Basant 2026 must not become a US-style 2nd Amendment issue

If Pakistan wants Basant back, it must prove — not promise — that this time, celebration won’t come with funerals

Pakistan is once again gearing up to welcome Basant from February 6-8 — the legendary spring kite-flying festival that once defined Lahore’s skyline, soundscape, and seasonal rhythm. For nearly two decades, Basant has existed only in memory, nostalgia posts, and family anecdotes. An entire generation has grown up without knowing what it meant when rooftops filled up, music blasted across neighbourhoods, and the city collectively paused to look up.

So yes, the idea of Basant returning in 2026 — now actively pushed by the Punjab government — feels like a cultural homecoming. But if we’re being honest, it also reopens an old and uncomfortable question: how much human cost are we willing to accept in the name of culture and freedom?

Because Basant must not become a US-style Second Amendment issue — where a freedom is treated as so sacred and ideological that, as its defenders argue, it remains worth the recurring, preventable loss of life.

Some would argue this constant ping-pong between freedom and security is a uniquely American dilemma. And in Pakistan, Basant’s supporters often advance a similar line of reasoning: banning the festival was never the answer, no matter how high the human cost. That, precisely, is where the argument collapses.

If a government is unable to regulate, enforce, and curb violations that turn a cultural festival into a public safety nightmare, then it does not get to hide behind culture while bodies pile up. The freedom to celebrate does not sit above the right to stay alive.

And I say this as someone who grew up in Lahore — who lived through the excitement, the escape, the rooftop gatherings, the thrill, the chaos, the bass-heavy music shaking entire neighbourhoods, and of course the competitive madness of kite-flying itself.

I also remember the disappointment and heartbreak when Basant was banned. But it didn’t come out of nowhere, and it wasn’t some random cultural purge.

By the early 2000s, Basant had become increasingly lethal. Metallic and chemical kite strings (dor), reckless rooftop behaviour, gunfire disguised as “celebration,” overcrowded terraces, electrocutions, traffic accidents, and throat-slashing strings turned the festival into a yearly death toll. Hospitals braced for it. Families feared it.

The ban — imposed under the Pervez Musharraf-aligned PML-Q government — was blunt, unpopular, and politically costly. But the justification was simple: the state admitted it could not regulate or enforce the rule of law well enough to keep people safe. That admission mattered.

There were attempts to salvage the spirit of Basant without kite-flying. They failed. There were teases, rumours, half-announcements. Brief revivals in 2006 and 2007. Each time, the same problems resurfaced — and the ban returned.

Over time, the conversation mutated. Alongside legitimate cultural grievances, religious conspiracy theories began to circulate more aggressively: Basant framed as a “Hindu ritual,” a foreign or un-Islamic imposition, a moral threat disguised as festivity. These narratives were never historically grounded — Basant in Punjab long predates modern religious boundaries — but they proved politically useful. Culture wars are easier than governance.

Now, nearly 20 years later, the Punjab chief minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif is once again promising Basant’s return. The pitch is familiar: this time it will be regulated, controlled, safer. Sharif has hit the right chords. She is, it seems, on the right track, as her team has devised and deployed a safety policy in record time. The dangerous glass-coated and metal strings that caused most of the fatal accidents back then are banned. Standard kite sizes are now in force. Vendors are required to register themselves and are bound by a QR-code mechanism, through which they can be traced and held accountable. All good things… on paper, at least.

The danger isn’t Basant itself. The danger is turning Basant into an untouchable symbol, immune from criticism, evidence, or accountability — a cultural right that cannot be questioned even when it kills.

If Basant 2026 is to return, it cannot run on nostalgia alone. It requires enforcement that actually exists, not press conferences. It requires consequences that are applied, not selectively ignored. And it requires the humility to shut it down again if the state fails — without dressing that failure up as an attack on culture.

Culture is meant to bring life, not demand sacrifice.

If Pakistan wants Basant back, it must prove — not promise — that this time, celebration won’t come with funerals.