This article is co-authored by Himadri Agarwal and Noorjehan Asim, two KidSpirit editors from India and Pakistan. Over the course of several months, Himadri and Noorjehan met online to collaborate on this article and explore how individuals can rise above international conflicts to recognize one another's essential human dignity.

Himadri:

Everything starts somewhere.

Every fire is fueled by a spark, and every waterfall begins with a drop. Whether it is a friendship, rivalry, person, or country, nothing grows without a foundation.

I am an Indian. I made friends with a Pakistani.

The rivalry that our homelands are engaged in started somewhere, but our friendship began in a different place altogether. Both of us realized, almost from the very first day, that there was absolutely nothing we could call “wrong” with each other — if anything, we were different, and in that we found so many ways to connect.

Through a series of emails and video chats, an Indian and a Pakistani became two human beings who wished to be friends. The boundaries became blurred; the conversations we had were about our families, about work, about interests — about all the things that people ordinarily talk about.

We understood that we both had dreams, both had aspirations, both had certain questions about life and ways we wished to answer them. We were both fun-loving, rather apprehensive of our futures, and hopelessly in love with words. We were both equally human.

What then, was the reason I encountered people gasping with surprise, so called “concern,” when I told them about the project I was about to undertake? Why are an Indian and a Pakistani such unlikely friends?

Noorjehan and I set out to answer this question, to understand why we are perceived as being wrong when we are merely different, to break boundaries, to reach out to one another, and to question why the boundaries were there in the first place.

We discovered that what separates us is not 3,000 kilometers of land but a mindset that pervades both nations, a thought process that has been conditioned a certain way.

Perception, in fact, is possibly the key factor, and what we must understand is that our perceptions are shaped very early on in life, at a stage when we are impressionable and tend to believe what we’re told. This is where education comes in. As an Indian and a student of history, I can testify to how our textbooks portray Indians as sages who have always been right, and blame all our international conflicts on others. Students grow up believing in this notion of false perfection and consequently harbor the same prejudices, biases, and animosity that has been passed down from generation to generation. History, political science, and other school subjects become a medium by which these feelings of hatred or discrimination are carried forward, and thus the basis of the apparent permanence of this issue.

When Noorjehan and I communicated about how we’ve been taught, how both of us have been told about the same events in such different ways, we realized that facts are manipulated by perception, that so much of history depends on who writes it, and that both of us, to an extent, have been falsely led. Nobody likes to admit to their wrongdoings, and both of our countries believe that they are absolutely right. Yet there is no black and white in this world, there is only grey, and our interaction helped us realize that so much of what we feel is colored by what is told to us.

We also spoke about another thing that seems to intensify the conflict in people’s minds: cricket.

Pakistan and India have top-class cricket teams, and when the two face each other, it becomes more like combat than sport. Roads are deserted, sometimes even shops are closed, and there are crowds in any place that shows the match. Our passion, however, indicates not a mere love for the game but a certain unhealthy competition, a tendency to treat it not as a game of sport but as a match of honor. This attitude, which is present on both sides, tends to strengthen the divide between our nations.

Yet Noorjehan and I realized that cricket can also unite us. Both of us gushed about our favorite cricketers to one another, and we were not surprised to discover that we each intensely admire players from our neighboring countries, for indeed talent is not divided by borders. This too reinforced how the so-called rivalry is indeed superficial — for when we got to know each other, we found more similarities than differences.

However, a conflict of this magnitude is not limited to perceptions. It also has a physical manifestation, the struggle over Kashmir.

Yet from our conversations, Noorjehan and I realized that the Kashmir issue is ultimately another political issue. Instead of exploring the controversy as a problem and trying to come up with solutions, we are blowing it out of proportion and making it an excuse to perpetuate conflict. Yes, there is territory and yes, it is disputed, but a single state need not be the reason two entire populations stay perpetually at war with one another. Kashmir hardly affects everyone directly, yet it fuels discrimination and hatred on a large scale. If we, the people of two nations, collectively understood this and handled the situation more calmly and more wisely, it would be much better for us overall.

The fact that Noorjehan and I explored all these sources of conflict and came up with varied solutions does say something significant: all is not lost. There are plenty of people in both countries who wish to talk and to soften relations between their homelands and their people. Yes, most people think a certain way and yes, this mindset may pervade most of the population, yet there are people who wish to make a change. Difficult as it may be, it is not impossible.

Noorjehan:

My history teacher once told me that nothing in the world is black and white. Ironically, she said this as we stared at a black and white picture of the father of our nation, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, sitting on a patio, exchanging pleasantries with his Indian counterpart, Jawaharlal Nehru. The implied meaning of her words of wisdom, however, was not as straightforward as it seemed. Her version of this well-known statement preached that we ought to look past the happiness the photograph exuded and understand the historical context of the time it was taken. “Think of the agreements being drafted, the Muslim struggle for independence,” she said.

Looking back, I understand that even the shades of grey we force ourselves to seek are lined with subjectivity. It takes a lot for individuals of a nation to assess both sides of an argument, especially in a world where national pride and our egos collide to form psychological monstrosities.

As Pakistanis, it has always been easier to portray ourselves as the ones getting the shorter end of the stick; we project our helplessness onto our pleas for self-determination for Kashmir. Objectively speaking, my nation has been wronged. It has also served as the oppressor. Yet, our constant self-victimization has led to dangerous amounts of jingoism pervading the minds of the masses. When India and Pakistan are in such close proximity, this is problematic. We fight over water. Culture. Cricket. Even our film stars are being shipped back home; Indian films no longer play at our cinemas. Our leaders discuss the possibility of nuclear war as if it were a trivial matter.

I visited Hyderabad, India, in 2014 as part of my school delegation. We were competing at a Model United Nations Conference being held around the same time as our Independence Day (funnily enough, India’s day of independence is directly after Pakistan’s). Despite its vastness and the claims that it has a culture distinct from ours, India never felt foreign. Everything — the slums, the sky-high buildings opposite them, the food, the people — bore a striking resemblance to home. It came as no surprise. We speak the same language, celebrate our birthdays and weddings in the same fashion, soak up the wonders of the same cinema.

Being in India on the day of Pakistani independence, however, still created a bit of insecurity for all of us visiting. Our delegation made lighthearted jokes about how we should probably just try to “blend in” with the Indian crowd, to refrain from drawing attention to ourselves in case someone wanted to “hate on us” for our nationalities.

On August 14, we entered the hotel lobby to find “Happy Independence Pakistan” written on the main floor in flower petals. We couldn’t help but smile. Although it is somewhat universally understood, hostilities don’t necessarily exist between citizens of either nation on an individual level. This instance really drove it home for me. I befriended Indians at the conference; I laughed when they spoke of how Pakistanis had amazing skin or “the best noses.” I wouldn’t mind visiting again.

While the same delegation was to return to Hyderabad two years later, the embassy refused our entry into the country in 2016. We were mere students, with flawless documentation and pure intentions; our only fault was that we hailed from the “enemy nation.”

Himadri and I agree that the most disappointing thing to take away from this story is the fact that the conflict has moved beyond our minds; it has institutional manifestations. How can we learn that we are no different from one another if we are not allowed to revel in the sights and sounds of either country?

There have been many times such institutional roadblocks have stood in the way of open-minded individuals from both sides of the conflict. I met Divya Spandana, a South Indian Politician, at a conference for young parliamentarians from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) alliance. We bonded over our mutual visa related woes, and our love for film. She wanted to visit Lahore (Pakistan’s busiest, most lively city), but visa officials were giving her considerable difficulties. Divya was actually curious to explore Pakistani culture. The only thing stopping her was arbitrary legislation and security protocols that made no sense.

When Divya returned to India, she defended our nation when her media called it “hell.” She faced the threat of a lawsuit — people went so far as to call her a national traitor for saying Pakistan was wonderful.

It led me to wonder whether the same scrutiny would be applied to Himadri if she voiced her opinions about me. My mind raced to typical drawing room settings; I remember being chided by an uncle when I exclaimed it was possible for “Hindus” and Pakistanis to become friends. It is horrifying to see how entrenched this conflict has become within people’s minds. We cannot speak words of praise or kindness without feeling jeopardized. In an age when so many value free speech and coexistence, instances such as these should be mere urban legends. Instead, the situation escalates.

Noorjehan and Himadri:

When we began working with each other, we were never afraid. Perhaps because free-flowing discussion, impartiality, and acceptance are routine practices for both of us. This project was not particularly intimidating or worrying — it was about making a new friend and comparing stories. It was about communicating and finding our similarities and our differences. Experiences like working on this piece together make it seem absurd when Indo-Pak cricket matches turn into violent affairs, when our struggles over territory that was never really ours to begin with turn to war.

There definitely were challenges in that we undertook to question why certain things are a certain way, yet in the end we proved to ourselves that we are all born under the same sky. We spoke, we laughed, we endeavored to get to know each other as people, and in that we realized that a physical border cannot separate human hearts. If it’s easy for us, it’s easy for you too. For all of us. There is nothing notable separating Indians and Pakistanis, or any of us, for that matter. Gender, ethnicity, nationality: these are all arbitrary lines that impede harmony and progress. They are only held in high esteem because we give them that esteem. If humans create these constructs, they can easily break them down.

This friendship was something worth experiencing, worth sharing. It gave us a chance to bring together two countries in our own small way, and helped us to play our own part in something of utmost importance in today's world — bridging the gap.

After all, as C. Joybell C. wrote, “We are all equal in the fact that we are all different. We are all the same in the fact that we will never be the same. We are united by the reality that all colors and all cultures are distinct and individual. We are harmonious in the reality that we are all held to this earth by the same gravity. We don't share blood, but we share the air that keeps us alive.”

Ideas like these sound beautiful in the abstract. They feel even more beautiful once you get to experience their true meaning. After getting to know each other, the meaning of unity finally hit home for us. For thirty minutes, it became so easy to forget the firing on the Line of Control, the inflammatory narratives our politicians feed to our people, the legions of ordinary men and women barred from entering the country. What mattered in the moment, in the middle of Skype calls and rushed messages from school, was that we were two girls, trying to make a place for ourselves, and consequently trying to understand our place in the world.

It wasn't easy trying to make sense of the world around us; perhaps that was because it was simpler for us to gain opportunities to connect with one another in ways unimaginable. We often wonder whether the same opportunity, if extended to more people, could go on to bridge the gap on a larger scale. It felt like we managed to form a tiny piece of the puzzle; we played our bit in making sure that no misunderstanding stood untouched, no bias stood unrefuted.

We dream of a world where others will do the same, not out of necessity, but out of the mere goodness of their hearts. For that is where change comes from: from looking within.