**Warning: Long and just my opinion. No intention to offend those who think similarities are not there whether Indian or Pakistani. Agree to disagree with those people and happy to have diversity of opinion. To avoid any possibility of hurt sentiments exercise your right to ignore this post.
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Matlab Muqa bhai if we think about it and people look in depth there are lot of similarities.
Not just between North India (Agra, Delhi, UP, Punjab) and Lahore either. There’s more than just the Punjabi connection
Sindh/Rajasthan have similarities even in the way women dress in Rajasthan there are similarities with the Indus Valley civilisation as well as Mohenjodaro and Harappa. Mohenjodaro and Harappa are important sites for all those aware of it not just for Hindus but for all Indians.
Sindh and Rajasthan- have lot of similarities. My mother studied and worked in Udaipur, which is part of state of Rajasthan, and i lived there some time also..and from what ive read of Indus valley there were definite similarities. Also there are many dargahs in Sindh like in Mumbai and Rajasthan. People of all backgrounds visit places like Haji Ali dargah and Ajmer Sharif.
Mumbai-Karachi- both are port cities and diverse, important places for economy.
Plus if one looks at the places ive mentioned for the Buddhists in Ladakh the Buddhist monuments in Taxila would be important. And that is near Islamabad.
Also places like Hinglaj Mata in Balochistan and Katas raj will have significance for those followers irrespective of location in India. These places could be proper and well visited tourist places if maintained and if there were tourist packages. Hinglaj Mata is one of 51 significant locations scattered all around India, Bangladesh and one of the 51 is located in Pakistan.
The Mughal architecture of Lahore, Sindh may be mostly in North (like Delhi, Agra, Lucknow) but even in Bangalore there are forts of Tipu Sultan and Haider Ali.
If one looks at Ashoka’s empire remnants can be found in Pakistan, Afghanistan and lot of India today.
The capitals of the empire were Taxila and Ujjain which is in central India. It includes Kalinga, which is on east coast and in state of Odisha to including Andra Pradesh in South. i am sure there would have been some cultural similarities in that time. Perhaps even in the Buddhist or Asoka related monuments left behind. Sri Lanka with its Buddhist history would also have a connection with the Buddhist monuments/heritage of Taxila and parts of Pakistan. The Mauryan empire covered a lot of the subcontinent, even a lot of South, so there were be some cultural similarity from that. Ashoka - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Also, Sanskrit which has more of a historical relationship with Tamil than Hindi and some of the greatest scholars would originate from what is Pakistan today. Vedic sanskrit is also known as Panini Sanskrit. Panini 2000 years ago lived in Pushkalavati in Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He formulated 4000 rules of Sanskrit morphology, rules and syntax. My parents learnt Sanskrit at school and one day I hope to as well..as well as learning Urdu. Panini’s ashtadhyayi is the most complicated grammar of Sanskrit. Many of the rules of Sanskrit were written by Panini and influence is found not only in the languages of India but also it inspired European languages. Lot of german grammar and structure is apparently inspired by Sanskrit. Will Durant, an American historian, refers to it as "the mother of Europe’s languages."Panini’s grammar is known to be the earliest example of the most scientific grammar in the world. It is also a computer friendly language. In 2004 in India there were stamps picturing Panini to honour him and a temple was built for him on soil taken from his birthplace in Pakistan. It is in Varanasi (known as Kashi in ancient times) and called Panini Smarak Mandir. Though it is called a mandir it is more like a museum/place to celebrate and decorate his achievements/centre of learning. It is part of an educational campus which teaches Sanskrit and Vedic knowledge to girls and it is called Panini Kanya Mahavidyalai
Pakistani soil for dream Kashi temple - News Oneindia <— here is an article on the process. Inside the mandir there will be 4000 inscriptions from Panini’s Ashtadhayayi and it will be used to teach girls at the campus so they can become Sanskrit acharyas (teachers) and purohits(preists). Also in Pakistan a stamp was released 2 years ago for Panini and a stupa built at his village.
I think also in europe there are books on Panini and museums featuring his work.
My parents say lot of our cultural heritage is in Pakistan. So if someone says negative about Pakistan, rather than policies like you would do in India etc, it is like saying negative to
your own cultural heritage. Mohenjodaro and Harappa are places even south indians can relate to.
I think with all this cultural exchange we’ll just come back full circle and realise the commonalities we had back at the time of Indus Valley/Mughal empire/Ashoka’s time.
Now if we just think in terms of language maybe similarity won’t extend but if we think of cultural and historical similarities even places Balochistan, Peshawar can have shared histories to different parts of India. I think even French, German and English people acknowledge some common cultural heritage even if language is different and they had wars.
