Beware! If you are in India, the simple act of nostalgia could be seen as gross treason. The past cannot be erased, nor can one’s cherished memories be detached from it. However, on the other side of the border, the relentless drive to discard the past only because of a geographic divide and faith disparities raises many questions about how deeply communal hatred has seeped into the hearts and minds of our neighbours.
Only because of its name, Karachi Bakery, a chain of retail bakeries in India with several branches in cities like Hyderabad, New Delhi, Chennai, and Bengaluru, has been subject to vandalism and protests over the past few years. Particularly post-Pahalgam terror attacks in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and an ensuing four-day ‘war’ between Pakistan and India in May, the anti-Pakistan wave in India has now ratcheted up to the point of even removing the word ‘Pak’ from local sweets, such as Gond Pak, Moti Pak, Mysore Pak, Khajoor Pak, Chandi Bhasm Pak, Swarn Bhasm Pak, and the like.
In marked contrast, no similar incidents have ever been reported from Pakistan, which, since its inception, has been the prime victim of India's state-sponsored terrorism that is now hitting its peak in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in particular.
Especially when it comes to cherishing the shared legacy, Pakistan paints a completely opposite picture. From Delhi Sweets in Karachi to Amritsari Sweets Shop in Lahore, and from Ludhiana Sweets in Sargodha to Jalandhar Sweets in Gujranwala, shops, eateries, and commercial places named after different Indian cities and towns are legion across the country, and nobody has a problem with them.
War or no war, food lovers in Pakistan always have a special appetite for a vast variety of sweets and food items associated with India, such as Bihari Kebab, Mysore Pak, Amritsari Hareesa, Bombay Biryani, Jalandhari Motichoor Laddoo, Rampuri Barfi, Madrasi Saunf, and Rajasthani and Badayuni Peras, as well as Pethas of Agra and Mathura.
Beyond culinary delights, the super-patriotic people in Pakistan revel in naming their buildings, streets, and towns as concrete evidence of nostalgic attachment to India, which they or their ancestors had left behind over three-quarters of a century ago. No wonder one finds every other building bearing names like ‘Delhi,’ ‘Bombay,’ ‘Madras,’ ‘Lucknow,’ ‘Agra,’ ‘Meerut,’ ‘Rampur,’ ‘Jalandhar,’ ‘Ambala,’ ‘Patiala,’ and the list goes on.
One only needs to wander anywhere in Pakistan to discover how people in this part of the world have a deep sense of belonging to India and its different cities and towns. Delhi Gate of Multan, Dharampura of Lahore, Batala Colony of Faisalabad, Gatwala Wildlife Park of Faisalabad, Depalpur tehsil of Sahiwal, and Mirzapur of Qasimabad, Sindh, are to name a few.
Moreover, when it comes to Karachi, colloquially referred to as Mini Pakistan, the city often feels more like a ‘Mini Hindustan’. This is reflected by the city’s various housing projects and thickly populated residential areas like Delhi Colony, Banaras Town, Aram Bagh, Aligarh Colony, Firozabad, Kalyana, Agra Colony, Lucknow Society, Narayan Pura, Nanak Wara, Jahanabad, Bihar Colony, UP Morr, CP Berar Society, Junagarh Colony, and heaven knows what else.
Despite an unassailable geographic divide and political divisions, the names of these townships speak volumes about the India that people in Pakistan carry in their hearts and souls with so much pride and nostalgic reverence. And so do the likes of Delhvi, Jodhpuri, Maleehabadi, Azeemabadi, Lucknowi, Bedayuni, Saharanpuri, Muradabadi, and Merathi, to whom the rival state is not only their former abode but part of their own identities, which helps introduce and distinguish them among fellow citizens. Interestingly, the migrants from Hyderabad Deccan of India still refer to non-Hyderabadi mohajirs based in Pakistan as ‘Hindustanis’, an oxymoronic identity accepted without any objection.
Between Delhi’s Karachi Bakery and Karachi’s Delhi Sweets, there lies an interesting case of dissimilar thinking patterns, boasting of one border with two different mindsets. From donning a Banarsi saree to wearing a pair of Kolhapuri chappal, nothing stops people in Pakistan from staying away from everyday things solely because of their Indian connection. On the other side of the border, however, seemingly peaceful people tend to vandalize commercial places just because of their signboards. In today’s India, therefore, the possibility of coming across food items and other things associated with Pakistani cities is almost zero, be it Lahori chargha, Shikarpuri achar, Multani mitti, Peshawari chappal, Chinioti wood, and the like.
My father, Pirzada Ashiq Keranvi, an Urdu poet, migrated to Pakistan in 1947 from the small Kairana city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, and died in 2015 in Gulzar-e-Hijri in Karachi. During his burial, as per Keranvi’s last wish, a bag of soil from his Indian birthplace was sprinkled on his grave.
Everyone has the birthright to express love for their place of origin, so why does it spark outrage in India? It is not only a case of mass hysteria but also an open-ended riddle that only our Indian ‘friends’ like Javed Akhtar can better solve.
The author is a Karachi-based political analyst. He can be reached at faizanusmani76@gmail.com.
