From Zia to 'Holy War': How Pakistani State Policy Built the Country's Extremist Ecosystem

Pakistan's sprawling extremist ecosystem was not an accident of geography or culture — it was a product of deliberate state policy, beginning with General Zia-ul-Haq's sweeping Islamisation of Pakistan's laws, institutions, and military doctrine in the late 1970s and accelerating through the CIA-ISI partnership that funnelled jihadis into Afghanistan to fight Soviet forces.

An NDTV analysis traces this arc in detail, arguing that what Zia institutionalised — the use of religious militancy as a tool of state power — was never fully dismantled by his successors. The networks, madrassas, and ideological frameworks built during the Afghan jihad era survived the Cold War's end and were redirected, in significant part, toward Kashmir and India. The concept of 'holy war' as a legitimate instrument of foreign policy became embedded in parts of Pakistan's deep state in ways that civilian governments repeatedly proved unable or unwilling to reverse.

The analysis is framed against the backdrop of the Pahalgam terror attack and India's subsequent military and diplomatic response, which has brought the question of Pakistan's state-terror nexus back to the centre of global debate. India has long argued at international forums that the distinction between terrorist groups and Pakistani state actors is artificial; the NDTV piece provides a historical scaffolding for that argument.

For Indian readers, the significance of this framing goes beyond history: it shapes what kind of international pressure is realistic, what Pakistan's establishment is actually capable of delivering in terms of counter-terror action, and what the long-term trajectory of the bilateral relationship looks like.