Let me give you an example, a collegue of mine is from Bihar. He is a regular guy, who doesn't pay much attention to news or international affairs. One day our conversation moved towards Pakistan, his view of quite expected, he considered Pakistan a menace and a threat, but after criticizing Pakistan for a few minutes, he said " you know what they are our brothers afterall." Since I don't discuss politics at work I left the topic and moved on.
If this "brotherly" feeling exists in some people, it is only because factually, they
are of the same ilk. When those Indians and Pakistanis live in foreign countries, naturally 2 Gujaratis, or 2 Biharis, one from India and one from Pakistan, will have more in common, than say, they will have with a Punjabi or Sindhi, from their own respective countries, India or Pakistan.
A few days later CWG began in Delhi and when Pakistan entered the stadium there was a huge cheer to welcome them. It was probably the second biggest applause any team got, next only to India. There is obviously some brotherly feeling towards Pakistan among the populace, the media channels they just exploits that, they don't create it.
Ofcourse, and Mohali, Punjab is known to be the friendliest cricket ground for the Pakistani cricket team when they travel to India. So what? They are wrong for not hating Pakistanis with the same amount of passion as others? Lets not try to follow Pakistan, where patriotism is measured with the amount of hate one displays against the other country. There should be some difference between the two sides, otherwise, you
will be the exact same as them, regardless of your ethnicity!
This is factually incorrect as there is no 'us' to begin with.
IIRC, you are a Punjabi. I as a Tamilian have very little in common with you and a manipuri has very little in common with either of us. Indian is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural and Pakistanis cannot be the same as all of us.Tell me, what a Pakistani has in common with an Assamese or Bengali or Malayale or Kannadiga then I will accept that the Pakistani are no different from "us".
If there cannot be an "us" with Indians, than with the same token there surely cannot be a "them" with the Pakistanis either. All of Pakistan's major ethnic groups, barring the Balochis, make up a significant part of India; so either they
are same as "us", or, there
is no "us" and "them" to start with. You decide.
Let's look at the top three 'inbred bias' that we have towards each other.
First let's look at the 'bias' that Indians have towards Pakistan
1. Pakistanis are religious nut-cases
2. Pakistani is over run with militants
3. Pakistanis hate India
Tell me which of these are untrue.
I think, these biases differ with region, because Indian Punjabis most certainly do not have those biases; their biases are more or less the exact same as the Pakistani biases which you yourself pointed out, except;
Now lets look at the bias that Pakistani have towards Indians
1. Indians/Hindus are cowards
2. Indians/Hindus oppress minorities
3. Indians/Hindus are out to destroy their country along with the scheming Jews.
Tell me which of these are true?
The Indian Punjabi biases are more like;
1. Pakistanis are aggressors who only a handful of Sikh/Punjabi soldiers have regularly stopped single handedly.
2. Pakistanis started the bloody Partition riots in Punjab
3. Pakistanis are cunning and clever (though the Hindu Baniya caste is the prime target for this bias, probably due to grudges against moneylenders lol)
And even these 'biases' actually read more like grudges.
Actually, thats about where biases against Pakistan stop in Indian Punjab. And I realize, even the biases are not on a country level, but on a personal level with the Pakistani Punjabis.
I have heard the argument about how both sides are biased, but that is just a nice way of hiding the hatred that Pakistanis have towards Indians. All the Indian 'bias' are either true are close to being true.
I guess there is no "us" when it comes to biases aswell.