Defy the Divide, Unite For Peace

10 students from all across the country recently went to Karachi to attend the 6th Joint Conference of the Pakistan India People’s Forum. We had an amazing time and interacted with a lot of young people from Pakistan. In between doing a play, late night drives to the sea view, eating Student’s biryani we came out with a youth declaration on peace and charted out an action plan.

Pakistan India people’s Forum for Peace and Democracy


STUDENT DECLARATION



This declaration is the result of three days of interaction between college students from Pakistan and India during the sixth PIPFPD meeting held in Karachi from 12-14 December 2003.

As students, we are deeply concerned about the following points:

1. Primacy is given to military expenditure in state budgets over health and education. This limits people’s access to education and diminishes the quality of our educational systems.

2. Fundamentalist groups on both sides of the border use primary education as a tool for spreading their extremist propaganda, specifically through establishment of institutions such as Shishu Mandirs and the misuse of some Madrasas by extremist groups. We contend that the increasing popularity of such establishments could, in part, be a result of the poor quality of primary educational facilities provided by both the governments.

3. Within the government schooling systems in both the countries historical facts are systematically distorted in school textbooks. This has had the pernicious effect of biasing children’s minds and breeding enmity between the people of the two nations.

4. Extremist groups in both countries systematically target the younger generation in their ongoing effort to reinforce or distort traditional identities by imposing conservative norms on student dress codes, cultural programs etc. This assumes special significance in the current era of globalization, as these efforts are directed to specifically counter the increased merging of boundaries and identities.

5. The paucity of information pertaining to past and ongoing peace initiatives which if existent would have the positive effect of familiarizing young minds with the need for peace.

6. The impediments to free movements of students which result primarily due to the administrative bottlenecks between both countries relating to issue of visas, grant of permits etc.








We suggest the following activities as a starting point in our attempt to create friendly interaction between the two peoples.

1. The creation of a youth chapter of the PIPFPD to promote the interests of the students of both countries.

2. The organization of a petition drive appealing for regularized and more convenient visa procedure for students.

3. The creation of a web site that informs and initiates interested people into email groups and such other online forums that would establish convenient contact between the youth of the two nations. This would also ensure transparency and create an accessible space for the voicing of honest opinions of the people from both sides (as opposed to the messages fed to us by the media and the politicians).

4. The initiation of student / staff exchanges between the two countries so as to familiarize us with varied cultural perspectives. Concurrently, the organization of college fests, sports meets, competitive events, treks etc which will enable interaction between the student communities from both nations.

5. The creation of an extensive list of persons (with all relevant contact information) who would be happy to host student visitors thereby providing them an authentic travel experience while furthering interaction between people from both countries.

6. The creation and wide distribution of a comic /illustrated series that will satirize the ill effects of the distortion of historical facts in the textbooks of both countries.

7. The active enlistment and provision of financial aid / scholarships by South Asian institutes of higher education to students belonging to SAARC countries so as to integrate the South Asian students and promote cooperation between them.

8. The highlighting of peace initiatives between India and Pakistan in students’ curricula as a component of larger holistic approach to peace studies.

9. The organization of an Oslo-style peace conclave for student in neutral territory where the negotiators are entirely from India, Pakistan and Kashmir. Further, representatives from a non-partisan third country would facilitate such a peace conclave.