41 PAKISTAN’S CULTURAL DIPLOMACY WITH INDIA Muhammad Ibrar*, Raazia Hassan Naqvi**1 Introduction South Asia’s political history after World War II has been a chaotic one. The disintegration of Pakistan and successive formation of Bangladesh are the most obvious examples of this turmoil. The major problems of this region are authoritarianism, centralization of power, politics of statusquo-ism, politics of secularism, religious extremism, forces of ethnic groups, and national integration, concentration of economic power into few hands and poverty of the masses (Kukreja& Singh, 2008). Nevertheless, over the last fifty years, South Asia has made some stumbling treads towards constancy, harmony and peace. This is an important step forward for a region characterized by diversities of ethnicity, religions, castes, classes, and languages. India has had an un- broken democracy over the last fifty years and Pakistan has been ruled over by military for a period of 33 years out of its almost 65 years of existence (Kukreja & Singh, 2008).Both countries became nuclear states in 1998. However, Pakistan and India share the same and common cultural history and are tied with the upheaval of the invaders and colonial powers of the past as well. As it was Muslims from whom the Britain took charge, most of the Pakistani thought that it was the Muslims who were the basic and true occupier or lords of the land, not knowing the pre-historic era where the Muslims were also the foreigners who came as traders, merchants and saints and took control of the region from the hands of the Hindus and Buddhists. This rivalry brought to the most effective during the British rule on Indian subcontinent and after partition in 1947. Both countries blame each other for all the massacre * Lecturer in Social Work, Institute of Social Work, Sociology & Gender Studies (ISSG), University of Peshawar, Pakistan. ** Lecturer, Department of Social Work (DSW), University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. Journal of Law and Society Vol. 40, No. 55 & 56 Law College University of Peshawar January & July, 2010 issues