Daily Times

Earlier this week, the teaser for a cross-border film featuring Pakistan’s Fawad Khan. Ideally, it should have marked a quiet but significant return to cross-border artistic collaboration, but as has been the norm in Modi’s India, it triggered familiar outrage. Hardened groups like the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) swiftly demanded a ban on the film, reigniting calls to bar Pakistani artists from Indian screens-despite the Bombay High Court having already dismissed such blanket bans in 2023.

It’s not the first time art has been caught in the crossfire of politics. And unfortunately, it likely won’t be the last.

For all the noise, what’s often forgotten is just how deeply India and Pakistan are connected: not just by history, but by culture. From shared languages and poetry to the rhythms of music and cinema, there’s a creative lineage that refuses to be divided by borders. Fawad Khan himself is a reminder of that past moment when cross-border entertainment was not only possible-it was celebrated. His performances in Indian films and the popularity of Pakistani dramas like Humsafar on Indian television once pointed to what cultural openness could look like. There’s a reason countries invest in their cultural industries: art softens boundaries. South Korea used K-pop and film to shape how the world sees it. Iranian cinema has reached global audiences even when its politics haven’t. Culture, at its best, becomes a form of quiet diplomacy.

When political groups push back against collaboration, the cost isn’t just creative. Audiences lose the chance to see stories that challenge their assumptions while artists lose the space to grow and connect.

No one’s claiming that films and songs will solve seventy-five years of conflict. But they can create space-however small-for empathy. And that space matters.

It’s unfortunate that once again, the focus has shifted from the film to the flags behind it. At a time when people on both sides crave normalcy, mutual respect, and dialogue, letting artists do what they do best shouldn’t be controversial.

It should be obvious.

Let the politicians argue. Let the artists work. *