There are very few scholarly endeavours that have focused Pakistan-India partition and their ongoing conflict from an indigenous theoretical lens. A psycho-cultural paradigm has been used in this article to re-examine and reconceptualize the enduring two-Nations theory -a political ideology, which manifests Hindu-Muslim discord in the Indian Subcontinent by construing both communities as distinct nations based on their inherent ethno-religious and civilizational differences. Considering a very complex process of mass conversion, assimilation, and criss-crossing of caste-system between both groups, this article argues that it is theoretically problematic to differentiate between Hindus and Muslims purely on ethno-religious grounds. Given the significant impact of the institution of family on the lives of the Subcontinental people, regardless of their faith -I propose that it can be more explanatory to categorize both groups as competing branches of a joint family, to understand the construction of political ideology of two-Nations theory in familial terms. This article seeks to clarify the theoretical mechanism through which the family-level ideas can shape peoples' worldview, informing the way they perceive abstract concepts such as group-conflict and the nation, thus impacting their political thoughts.Author Comments:I would not miss a chance to extend my gratitude to the publication team who managed to get my article reviewed by so worthy reviewers that helped much developing it into a far better version. Secondly, i was wondering that during resubmission process I did not include the first submission. I am pretty sure that the publication team must have it. Please let me know to upload the first manuscript if needed by the worthy reviewers. Thanks

Despite use of terms such as “siblings” or “brothers from the same mother (India)”, there have been few or no attempts to explain the wide-ranging sentiments associated with India-Pakistan rivalry from a theoretical perspective. A cross-disciplinary approach has been employed in this article to re-examine and reconceptualize the existing landscape of Pakistan-India conflict. An interpersonal conflict model has been used to theorize the emotions found in their bilateral relations which have often been neglected or marginalized while studying their obsessive rivalry with each other. Despite testing the troublesome dyad of these nation-states on diametrically opposite ethnic or religious grounds, this article categorizes Pakistan and India as former family members who parted ways in 1947. The article explains different phases of an interpersonal conflict model and clarifies how the emotional climate associated with these phases could be transposed to intergroup and interstate levels of conflicts between communities who lived together for centuries, and engage them in a perpetual rivalry.

Despite common use of the term "sibling-rivalry" for Hindu-Muslim conflict in British India, there are few or no attempts to explain this phenomenon from a proper theoretical foci. By employing an indigenous interpersonal conflict model, this article seeks to examine Hindu-Muslim conflict in the pre-partition period. This draws on the dynamics of intimate rivalry among family members to explain Hindu-Muslim conflict dynamics from a fresh psychocultural perspective. The institution of joint-family is the most pervasive and the most influential institution in the subcontinent shaping certain views regarding the functioning of other institutions in society; including in the political sphere. People use the concrete knowledge learned inside their families to reason about more abstract phenomena such as group conflict. Therefore, the conflict dynamics associated with the family institution are extrapolated onto intergroup conflicts.