Opinion | Pakistan’s Long Failure as a Responsible Nation

A country that feeds terror, depends on loans and sidelines its own people cannot be called a responsible neighbour

A responsible country protects its own people, keeps its promises and does not let its land be used to harm others. By this simple test, Pakistan has failed for decades. The proof is not in speeches made in Delhi. It is in the record, from Mumbai in 2008 to Pahalgam in 2025, and in the daily struggles of ordinary Pakistanis.

Start with terrorism, the issue that matters most. The 2008 Mumbai attacks were carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based group, and more than 160 people lost their lives. Years on, the key men India wants for that plot have not faced real justice, and trials inside Pakistan have moved at a crawl. In April 2025, India says Pakistan-backed terrorists killed 26 people in Pahalgam. Many of the dead were tourists who had come to enjoy the valley. India answered with Operation Sindoor, which hit terror infrastructure, and the fighting ended after Pakistan reached out for a ceasefire. A state serious about peace would have acted against these groups long before it came to that.

The wider world has noticed too. Osama bin Laden lived for years in Abbottabad, a garrison town close to a major military academy, until American forces found him there in 2011. Pakistan was kept on the global financial watchdog’s grey list from 2018 to 2022 for weak action against terror financing. These are not just Indian claims. They are part of the international record.

Using militants as a tool of policy has also hurt Pakistan badly. Many of its own citizens have died at the hands of the same kind of groups the state once tolerated. Even its old friends have turned hostile. Since October 2025, Afghan Taliban forces and Pakistani troops have clashed repeatedly along the border, and Pakistan has carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan, including in Kabul. When a state treats extremists as assets, they eventually become a danger to the state itself.

The economy tells the same story. Pakistan has gone back to the IMF again and again for rescue, while families at home struggle with high prices and power problems. Money and attention have gone into the army and into proxy games, not into schools, hospitals and jobs. A country cannot ask the world for help and also spend its energy keeping its neighbour bleeding.

Politics is part of the failure as well. No elected prime minister in Pakistan’s history has completed a full term. Leaders have been removed, jailed or sent into exile, and the army keeps a heavy hand over foreign and security policy. When the people’s voice is weak, there is little pressure to change course. Hard decisions, such as shutting down terror networks for good, are rarely taken by those who answer to no voter.

A nuclear-armed state should be among the most careful in the world. Pakistan holds nuclear weapons while militant groups operate on its soil and its politics lurch from one crisis to the next. Its leaders sometimes speak of nuclear threats in heated moments. That is a risk not only for India but for the whole world. Pakistan also raises Kashmir at every global forum, yet it is accused of backing the very violence that has cost so many Kashmiri families their loved ones.

Minorities have paid a price too. Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis have long complained of discrimination, and blasphemy laws are often misused to settle personal scores. A nation that cannot protect its smallest communities is not a safe home for anyone who thinks differently.

Meanwhile, India has tried patience many times. It has offered talks, opened trade, run bus and train links and extended goodwill, only to be answered with attacks. New Delhi’s position is that relations can move forward only in an environment free of terror, hostility and violence. India has also placed the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably ends its support for cross-border terrorism. Even in the tensest years, India has kept military channels open, which shows it wants calm, not conflict. This is not hostility for its own sake. It is a country telling its neighbour that trust must be earned.

The way forward is not complicated. Pakistan must dismantle terror groups on its soil, put wanted men on trial, let elected leaders govern and treat every citizen equally. Until that happens, India is right to stay firm and alert. The world, too, should hold Pakistan to the same standard it expects of every other nation. Peace in South Asia depends on it, and the people of Pakistan deserve it as much as anyone.

Author can be reached at Email id : Paulfurqan90@gmail.com