Nobel Prize for Peace sends a message to old rivals India and Pakistan

One is Muslim, the other Hindu. One a Pakistani, the other Indian. One a schoolgirl just starting out in life, the other a man with decades of experience.

Despite their many differences, Malala Yousafzai, 17, and Kailash Satyarthi, 60, will be forever linked - co-winners of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, honoured for risking their lives for the rights of children to education and to lives free of abuse. Their selection was widely acclaimed, their heroism undeniable.

But something more was at work here: In awarding the prize on Friday, the Nobel Committee also sent a message to the rival nations of India and Pakistan that if two of their citizens can work for a common goal, their governments too could do better in finding common ground.

The two nations have almost defined themselves by their staunch opposition to one another. They became enemies almost instantly upon gaining independence in 1947 from imperial Britain, and have since fought three full-scale wars over various issues, including competing claims to the Himalayan region of Kashmir that sits between them. Just this week, their troops have hurled mortar shells and fired guns at one another across the Kashmir border, with civilian casualties in double digits.

The Nobel Committee's chairman, Thorbjoern Jagland, acknowledged his panel gave the prize to Malala and Satyarthi to nudge the countries together.

"You can see that there is a lot of extremism coming from this part of the world. It is partly coming from the fact that young people don't have a future. They don't have education. They don't have a job," Jagland said. "We want to show that people in all religions can come together in a common cause."