A Pakistani YouTuber, Nasir Dhillon, 38 reconnects families separated during the Indo-Pak partition through his channel that he started in 2016.
His YouTube channel Punjabi Lehar is being watched by thousands of people from both India and Pakistan. Dhillon started the channel with his friend and since then claims to have reunited hundreds of families separated during the partition.
The partition of the subcontinent had made two independent countries-India and Pakistan causing mass migration from both sides of the border. The partition was deeply emotionally and psychologically traumatic for the people migrating to settle in India and Pakistan. 12 million people became refugees and about hundreds and thousands of people lost their lives. Pakistan and India relations have remained tense for the most part of history.
Nasir Dhillon is a Muslim-Pakistani. He said he was inspired to start a channel inspired by the migration experience of his family. His father and grandfather had moved to Pakistan from Amritsar, India.
Punjabi Lehar, a YouTube channel set up by @Nasirdhillon06 from Faisalabad Punjab in Pakistan, has made about 800 videos helping people reconnect with a person or a place lost in partition—300 have led to in-person reunions. pic.twitter.com/okUviIxh7z
— Aakash Hassan (@AakashHassan) August 14, 2022
“They had a good life in Pakistan, but always yearned to go back to their village in Amritsar,” he says.
He said they died while wishing to visit their village once. His channel came to public attention after an emotional story of the two brothers reuniting at Kartarpur earlier this year made headlines. The brothers were reunited after 74 years.
Nasir Dhillon started Punjabi Lehar in 2016 with a friend – the channel has helped hundreds of people reunite with their loved ones, often virtually, across the border. Mr Dhillon was inspired by his own family's partition experience. https://t.co/nFUo4aRvu9
— Sanjoy Majumder (@BBCSanjoyM) August 17, 2022
The emotional video of the embracing each other went viral on social media. Brother Sikka Khan remained in India with his mother while Sadiq Khan came to Pakistan with his father. The brothers were reunited after a man from the village of Sikka Khan saw the appeal of Sadiq Khan on Nasir Dhillon’s channel.
Read more: WATCH: Brothers separated for 74 years meet at Kartarpur
“There is no bigger virtue than reuniting loved ones,” Mr. Dhillon says. “In the beginning, we didn’t really have a strategy. We would note down the details of people looking for family members and post them on our social media accounts,” he says.
Before creating the channel, Nasir Dhillon used to visit Nankana Sahib where he met Bhupinder Singh, the Pakistani Sikh. They both listened to the stories of people and their missing families. They later co-founded Punjabi Lehar.