India and Pakistan are ‘siblings’: Fatima Bhutto

Describing India and Pakistan as ‘siblings’, slain former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto's fiery niece Fatima Bhutto said there was more fortune in peace between the ‘two sister nations’ than war.

Describing India and Pakistan as ‘siblings’, slain former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto’s fiery niece Fatima Bhutto said there was more fortune in peace between the ‘two sister nations’ than war.

“We have, like siblings, more in common than we appreciate and our differences, though vast, are not impossible to overcome. They are barely visible,” wrote 25-year-old Fatima, who was in Jaipur recently to attend a literary event.

“Our countries, India and Pakistan, are sister nations.

We are one half of each genetically and physically,” she said.

“There is more fortune in peace between our two countries than war will ever bring us. We must build bridges between our people, not bombs.

“Siblings, though stymied by rivalries at times and shadowed by each other’s ghosts, are still siblings. They have to protect each other in order to survive. We can’t help our pasts, but we have an amazing opportunity to push for radical change in our futures,” she wrote in her weekly column in The News.

Fatima said she had gone to India “to speak on Pakistan and to be a conduit for a message other than what we see reported on our country every day hate”.

“I wanted to speak for what a majority of Pakistanis truly want, inside our borders and outside — peace.”

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On her first visit to India two years ago with her best friend Sabeen, Fatima says she stared in horror when her friend revealed that she was from Pakistan to a shopkeeper.