Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Are Indians and Pakistanis the same people?

We often do hear Indians and Muhajirs chanting that Indians and Pakistanis are the same people and there's absolutely no difference between the two.
Some go as far to say that the people of the subcontinent are all "exactly the same" divided by political boundaries.

People who normally chant this draw out ignorant statements or try to convince everyone by chanting the same statement over and over again to the point that people stop questioning it.
I want to touch on the most common arguments that have been made in favor of this idea.

This argument is that Indians and Pakistanis are often mistaken for the same by outsiders and that's "proof" of their supposed "common origin." But then again Pakistanis are often lumped up with Arabs and other Middle Eastern peoples. When I moved to North America, people took me for an Arab. Does that make me an Arab? Does it mean Pakistanis have common origins with Arabs?

The same can be stated for Indians. What's more is only a small minority of people living in Northwestern India resemble Pakistanis when it comes to appearance. Other Indians sometimes look like exact opposites of Northern Pakistanis in terms of appearance. Northern Pakistanis are often tall, of fair complexion resembling Europeans while people from other parts of India often show East Asian or Australoid features with dark skin.

Also, there are "Indians" who are actually people who migrated from Pakistan during independence in 1947 and share common genetics, culture, linguistics with the rest of Pakistan, not with their adopted country.

Another common argument is that due to the shared provinces of Punjab and Kashmir, the two populations are "the same."
One problem is that Kashmir is not recognized as an "Indian state" by Pakistan or the United Nations. It is currently disputed territory and often seen as the fifth province of Pakistan. Only India sees Kashmir as an Indian state.

Neither do the people belong to the common North Indian haplogroup of R2 and it's possible subclades.
In fact Kashmiris are amongst the highest carriers of R1A in Asia, lumping them closer to Eastern European populations than Indian ones.

The other problem is that it is only Punjab that is split between India and Pakistan. The other provinces and populations are not shared by India and Pakistan. Even the populations in these unshared provinces between the two countries are completely distinct.

The major ethnic groups Balochis, Pakhtuns, Sindhis, Kashmiris and other populations of Pakistan are completely different from Indian populations and are not found in India except for some who migrated.
Pakistan also shares some of these mentioned ethnicities with Iran and Afghanistan, yet few have argued in favor of lumping Iran or Afghanistan with Pakistan.

Likewise the many dozens of ethnic groups from Tamils, Bengalis, Rajesthanis, Orissans, Telagu, Kannadas and many others are not found in Pakistan.

Even the various populations of India have little in common with one another.
India itself is so diverse that even the existence of a single "Indian" culture, language or people is not there. India can be compared to the former USSR, while Pakistan can be better compared to Yugoslavia or Switzerland, a home of various distinct, but related cultures and peoples.

Some shared languages between the two countries especially Hindustani (mostly today called Hindi and Urdu) which is the lingua franca of the subcontinent is used as a basis to argue the "oneness" of Indians and Pakistanis.

Many countries share common languages for various reasons. The Hindustani language developed due to Mughal rulers of the subcontinent who were neither Indian nor Pakistani by origin.
Other shared languages such as Sindhi are due to migration between the two countries.

English is another language often used as a language of business in the two countries and also a legacy of British rule. Does this make the two peoples "one?"
Iran and Iraq have shared languages and demographics of Kurdish, Arab and Turkic populations. No one bothers to term them "one."

Most languages spoken in India are not spoken or understood in Pakistan and vice versa. Most of Pakistan's languages except for Brahui, Burusho and Baltistani are of Indo-European origins.

India's languages on the other hand are around seventy percent Indo-European and the other thirty percent being Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic and some other language isolates.

This is probably the strongest argument debunking Pan-South Asian propaganda. Most often, cheerleaders of Indo-Pakistani 'commonality' do not wish to back up their claims with evidence and will rely only on repeating their statements to win agreement.

If one is to search the distributions of haplogroups in the two countries, there is little in common. Even the common Indo-European haplogroup R found in Pakistanis and Northwestern Indians breaks into haplogroup R1A and R2 (sometimes also refereed to as R1B2).
This places Pakistani populations; especially Northern Pakistanis into closer genetic lineages with Eastern European populations than to Indian ones.

Also knowing the fair appearance of Northern Pakistanis and their Indo-European languages, this should hardly be surprising. But even still, it does not make them "the same" as East Europeans, because comparing the two in the 21st century based on ancient links is absurd.

So if they cannot be compared to those people, why would the diverse Indians, most of which are not related be compared to them?

It is also not just the differing distributions of haplogroup R but also various other haplogroups common to India but not to Pakistan. Most Indian haplogroups are not even found in Pakistan.

The haplogroup maps below give us a brief insight: (click to enlarge)

Though the videos below are not exactly accurate in genetics and wrongly calls Indo-Iranic "Indo-Iranian" as well as using the pseudo-anthropological word "desi" and also incorrectly referring to India as "Hindustan," they are still mostly factual and detailed otherwise:


  1. Absurdity of a common Indo-Pakistani lineage on basis of similarity of language, facial features and such similar things is proved from the vey fact that India itself has so many people who entirely different facial features and other ethnic characteristics from each other. Take for example the Sikhs of Punjab, if they don't have beard, there is hardly some difference between the Sikhs of Punjab and a common Pakistani, because ethnically they are of Pakistani origin Even if they have beard or no beard, they do not look similar to any south Indian.
    Similarly, even the people of one Indian state may not be similar ethnically as well as culturally to the people of another state.
    When we talk of a common language like Hindustani, the two versions of which are respectively used in India and Pakistan as Hindi and Urdu, let us see what difference the Austrians have from the Germans. Both speak the same language [the German], both are racially the same yet the Austrians have always felt proud of being Austrians. Though much smaller in size, population and an economic clout, yet they always take pride in their Austrian identity.
    Same case is of the Swiss, majority of Swiss too speak German, racially too they are of German stock, yet they have never thought themselves as Germans.

    You are very right when you say we Pakistanis are very similar to the Arabs too. I remember the days when I was studying in Austria. Many Austrians asked me what was my origin. I told then am Pakistani and derive my lineage from Prophet Muhammad’s [PBUH] family. They told me I looked similar to an Indian rather than to an Arab. I was surprised because I never thought I looked similar to some Indian except that an Indian from Punjab without a beard would of course look like me or I may look like him. But when I went to Saudi Arabia, I saw most Saudis very similar to us, they had brownish complexion and facial features much like us Pakistanis.
    So this hypothesis of Pakistanis being similar to Indians does not hold when we talk of facts.
    This is one aspect, but personally I also feel we should put more emphasis on our Pakistani nationhood which derives its roots, its identity from the millennia old Indus valley civilization. They were the forefathers of modern Pakistan and I feel more proud of being a son of the Indus civilization than rather the son of a certain Arabian tribe.
    Though a strong Muslim by faith, yet this strong faith of mine does not stand in any way to conflict with my Pakistani nationhood. Am by birth a Pakistani, and I do not wish to draw the props of my nationhood from religion, language or some cultural similarities to Indians, Arabs, or Iranians.
    Unfortunately it is the very reason that we forgot our Pakistani nationhood and we emphasized more on our religious identity and that is perhaps the reason, we today are at the crossroads of religious militancy, an extreme fascination and attitudes which are now striking at the very roots of the nation state of Pakistan.

    Nayyar Hashmey

    1. Good you are more like Arab and East European than! But it's just the look.

  2. Good comment. Except I'd like to add that the theory of Pakistanis being the direct descendants of Indus Valley people is not proven yet. And even if we are, only of our fraction of our DNA is linked to Indus Valley people. Our Y-Chromosomes are established with eastern Europeans due to Aryan migration and merging with non-IE populations. See my other posts. Regards.

  3. The trash sent by Dynamo is not worthy of any counter response becoz a mere glance at his site provides ample proof of hatred he has for us Pakistanis. In fact such are the people who poison the prospects of good relations between India and Pakistan. These dynamos do not serve even the interests of India as a good neighbor and try to strike at the very root of common feeling of the community that populates on the two sides of subcontinental divide.
    What a pity that in the land of Mahatma Gandhi that great soul of India where wonderful people live in our neighbourhood, are also such dynamos who have nothing but a bad mouth for us Pakistanis.

  4. Thanks Nayar. Dynamo is actually an Afghan and these people hate us equaly if not more than the Indians. The reason is they've been wanting our Balochistan and Pakhtunkhwa province under the false assertion that they belong to them. They sponsored terrorism in those regions which is why Pakistan decided to respond and fed them the Taliban. Their country is in devastation due to their own hatred for one another and their inability to live in peace amongst their neighbor's. As for Mahatma Gandhi he was nothing but a pitiless racist towards Africans and biased towards women. He is probably the reason why many Indians have racist attitudes.

  5. @Pakistani, Thanks for your appreciative comments to my observations on remarks by that rabid dynamo which remains unleashed. But am surprised to know that he is an Afghan. My own observation in this regard is that many Indians and there are a lot of them, who use pseudo Muslim names, pose themselves as Pakistanis [in email ID’s anyway one can pose oneself of any nationality, any gender, any race, community or a country, nobody can check it], and with such false ID’s they spit out all the poison they have in their minds, against us, against Pakistan and against Islam.
    On my blog I regularly receive such scathing attacks from these fake Muslims and fake Pakistanis. Many I delete, a lot I moderate but still they are so many there that I just throw them in the spam.
    Contrary to this I‘ve so many sweet friends in India who are active in the Indian blogosphere and they are as nice people as anybody could be, but unfortunately this breed of Hindutva Indians are more in number, are more active in using the Pakistani blogs to spew out all venom they have for us Pakistanis. By and large I do believe, the people, the common citizens in India are as peaceful a folk as we Pakistanis are, but it is the pseudo patriotic stance of the Indian politicians which brainwashes the people with highly powerful tool of the media to turn them into rabid Pakistan haters.
    Coming to the dynamo which castigates us Pakistanis and you say he is an Afghan. Although I still doubt he is an Afghan, but even if he is one, I doubt if he knows any bit of history. To say that Pakhtunkhwah was given to the British under a 100 years lease is nothing but a concoction of the fused dynamo mind. He should read history once again. British won these territories from the Sikhs who had full control on the area which is now called Pakistan including the Pakhtunkhwah province.
    In 1947 when British were leaving, the then Congress leadership in the NWFP led by Dr Khan Sahib, [the younger brother of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan] demanded that the people of the province be given a choice to decide whether they want to join India or join Pakistan. Khan Ghaffar Khan was popularly known as Sarhaddi Gandhi. He was the leader of the red shirt party, the Khudai Khidmatrgars. The viceroy who was all in all of British India was representing the king of England, agreed to their demand and a plebiscite was held whereby the Pakhtun population in Pakhtunkhwah [which was then called the NWFP] was given the option to either join India or Pakistan and the people of the province decided to join Pakistan. Later Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan said that injustice was done to the people of NWFP in so far as they were not given the right to opt for an independent NWFP which he did want to rename as an independent Pashtunistan.
    So that’s about how the NWFP became a province of independent Pakistan. As far Mahatma Gandhi, I do not agree with you. Mahatama was a great soul indeed. Agreed he opposed Pakistan tooth and nail yet again it was the Mahatama who kept a fast and persuaded the Congress Government in India to release funds which were Pakistan’s due right but the Indian Government was not releasing these in order to cripple the young Pakistani state. Had these funds not been released God knows how the young Pakistani state in its infancy would have met its expenses. Credit goes to that great soul who came to absolve young Pakistan of its obligations in its hour of dire need.
    I know we Pakistanis do not like Gandhi s opposition to our Qaid but this does not belittle the towering soul that lean, skinny solicitor named Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandi was.
    Finally I would suggest all those who haven’t yet read that highly readable, realistic and truthful history of India and Pakistan with special reference to the role of our Qaid, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It has been written by Jaswant Sngh, India’s former foreign minister in the BJP Government led by Atal Bihari Bajpai. It is a must read for us Pakistanis but equally so for the Indians too.


  6. you are right in your observations about Indians impersonating as other Muslim nationalities, but that is not always the case. Afghans spend an equal amount of time hating on Pakistanis if not more than Indians. The denial in Pakistanis towards racism from Arabs, Iranians and Afghans is a weakness. Pakistanis blinded by the delusional idea Pan-Islamist Ummah have lived in denial. Arabs and Iranians don't spend their time online hating on Pakistanis the way Indians and Afghans do but even if some did, they are automatically dubbed by Pakistanis as Indians in disguise. The thought of other Muslims hating on us is unthinkable for many Pakistanis which is our weakness. You just need to look up the historical hatred Afghans have had for Pakistan ever since it's independence but each time these Pan-islamist Pakistanis always in turn blame the Indians. We need to get out of this denial. As for Gandhi he was a racist especially towards Africans. One has to look up Mahatma Gandhi behind the Mask of divinity. It's written by a Sikh author.

  7. Our Indian friends too need to come out of their denial mode. India prior to 1947 was not India but an imperial crown colony run by a British Governor General /Viceroy. The peoples of all confessions, all regions, all ethnicities in the Raj were subjects of the same crown which ruled over the great British Empire including in addition to British India, many other crown colonies in Africa, Australia as well as America.
    Prior to British the subcontinent was ruled by the British, the Sikhs and a decadent Mughal emperor, a dud on the Delhi throne. Till the reign of Aurangzeb, it was a Mughal Empire and before that different Muslim dynasties ruled the subcontinent with different names given to the huge landmass that was governed by different dynasties and each dynasty naming the country according to their own distinct dynastic lineage.

    Before the Mughals and Muslim dynasties, this sub continental landmass was ruled by the Afghans, Greek, Persians and in the prehistoric period by different people including the Hindu ruling dynasties. Ashoka later accepted Buddhism and had a huge empire in the subcontinent. During the invasion of Alexander the subcontinent had different satrapies all of whom though independent paid retributions to the Iranian emperors sitting on their throne in Iran.
    So you see all countries do change in their nomenclature but the geography remains the same. The Indus valley civilisation is the genesis of Pakistan it was our raison d’etre even before 1947 and it is still so. You may repeat umpteen times parroting the whole subcontinent as India, India, India, India but fact remains that the subcontinent has always been a loose conglomerate of different areas named by every ruler in the way they wanted to nomenclate their domain/s. But Pakistan as a country has always been there. Name may not be the same, but the soil of Pakistan has always been there. This was the area that brought the first ever civilized settlement to mankind’s history, 10,000 years before the Christian era.
    You guys may claim yourself as Indians but factually even the word India is derived from the Pakistani river Indus which forms the basis, the origin of word India. The Greeks named this part of the world as the dwellers on Indus. Since in Greek, I is conveniently pronounced as H, therefore, Indus became Hindus, which by passage of time became Indusland. In most of the Muslim oriented dysnastic tongues i.e. Persian as well as Turkic ones, stan means a land, so Indus-land became the land in and around Indus delta or Hind-ustan which the Sanskrit speaking Brahamans hindunised as Hindusthan i.e. place of the Hindus.
    Question is not what was India and what was Pakistan, in present context, on a more realistic basis, present Bharat, Pakistan and Bangladesh are realities of today. Let’s not go into semantics, accept the realities. After that South Asia can chalk out a course of joint South Asian approach to world affairs, but if you go on parroting the whole subcontinent’s land mass as India then am afraid, these connotations of an Akhand Bharat would lead the south Asian subcontinent to nowhere.

    Nayyar Hashmey

  8. Dear Nayyar thanks for your comments. Unfortunately the Indians will remain in their denial mode and don't seem to change from there. However you have written a good article in this comment and I recommend you publish it in your blogs.

  9. There is no doubt that Pakistanis look like Indian.Its not only the features but the face impression that counts and the accent ofcourse.Pakistanis are as different as Indians because we are not a race but a nation and mixed race.You can olways tell who is Indian/Pakistani and whos not.

  10. “There is no doubt that Pakistanis look like Indians”. This sentence itself carries a fractured reality in so far as Indians themselves are not the same. Every state, every region in India has racially, culturally and ethnically different type of populations. How can one compare these Indians with Pakistanis when the word Indian itself does not carry any standard ethnic Indian features. You can say UP Indians, Gujarati Indians, Bengali Indians, so on and so forth but you cannot find a proto type standard featured Indian.

    Again to say that Pakistanis and Indians have the same accent is something which connotates ignorance from facts. Though former Indian prime minster I K Gujral hails from Pakistani Punjab, yet his accent having strong Sanskrit/Hindi based intonations is not the same as that of Mian Nawaz Sharif, Yousuf Raza Gilani or any other Pakistani.

    Mihelles your comment is a confusing comment which contradicts itself twice.

    Nayyar Hashmey

  11. Sorry I am a muslim and my parents migrated from India and I wouldlike to disagree. We r not Arabs though my ancestors were not racially Hindus or local hindustani's we donot belong to Arab world.
    We might have migrated from Afghanistan or Iran and my mother belong to Hazrat Abu Bakar Siddiqui clan but anyone who met me in the world identifies me as Indian in much the same way I can identify a general Indian. Why we always try to argue we r not Indians?????

    1. Just because you muhajirs are indians doesn't mean the rest of local Pakistanis are indians. Why you Muhajirs always try to make everyone else indians. You still don't know your identity? Majority of Pakistan is not Muhajir so we have nothing in common with indians.

    2. this is your attitude about Urdu speaking people who migrated during the partition of India..the one who suffered most for the creation of Pakistan..how you can say that all Pakistanis are same,like Indians ,Pakistanis also formed from different racial group,a Pathan and Panjabi Muslim look much different same like a UP Jatt and Tamil Chetty .before the partition and Oil boom happened in Arabia most of the Pakistanis (Panjabis,Sindhis) were trying to connect their clan with some ruling Indian clans like Rajput,but after the oil boom every pakistani is acting like they are Arab origins and from the family of Rasool. this is happening every were, people are always try to imitate the higher sub-sect, but my dear fellow Pakistani if you go to Saudi and tell them that you are a "Sayid" and want to marry a saudi girl will they give you "NO", even if you stay there 25 years they will not give you citizenship also.. last 50000 years after the first human migration "out of africa" several migration, invasion happened in the Indian subcontinent and a lot of them settled here and assimilated to the Indian society. eg. Rajputs (Huns), Gujjars, Jatts ,Kalash, Mappila Muslims of Malabar,Parsis of Mumbai, Jews of Cochin, Rohilas of North India, etc.

  12. An individual derives his / her nationality from so many factors other than linguistic and ethnic characteristics. Its just like a Pakistani or an Indian, an Arab, or an African who has naturalized himself in America. His ethnic roots may be different, his racial features may be different but once he / she has settled permanently in America, he/ she is accepted as an American, no mater what language does he speak, what dress does he wear or what ever customs’ does he adopt. So is the case with our Mohajir citizens.

    All such Mohajirs who migrated from India and permanently settled in Pakistan, are sincere and loyal to the nation state of Pakistan is a Pakistani. He / she is no more an Indian nor he / she should think that he / she is an Indian. This is in absolute denial, an absolute negation of living in Pakistan, same way as any Pakistani or Indian showing more loyalty to their countries of origin. No nation can tolerate such an absurd domicile which negates the very genesis of one’s living as a national of one country and showing loyalty to another country.

    There are many people in the United States of America who rose to the highest echelons of power in their adopted land. None of them would show loyalty to their land of the birth. There are instances where soldiers of the United States army fought in the Iraq war and laid their lives for their adopted homeland, the United States. Mr. Zbigniw Brzezinski is, is a Polish émigré but he still is considered a top brain, top strategist of pure American policy objectives in the national as well as international field.
    Tazeen, people call you Indian because you think you are Indian. Otherwise nobody would never ever dare to call you Indian.

    FYI during my stays in Europe when I was studying there, many Arabs used to call me Alhindi and when I told them I am not an Alhindi but a proud Albakistani, then did they realize their seriously erroneous omission and commission. The people you call Alhindi derive their name as such from the land I belong to i.e. Pakistan which was the original Indusland, the harbinger of the land of Indus [or dwellers in and around Indus delta i.e. present Pakistan].

    Tazeen, I would recommend you also to read the post I uploaded on my website. Its on this very subject. May be, it aptly answers your question. Here is the link: Some Soul Searching: Pakistani Nationalism and Schooling

    I mentioned before that how my Arab friends took me in the beginning as Alhindi and when I told them this was because of ignorance, an ignorance that was based more on what history and anthropology explains and not what the concocted historical versions of history by the British or by the Indians said.

    And if you study the real history then it would dawn upon you that the Indus valley civilization is far more different, far more distinct and far more civilized than the Gangetic civilization which is what forms the basis of all the communities, all the religions all the races, all the societies inhabiting the present day Bharat which is wrongly being called India.


    1. Tazeen is a Muhajir. Arguing with them is useless. They don't know their identity. Since they have the same culture as Indians and cannot identify with Pakistan, they don't want to feel like aliens in their home country; hence we all have to become "indians" to appease them. Before they claimed we are all "muslims" and there is no Pakistani identity, now they've decided we are "indians." Not all Muhajirs are like him but he does belong to the pro-Indian Muhajir lynch mob. Sad but true. Besides my paternal side is mostly Muhajir but i'm 100% all pro-Pakistani identity and heritage.


    Why people of Pakistan are SO DESPERATE to equate themselves with EUROPEANS? Don't worry there are such people in India too.

    You can't change History. Pakistan is a political entity. Historically and culturally there is no difference in India and Pakistan. Please go in to any town of India and Pakistan and people are same.

    The creation of nation on the basis of religion is a failed Idea which we have seen in the liberation of Bangladesh.

    What is problem in accepting this simple truth?

    I tell you NO muslims of Arab or Persia consider muslims from subcontinent equal as them. So what is the use of Muslim Ummah. Arab countries have their own union.

    We India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Srilanka should form a Union and work with each other.

    USA and Europe want buyers for their weapons of destruction and we India and Pakistan spend a good amount of money on that even when our per capita income is not even 2000$. These countries thrive on the money of us.

    I dream of United States of India and Pakistan. We have done it in the past and we can do it again. We (India and Pakistan)were world' biggest economy before British came. We can become one.

    Leave religious difference behind because geography is reality and we have to live together. These American and European people have fooled us and are still doing this.

    The people of India and Pakistan share a common history and culture irrespective of religion.

    Lets be united and show these European, Arabs and Americans that we are best.

    1. Stating a fact has no desperation in it. The only desperation I see is Indians wanting to band together with Pakistanis. Whoever said anything about Arabs and persians in my post? It has nothing to do with them. It's just to correct Indian desperation to be Pakistani

    2. Dear Pakistani 1414918,

      I jotted down my thoughts [quite in detail] on what cloud seven has said. Some points I agree with him, but most I don't. I wanted to put these up here but there's a machine generated message that I can't put up more than 4,064 characters. Then I wanted to send it via email to you but I couldn't find your email address anywhere on your website.

      Could u plz guide?


    3. Post your comments in several post follow ups if one post is too long


      CS Remarks: Northern Pakistanis are often tall, of fair complexion resembling Europeans, while people from other parts of India often show East Asian or Australoid features with dark skin."

      My Comment:

      Its not a question of we Pakistanis prone to equating ourselves with the Europeans. Culturally, racially, linguistically, and geographically,we Pakistanis arepoles apart from the Europeans. As a matter of fact its the Indians, the mainstream Hindus of India, who equate themselves more with the Arian race, a race which according to them mostly inhabits the continent of Europe. We Pakistanis don't believe much in race concept because our faith does not believe in a racial identity. Its another matter though that we too have the concept of biradaris, the concept of highe caste and the lower caste, which in actual fact has been an after affect of the forced union we have had with India first under the Muslim dynasties from the throne of Delhi and later under the great Mughals and the British.

      If there is some reference of ours to the european races then its merely because of anthropological linkages that we as well as the north Indians too have with the geneology of Europeans i.e. both are indoeuropeans.


      My Comment: No, you can't say that. Pakistan came into being not only because of religion but there have been other factors too. But the Quaid used the name of religion because it were mostly the Muslims who were economicallly being deprived under the British. So apart from the term Islam,the Quaid always said the Muslim majority provinces of India (and these Muslim porovinces were the north western provinces which from present Pakistan) and which were culturally more similar to the regions of Central Asia and the Middle East.. Many amongst us are actually the migrants from these zones. They either came to the great landmass called the subcontinent either as invaders/ rulers or the common citizenry that came along with them.

      Although its a fact that we have so many things common with India like history, music, poetry, geography etc. etc. yet, simultaneously its also the fact that the present landmass called Pakistan through history has been having more permanent linkages with the countries of the Middle and Central Asia.

      It was before the advent of Islam, that the Persian emperors had been ruling the northern parts of the subcontinent and this definitely created a strong sociocultural contact between the peoples of present Pakistan and old Persia (presently called Iran).

      The national language of Pakistan Urdu is nothing but an amalgamation of local Indo Pakistani tongue (the hindostani) and the Persian + Arabic words. And this was because of the social intercourse these areas have had with the Muslims of the present Pakistan.

      To say that Indians and Pakistanis are very similar. Yes north Indians and the Pakistanis are very similar and sometimes its difficult to identify whether one is Pakistani or an Indian. But this can't be the reason to bind two nation states into one. If we see a British and an American, except if we listened to a different lingusitic intonation, we would hardly be able to distingiuish between the two. And I don't think an American would wish to be called a Briton if somebody mistook him to be British merely because he looks like one. Contd...



      My Comment: Creation of a different state, a different nation, a different identity and entity becomes a must when one community suffers at the hands of another community. Has this not been the case, there wouldn't have been a Pakistan and a Bangladesh either. I vouch you for this dear Mr cloud seven, if there is economic progress in Pakistan, there is equal treatment to all the communities, whichever community, be they the Muslims, Hindus, Christians or of any other confession, most would wish to emigrate to Pakistan. Same could be the case of India. See why so many Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and to some extent so many from Great Britiain, Germany, and Eastern European countries migrated to USA and Canada. Merely because they had better environment to work, better chances to improve their own and their families' well being. Although I strongly believe in Pakistan's independent identity as such, not form today, not from 1947 but from the millenia, yet I don't feel any hesitation to admit that had there been no economic deprivation of Muslim masses in India, may be, ther still wouldn't have been a Pakistan in its present shape; though a Pakistan with some identty of its own much different from the Gangetic civilisaion of India would still have been there. Contd.....


      My Comment: I tell you Mr cloud seven, this concept of Muslim Ummah though has been very dear to most of the Muslims in Pakistan yet this concept was more strengthened by uncle Sam in the cold war era, just to gain sympathies of the Muslim World against former Soviet Union. Once the USSR coallpased, Uncle Sam left this Umma thing in the lurch, which is why you don't listen much nowadays about Muslim Ummah except for some symbolic statement in th media just to confirm that it still lives.

      Same is now happening in case of India, Uncle Sam is now thumping the back of India to take stand as a bullwark againt the rising Chines. The Indians are as much hypnotised by this American strategy as we were during the cold war. But vouch my words again Cloud Seven that the great Uncle will leave you in the lurch same way as it did with the Muslims in this Ummah concept. And don't forget, for America, India even in its present form is too big for the hegemostic amibitions of the AmBrits. Its just a matter of time.


      My Comment: I do agree with you. We in the Indo-Pak Subsontinet need to come closer to each other in spite of our differences, we still have so many beautiful things to share. But any common platform in the subcotinent now cannot be on the basis of akhand bharat or a united India. The days of the British and Mughal Raj are over. The three independent sovereign states of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Srilanka can be part of the SAARC Union but not an Indian Union.

      My Comment: Perfectly agree with you.

      ON DREAM ON THE UNITED STATES OF INDIA PAKISTAN. We (India and Pakistan) were world's biggest economy before British came. We can become one.

      My Comment: Not the United States of India, but a Union of Independent Sovereign States of South Asia. Here I agree with you. Subcontinent once used to be a Golden Bird. This Golden Bird can be resurrected if all the countries of South Asia sit together, settle up all their issues and conflicts and erect a platform from where a formidable South Asian approach can be adopted in the arena of world politics.

      My Comment: Do agree with you

    6. My reason for mentioning that Northern Pakistanis looking more similar to East Europeans is because Indians always pull out the appearance card, so by their standard northern Pakistanis resembling Europeans does that make them Europeans? No. Even if they are genetically closer to Europeans, they are still a separate people of their own.

      It's just like North East Asians and Native Americans having similar genetics, it doesn't mean they're exactly the same, but do have the same origin.

  14. I agree with you its always indians who try to say Pakistanis and Indians are same.
    And some Pakistanis also started saying this ,I dont know why.
    I have met south indians who said north indians and Pakistanis are the same people I thought may be they are right North Indians are like Pakistanis,But no ..North indians are more like south indians than Pakistanis.But i do agree north indians are more friendly with Pakistan but south indians unless they are really really whitewashed.otherwise they kind of hate us I think.i get that vibe.
    And no arabs and persians do treat us nice.
    It has nothing to do with skin color,even light skin indian looks indian and dark skin Pakistani looks Pakistani,its more of our shape of nose and face that is different.Indians have characteristic noses.
    We do have big noses but they are different than indian noses.
    Pakistan and India are very different countries Pakistanis think its ike bollywood thats why they think they arelike us,but in reality go there and you will see people pooping and peeing on roads????they are very uncivilized I thanks God I was raised in Pakistan after I visited india,,and to be honest I think Paksitanis are very very pretty comapred to indians.almost 99% of Pakistani origin young girls are pretty.be they light skin or dark
    indian women dont take care of themselves.

    Reagrding Pakistani muhajirs my counsins wife is muhajir decent and she is ok wheatish complexion,but when you see her mother who migrated like in 70s are very different they look indian,dark and short with mongloid skull.
    she changed a bit and is prettier,
    and their thirs generation is even prettier,i think it has something to do with the enviornment of the ocuntries too,When you live in Pakistan you turn out taller and lighter with better skull structure than if you if you were raised in india with the same genes.
    I dont knoe the reaso behind it but I have an idian friend and she agress Pakistanis are much much prettier and its not a lie,she thought people were bragging before she met Pakistanis.
    Indians knwo exactly if you are Pakistani,I went to indian salon and grocery stores and they can recognize if you are Pakistani.now how is that possible if we look same?