On April 22, 2025, twenty-six, mostly Hindu, tourists were killed in the Indian administered region of Kashmir. This set off a cross-border exchange of armed retaliations between two nuclear-armed nations, Pakistan and India. These attacks raised a global fear that an escalation of hostilities might result in one side or the other or both deploying nuclear weapons. Any of these scenarios would have catastrophic implications not only for the two countries but for the entire world.
Perhaps muted but of central importance in these events is the religious dimension of these nuclear-armed adversaries. Pakistan is primarily Muslim, and India is primarily Hindu. This matters militarily, politically and in terms of nuclear weapons. The national identities of Pakistan and India are deeply intwined with each one’s dominant religion, in terms of fomenting and executing a bitter rivalry. This was brought home when Pakistan also developed nuclear weapons in 1998 and a popular expression emerged stating that “India has a Hindu bomb, and now Pakistan now has a Muslim bomb.” Nuclear weapons, God and Nation seem intertwined in the hostilities that have marred the boundaries of these nations for years and that threaten the world with a war of nuclear weapons now.
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