If banning Fawad Khan’s or Mahira Khan’s Instagram accounts can make India and Pakistan humsafar again, then I am all for it. But sadly, geopolitical relations are not a 32-episode drama series, and these plot twists do not change the course of the story.
In the immediate aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack that killed the lives of innocent tourists, emotions ran high across the nation. As is often the case with such tragedies, grief soon gave way to outrage.
Among the first casualty of this fury was the already fragile and invisible thread of cultural diplomacy between the two states.
Within hours, calls to ban Pakistani artists from Indian platforms started resurfacing. Abir Gulal, a movie starring Fawad Khan was the first victim. Then came Hania Aamir allegedly being dropped from a movie she was doing with Diljit Dosanjh. The final nail came on Wednesday, when the social media handles of prominent celebrities from Pakistan were curtailed in India, and several Pakistani Youtube channels unavailable.
Culture as Collateral
On the surface, this may seem like an understandable symbolic move, meant to send a strong message across the border. But if history has taught us anything, it is that such actions rarely punish those actually responsible for terrorism. Instead, they derail one of the few remaining modes of peaceful engagement between the two countries: culture.
The ban, or any form of digital blacklisting of Pakistani artists, is merely a reactive policy, reflective of how cultural diplomacy has become a neglected pillar in India-Pakistan relations.
In moments of national tragedy, the impulse to retaliate in all forms (military, diplomatic, and symbolic) is expected. However, equating an artist’s nationality with complicity in violence is a dangerous overreach.
Art and culture function in a parallel domain from statecraft. They do not operate through coercion or negotiation, but through empathy, resonance, and dialogue. When cultural bridges are burned in retaliation, they often take years to rebuild—assuming they can be rebuilt at all.
How does blocking an actor’s Instagram account or preventing a singer from performing in India actually hurt the perpetrators of terrorism? The uncomfortable truth is that it doesn’t. Pakistan’s military establishment, the real architect of cross-border militancy, couldn’t care less whether Fawad or Hania star in a Bollywood film or not.
The ones who suffer are the artists—many of whom have openly criticised extremism—and the millions of ordinary Indians and Pakistanis who find solace in shared culture. Worse, these bans feed into the same nationalist frenzy on both sides that terrorist groups thrive on.
By reducing complex geopolitics to a binary of us vs them, we play right into the hands of those who want permanent hostility.
Art as a Quiet, Persistent Dialogue
Historically, Indian and Pakistani artists have played a quiet but persistent role in tempering hostility. From Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s concerts in India to the popularity of Coke Studio Pakistan among Indian audiences, these artistic exchanges have allowed citizens of both nations to find common ground, even when their governments could not.
The decision to ban or digitally marginalise Pakistani artists following a terror attack may provide short-term political capital, but it erodes one of the few non-violent avenues left for Indo-Pak dialogue.
The Indo-Pak cultural corridor has always been turbulent. In 2016, following the Uri attacks, the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association banned Pakistani artists from working in Bollywood. Pakistani artists who had begun building crossover careers were abruptly dropped from film projects. That move, while popular in some circles, resulted in a creative vacuum and South Asian narratives from both sidnes of the border became insular and sanitised.
The move to block access to Pakistani drama channels on YouTube also reveals the absurdity of this strategy. Shows like Humsafar, Zindagi Gulzar Hai or Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum enjoy cult followings among Indian audiences because of their emotional depth and nuanced storytelling. This organic popularity proves something that governments ignore: people on both sides of the border have heard and lived through the same human stories.
Banning these overnight deprives Indian fans of content they love and a culture they can relate to. In an age where VPNs, proxies, and Telegram channels make content freely available, such censorship is performative at best and counterproductive at worst. It fails to recognise that shared stories are often the last remaining thread connecting divided nations, and maybe a chance to remember how much we actually have in common.
Such precedents have done little to change the security dynamic between the two nations. They have, however, dimmed hopes for people-to-people contact. The argument that cultural bans increase pressure on the Pakistani state to act against terror groups has not held up historically. Instead, these bans have only restricted Indian audiences from accessing a diverse spectrum of artistic voices.
India proudly and rightly proclaims itself as the world’s largest democracy and a land of free expression. Yet, when tensions rise, it swiftly censors artists simply because of their nationality.
This hypocrisy isn’t lost on the world. When China bans Hollywood films, we call it authoritarian. When Iran censors music and art, we call it oppressive. But when India does the same to Pakistani artists, we dress it up as patriotism.
The Real Victory Lies in Connection, Not Cancellation
Art may not stop bullets, but it can question the narratives that make violence seem inevitable. Art humanises the “other.” It serves as a quiet ambassador of the idea that the “other” is as human, talented, and relatable as us.
Governments can ban artists and block websites, but they can't stop people from sharing the culture they love.
Pakistani dramas will still find their way to Indian viewers through VPNs and people will still keep an update on their favourite artists through fan pages. While politicians argue about protecting culture, regular people on both sides are happily exchanging music, memes, and TV shows.
This underground cultural exchange proves something simple but powerful: what governments want to keep apart, people keep finding ways to bring together. The truth is, most Indians and Pakistanis don't see artists as threats or enemies. They just see good content worth sharing, no matter what flags the creators wave, or which nationality they belong to.
By banning or digitally silencing Pakistani artists, we are not punishing terrorists, we are weakening the very tools that could make future violence less likely. Cultural diplomacy does not guarantee peace, but it definitely creates a framework where peace becomes possible. In the absence of direct diplomacy, it is often the only bridge left.
Terrorism thrives on division. Every time India bans a Pakistani artist, it concedes a small victory to those who want the two nations to see each other only as enemies. The real act of defiance is not shutting out the shared culture and heritage. It’s embracing the commonalities despite the vitriolic narratives all around us.
(Farnaz Fatima has a postgraduate degree in Politics and International Studies. Currently working in advertising, she is interested in exploring the intersections of gender, mental health and popular culture through her writing. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)