A veteran chowkie (now MIA) hailing from India had introduced me to Chowk in October 99, and I am eternally grateful. While I might not describe my time as ‘happy’ on chowk given my own personal intolerance for the intolerant, but underneath all the sneers, name-calling and bigotry, one finds the essence of chowk, which is freedom. The kind of unfettered freedom without any checks and restrictions which if used (and believe me) negatively can be dangerous in real life, but perhaps we all realized at some level that the Cyberworld is not the real world. For the easily provoked (including me), however this too can be hazardous. Nevertheless this freedom necessitated a sense of responsibility which many cultivated over time, and many tried and failed. The achievement of Chowk was its perseverance despite those who didn’t.

Though it was left to take its own unique personality, Chowk served better than anything else in the Cyber-realm as a forum for people to people contact amongst the two nuclear rivals Pakistan and India. Yet its biggest success was its biggest failure. Many impressionable young net-surfers who joined this website at tender young ages have gone away with a bitter taste in the mouth. One can easily discern this bitterness in my own writings. There are many like me on both sides of the border in South Asia, who came to Chowk for a deeper understanding and appreciation of Pakistan and India, but who left with a deep feeling of disgust and hatred for each other’s countries. We are all guilty of creating such hate. What can we possibly achieve by insulting each other? What possible benefit will we get by insulting Pakistan or India? How would our petty and pathetic attempts at insulting our respective founding fathers change or alter their achievements and failures? Will dissecting the two nation theory change the fact Pakistan exists? The debates about Jinnah and Gandhi, and the two nation theory are academic exercises which should be carried out with facts, sources and figures and not on baseless speculations about what Gandhi did with his grand nieces, or Jinnah’s motives behind making Pakistan. Ultimately the democratic framework requires tolerance of all opinions and views except intolerance. This means that as long as they don’t advocate the murder of innocent civilians for their harmless personal opinions, all inclusive, Pakistani Nationalists, Indian Nationalists, Hinduvtists, Islamists, South Asianists, globalists, isolationists, Kashmiri Separatists etc should be tolerated. Pakistan and India are lands of diverse yet narrow outlooks with respect to religion, race, and ethnicity. India’s first Prime Minister Nehru had late in his life concluded ‘each person’s idea of nationalism is his own brand. When we bring democracy and open the door of opportunity to everyone, this outlook brings about group conflict. You may well have described Hindu communalism as Hindu Nationalism, and Muslim communalism as Muslim Nationalism.’ So let us accept this and seek Unity in diversity, both in our respective countries, and here on chowk. The tolerance of diversity not just in national and sub-national groups but ideologies will ultimately clear the way for peace, and the peace dividend is too high to miss out on. I, as a patriot of Pakistan, can only favor peace, for only peace is the sole guarantor of Pakistan’s welfare.

Perhaps for those Pakistanis who use the Gujurat carnage (and other communal riots in Modern India) to establish some esoteric point about the Two Nation theory it would be worthwhile thinking about the sectarian violence, the church bombings, and the massacre of East-Pakistanis/Bangladeshis by our brave and bold ‘Muslim’ Army. Is the murder of a Muslim at the hands of a Muslim at any level better than the murder of a Muslim at the hands of a Hindu? And for those Indians who point to Pakistan’s short comings it won’t be a futile exercise to consider the Gujurat Carnage, Bombay riots and slow rise of right wing Hinduvtist forces. India and Pakistan are blasted 24/7 on each other’s media and in each other's movies? When will we learn. When will jingoistic garbage movies like Ghaddar and Musalman stop being 'Blockbusters' and 'Superhits'. I, for one, was thoroughly disgusted when three eloquent Government officials from the foreign ministry lambasted the Indian Government for not living up to its claim of secularism. I have no love lost for India, but hello! Pakistan is a self proclaimed Islamic Republic which over the last 20 years has moved closer to theocracy. The wisdom of the sages suggests: ‘Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones at others’. No tragedy should be used as stick to beat the other with. It is high time intellectuals on both sides stopped castigating the other side. The Sumit Gangulys and Nasim Zehras of India and Pakistan would be much more productive if they sought to undo the ills of their own nations. Otherwise they should be boycotted Indians and Pakistanis respectively. It is about time the Ardeshir Cowasjees, Najam Sethis, Farzana Verseys and Arundhati Roys took over as the genuine voices of Pakistan and India.

I don’t wish to give the impression that I am absolving myself of all the blame. I am not an angel and I am equally responsible, but by the same token I feel that my pride in being a Pakistani and the love I feel for my country is often the reason some mischief mongers would want to provoke me into this unstoppable cycle. What I feel for my country will never go away so if that bothers you, it just ain’t going away. I am still unable to understand why must a harmless wish like ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ bite any non-Pakistani. In less than 2 weeks Pakistan and India will celebrate their 56th Birthday. Perhaps a little soul searching for every chowkie is in order. ‘Love thy neighbor’ is a battered commandment when it comes to our two countries. Instead let us enact ‘be indifferent to thy neighbor’ in South Asia. Let all Pakistanis be more concerned about their Non-Muslim Pakistani brethren, than their Gujurati co-religionists. If I were an Indian my advice to my countrymen would have been ‘Forget about the Jamaat-e-Islami, think RSS’.

With these words of Jinnah ‘The past must be buried and let us start afresh. I wish Hindustan prosperity and peace’, I am turning a new leaf, to live and let live, with the sincere hope that a new era of Peaceful and Non-Violent indifference may begin between our two countries.