Today, a simple poster on a noticeboard at LUMS asked a pointed question: “Why is LUMS so afraid of Mohsin Dawar?” On its surface, this looks like a routine campus controversy. A speaker allegedly disinvited. Students raising concerns. Administration staying silent. But the reaction online tells us this is not about a lecture. It is about identity, power, insecurity, and the unresolved fault lines of Pakistan’s federation.
The poster did not mention Punjab. It did not attack Punjabis. It did not question Lahore. Yet the discourse rapidly mutated into something far more dangerous. Within hours, social media filled with calls to “go back to Afghanistan,” demands to ban “anti-Punjab voices” from Punjab universities, accusations of Pashtun separatism, counter-accusations of Punjabi colonialism, and an avalanche of ethnic slurs that reveal how shallow our political maturity still is.
Let us pause and think.
If a former MNA cannot speak at a private university, that is a university policy matter. But if the response to his potential presence is ethnic expulsion rhetoric, then the real issue is not Mohsin Dawar. The issue is whether Pakistan’s elite institutions can tolerate political discomfort without collapsing into provincial paranoia.
