An impassioned plea by an Indian bride-to-be urging authorities to issue a visa to her Pakistani bridesmaid has gone viral on social media amid worsening ties between the neighboring nations.
Journalist Purvi Thacker, who is set to get married in Mumbai next month, poured her heart out on Tuesday on Facebook after her best friend Sarah Munir’s visa application was rejected by the Indian consulate.
“Never did wars, religion, shared history, nationality or even cricket matches come between us,” Thacker, a New York-based freelance journalist, wrote in a blog.
It was not until Munir’s visa application was denied “that we were reminded that politics of hate and fear will create differences even where there are none among ordinary people like us,” she wrote.
“Being friends and being there for each other should not be this hard just because we were born on different sides of the borders,” Thacker wrote.
India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads since their independence from Britain in 1947 and have fought three wars, including two over the divided territory of Kashmir, which both nations claim as their own in full.
Military and diplomatic tensions have soared since a raid on an Indian army base near the de facto border dividing Kashmir killed 19 troops.
Thacker’s campaign has garnered thousands of shares, likes and reactions, making it to news publications on either side of the border. Thacker even tagged Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj on Twitter, seeking her urgent help in the matter.
The friends, who first met in New York in 2011 while attending a graduate program, have traveled to each other’s nations before.
Thacker was hopeful that love would triumph over hate.
“For us, it is very simple, we are best friends and we hope our governments can see that too,” she said.
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