Sharif's daughter's persuasion a strong reason behind his visit, know all about Maryam Nawaz

New Delhi: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's daughter, Maryam on Saturday hoped for a new start of peaceful Indo-Pak relations, saying both the countries should bury the enmity & start afresh. Maryam wrote on micro-blogging website Twitter - “Why India and Pakistan have to be the prisoners of the past? Should bury the enmity & start afresh.” Pakistani Prime Minister’s daughter Maryam is not just a pretty face but she also happens to be very close confidante of her father. Among those who pressed Sharif to accept the invitation to attend the swearing-in ceremony was Sharif's daughter Maryam Nawaz Sharif, a politician of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz).

"I personally think cordial relations with new Indian government should be cultivated. It will help remove psychological barriers, fear and misgivings," Maryam Sharif tweeted a day ago. After her father accepted the invite, she tweeted today: "Aggression is easy to start but difficult to end... Brutality and force are tools of the immoral ... " on the hashtag pakindiarelations, PTI reported. Former Pakistan envoy to the US Sherry Rehman had tweeted on May 21: "It won't change the game, not yet, but PM Sharif may start an important journey for India and Pakistan by accepting Modi's invite for oath-taking. Speaking to an English news channel, Maryam today said, “Both Prime Ministers will have to rise to people's aspirations.” “Heartening to see paradigm shift in thought process,” she added on being getting a invitation from Narendra Modi. Maryam added, “The real test of visionary leadership & true statesmanship lies not in picking fights & imperiling innocent lives, but to prevent them.”

Maryam had been preparing for a political role all her life. She has a Ph.D. on post-9/11 radicalization in Pakistan, she’s fluent in four languages (including Arabic), chairs the family’s charity organizations, and devours post-colonial literature. As part of her political rollout, Maryam propagates the cause of education and women’s rights. Her back story is familiar, and fascinating. Fourteen months after her father’s government was ousted by Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Oct. 12, 1999, Maryam and 22 members of her family were packed off to Saudi Arabia. Exile lasted seven years. Musharraf wrote in his autobiography, In the Line of Fire, that the military courts only spared Nawaz Sharif’s life because of pressure from the Saudi monarch.

Maryam had earlier said, ‘The man who once said Nawaz Sharif and his party were history, and would never be allowed to return, himself had to leave the country. Let’s call it divine retribution.’ Musharraf’s coup had thrust Maryam and especially her mother, Kalsoom, into the spotlight. With almost all the Sharif men in jail, the former first lady took over the reins of the PMLN, leading defiant, lonely protests against the Musharraf regime. Soon enough, both mother and daughter were placed under house arrest. When they gained their freedom four months later, they were running from prison to prison, hearing haplessly the charges of corruption, terrorism, and tax evasion against Nawaz Sharif.

The PMLN came back as a political force in the 2008 elections and has been roundly criticized for appearing to be soft on terrorists and sectarian groups and for failing to revive the Punjab’s economy. But Maryam champions minorities’ rights, disapproves of politicians fraternizing with banned militant organizations and she wants any organization that violates the law to be “strictly dealt with.”

Like her father, Maryam speaks passionately about the sins of military dictators. She has spoken against Musharraf for drafting Pakistan in the U.S.-led war on terror. Maraim in an interviews to Pakistani media had said, “Since General Musharraf enjoyed no legitimacy at home and no credibility abroad, he was desperate to make up for these shortcomings by handing over the country to the Americans, in the process he gained a lot, but where did it leave the country? Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives, entire villages have been laid to waste, and the scourge of militancy and terrorism are deeply afflicting the country.”