The most dangerous seed is not always planted by an enemy across the border. Sometimes it is planted within—when political words teach one Pakistani to fear another.
It was Friday.
But Apa Ji — that is what we called our mother — had been weeping since dawn.
Since yesterday evening, the shock had set her ablaze with fever.
The news had come like a hammer blow: Pakistan had been broken at Dhaka, and Bangladesh had been born from the ruins of December 1971. At Race Course Maidan, where the surrender ceremony sealed the catastrophe, history had written one of its darkest pages.
For Apa Ji, however, it was not merely history.
It was personal.
It was the reopening of a wound that had never really healed.
From the moment she heard what had happened, grief seized her like a fevered hand. She kept whispering the same words, again and again, as though her dead daughter were still somewhere within the reach of her voice:
“Saira Fatimah, forgive me, my daughter.
O light of my life.
On the frontier of this country, you gave your innocent blood.
You laid down your small life as a sacrifice for Pakistan.
And I…
I could not protect you.
My blameless martyr…
Forgive me.”
My readers know that I carry the pain of two generations of my family who shed their blood in the making and defence of Pakistan.
That pain is not something I learned from a history book.
It was placed in my hands by my mother — along with the names of those who never returned.
Saira Fatimah was one of them.
My elder sister.
My innocent martyr.
That is why December 1971 has never been merely a date on the national calendar for me.
It does not arrive alone.
It comes carrying my mother’s tears.
It comes carrying the memory of my sister.
It comes carrying the blood and dreams of a family that believed it was giving everything for Pakistan.
For most people, history is a chapter.
For some families, history is a grave.
And for some of us, it is a voice that still speaks from inside the walls of our homes.
So when the painful memory of December 1971 is stirred again by words spoken in the present, I do not hear those words merely as political rhetoric.
I hear them through my mother’s fever.
I hear them through her repeated cry:
“Saira Fatimah, forgive me…”
And this time, what frightened me was not an army crossing a border.
It was a sentence crossing a provincial boundary.
A reported statement by Punjab Chief Minister Mdm. Mariam Shareef that Punjab faced a security threat from terrorists coming from other provinces rather than from neighbouring countries has disturbed me deeply.
Let me be fair before I become critical.
Perhaps the intention was simply to identify the movement of terrorists across provincial boundaries.
Perhaps the intention was to describe a security route, not an entire population.
Perhaps the words were spoken in the heat of a security discussion.
But political words do not remain permanently attached to the intention of the person who speaks them.
They travel.
They are repeated.
They are shortened.
They become headlines.
They enter drawing rooms, television studios, social media feeds and political speeches.
And sometimes, before we realise what has happened, a sentence has become a seed.
That is why the phrase “neighbouring provinces” troubles me.
I do not believe such language should simply be brushed aside as a slip of the tongue.
Because provinces are not foreign countries.
Punjab is not a foreign country to Sindh.
Sindh is not a foreign country to Punjab.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is not a foreign country to Balochistan.
Balochistan is not a foreign country to Punjab.
They are parts of one Pakistan.
And when political language begins describing one part of Pakistan as though it were an external neighbour, we must stop and ask what has happened—not only to the language, but to the map inside the mind.
I say this not as a spectator of history.
I say it as someone who carries December 1971 not merely in a history book, but in the memory of a family.
My mother — my beloved Apa Ji — became feverish and wept when Bangladesh was created in December 1971.
For her, Pakistan had not simply lost territory.
Something inside the family of the nation had broken.
And my elder sister, Saira Fatimah, was killed during those terrible days, at the frontier, in the defence and sacrifice of Pakistan.
So December 1971 is not an academic date for me.
It has a face.
It has a mother’s tears.
It has a sister’s grave.
It has a wound that never became history because, for those who lived through it, history remained alive.
That is why I become alarmed whenever I hear language that begins turning fellow Pakistanis into neighbours in the foreign sense of the word.
A slip of the tongue may be accidental in speech, but it can sometimes reveal something deeper in political psychology.
The tongue does not always invent the thought.
Sometimes it releases a thought that has already been rehearsed somewhere in the mind.
The question, therefore, is not simply:
“Was the word wrong?”
The more important question is:
“What mental map made that word available?”
To describe another province of the same federation as though it were a threatening foreign neighbour is not merely a geographical error.
It can reveal a deeper political imagination — one in which fellow citizens are gradually converted into “others,” provincial boundaries begin to resemble international frontiers, and political convenience begins to redraw the map of belonging.
And here I want to take the argument one step deeper.
There is a wider philosophy behind the relationship between power, territory and belonging.
Capital has no birthplace.
It has no mother tongue.
It has no graveyard.
It moves toward security, profit and power.
When great concentrations of wealth become detached from ordinary citizens, those who control that wealth can begin to see borders differently from the people who live behind them.
A border can become negotiable.
A residence can change.
Property can be shifted.
Money can cross an ocean in seconds.
For capital, a border may be an inconvenience.
For the ordinary citizen, it is home.
An oligarch can move his wealth across a border.
A mother cannot move the grave of her son.
A bank account can change countries in seconds.
A family cannot change the soil in which generations are buried.
Money can leave.
Memory cannot.
That difference matters.
Because the citizen belongs somewhere.
Capital belongs wherever it is safest.
And when political power begins adopting the psychology of detached power — when territory is viewed merely as an administrative possession, populations as blocs to be mobilised, and borders as instruments of political convenience — the emotional meaning of federation can begin to disappear.
That is where the danger lies.
A federation is not merely a collection of administrative territories.
It is a promise of belonging.
It says that different peoples can retain their identities while sharing one national home.
But if political language gradually teaches citizens that another province is “the other side,” then the physical map may remain unchanged while the psychological map begins to fracture.
That is how separation can begin long before anyone formally demands separation.
Not with:
“Let us separate.”
But with:
“They are not like us.”
Then:
“They are a threat to us.”
Then:
“Why should we share with them?”
And eventually:
“Why should we remain together?”
That progression should terrify anyone who remembers 1971.
Because the psychological distance comes first.
The political distance follows.
The geographical distance comes last.
And that is precisely why words matter.
A terrorist may cross a provincial boundary.
A criminal network may cross a provincial boundary.
But neither gives that province a foreign nationality.
The criminal is the criminal.
The network is the network.
The citizen remains the citizen.
The province remains part of Pakistan.
So when political language begins treating one province as a threatening neighbour, we must ask whether the speaker is merely describing a security problem — or whether an entirely different mental map is quietly being drawn.
That question is bigger than one politician.
It is bigger than one party.
It is bigger than Punjab.
It is a question about Pakistan itself.
Provinces may be neighbours administratively.
But they are not foreign neighbours politically.
They are rooms in the same house.
If there is a fire in one room, the answer is not to teach the people in the other rooms to hate its occupants.
The answer is to put out the fire.
If terrorists are entering Punjab from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, identify the routes.
If criminal networks are moving through Sindh, identify the networks.
If militants are hiding in remote areas of Balochistan, identify the hideouts.
If weapons are crossing roads, rivers or mountains, strengthen surveillance.
Use intelligence.
Use technology.
Use checkpoints.
Use cameras.
Use thermal systems.
Use drones where appropriate.
Use every lawful instrument available to protect citizens.
But do not turn a security problem into a provincial identity.
A province cannot plant a bomb.
A province cannot pull a trigger.
A province cannot hijack a vehicle.
A province cannot murder a citizen.
People do those things.
Criminal organisations do those things.
Terrorist networks do those things.
The distinction is not a matter of political correctness.
It is a matter of security intelligence.
If we identify the wrong enemy, we may end up fighting the wrong war.
And there is something else we must understand.
Trust is also a security asset.
A camera can watch a road.
Trust can protect a federation.
Artificial intelligence can identify patterns.
But wisdom must decide how those patterns are described to the public.
A security agency may know that a criminal crossed from one province into another.
That does not mean the province itself crossed the border.
This distinction is so basic that we should be embarrassed whenever we forget it.
The Constitution of Pakistan does not create four competing countries.
It creates a federation.
Balochistan is Pakistan.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is Pakistan.
Punjab is Pakistan.
Sindh is Pakistan.
Islamabad is Pakistan.
The northern mountains are Pakistan.
The southern coast is Pakistan.
The deserts are Pakistan.
The plains are Pakistan.
The rivers are Pakistan.
The graves of our fathers and mothers are Pakistan.
The Constitution does not say that one province is the homeland and the others are visitors.
It does not create a hierarchy of belonging.
And no political speech should casually manufacture one.
The Federation exists precisely because different regions, histories, languages and cultures must live under one national roof.
That is the genius of federation when it works.
Difference without dismemberment.
Identity without hostility.
Autonomy without separation.
Strength through diversity.
And this is where the warning of our faith becomes painfully relevant.
The Quran tells us:
“Hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided.”
— Qur’an 3:103
The warning is not merely against physical division.
It reaches into the human heart.
Because nations often break internally before they break geographically.
The Holy Prophet Muhammad [Peace and blessings be upon him] gave humanity another powerful image: believers are like one body; when one part suffers, the whole body responds.
— Sahih Muslim 2586
Imagine, then, a body whose right hand begins calling the left hand a foreign neighbour.
Imagine the eye accusing the foot of being responsible for the fever.
Imagine the heart deciding that the lungs are outsiders.
The body would not become safer.
It would become sick.
And that is what provincial hatred can do to a federation.
It can make the country fight itself.
There is a strange irony here.
We spend enormous sums protecting Pakistan’s external borders.
Soldiers stand there.
Cameras watch there.
Fences are built there.
Posts are established there.
Yet we sometimes allow careless political language to construct invisible borders inside the country.
Those borders require no concrete.
No barbed wire.
No watchtower.
No passport office.
They are built inside the mind.
And once they become normal, the physical map may remain exactly where it is while the emotional map of Pakistan begins to disappear.
This is where, “BaBa Tal,” enters my thought.
For readers meeting him for the first time, BāBā-Tāl is my tall wandering observer, dressed in a long robe with little brass bells stitched into it and another bell around his neck. Whenever he walks, the bells announce him before he speaks.
His first word is always a soft, almost mysterious:
“Bacha!”
One evening, I asked him:
“BāBā-Tāl, tell me something. Where exactly does Punjab end and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa begin?”
He looked at me.
Then he smiled.
“On the map.”
“Yes.”
“Does the line have a gate?”
“No.”
“Does it have a passport office?”
“No.”
“Does a citizen need a visa to travel from one province to another?”
“No.”
“Then why,” he whispered, “are you teaching the people on one side to fear the people on the other?”
I had no answer.
He walked a few steps.
The bells on his robe whispered against the silence.
Then he turned.
“Bacha!”
“Yes, BāBā-Tāl?”
“Never confuse a criminal crossing a provincial line with a province becoming your enemy.”
Then he walked away.
The bells faded.
But the question remained.
Perhaps that is the real test of political language.
Does it help us identify the criminal?
Or does it teach us to identify a neighbour as the criminal?
There is a profound difference.
The first strengthens the state.
The second weakens the nation.
Pakistan does not need vague accusations.
It needs precise security.
If terrorists are entering from one area, tell the nation where.
If there is intelligence about a network, expose the network.
If a district is being used as a corridor, secure the corridor.
If local officials have failed, investigate the officials.
If federal agencies have failed, hold them accountable.
If provincial agencies have failed, hold them accountable.
If political patronage has protected criminals, expose the patronage.
But do not replace evidence with geography.
Do not turn an entire province into a suspect.
Do not make millions of citizens answer for criminals they never met.
Because once you begin collective suspicion, there is no natural stopping point.
Today the accusation may point toward Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Tomorrow it may point toward Sindh.
Then Balochistan.
Then perhaps someone will ask:
“Who is more Pakistani?”
That is the moment when the federation has entered dangerous territory.
Because there is no answer to that question.
A Pakistani is a Pakistani.
His province does not make him more Pakistani.
His language does not make him less Pakistani.
His birthplace does not give him a different passport.
His accent does not reduce his citizenship.
His provincial identity is not a competing nationality.
And Punjab, precisely because of its size, population and influence, has a special responsibility here.
Leadership is not merely the power to command.
Leadership is the responsibility to prevent the powerful from frightening the weak.
A large province should make the federation feel safer, not smaller.
It should stretch its arms toward the other provinces, not draw curtains between them.
Punjab should be the bridge.
Sindh should be the bridge.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should be the bridge.
Balochistan should be the bridge.
And the Federation should be the road on which all those bridges meet.
This is not sentimental politics.
It is practical politics.
A federation whose provinces trust one another shares intelligence better.
Coordinates operations better.
Responds to disasters faster.
Protects infrastructure better.
Moves citizens more freely.
Attracts investment more confidently.
And stands stronger before external enemies.
Division is therefore not merely an emotional danger.
It is a national security vulnerability.
The enemy does not always need to defeat a united country.
Sometimes he only needs to convince one part of the country that another part is the enemy.
That is why I return again to December 1971.
History did not begin with a line being drawn on a map.
The line came later.
First came distance.
Then mistrust.
Then political alienation.
Then the feeling that one part of the country no longer understood or belonged to the other.
And finally came geography.
That sequence must never be forgotten.
The psychological map can destroy the physical map.
And once the physical map is broken, no speech can easily put it back together.
My mother understood something that perhaps many politicians never learn.
A country is not made of lines.
It is made of people.
It is made of mothers.
Sons.
Daughters.
Brothers.
Sisters.
Graves.
Memories.
Sacrifices.
Dreams.
When Apa Ji cried for Saira Fatimah, she was not crying over a line on a map.
She was crying over a life.
A daughter.
A family.
A country for which that daughter had given her life.
That is why I cannot hear careless provincial language as casually as others might.
For me, the word “province” carries blood.
The word “Pakistan” carries tears.
And the word “separation” carries the memory of a mother who once believed her country was permanent.
“BaBa Tal” once told me something else.
He said:
“Bacha, draw the borders on the map.”
“Why?”
“Because maps need borders.”
“And the hearts?”
He looked at me for a long time.
Then he whispered:
“Erase the borders from the hearts.”
Perhaps that is the entire argument.
Keep the administrative lines.
Keep the constitutional arrangements.
Keep provincial autonomy.
Keep every legitimate identity.
Keep every language.
Keep every culture.
Keep every local pride.
But never turn those identities into walls.
Never teach a child that the child across the provincial line belongs to another kind of Pakistan.
Never allow political convenience to become national psychology.
Never allow a criminal network to become a province.
Never allow a security operation to become a provincial accusation.
Never allow a political sentence to become a historical seed of separation.
Pakistan has paid too high a price for that kind of blindness.
We cannot afford another December 1971.
And we certainly cannot afford to manufacture one ourselves through careless words.
Pakistan First.
Not Punjab first.
Not Sindh first.
Not Khyber Pakhtunkhwa first.
Not Balochistan first.
Pakistan first.
Because when Pakistan is strong, every province is stronger.
When Pakistan is weak, no province remains secure.
When one province burns, another province cannot claim to be safe merely because the flames have not yet reached its roof.
The smoke travels.
The fear travels.
The instability travels.
And eventually, so does the fire.
That is why the answer to terrorism must be national.
The answer to provincial mistrust must be national.
The answer to political irresponsibility must be national.
And the answer to separation must be an even deeper sense of belonging.
Perhaps that was the question my mother had really been asking all those years ago.
Not whether Pakistan had lost a war.
Not whether politicians had failed.
Not whether history would judge us kindly.
Perhaps she was asking whether the sacrifice of one generation would be understood by the next.
Today, I am asking the same question of mine:
Have we learned anything from 1971?
Because if we have not, history may not need to repeat itself exactly.
It may simply find another language in which to repeat its warning.
And that should frighten us all.
I can still hear Apa Ji.
I can still hear the fever in her voice.
I can still hear:
“Saira Fatimah, forgive me…”
And somewhere beyond that memory, I hear the bells of BāBā-Tāl.
“Bacha!”
I turn.
He is standing beside the map of Pakistan.
He points to the provincial lines.
Then he points to the hearts of the people.
“Draw the borders on the map,” he says.
I understand now.
The map needs its lines.
The heart does not.
And perhaps the greatest patriotic duty of our generation is therefore very simple:
**Let every border guard the land.
But let no border divide the soul.**
QUATRAIN
Coined by T. Hejazi — Where poetry becomes tears, and tears become poetry
Do not plant hatred where four provinces meet,
For thorns will grow beneath our children’s feet;
Let every border guard the land, not divide the soul—
For Pakistan is one heart, though four provinces beat.
PAKISTAN FIRST.