The Iron Fist at Home: South Asia's Parallel Crises of Religious Expression

October 2025 has revealed a disturbing parallel between two South Asian nuclear powers: both India and Pakistan are in the grip of significant internal crises centered on the state's heavy-handed response to religious expression. While the specific contexts differ, the pattern of using overwhelming state power to suppress speech and protest is alarmingly similar .

In Pakistan, the provincial government of Punjab is seeking a federal ban on the far-right religious party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) after a violent crackdown on its protesters . The TLP had organized a march to reject a U.S.-backed Gaza peace plan, leading to clashes with police that resulted in casualties and thousands of detentions . The state's response, while framed as a necessary action against violence, highlights the government's low tolerance for dissent that challenges its diplomatic stances, especially on sensitive issues like Palestine.

Meanwhile, in India, the situation is arguably more insidious. Several states, most notably Uttar Pradesh, have filed criminal cases against hundreds of Muslims for the simple act of displaying "I love Muhammad" signs during Eid Milad-un-Nabi celebrations . Authorities have accused them of "disturbing communal harmony" and starting a "new tradition," treating an expression of religious devotion as a provocation . The subsequent protests were met with mass arrests, internet shutdowns, and the use of bulldozers to demolish properties of the accused—a form of extrajudicial punishment condemned by rights groups and India's own Supreme Court .

These parallel crises reveal a shared discomfort among governing authorities with robust and visible religious expression that falls outside state-sanctioned boundaries. In both nations, the tools of the state—anti-terrorism laws, police batons, and bulldozers—are being deployed not just to maintain order, but to enforce a narrow and fragile idea of public discourse. This trend towards criminalizing faith-based expression signals a deepening erosion of civic space in the world's largest democracy and its volatile neighbor.