Pakistan Shows The Way To India-Pakistan Reconciliation – Analysis

Revival pre-partition names of places in Lahore in the Pakistani Punjab is a balm to heal old wounds  

Shortly after the General Secretary of the Rashtriya Swayam Sangh (RSS), the foremost Hindu nationalist organization in India, suggested that people-to-people contacts with Islamic Pakistan be resumed to restore normal relations between the two, the government of Pakistani Punjab restored the pre-partition names of streets in Lahore in recognition of the city’s historically composite Muslim-Hindu and Sikh culture.

The RSS General Secretary, Dattatreya Hosabale, had told the Indian national news agency Press Trust of India that people-to-people contacts could do what governments and armies could not, and went on to recall that Indians and Pakistanis were “one nation” before the partition of India in 1947. 

Hosabale’s remark about Indians and Pakistanis being “one nation” raised eyebrows in Pakistan. But the contention was not scoffed. This was because in Pakistan, the media have been generally appreciative of India, celebrating its achievements in music and cinema. Indian celebrities are extolled in Pakistan and programmes are done on them, especially on those whose origins were in Pakistan, such as Prithviraj Kapoor’s clan and Shahrukh Khan. When Indian singers Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle died, laudatory programmes were done on them. Popular music programmes on TV channels always featured Hindi film songs of the 60s and 70s.  

A couple of decades ago, before the Hindutva era in India, Pakistani celebrities like singers Mehdi Hasan, Gulam Ali, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Atif Aslam and many others were feted, Fans thronged their concerts. Pakistani teledrama cassettes sold like hotcakes. But the bonhomie evaporated especially after the terrorist attack in Pehelgam (Kashmir) and the 4-day air war in April -May last year. 

However, in May 2026, with Pakistan’s international profile vis-à-vis India being on the ascendent, there has been some rethinking in India, at the highest levels, about carrying on the feud with Pakistan. Ranking RSS official, Dattatreya Hosabale, would not have said what he said on a hyper sensitive subject like Pakistan without a go-ahead from the security Establishment in India. 

Pakistan had already prepared the ground for a reorientation of its thoughts about India. In March last year, the government of Punjab in Pakistan led by Maryam Sharif, daughter of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had launched the “Lahore Authority for Heritage Revival (LAHR)” project. The LAHR is a large urban conservation project worth about 50 billion Pakistani rupees. In May 2026, the government decided to include under LAHR, the restoration of place names to reflect Lahore’s Hindu, Moghul, Sikh and British past.  The effort was to be overseen by a steering committee led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. 

Several locations that were given Islamic names during Pakistan’s Islamization era in the 1980s, are now officially returning to their older identities associated with Lahore’s pre-Partition past. Islampura has reverted to Krishan Nagar; Sunnat Nagar is once again Santnagar; Maulana Zafar Ali Khan Chowk has become Lakshmi Chowk; Babri Masjid Chowk is now again Jain Mandir Chowk; and Mustafaabad has reverted to Dharampura,

Surprisingly, Sir Aga Khan Chowk is again being referred to as Davis Road;  Allama Iqbal Road is returning to its older name, Jail Road;    Fatima Jinnah Road is back to being Queens Road; and Bagh-e-Jinnah is reclaiming its colonial-era association as Lawrence Gardens. 

The restoration of Jain Mandir Chowk has especially drawn attention. The area near the historic Jain temple had been renamed Babri Masjid Chowk during the 1990s, a period marked by political and religious tensions following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in India in 1992.

Nawaz Sharif had stated that Pakistan should learn from European countries that keep historical names rather than changing them. According to him, Lahore’s historical names are part of history and should be preserved rather than forgotten.

Desire from India

As in Pakistan, there is a desire for reconciliation in India too, though officialdom still frowns on any such thought. 

While Pakistani cricketers remain barred from the Indian Premier League (IPL), matches between the two countries are held abroad. Similarly, despite restrictions in each country, poets, writers, and artists collaborate internationally. A new wave of peace ambassadors is emerging online.

Urdu and Punjabi have re-emerged as bonds. While the tradition of Indo-Pak mushairas has been abandoned, poets from both countries participate in poetic congregations abroad or connect through online platforms, keeping the spirit of Urdu poetry alive.

Several digital platforms and publishers in India are translating and publishing Urdu poets from Pakistan in English and Devanagari. The platform “Rekhta” is destroying the myth that Urdu is a Pakistani or Muslim language and not a Bharatiya language. 

Despite the fact that Punjabi is written in two scripts, Shahmukhi in Pakistan and Gurmukhi in India, the language remains a strong bridge between Punjabis on either side of the border. 

In 2014, the Canadian $25,000 Dhahan Prize was instituted by a Canada-India Education Society for Excellence in Punjabi Fiction, giving a global stage for the language. The organization honoured Maryam Nawaz, the Chief Minister of Pakistani Punjab, whose ancestors belonged to Indian Punjab’s Jatti Umra village in Tarn Taran district. In return, she assured the delegation that Punjabi would be promoted in her province. She has introduced Punjabi as a subject in schools across Punjab. 

In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the BJP’s Amritsar candidate Taranjit Singh Sandhu, a former Indian Ambassador to the US, promised the resumption of India-Pakistan trade via the Attari-Wagah land route to respect a popular sentiment in Amritsar. 

According to “Frontline Magazine” when Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala from India was murdered on May 29, 2022, his death was widely mourned across the border. 

In October 2023, the Bombay High Court dismissed a petition aimed at legally barring Indian citizens and organizations from engaging with Pakistani artists, including actors and musicians. A division bench, comprising Justice Sunil B. Shukre and Justice Firdosh P. Poonewala, described the plea as a “retrograde step” and noted that art and culture transcend national boundaries and promote peace. When the ruling was challenged in the Supreme Court in November 2023, the apex court declined to entertain the petition, “Frontline” recalled.

After the 2016 Uri terror attack, the Indian TV channel “Zindagi”” stopped airing Pakistani shows. But it has begun taking syndicated content from Pakistan, besides Bangladesh and other countries. Shailja Kejriwal, chief creative officer, special projects, Zindagi, told Frontline – “My ultimate desire, I don’t know whether it will happen or not, is that we collaborate… writers and artists from both sides should be on a set together. Hopefully, we will be able to do something because we flourish more if we are open and inclusive.”

While Pakistanis have been opening up to Indians and Indian content circumventing official bans, Indians are reticent because of the officially sponsored narrative that Pakistan and anything Pakistani is to be rejected and any sign of receptivity towards Pakistan or Pakistani content is anti-national. This has affected the Indian psyche so much that it is not easy to get rid of it. 

Therefore, any improvement in India-Pakistan relations, even at the non-political people- to- people level, can only be incremental and tentative, unless, of course, the top political authorities on both sides decide to break with the past.