Abrar finally left India via wagah.
He got quite a fan following.
I meant to write on this phenomenon before but couldn't due to paucity of time. I've been following this guy Abrar on YT , off & on , for nearly 3 yrs now . He's a very affable , easy going character with screen presence & good enunciation . In other words somebody whom you'd definitely see & appreciate reflected in his content . Which brings me to the crux of the issue.
Ever since he began his journey in India around 1st Mar 2023 from Kochi ( he's been updating his plans on IG to boost his IG account as apparently contrary to the 1 million + subscribers on YT he's barely a few thousand on IG ~ 2-3,00,000 subs ) which in turn resulted in impromptu meetings along the way in just a few hours notice.
Up until Delhi most of those who came up to meet him at these meet ups sometimes scheduled barely an hour before or less were mostly Muslims & depending on the city or town he was traversing , the people meeting him would range from 10-12 to maybe 40-50 if not more. As mentioned before most of the people who thronged these meet ups were Miyabhais ( I'd say some 70-80% ) including some who travelled 100s of kms to meet him ( in Delhi , there was a Miya from Odisha who came all the way to Delhi just to meet Abrar ).
From Delhi onwards the demographic profile of these meet ups change with 70-80% of those thronging these meet ups being Hindus & quite a number of Sikhs given he's a Punjabi Musalman from Nankana Sahib . This trend continues all the way up until the Attariwala border crossing including a homestay with a Sikh family in Punjab.
I was wondering if any Indian vlogger would get such a reception in Paxtan. To be fair Abrar has been in the game for more than 3 yrs & has built up a solid reputation & fan following as a result of his content which can truly be described as of a high pedigree.
All things being equal , I assume an Indian vlogger would attract similar attention in Paxtan only if he had such credentials as Abrar did & more importantly was a Miya Bhai from up North or maybe a Sikh . Otherwise I can't imagine such a fan following of an Indian in Paxtan.
OTOH , what does it say of our own people who go out of their way to welcome a total stranger & "a SM celebrity" certainly a new phenomenon . After all Abrar's no cricketer or singer or film star . Yet the fan following he enjoys in India is phenomenal. I'm betting 60-70% of his fan following of 1.3 million YT subscribers would be Indian especially Miyabhais which may have gone up phenomenally ever since his India tour which in turn brings me to the crux of the issue .
Long ago on PDF I got into one of the usual scuffles with Paxtanis there ( resulting in one of the many permabans) on a subject with an Indian Miyabhai member casting his lot with you know who . A Paxtani member ( agnostic , settled abroad & one of the few genuinely intelligent guys there with deep insight into his country's & his people's issues , the exception which proves the rule & you'd come across these exceptions from time to time ) remarked that we sub con folk are a very emotional lot , some more than the others.
While this statement registered it took me a long while to internalize it. This was made to me in response to my to & fro to the Indian Miyabhai member there who on the one hand rejected Paxtani members support to Indian Miyabhais criticising them in harsh terms for their opportunism during partition & later & on the other used to team up with them when it came to criticising / humiliating / mocking / abusing India ,Sanatan Dharma rituals customs , traditions & practises , Hindutva , poltics in general , etc .
I had a bit of an epiphany when I looked at the kind of fandom & adulation Abrar attracted especially from Miyabhais on his journey here . I doubt if a Paxtani Sikh or Hindu would get the same kind of reception from Indian Miyabhais assuming he had the same credentials as Abrar.
This irrational like & dislike along with the Paxtani member's observation that we sub con folk are a very emotional lot with some among us being more emotional than the rest reminded me why a demand for partition which had no base in rationalism but purely on emotive grounds succeeded in India before it gained ground in what's now Paxtan & BD. Do remember the central theme was claiming Muslim majority areas for a separate country with transfer of populations being an absolute no no .
How does it explain the kind of popularity Jinnah & the ML received vide support thru the General Elections to the Central Legislative Assembly in 1945 & the provincial elections in 1946 in what's now mainland India itself , which was seen & still is by historians cutting across the ideological divide as a vote for Paxtan , which was detrimental to the interests of Miyabhais in mainland India ? Incidentally M A Jinnah won from Byculla in North Central Bombay which returned Waris Pathan the first MIM to the legislature in Maharashtra a century later in 2014 .
The same mentality brought them out in droves during the anti CAA agitation ( which one observer perceptively noted as Momins being granted the veto in 1947 on whom they could reside with & in 2020 on who'd be allowed to be taken in as citizens. In other words , a fixed deposit in Pakistan & BD & a Joint Account in India . ) & the sar tan se judaa episodes across the country. It's this very same mentality that JSD warned about when he declared we're at the very same juncture in history we were at exactly a century ago ( 1919 onwards Khilafat agitation , 2019-20 onwards anti CAA agitation ) .
Another but more painful part of the entire equation are the Sikhs . They were mortal enemies of the Miyabhais in 1947 all across the nation , even more than us Hindus , especially for what they did to them in Eastern Punjab ( our part of Punjab , which had a population of Muslims as high as 45% at the time of partition as compared to the 15-20% of H&S in what was then western Punjab or what's now Paxtani Punjab).
Today not only does a considerable (but not majority ) section of them want a separate state but are seeking common cause with their own "erstwhile mortal enemies." Next to the Miyabhais in support of Abrar the single most prominent group were the Sikhi. Isn't their demand for a separate state another irrational idea like the Paxtan movement , linked also to their excising their historical & religious links with Sanatan Dharma to proclaim their Waqri qaum status ? I mean if you go thru the history of Kashmir you'd see they've more of a case for seeking an independent state than the Sikhs in India irrespective of whether we acknowledge their demands or concede the bonafide of their case.
To sum up my rant , all those here advocating a Hindu Rashtra , pls be informed you'd never be able to achieve even a percentage of it in overt form as long as Paxtan & BD exists. Into this mix in jumped China . Hence given the way the geo economics & geopolitics of the region has evolved upto the present day , we'd have to tackle China before the more existential threats we face with Paxtan & BD before we focus our attention at home .
The entire equation for a Hindu Rashtra comprises defeat of China ( don't know how this can be achieved or even a stalemate given their preparations vs ours ) before annihilation of Paxtan followed by BD . It's only after that we can take up Project Hindu Rashtra . To all those belonging to the Maulana Modi brigade who're effectively the 6 blind men of Hindostan , pls note .