We must be clear: there is no national security without human security

Mir Junaid
Pakistan shelled our border villages. Civilians, ordinary men, women, and children, lost their homes overnight. Their lives shattered. Their shelters gone. And now, they sleep under broken roofs or open skies.
During the recent India–Pakistan confrontation, these were not soldiers. These were ordinary civilians, innocent people who had nothing to do with the war, yet paid the price with their homes, their safety, their lives. These are Indian citizens, not disposable collateral.
Now they are homeless and stateless. And while they struggle under open skies, the Government of Pakistan shamelessly parades its “martyrdom economy,” doling out one crore rupees each to the families of terrorists killed in Operation Sindoor, terrorists whose entire legacy is destruction.
And what of our own? The question isn’t rhetorical, It is a rupture in the national conscience. Can the Government of India, swollen with its chest-thumping nationalism, patriotism, and grand declaration of sacrifices, not summon even the faintest trace of moral courage or the bare minimum of political will to rebuild a single home for its own citizens, shattered by a war they neither started nor wanted? If Pakistan can finance terrorism, can we not finance justice? If our country has money for election rallies, for summits, for roads, hospitals, smart cities, airports, sports, dams, cultural festivities, statues, and museums, then it unquestionably has the resources to rebuild a few hundred homes for people blown apart by war.
Let’s not delude ourselves. The elected government of Jammu and Kashmir will no doubt follow its standard playbook: token press releases, whirlwind chopper surveys, staged sympathy, hollow promises made from the comfort of secure, cozy AC rooms. Lip service in high definition. Rehabilitation in theory. Photo ops and relief in headlines, not in homes. It forgets its people when the cameras are off.
Unless the central organs of power, the Honourable Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the Defence Minister, and the Lieutenant Governor, intervene with material, immediate action, the elected government of Jammu and Kashmir will once again betray those it claims to serve.
These civilians must be officially declared what they are, martyrs of a war. They deserve the weight of a nation’s love, and what the country owes, recognition, compensation, and shelter that speaks louder than words.
Let history not be written by press releases, but by the deeds that followed.

(The views expressed in the article are of the author and not of the Straight Talk Communications)