As India and Pakistan trudge towards the 70th anniversary of their creation, the comparisons are beginning to flow on how well (or badly) the two countries have done vis-a-vis each other, after the scalpel scythed through the subcontinent.

In his penultimate speech in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, for instance, the outgoing CPM member Sitaram Yechury cautioned against India becoming a “Hindu Pakistan“, although nobody on the other side is warning against Pakistan becoming a “Muslim India”.

Ironically, indeed paradoxically, on one specific issue—secularism—the two countries seem united.

In today’s Tribune, Chandigarh, the veteran political commentator Harish Khare has this sentence:

Surprise, surprise, in today’s Dawn, on the other side of the border, an editorial notes:

Read the Dawn editorial: Jinnah’s address

Read the Tribune piece: A new baptism