalism increasingly damage Pakistan's external image, have faced pressure. But the infrastructure associated with anti-India jihadist networks continues to occupy a far more ambiguous space within the state ecosystem.
There is also a deeper civilisational calculation visible beneath the optics. Sections within Pakistan increasingly appear conscious of the fact that India's global rise is not being viewed purely through the lens of economics or military power, but also through the appeal of its civilisational continuity and cultural confidence. India has succeeded in projecting itself internationally as an old civilisation comfortable with pluralism, coexistence and layered traditions. Pakistan's establishment understands the contrast this creates globally, especially given the extent to which the Pakistani state itself spent decades projecting political Islam through the vocabulary of strategic confrontation and ideological mobilisation.
What now appears underway is an attempt to soften that contrast without fundamentally revisiting the security architecture that produced it.
That perhaps explains why Pakistan's establishment simultaneously appears drawn towards civilisational symbolism while also remaining deeply sensitive to India's narrative dominance in popular culture and mass communication.
The contrast is difficult to miss.
Even while Pakistan experiments with the language of shared civilisation, parts of its state machinery remain locked in competition with India's cultural influence. The insecurity itself is revealing. A country attempting to soften its image abroad is simultaneously funding cinematic responses to Bollywood at home.
Pakistan's federal and provincial structures have in recent months expanded state-backed film financing mechanisms, including funds for cinematic projects intended to strengthen Pakistan's ideological narratives. Following the success and visibility of the Indian film Dhurandhar, the Sindh government publicly backed and promoted Mera Lyari as a response to what Pakistani officials described as negative portrayals of Pakistan and the Lyari neighbourhood in Karachi.
The episode revealed something larger than a cinematic disagreement. It reflected growing recognition within Pakistan that India's cultural ecosystem, from cinema to digital narratives, now possesses a scale and reach Pakistan struggles to counter symmetrically.
And that brings us to the timing.
Pakistan's western frontier is no longer behaving predictably, and that makes the old comfort of permanent hostility with India harder to sustain. Pakistani strategic conversations increasingly reflect unease over Afghanistan's trajectory and Islamabad's diminishing influence over developments there. Some Pakistani interlocutors privately allege that elements within their establishment believe India has gained quiet strategic leverage in Afghanistan, a perception that, whether accurate or exaggerated, appears to be strengthening arguments inside Pakistan for reducing tensions with New Delhi rather than sustaining simultaneous friction on multiple fronts.
Within that broader context, conversations around limited re-engagement with India also appear to be resurfacing in certain Pakistani circles. Track-II diplomacy, resumption of the Samjhauta Express and carefully managed channels of contact are being spoken about again with greater frequency, particularly among interlocutors who view perpetual hostility with India as increasingly hard to sustain.
The argument, according to one Pakistani interlocutor, is not rooted in idealism but in strategic necessity. Pakistan's military leadership understands that perpetual confrontation with India, while simultaneously managing western instability, diplomatic fatigue and economic vulnerability, is beginning to impose constraints that are harder to ignore.
No meaningful image reset for Pakistan can succeed globally if India continues effectively framing it as the epicentre of state-enabled extremism. Pakistani strategists appear conscious of that reality. Several Pakistani interlocutors suggest there is growing interest in cultivating softer narratives around shared heritage, regional connectivity and civilisational continuity, themes designed not merely for Western audiences but for sections of Indian discourse as well.
That helps explain the sudden emphasis on Sikh heritage, Punjabi nostalgia and pre-Partition symbolism. It is less cultural sentimentality than a carefully curated language of reassurance.
The deeper shift, if there is one, is not in intent but in vocabulary. Pakistan's establishment appears increasingly aware that the older idiom of jihad, hostility and ideological rigidity carries diminishing resonance in the external environment it now has to navigate.
Alongside this, references to the Indus Valley Civilisation and pre-Islamic antiquity are appearing more openly and more frequently in sections of Pakistani discourse than in previous decades. What is notable is not just historical acknowledgement, but the way this civilisational framing is being drawn into contemporary identity conversations, where Pakistan is increasingly described in terms of a layered, older cultural geography rather than a purely post-Partition ideological construct. This is also being explicitly linked, in parts of the discourse, to economic opportunity: tourism potential, diaspora engagement, and the idea of monetising pre-Partition heritage and memory sites to attract international and Indian-origin visitors.
Whether this signals strategic maturity or simply strategic fatigue is a question India would be unwise to ignore.
[Disclaimer: This is an authored article by Sonam Mahajan, a columnist and strategic affairs commentator, focusing on South Asian geopolitics, national security, and India's foreign policy. Views expressed are author's own.]
Related
