In Pakistan, challenging any collective narrative—whether it belongs to a family, tribe, community, or the nation—can swiftly invite the charge of ghaddari (treachery). The Christian minority, often seen as a lingering remnant of the British Raj, is no exception to this norm. This article invites both the community and the country to value freedom of expression, a prerequisite for creativity, innovation, and the mental, social, and economic growth of the nation.
Currently, a Christian journalist and investigative reporter Umar Cheema are both under fire after questioning whether Squadron Leader Kamran Bashir, a fellow Christian officer, actually flew the strike that crippled several Indian air bases during the brief May 2025 war. The aim here is not to adjudicate the truth of Bashir’s mission; rather, it is to examine what the furious backlash says about a community that prides itself on liberal ideals—education, human rights, women’s education—but, in this instance, seems unwilling to defend freedom of expression.
Social scientists have long noted that creativity and scientific advances flourish where individual autonomy, secular inquiry, and procedural democracy are protected. For example, two economists, Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Gerard Roland from the University of California, have concluded that societies scoring higher on individual autonomy, academic freedom, and inclusive political institutions tend to patent more, publish more, and rank higher on creativity indexes.
South Asia, by contrast, still leans heavily on communitarian ethics: family honour, religious solidarity, and national pride often outweigh the individual’s search for truth
Back in 1967, Noam Chomsky—a Jewish professor—could denounce America’s Vietnam campaign and retain his MIT post. Although populism is on the rise in Western societies, many Western countries still value personal freedom to the extent that citizens routinely denounce their governments. During Israel’s 2023–25 Gaza offensive, for example, hundreds of thousands marched in Washington, London, Paris, and Madrid to condemn both Israeli actions and Western complicity—even though their tax money funds Tel Aviv’s arsenal. Dissent of that magnitude would be unthinkable in Pakistan—or India.
South Asia, by contrast, still leans heavily on communitarian ethics: family honour, religious solidarity, and national pride often outweigh the individual’s search for truth. Pakistan’s history of three military coups—and a judiciary that has sometimes recoiled under clerical pressure, most recently when Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa was forced to clarify his remarks while interpreting Article 20 on religious freedom—illustrates how fragile liberal safeguards remain.
India is traveling a parallel road, albeit with greater frenzy and fervor. Since 2014, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has recast dissent as disloyalty, and “Godi Media” (lapdog media), a term Indians use for BJP-sympathizing outlets, dutifully echoes the majoritarian line. Consider the celebration of Lieutenant Colonel Sophia Qureshi, a Muslim woman showcased as proof of Indian pluralism during the May war, juxtaposed against the lynching of Zakir Qureshi in Bihar just one day after the cease-fire—killed by a cow-protection mob that decided Muslims had no place in patriotic storytelling. Only hours before this article went to press, Haryana-based YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra and six others were reportedly arrested for "projecting a positive image of Pakistan" online—a stark reminder that even digital speech is tightly policed by the Indian state. Thus, it is not only Pakistan that discards inconvenient narratives; India appears intent on surpassing Pakistan with increasingly frequent mob lynchings of Dalits and Muslims, and persecution of non-Hindu communities.
The praise showered on Bashir’s story is understandable. For a community historically reduced to the slur “Chuhra”—sweeper—an Air Force hero offering unmatched valor provides symbolic vindication, restoring injured pride. Yet when Ajmal and Cheema simply asked why the military’s own media wing had issued no citation or sortie log, the response was ferocious: Even if the tale is embellished, it brings us collective honour; don’t ruin it for personal glory. Rather than engaging with substantial evidence, community members chose to attack the individuals themselves, committing the ad hominem fallacy and questioning their loyalty to the community. Ironically, this mirrors the logic Christians normally protest when Muslims invoke the sanctity of religion or national pride to curtail minority rights.
The choice is stark. Pakistani Christians—and Pakistan as a whole—can either continue silencing critical voices in the name of communal pride, clinging to symbolic victories while remaining trapped in cycles of grievance, poverty, and intellectual stagnation, or they can embrace rational inquiry, dissent, and freedom of expression—the very conditions that foster innovation, scholarship, artistic risk, and collective prosperity. This choice will determine not only whether truth matters, but whether the community can meaningfully shape its future beyond mythmaking.