Reddit for India and Pakistan hosted a cultural exchange for people to connect on both sides and provided a thread for Pakistanis to put questions to Indians , and one for Indians to return the favour .

As expected, a lot of interesting questions and opinions were exchanged and here are the best bits.

Here’s what Indians asked Pakistanis.

Question from India : Why care about Kashmir so much? Most Indians are just fine with Status Quo and getting on with the economic progress and trade. You would rarely hear an Indian politician lamenting about how Azad Kashmir/POK is still not united to Indian mainland.

Answer from Pakistan : Well, I believe most Pakistanis will be like “Kashmir should be given Right to decide whether they want India or Pakistan” but there will be some People who have different view as Kashmir mera hai . I am pretty sure Kashmir is not Top Priority of General Public. They just want Peace and I just want Deepika Padokone !

Question from India : Greetings, Khushamadeed and Namaskar people. Nice to meet you, these are one of the rare and unique culture exchanges in my opinion. 🙂 I do have a few questions.

1) How influential is the army in daily life in Pakistan? 2) How important is reunification considered by the general populace of Pakistan? Seeing that since division, the once-unified economy of Indo-Gangetic plain has been a broken mess for all nations, and it has resulted in much hatred and bloodshed by people who used to be the part of the same nation until 1947…and that Hindus and Muslims lived in complete peace side by side until British arrived… 3) What is your favourite food? 4) How are non-Muslims generally seen by Muslims in Pakistan? 5) What is your favourite holiday spot within Pakistan? Do you guys go to beaches, or vacations in Kashmir, or such?

Answer from Pakistan :

1) Very influential. Runs everything behind the scenes 2) No one would want that. Although I’ve come across several people who want a federation for all Muslim countries of the world 3) Biryani and Gulab Jaman 4) It depends on who you ask. Many are un-bothered. But overall many don’t have a positive opinion esp. those who believe in conspiracy theories 5) Bhurban

Pakistanis also appeared equally curious.

Question from Pakistan : I feel like I’m late to this but: 1) Why are Indian talk shows/news bulletins so dramatic and theatrical? 2) Is Arnab Goswami popular in India? 3) How well do people in India understand and speak English? 4) Why is there a stereotype of South India being more open minded and advanced as compared to the North? Is there any substance to this stereotype? 5) Has anyone ever met a Bollywood celebrity irl? Answer from India : Salaam bhai! 1) Sensationalism hamara pesha hai. It’s all to make stuff more human, emotional and interesting. I mean, for the older generations (people born before 1985, maybe) it’s more about the stories than the facts. 2) He is popular. Sometimes it’s difficult to assess for the right or wrong reasons. His channels does some good investigations sometimes, but his debates are horrible. 3) English is now common across India, depending on where you are and who talk to. See, there will be people who speak broken English, but I can guarantee the educated definitely will speak it fine.

4) TL;DR – Actually no such thing. Both have their own flaws and are of the same. South India might be too stringent on the education front, while North more towards the religious/cultural front. It’s just a different agenda between the two.

5) I met Amitabh Bachchan once when I was on KBC.

Questions from Pakistan : I hope I’m not too late to get some of my own questions in! One of my best friends is an Indian dude. We’ve been talking for years about taking a trip through India and Pakistan on motorcycles. I’m an American citizen, so how difficult would it be for me to get a visa for India, considering I visit Pakistan regularly? What is the general opinion of people about Allama Iqbal? Do people even know about him? How culturally connected is the Northeast to the rest of India? I’ve only met one person in my life from the NE, and they identified themselves as Assamese, not Indian. In fact they really didn’t like being called Indian, spoke zero Hindi, etc. I was wondering if that’s a common sentiment or maybe this person was just an exception. If it was true that Northeasterners didn’t really consider themselves Indian, would you be okay with them seceding? Why or why not? Answer from India : Assamese from Assam here. Consider myself 100% kulcha approved Indian. From the Northeast, Assam, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura are what you may call Nationalists. Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram has a slight secessionist streak. Nagaland IMO has the aspirations of a Independent state or greater autonomy with Naga inhabited areas of other neighbouring states and Myanmar.

Although some questions were political and complicated, there were many concerning everyday lives and revealed that despite being on different sides of the fence, Indians and Pakistanis are the same people with similar questions, problems and attitudes in life.