PROFESSOR FACEBOOK

This month, writer and researcher Chintan Girish Modi created a secret Facebook group to improve awareness about Pakistan’s culture and to encourage an exchange of ideas and dialogue. Sixteen members paid Rs 6,000 apiece for the two-week online course, which offered a mix of material from Shabnam Virmani’s musical travelogue/documentary

Had Anhad, to photographs of monuments and shrines across Pakistan and paintings by artists from across the border such as Numair A. Abbasi, as well as 12 academic essays on everything from art to internet rights. And although there were no tests, the course did include five assignments.

“Learning about Pakistan through the lens of arts and popular culture is also a way of learning about India. We have a shared heritage,” says Chintan. As a child, the Mumbai resident had “strange longings” to visit Pakistan. After he visited Lahore as a teacher through the Exchange for Change programme run by the Citizens Archive of Pakistan and Routes 2 Roots (an NGO in India) in 2012, he returned determined to help build bridges. Two years later, he founded Friendships Across Borders: Aao Dosti Karein to promote dialogue and peace through social media, storytelling and workshops.

“It is possible for human beings to learn critical thinking, non-violent communication and conflict transformation. We don’t have to be at the mercy of the stereotypes we were taught,” he says. His second course on contemporary Pakistan began March 16, and a gender course for men begins March 24. They are connected, he says. “I think war is deeply rooted in patriarchal culture, and toxic masculinity is closely connected to dominating, suppressing, competing and conquering—all of which are processes that instigate violence.”