This year, the countries are unanimous in their sentiments of joy as they prepare to celebrate a milestone 70-years of freedom from the British rule, which spanned some 90-years.
Pakistan and India born as free democratic countries, on the 14th and 15th August 1947 respectively, and were ready to face the many challenges ahead as independent free democratic states.
The two countries share so much with each other but are conflicted by historical political differences as well.
Unfortunately, partition came with the price of blood money.
The independence of the two countries came with the largest mass migration in human history of some ten-million people. As many as one million civilians died in the accompanying riots and local-level fighting, particularly in the western region of Punjab which was cut in two by the border.
The East India Company came to India in the 1600s.
The merchants who came to trade with India soon began to exercise military and administrative control and by 1757, they had huge swathes of the country under them.
Resentment against the alien company and its unfair rule over the local populace began to grow and in 1857, the first organised revolt against it took place with a group of Indian soldiers rebelling against the British rank in the Barrackpore, Bengal unit.
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