An iconic moment of young Shaheen Shah Afridi taking the wicket of Virat Kohli. (T20 Cricket World Cup 2021.)
ONE BLOOD, TWO NATIONS: HOW POLITICS TURNED BROTHERS INTO ENEMIES. By Ayaan Muhammad I was eight years old the first time I learned to hate. Sitting cross-legged in a hot classroom in Pakistan, I listened as my teacher pointed to India on a map and told us: “India is your eternal enemy.” We were taught stories of betrayal, of Hindustanis who couldn’t be trusted, of a rivalry written in blood. My cousins and I would play games where we “defeated” Indian soldiers, waving imaginary Pakistani flags in triumph. It was all so clear back then; they were the villains; we were the heroes.
My poisoned childhood Growing up in Pakistan, hatred for India wasn’t just common, it was expected. It seeped into every part of my childhood like a slow, silent poison. At school, our history books painted Indians as ruthless aggressors. Every war, every conflict, every setback was blamed on “those Hindustanis.” My teachers didn’t just teach history, they fuelled a narrative of fear and superiority. “Never trust an Indian,” one teacher told us sternly, “because betrayal runs in their blood.” At home, it was no different. I remember sitting with my uncles during cricket matches, the room electric with tension whenever Pakistan played India. Every Indian wicket was met with cheers, every Indian run, with curses. When I asked my dad about the legendary Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar, he replied, “Oh even I can get that overrated player out in a few balls.” My Elders would recall tales of Partition, stories soaked in pain and loss, but the blame was always one-sided, always India’s fault as if India never suffered any loss in the Partition. The media made it worse. News channels screamed about Indian conspiracies, and dramas and films glorified Pakistani soldiers “defending” us from the evil across the border. Even our jokes were laced with spite. Indian accents were mocked; their customs belittled. By the time I was a teenager, this hatred felt normal. It shaped my worldview, my identity, even my sense of pride. I genuinely believed that to love Pakistan meant to hate India. Whenever I asked any child my age about India, they would reply with, “We will destroy them, they are our eternal enemy.”
Looking back now, I realise how dangerous that mindset was. I was too young to see the bigger picture that I was being fed a carefully constructed lie. My childhood was poisoned - not by Indians, but by the propaganda that painted them as monsters. I didn’t know then what I know now; the real enemy was never the people on the other side of the border. The real enemy was the idea that we had to hate at all. The real enemies were the politicians who profited through this hate. The first crack in the wall I arrived in Australia with my old beliefs tucked safely in my luggage. I was ready to defend my identity, convinced I’d have to keep my distance from Indians. But almost immediately, my narrative began to crumble. On my second day of work, nervous and homesick, I fumbled with a customer order. Embarrassed, I expected frustration but instead, a coworker gently stepped in to help. His name was Gurpreet. His accent, his looks, everything about him told me he was Indian. I stiffened, waiting for some subtle insult or competition. But what I got was kindness. Days turned into weeks, and Gurpreet kept showing up for me. He’d cover my shifts when I was struggling, explaining Aussie slang, and cracking jokes that made the long shifts bearable. These moments hit me like a lightning bolt. This was the “enemy” I’d been warned about? The person guiding me with kindness at every point.
Soon, I started noticing more cracks. I met Indian students in my classes who shared their food, their stories, their laughter, things that felt achingly familiar. The wall I’d built between “us” and “them” didn’t just crack, it started to collapse completely. For the first time, I questioned everything I’d been taught. The hate that once felt so certain now seemed… wrong. The more I opened my eyes, the clearer it became, the real world was nothing like the one I’d been shown back home. Shared blood, shared history As I grew closer to my Indian friends in Australia, I began to realise how deep our shared roots truly ran. It wasn’t just kindness or surface-level similarities, it was a mirror reflecting back centuries of intertwined history. Take food, for example. We’d sit together eating biryani, arguing playfully about whose version was better, Hyderabadi (Indian) or Karachi-style (Pakistani) but the joke was on us, the spices, the slow-cooked layers, even the cooking techniques were identical. The same went for butter chicken, samosas, and jalebi. Our “national dishes” were borderless, born from the same kitchens of the Mughal empire, by the same Mughal Cook, Mir in the 1600s. Music told the same story. We all knew the lyrics to Ustad Mehdi Hasan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s magical qawwalis (Pakistani) and Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar’s (Indian) timeless songs. We danced to the same dhol beats at weddings. I remember my Indian friend saying,
“This song reminds me of home,” and I laughed because it reminded me of mine too.
Here I realised that our home was no different. Just a few kilometres away from each other’s. Our languages, Urdu and Hindi are so intertwined that
For years, I carried that poison like a badge of honour, until life ripped it away.
we switched between them effortlessly, often without realizing. Even our religious festivals overlap, while I celebrated Eid, I joined in Diwali festivities with my Indian mates, lighting candles and sharing sweets that tasted just like the ones my grandmother made. Then there’s the shared pain. My grandfather used to tell me
When I moved to Australia, the first person to smile at me was Indian. The first coworker who acted as a guide for me was Indian and the first friends who made me feel at home were Indians. Everything I thought I knew about them shattered. This is the story of how propaganda builds walls between brothers, and how truth, when you finally face it, tears those walls down. We were told we were enemies. But the deeper I looked, the more I realized, we are one blood, two nations.
88
89
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker