“India has done Pakistan a huge favour. This was a stinging blow to Pakistanis who said India would lose to the US on purpose to knock Pakistan out of the T20 World Cup tournament. India is the best team in the world and there is no way we will lose to the US,” a man in a black salwar kameez declared, looking straight into the camera. This was not an Indian celebrating India’s victory over the US in a T20 World Cup match, but a Pakistani speaking to a popular Pakistani YouTuber in the Pakistani market.
A video posted by YouTuber Shayla Khan on her channel “Naila Pakistani Reaction” has been viewed over 300,000 times in a single day.
Indians love it when people abroad praise their achievements, but they seem happiest when Pakistanis gush about India’s successes. Pakistanis have realised this and taken advantage, spawning an entire industry of YouTubers in Pakistan.
There are 5,500 channels and over 84,000 videos with the hashtag “pakistanireactiononindia” on YouTube. The number of channels that IndiaToday.In has been tracking since November 2023 has increased by 1,000 in just six months. Over 5,000 videos have been added with the hashtag since November.
We are talking about just one hashtag here, there are several other India-related content that any Indian would have come across while scrolling through shorts and videos on YouTube.
The boom in this content by Pakistani YouTubers has sparked a “Praise India” movement in Pakistan.
Seeing is believing, especially when it comes to YouTube.
So, try typing “#Pakistani” into YouTube’s search bar. The first few results are “Pakistani Reaction,” “Pakistani Reaction on India,” “Pakistani Public Reaction,” and other content related to India.
Even #PakistaniDrama, one of Pakistan’s biggest cultural exports, is trending less than #PakistaniReaction in anger.
What are the pro-India videos being made by Pakistanis?
Immediately after the Indian team’s win against the United States, a ton of videos were posted by Pakistani YouTubers praising the Indian team.
While cricket is one of the more popular sports, the “praise India” videos range from India’s economic strength to its infrastructure, from its gastronomy to its space program, and even feature Pakistanis expressing amazement at the incredible discoveries they made on their first visit to India.
It’s got it all: Indian shopping malls, highways, airports, college campuses, cars, bikes and even Pakistani reaction clips to every top 10 video featuring golgappas.
As the frenzy for attention intensifies, some of the videos have turned hilarious. Moreover, some YouTube channels have responded to tutorial videos for Indian UPSC civil service aspirants.
One of the most talked about videos is “Guess the City.”
A YouTuber shows high-resolution, cinematic aerial photos of an Indian city and asks participants to guess where the city is located.
Uninformed Pakistanis would usually answer Dubai or Singapore, but the host would call out “wrong!” and give a hint: it’s a neighboring country.
Yet most of our participants say Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong, and are pleasantly surprised when they hear Bangalore.
Indians love the look of shock and awe on the faces of bewildered Pakistanis.
Why are Pakistanis making these “praise India” videos?
There are obvious economic reasons behind Pakistan’s Praise India campaign.
India is a much larger country than Pakistan and has a higher internet penetration rate.
“Many of these YouTubers are aware that their market is in India. As a result, many of them target their content at an Indian audience and praise India or feature Indian topics to get more clicks,” Tilak Debashar, author of several books on Pakistan and member of the National Security Advisory Council, told ANI in a discussion.
Commenting on the trend, Debasher said: “While I acknowledge that some of these shows are genuine, many others are simply trying to grab ratings from Indian viewers. Many of these people are doing it because YouTube is paying them.”
As of January 2024, there are 111 million internet users in Pakistan. As of the beginning of this year, the Islamic Republic’s internet penetration rate was 45.7% of the total population.
The Indian market is seven times larger.
As of January 2024, India has 751.5 million internet users, with internet penetration of 52.4% of the total population. This is in addition to the huge number of Indians residing in the US, Australia, UK and other European and Middle Eastern countries.
In an economy where clicks mean money, it’s a huge market that Pakistanis are making the most of.
According to American social media analytics site Social Blade, the channel “Sana Amjad,” hosted by a former journalist, has an estimated monthly income of between $17,000 and $26,600. In comparison, the average monthly income of a typical Pakistani is just $300.
“The India praising act works on two levels. YouTubers know their market is in India. They say good things about India, they praise India, it’s to get more clicks from India. I’m not saying all of them do it, but certainly some do,” Ajay Bisaria, former High Commissioner to Pakistan, said during the discussion.
The more serious types, Bisalia said, have a genuine respect for India and will seriously discuss its achievements.
“There are people who speak seriously, based on facts and figures, about India reaching the moon, or that India is on its way to becoming the third largest economy. It is a sincere compliment,” Ajay Bisaria said.
Since people of India and Pakistan share cultural elements and language, it is much easier for Pakistani YouTubers to create content about India, and for Indians, it is easy to engage with and consume such content.
What Indians say on Pakistani YouTube channels
Shashank, a Gurugram-based design professional who follows several such Pakistani YouTubers, said the phenomenon began during the coronavirus lockdown.
“It started with podcasts on the history of the Indian subcontinent and cricket commentary. Initially, the content was quite good,” Shashank told IndiaToday.In. “Over time, a pattern emerged and some of the content started becoming slightly chauvinistic,” he added.
Shashank said there is a kind of curiosity between the people of the two countries that leads to watching such YouTube videos.
When it comes to reaction videos, Pakistani Reacts was one of the earliest channels to enter the space, building on Jaby Koay’s reaction channel on all things Indian. Jaby Koay is an American who pioneered YouTube reactions to Indian films and songs.
For Prakar, like many other Indians, his first interest was in analysis videos of Pakistan cricketers Rashid Latif, Salman Butt and Waheed Khan.
“But over time, content started being produced on a massive scale, and videos started generating a ton of reaction videos. I was seeing Pakistanis reacting to all kinds of Indian content, from cricket to songs, vlogs and street food,” Prakar, a Gurugram resident, told IndiaToday.
A few years after the lockdown, the Pakistani reaction video scene on YouTube has exploded, with a huge number of videos being created and watched every day, especially by people living in India and Indians living in the US, Canada and Europe.
Dozens of Pakistanis, including Real entertainment tv, Sana Amjad, Naila Pakistani Reaction, News Views and Updates, Tatla Family, Supari Reacts, Nimra Ahmad Official, etc., regularly produce such YouTube videos.
Sohaib Choudhury is an energetic and outspoken man whose Real Entertainment TV channel has over 1 million subscribers on YouTube where he shares reaction videos on social issues, current events and world affairs. Choudhury describes himself as an activist and focuses on the political situation in India.
Run by Lahore-based brother-sister duo Iman and Moazzam, the channel News Views and Updates is a show where the brother and sister sit down and react to the happenings in India.
it is Opening of Bandra-Worli Sea Link in MumbaiUPSC Mock Interview Videos, or PM Modi’s swearing-in ceremony Iman and Moazzam, along with their almost 600,000 subscribers, are watching it all.
They also currently run a vlog channel with 100,000 subscribers.
One of the most popular channels in this genre is that of former journalist Sana Amjad. Sana’s content is primarily shot from the streets of Punjab, Pakistan, and she is known for featuring some of the most viral videos on YouTube Shorts.
A video of a Pakistani man desperately pleading, “Sir Humain, PM Modi please” has gone viral on Sana Amjad’s channel.
India-related content created by Pakistanis becomes a big hit
The number of views of these videos speaks to their popularity on YouTube. The comments sections of these videos are flooded with Indians, most of which are taunts and jokes, showing how well the “Praise India” content is reaching its target audience.
Sana Amjad’s channel posts two to three videos every day to its 100,000 subscribers.
Shayla Khan’s Naira Pakistan posted another video after Friday’s rain-abandoned match. It knocked Pakistan out of the T20 World Cup. The video, titled “Pakistan team eliminated from T20 World Cup”, shows Pakistanis in tears over their country’s cricket team’s performance. The video shows the intense reaction of Pakistanis.
“She asks interesting questions to the people. It’s entertainment for Indians so it’s a very interesting and good channel,” commented one Indian user, among a mountain of Indian comments.
On an average, the Naila Pakistani Reaction channel publishes around two videos per day, each garnering over 100,000 views. The reaction video filmed after India’s defeat of Pakistan in the T20 World Cup has garnered over 1.5 million views.
The partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 divided Indians and Pakistanis with barbed wire and suspicion, but these praising India videos, a direct result of the internet economy, serve to demystify the two nations’ shared history — and do so with a healthy dose of Pakistani humor, for which they’re known.
Research collaboration with Priyanjali Narayan
