Follow the People to Peace

Pakistani painter Salima Hashmi relates a story about an art seminar she participated in, organised by Japanese artists. She recalls the hosts eyeing her and the Indian delegate with some apprehension as they descended the hotel lift together. "They were obviously wondering when hostilities would break out," she laughs. "We reassured them and told them that if anything, we would be ganging up against them – which we did, because of the colonial way they had organised the event."

An Indian diplomat once confided that whenever he attends an international seminar, he asks to room with a Pakistani. "We like the same food, same music, speak the same language..." Even those serving in the armed forces of India and Pakistan bond with colleagues across the border. Senior retired officers, alumni of a military college in Dehra Doon, have since 1996 had at least three reunions in India and in Pakistan – although retired military personnel, and even their children, are not usually eligible for visas.

Cynics may dismiss such meetings as being easy for those who are no longer in service. But their involvement is significant precisely because it involves overcoming the indoctrination that is part of serving in the armed forces. The desire for contact with colleagues across the border is stronger than the indoctrination of years in service and active combat against the ‘enemy’ country – many have been decorated for valour while fighting against the other country.

Tellingly, the ban on even retired army officers visas remains in place for those outside the ambit of group meetings. Waiving it for special occasions reinforces the basic hypocrisies and inequities of the system: ordinary people wanting to visit each other’s countries as individuals are prevented from doing so. That they want to do so is obvious by the fact that all forms of transport crossing the border go fully booked, even in times of conflict.

Since the formation of the Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy, a private initiative that has been working for people-to-people dialogue since 1995, hundreds of ordinary people from both countries have come together, in Delhi, Lahore, Peshawar, Calcutta, Bangalore. Many become members primarily for this reason. Getting visas through the ordinary process is a nightmare.

The respective governments grudgingly grant visas and give the basic permissions to facilitate the meetings, like allowing border-crossing on foot (not among the three ‘approved’ means of border-crossing: air, train and since 1999, bus), a relaxation that allows Forum members, most of whom pay their own way, can travel cheaply.

International pressure may account for this cooperation but it surely also has much to do with the politicians’ own desire for peace – we forget that they are, after all, people too. Locked in the rhetoric of politics, they can’t bring themselves to publicly take on positions that they privately concede to regarding relations between the two countries.

Any point of contact between an Indian and a Pakistan has potential for bonding. Take the soldiers and guards posted at the border. At Wagah, every sunrise and sunset is greeted by an aggressive flag-raising and flag-lowering ceremony, the guards glaring at those who try to wave to people on the other side. And yet, when there is no audience and they are not performing this spectacle, the men talk to each other, even share food and other items.

My Indian friend Barka Dutt, recounts with touching honesty her experience of reporting at Kargil printed in the June issue of Himal South Asian (www.himalmag.com). She talks about the Kargil war, "a theatre of contradiction that embraced courage and fear, head and heart. The very men who scoffed at your suggestion that the neurosis in the India-Pakistan love-hate relationship may yet subside, would in the next breath regale you with stories of bonding sessions with the ‘enemy’ across the border." Like those of a Sardar earlier posted as a commander at the Punjab border: "his counterpart across the fence had smuggled him across the border one evening, whisked him away in a car with tinted windows and given him the grand tour of Lahore. In return, the Pakistani had wondered if his wife might one day be smuggled across in the same way and taken shopping to the saree boutiques of Amritsar. ‘I couldn’t return the favour,’ the Sardar said regretfully. Others piped in with similar anecdotes of cigarettes and books shared at the post..."

Such bonding is not limited to those who have families on the other side, or who share a common language or alma mater. I remember the West Bengali student activist from Calcutta. Her family has They no ties to the land that is now Pakistan – and yet she wept with emotion when she came to Lahore for the first time, part of the women’s ‘bus’ delegation led by Nirmala Despande in the spring of 2000. Barkha and I, listening to the woman after woman talk about what this visit meant to her, had trouble keeping our own tears back. "Do we report, or do we participate?" we asked each other. We ended up doing both.

By the end of the same meeting, an engineering student in Lahore who was volunteering, had become friends with the younger participants. He has no family, no ties in India, no partition baggage. In fact, he confessed that until now, he had hated India and Indians. So what made him volunteer? Curiosity, he said. He had never met an Indian before. And now he knew that ‘they’ were people, just like ‘us’. "I don’t agree with a lot of their policies," he added. "But at least we can talk about our disagreements." There were tears on both sides as he and his new friends said goodbye at the end of an intense three days.

Not all interaction is emotional. The customs officials who make the lives of travelers hell on the ironically (or prohetically) named Samjhauta (Concilitation) Express that plies between Attari and Lahore, have it all worked out. Friend and colleague Mazhar Zaidi found that corrupt customs officials on both sides unhesitatingly accept mutually untradeable ‘enemy currency’. Apparently there is an exchange afterwards, and the booty is shared to mutual benefit.

But just think of all the mutual benefits there would be if the rulers of both countries actually started leading their people to peace instead of hostility. Think, as Isa Daudpota, a friend in Islamabad urges, of Pakistan and India as ‘buddies’. In a recent letter to various newspapers, he predicts: "Leaders of South Asia may delay the reconciliation and friendship among their people, but it will come!"

"To loosen up for the mid-July Musharraf-Vajpai meeting," he suggests, "try dreaming a bit. Imagine a joint South Asian cricket team, just as they have in the West Indies! This seems outlandish, but the great Caribbean cricketers do it. Think of a common market for this region. Think of students from Pakistan going South, rather than North, to study information technology and many areas of science and technology. We could have the incomparable Lata Mangeshkar in Pakistan and the Indians can get Abida Parveen to sing down there whenever they wish. Our agriculturists could learn from each other's mistakes and be able to put a strong joint front against the Neem and Basmati patent robbers who wish to deprive us of our traditional resources."

Of course there is, as Isa points out, "the big stumbling block", Kashmir - both the Pakistani and Indian parts. "For a while, in the heat of July, let's think of Kashmiris as just humans wishing to lead peaceful lives. Forget that they are Hindus, Sikhs, Christians or Muslims. Let them be free to live as they wish, and don't covet them and their land. If division is necessary let that happen too. Do that soon - in July. Don't spend years around roundtables getting fat on conference food."

At a conference in Islamabad last July, organised by The News, top print and television journalists from the most powerful Indian and Pakistani media organisations met face to face – barely a year after Kargil. Throughout the formal as well informal interactions, participants condemned the media’s role in fueling hostilities between their countries, and reiterated that in order for an atmosphere to be created that could lead to peace, the media needs to change how it covers the ‘other’. After the closing dinner, General Musharraf addressed the gathering then opened the floor for questions. Bharat Bhushan, a senior Indian journalist muttered: "Not a good move. All this goodwill will disappear." Sure enough, most questions – from Indian and Pakistani journalists – were geared towards extracting a response geared towards the next day’s headlines rather than promoting understanding.

But blame for misunderstandings and tensions cannot be laid at the door of the media alone. The media does play an important role in shaping perceptions, but they also have to ‘report’. And there’s not much positive to report when it comes to politicians, who either keep silent on the issue of relations with the other country, or use it as a scapegoat for all their problems. And yet, privately, politicians on both sides express a desire for peace and its ensuing economic benefits for the entire region – and yet they keep silent in public.

It’s time they followed the people in the quest for peace. Lift visa restrictions, allow publications, music, and movies to be legally marketed... The future is there for all to see. Do our leaders, self-appointed or elected, have the vision and courage to make it happen?