Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent out a congratulatory birthday tweet to his Pakistani counterpart – Nawaz Sharif – who turned 67 on Sunday.
Modi extended birthday wishes even when the Indo-Pak relations reached a new low this year following regular ceasefire violations across the LoC and terror attacks that martyred many Indian jawans as well as civilians.
Sharif’s daughter expressed gratitude following Modi’s tweet with:
In 2014, Modi had gifted a shawl to the Pakistani PM for his mother along with a compilation of former PM Atal Bihari Vajyapee’s poems. He even made a surprise stop-over in Lahore last year to hold talks and briefly attended Sharif’s grand-daughter’s wedding ceremony.
Since the very beginning of 2016, series of terror attacks on Indian Army bases like in Pathankot and Uri escalated tensions between the two nations. Immediate reactions, apart from spewing fire on televised debates, included surgical strikes, calling back diplomats and isolating each other on the international platform.
These also triggered a series of diktats issued by hardcore bhakts, which included banning Pakistani artistes. The “anti-national” tag was now ubiquitous and applied to any individual showing sympathy even via a 140-character tweet.
Following this recent display of bonhomie, we assume it is safe for a person of Indian origin to tweet a birthday message to Sharif or even send out a ‘friendly’ message to any Pakistani national without being hounded or branded as an anti-national. Right?
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