Martyrdom in Pakistan is not just an act—it is a discourse. From school textbooks to Friday sermons, from televised commemorations to political campaigns, the figure of the shaheed (martyr) looms large as a symbol of ultimate loyalty. But behind this language of sacrifice lies a grammar of governance that wields death as a moral and political instrument.
Terms like “qurbani” (sacrifice), “shaheed,” and “defender of the faith” operate as semantic anchors that moralize violence and insulate the state from critique. These words sanctify loss, transforming structural failures into acts of spiritual triumph. When a soldier dies in combat or a student is killed in an attack, the response is often less about reform and more about ritualized honorifics. In doing so, martyrdom becomes a discursive shield against accountability.
This linguistic economy valorizes death while minimizing the conditions that produce it. In the wake of bombings, the language of collective mourning is mobilized through poetic verses, nationalist slogans, and religious idioms. Public grief is redirected into national pride, preventing it from evolving into political demand. The state does not ask how the tragedy occurred—but how heroically it was borne.
School curricula teach martyrdom not as a tragic necessity, but as aspirational virtue. Children are taught to emulate heroes who gave their lives, rarely questioning the systems that demand such sacrifice. This cultivates a civic imagination grounded not in critical inquiry, but in righteous obedience.
Politicians also co-opt martyrdom to legitimize campaigns, especially during counterterrorism operations or military interventions. The framing of operations as “sacrifices for peace” cloaks civilian harm in moral necessity. Language becomes the site where violence is translated into virtue.
What remains largely unsaid is the hierarchy within martyrdom. Not all lives are mourned equally. The deaths of security personnel or majoritarian victims receive prime coverage, while minority losses, civilian casualties, or dissenting voices are often erased from the official narrative. This selective sanctification structures a moral economy that values lives differently, based on proximity to state ideology.
Still, resistance persists. Artists, poets, journalists, and activists have begun to contest this discourse—honoring the dead while questioning the systems that fail the living. They write alternate elegies, ones that demand reform rather than reverence alone.
Language that glorifies death must be held accountable. A truly democratic society mourns not only its heroes but its victims. It asks not just for valor—but for change.
