My grandfather my Nana Subidar Major Choudry Sikander Khan, was born in 1925 in a small village called Kotha Gujjaran, in what was then British India. Our family belong to the Gujjar community, a community known for two things: dairy farming and joining the army. For generations, these paths defined who we were: tending buffalo in the fields, or carrying a rifle on the front lines.

My Nana embodied that tradition. He served in the army with courage and discipline, fighting not just in the 1965 war between India and Pakistan, but also in the 1947 conflict that came with Partition, and again in 1971. Before him, his own uncle had worn the uniform of the British Indian Army and fought in the Second World War, in Burma. Ours is a family, like many from Punjab, that has spilt blood in the name of causes decided far from the villages where they were born.

When Partition came in 1947, it tore Punjab in two. It was not just a cartographer’s line it was, as historians have rightly called it, a bloody line. Millions were uprooted. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs neighbours for centuries suddenly found themselves enemies overnight. Entire trains of refugees crossed the new borders, and too often, those trains arrived full of corpses. The soil of Punjab is rich, but it is also heavy with the weight of that blood.

Kashmir too became, and remains, a wound. A valley of beauty turned into a permanent battlefield. My Nana and so many others were sent to defend or reclaim a line on a map. Young men were told to fight and die, while politicians and generals decided their fate in offices hundreds of miles away.

This is the reality of the subcontinent’s wars: they solved nothing. Borders remained disputed. Families remained divided. The scars are still visible three generations later. The only thing these wars achieved was suffering lost fathers, lost sons, widows and orphans, poverty, displacement, and trauma.

For me, though, my Nana was always a hero. He was not just a soldier; he was a leader, a Subidar Major who led from the front. He was unafraid of battle, but his life taught me that true courage is not in pulling a trigger, but in speaking for peace. He fought because he had to. I write because I choose to.

I do not write this as a hawk, glorifying the past or demanding revenge. I write as a dove, who wishes to remember what we lost rather than what we think we gained. Because the truth is, we gained little: borders, flags, and the pride of politicians. What we lost was immeasurable: communities, harmony, and generations of young lives.

As a British Pakistani, I carry this history with me. Many of my friends Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi have family stories just like mine. Their grandfathers too were sent to fight. Their grandmothers too buried sons. The wars of 1947, 1965, and 1971 were not distant events to our families; they were lived trauma.

And yet, what do we see even today? The same story, repeated. Small men in big offices presidents, prime ministers, generals sending the children of the poor to the borders. They speak of honour, of sovereignty, of security. But the price is always paid by ordinary families like mine and like yours. The powerful sacrifice nothing; the powerless sacrifice everything.

In Britain, we sometimes imagine these stories belong far away. But they don’t. They live in our communities here. Walk into any gurdwara, mosque, or mandir, and you will find families who can trace their story back to Partition. Ask British Asians about their grandparents, and you will often hear about the wars they fought in whether in Burma under the British, or on the front lines of India and Pakistan after independence.

This is why I share my Nana’s story. It is not nostalgia, nor is it propaganda. It is a reminder that war is never abstract. It is personal. It is about men and women, families and futures. My Nana was a soldier. He did his duty with honour. But his legacy for me is not the border he defended it is the lesson that wars settle nothing, and that peace is the only victory worth pursuing.

As a Liberal Democrat, I see our duty as not only speaking for fairness at home, but also standing for peace abroad. That means resisting the temptation to glorify militarism, whether in South Asia, Europe, or anywhere else. It means remembering the human cost behind every “strategic decision.” And it means ensuring that the next generation of British Asians grow up with more hope than grief when they ask about their grandparents’ lives.

* Mo Waqas is a vice chair of the Liberal Democrats' Racial Diversity Campaign and was the PPC for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East.