Top 10 Differences Between India and Pakistan

Today’s list is something that I’m sure is going to garner a lot of comments but how could I miss this topic? Hello to all my Pakistanis, hello to all my Hindustanis, please don’t start insulting each other in the comments. I know how heated some of us can get about this, but we were one country once upon a time, lest we forget. Without further ado, let’s get into it, this is the top 10 differences between India and Pakistan.

10: Different Languages of India and Pakistan

Don’t worry I know that Hindi and Urdu have a lot of similarities, I agree. I wouldn’t be able to watch all the Bollywood movies that I do if there wasn’t. However, Urdu has more of its roots in Arabic and Farsi. Whereas Hindi has more of its roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit. But, of course, India and Pakistan are such big countries that Urdu and Hinduism can’t be the only languages spoken in them. The four languages that crossover the most between both are obviously Hindi and Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, and Kashmiri. In India, they also speak Malayalam, Telegu, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, and more.

If we cross the border in Pakistan, we speak Pashto, Balochi, Saraiki, in places like Peshawar, Quetta, and Multan. They also have their own Languages as well. All these different languages are spoken in these two countries would be a lot of crossovers. Someone who speaks one would probably be able to understand the other, that would be wrong. The differences are night and day, Malayalam sounds nothing like Hindi, which sounds nothing like Punjabi, which sounds nothing like Balochi.

9: Day to Day Clothes

Of course, we do have similar traditional clothes, all the differences I list there will probably be similarities. In Pakistan, girls and guys wear western clothes but mostly wear shalwar kameez (traditional wear). Indians, also wear western clothes, but a lot of people wear shalwar kameez as well. In villages guys mostly wear dhotis (style of pants) and girls wear saris (traditional wear). Regardless of whichever one you choose to have there’s no denying that they love desi styles and colors.

8: Food of India and Pakistan

Omg, the things I would do for now for some dhal (lentil dish) right now. The majority of India’s Hindu and contrary to their popular belief, it’s not actually a requirement to be vegetarian. I know a lot of people don’t know, but a lot of Hindus are vegetarians. Because Hinduism emphasizes non-violence to all living things, including animals. So, a lot of their meals are centered around chickpeas, yogurt, idli (savory rice cake), etc. Their food is also usually served on a big silver plate called a thali. If you’ve ever been to an Indian restaurant, you will 100% know what I’m talking about.

On the other hand, in Pakistan, almost every dish is meat-based. So, we have keema (ground meat), chicken karahi, kebabs. It’s usually eaten with either roti (a type of flatbread), rice, paratha (a type of flatbread fried in oil or ghee) you name it. This is a fact that Pakistan is literally ranked third in the world for the highest meat consumption. Biryani (a type of rice) is a very popular dish in both countries. People love biryani and they even die for it.

7: Sports

Cricket is worshiped equally in both India and Pakistan and it’s the most popular sport ever in both countries. I’m not even going to talk more about cricket because a full-blown disaster will occur. Other than Cricket, there is a difference in the most played sports within each Country. Field hockey is extremely popular among both countries and it’s also their national sport. Netball is mostly played amongst girls in India, which is not surprising. Considering netball is pretty much mandatory in any British school and India was colonized by the British. While in Pakistan it’s a different story, people prefer football, squash, hockey, basketball, with girls prefer badminton.

6: Religion of India and Pakistan

I didn’t want to include this because it’s sort of a sensitive topic and I don’t want you guys to humiliate or insult each other’s religions. I trust you guys and how could I not talk about the one thing that essentially caused us to separate into the two nations we are today. In Pakistan 96% of the population is Muslim. A remaining couple of percentages are Christian, and 1.8% are actually Hindus. The majority of Indians are Hindus, while the second-largest majority are in fact Muslims, as well the third are Christians and Sikhs, Buddhists or Jains.

5: Population

Have you seen the size of this country? It should come as no surprise that the Indian population is a lot bigger than the Pakistani population. As of right now, India is home to 1.3 billion people, whereas Pakistan is home to nearly 202 million people. That’s a big difference but I mean that’s not a plot twist. Pakistan is nearly four times smaller than India.

4: Flags of India and Pakistan

The Pakistan flag is dark green with a white block on the left and a white crescent and star in the middle. The green part represents Islam and the Muslim majority in the country, the star represents light and the crescent represents progress. The flag is meant to represent Pakistan’s commitment to Islam as well as the rights of religious minorities. India’s flag has three strips an orange one, a white one, and a green one, and the blue wheel in the middle. The orange represents sacrifice and courage, the white represents peace and truth and the green represents chivalry and faith. The wheel in the middle is called Ashoka Chakra and it is the law of dharma, which means that Indians’ main life principles should be truth and virtue.

3: Transport

Both countries obviously have the basic things, flights, cars, motorbikes, trains, sea transport, but if you want to walk, you can do that too, who am I to judge? But the difference is that public transport is so heavily used in India because it’s so extensive and probably because if everyone drove cars then going to work would take around 2 days minimum. In Pakistan, most people prefer to drive their own cars because most people usually aren’t traveling far enough to warrant using public transport.

2: Festivals of India and Pakistan

This is probably the biggest difference between both countries. Firstly, the festivals are different because they’re rooted in religion. As Pakistan is an Islamic state, its main festival is called Eid. There are many Eid’s every year depending on what sector of Islam you are part of but the two that everyone celebrates the most are Eid ul Fitr and Eid ul Adha. In India, celebrations are more rooted in Hinduism. There’s holy and for all you people out there, that’s the festival of colors. So, if you’ve ever seen a huge group of people throwing colored pastes and powders on each other, you (my friend) will be witnessing Holi. There’s also Diwali, Raksha Bandhan, and Ram Navami festivals which are also largely celebrated across India.

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1: Entertainment Industries Bollywood VS Lollywood

Do I need to explain what Bollywood is? That’s the all-encompassing town for Indian cinema so from the 20s, from the 30s their main focus was movies, in the past decade Bollywood has become a monster, with huge budgets, massive set, incredible dance numbers, hit song after hit song, and really there is no big Bollywood movie which doesn’t make its way into Western cinemas. Lollywood, on the other hand, is newer than Bollywood. In the last few years, the quality has definitely increased dramatically and there’s been a huge shift from focusing on TV shows to focusing on movies, and slowly but surely Lollywood is also making a bigger and bigger name for itself.

That’s all for today’s list of 10 differences between India and Pakistan. I hope you had fun; I definitely had a lot of fun. Please comment, and tell us what you liked? What you didn’t like? What do you want to see in the future? We really appreciate your comments. Thanks, and see you tomorrow.