Why Have This Train At All?

tahmed32/160 - for somebody who said that this article should be ignored, you seem to be all over the place as the most frequent interactor. Thanks, again and have a nice day - I was hoping you would spot the usage of the word ``pilgrim`` and go for it, but I guess you are getting better? No hard feelings . . .

#161 actually, i am ignoring the article (which i havent read), and am here simply because the discussion on the samjhauta express is here. i dont know what this ``pilgrim`` business you write about is and what you are trying to say in that last sentence...but then, i always have had trouble trying to figure out what you are trying to say... :-)

Re: # 160 ustaad, you spoken like a hypocrite! Why not read the rest of the interact before hitting the reply button?

As I said talk and words are cheap in the subcontinent (cheaper then life), I should have added even amongs the diaspora!

#163 as well (was missing at the end)

#163 why do you find it so hard to beleive that someone who does not join you in casting aside the samjhauta express outrage by saying ``so what? A train got burnt`` is anything but a hypocrite?

i read the rest of your post. that simply tries to expands on why you think anyone paying attention to the samjhauta express is out of line. so, i didnt miss anything when i skipped the rest of your post first time.

This is a good article on the subject.

Faruk



http://www.indianexpress.com/story/23773._.html

Saeed Naqvi

Posted online: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email

Saeed Naqvi




Intimations of mortality is what I would put it down to, this recent procession of friends who have died and whose ashes have had to be immersed in Hardwar or holy rivers elsewhere. Obviously these were Hindus.

A Muslim death, if one can trace down one’s ancestry a few generations, is a rather more territorial affair. An Indian Muslim, if he can help it, likes to be buried in his ‘native’ place. Since Justice Sachar has confirmed Indian Muslims as being a financially embarrassed lot, transporting the deceased from the location of his or her expiry is a huge inconvenience to relatives who are committed to fulfilling the wishes of the dead and of abiding by traditions. This reverie on ashes and graves has been triggered by the terrorist attack on the Samjhauta Express, which transports passengers from Delhi to Lahore and the other way round.

The terminals for this train being Delhi and Lahore creates the impression that it represents some durable system of sustaining people-to-people contact between the two countries. People-to-people, in the Indo-Pak context, would conjure up images of a burgeoning Hindu-Muslim jamboree. This is a huge misunderstanding about the Samjhauta Express, attacked by the terrorists on Sunday night killing almost 70.

Most of those killed were Muslims, both Indians and Pakistanis, returning from relatives in India or travelling to relatives in Pakistan. Some Hindus died too but these were mostly jawans of the Government Railway Protection Force. Their death sheds further light on the Samjhauta Express tragedy.

One of the oozing sores Partition left behind were divided Muslim families. As far as Hindus and Sikhs are concerned the transfer of populations was bloody but total.

The tragedy of Muslims has been of a different order, particularly the Muslims from UP, Bihar and Hyderabad. These families did not migrate en masse. Most were torn apart: parents in India; children in Pakistan. Brothers in India; sisters, married to men with a future on the other side, in Pakistan. An uncle of mine, a captain in the British Indian army actually placed a measuring tape on a map of undivided India to see if Bombay (where he was posted) and Karachi were the same distance from our village of Mustafabad, near Rae Bareli. They were. He moved to Karachi where generals and brigadiers of his acquaintance promised him the moon in the new Islamic state.

Mohajirs (or immigrants) were trapped in all sorts of ironies because this rather ambitious uncle of mine retired and died with no higher rank than that of a major! I am not for a moment suggesting that he would have made it as the army chief had he stayed on in India. The point I am making is that the destination as El Dorado soured as a dream for many Muslims who crossed over. Muslims from the most effete enclaves of India had to make the near impossible adjustment in the hegemonic hold of the energetic Punjabi.

It is largely these Muslims, poor souls, who populated the Samjhauta Express both ways. In a sense it is not a ‘samjhauta’ but a sort of ‘majboori’ or a ‘compulsory’ express. The Monabao-Khokrapar route in Rajasthan-Sindh and the Attari-Wagah train in Punjab have been in operation since soon after Partition, subject to the usual stoppages conditioned by fluctuations in political temperatures between the countries.

Initially, those who had crossed over to Karachi and Hyderabad in Sindh imagined (as did some of the earlier Congress leaders) that Partition was a temporary inconvenience and soon folks would move to and fro like in some imaginary Schengen visa regime. The opposite happened. Attitudes hardened as the two new nation states secured the contours of their distinct nationalisms. The two nations fought several wars, transforming that magical vale of Kashmir into a continuously muffled wail. Since 1989, not so muffled either. It was against this tragic backdrop that the poor on both sides clutched onto the only valuable, they had been left with — relatives on both sides of the border. This is where the Samjhauta Express comes in handy. And now is this thread too being snapped?

There are various categories of people who travel between India and Pakistan. The seminarists, track-two professionals and the rich fly. This costs Rs 15,000. The Delhi-Lahore-Delhi bus costs Rs 900 each way. Both these methods of transport are beyond the means of those for whom relatives are the primary emotional anchor in life — the poorest Muslims on both sides. The Samjhauta fare is Rs 120.

It is these poor lives that have been lost in a macabre incineration of the two coaches.

The Godhra train tragedy had a political consequence. After the tragedy and subsequent mayhem, Narendra Modi won the elections in Gujarat. Before the tragedy, the BJP was routed in UP.

What consequences might one expect from this tragedy? Either the authors of this ghastly act have been so subtle as to leave us all totally baffled. Or, they have been so foolishly transparent as to make their target crystal clear: the Indo-Pak peace process. Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri was to arrive the next day. The pundits, of course, will get down to sequencing — Baghliar, Sir Creek, Siachen, Kashmir, the joint mechanism — each one of them sunk in deep thought.

Time was when one could consider New Delhi-Srinagar, India-Pakistan as one complex of issues. The lens now pans a much wider canvas. Americans are stuck in

Iraq, Afghanistan. Heaven knows what is in store for Iran. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India is

one contiguous belt. Is Indo-Pak peace possible in the midst of such regional volatility?

If this bilateral matter is not extricated from the blazes, then what hope for the great Indian surge? Under this huge canopy of strategic issues is being played out an existential drama in the life of Salma whose husband is buried in her UP village, father in Karachi. Where should she turn for the burial of her sister? And what of those poor constables, escorting the train, who were charred along with the passengers whose security they were supposed to oversee. How could they have escaped when the coaches of the Samjhauta are sealed in Delhi and unsealed in Attari — the quest for security resulting in its exact opposite.

Naqvi is a Delhi- based commentator

#166 by Faruk on February 21, 2007 8:13am PT


the people travelling on the ``samjhauta`` express have absolutely no say on the foreign policy of either country...as it is, the pakis are demanding that this train be given the level of security that`s not provided on any other train in India...so time to put the train out of everyone`s misery...

The incident will never fade out of the memories of sensitive people of both countries. The worst hit community is of course the Urdu speaking ethnic group living on both sides of border. The great tragedy is that most of the Urdu speaking families are divided by partition. If a father is living in India then his children are in Pakistan and vice versa. They have to visit their relatives at any cost. The hurdles faced by them in this whole travelling process is gruesome.

Most of them live in Urban Sindh but have to travel all the way to Islamabad for gettig Visa which is often denied. Then for travelling they again have to come to Lahore to board the Samjhota express. There shud be Visa office in Karachi and Thar express shud run daily. Samjhota can be closed down then.

I think India should scrap this Train and Lahore Bus and only retain the Nankana Sahib bus(because it is religious).

Most of the these Pakistanis who come on this train come with the intention of bringing goods and smuggling. Why even bother?

Instead India should focus on rich Pakistanis who travel by Air. There is more room to make money from such toursits, we already have enough poor why even bother with Poor Pakistanis.

Root causes are as old as hills. Hatred and anger blindening the
eyes from seeing another as human being, nay one self as human being.

In the name of religion breeding intolerance, and in the guise of
justice seething vengeance, and in the name of setting things right
blundering all over, has become less of an exception and more of a norm.

The maxim of live and let live, sadly seems to have been replaced by
kill and get killed. How many more tears have to be shed before the tree
of peace takes root?!

delhiwala: you are a macaca too!! how disappointing. :-(

Re: # 170
tolkinin, your lament

``The maxim of live and let live, sadly seems to have been replaced by
kill and get killed. How many more tears have to be shed before the tree
of peace takes root?! ``

Is a cry, we have all been crying for long now. As ou say ``Root causes are as old as hills.``, and since that age, the tree of peace has never taken root - this merely an observation. Maybe, as long as there are hills, the tree of peace will never take root. But when the hills disappear, what is there left for the tree to take root on? That is an interesting thought, atleast from my point of view.

Re: # 171
Tahmed Saab: I am only saying what makes sense economically. You should see what kind of people travel in this horrible train full of passengers who are like caged animals.

I am not saying that India should not have any relationship with Pakistan, but we should start with rich travellers first as it would make more money for Indians and Pakistanis.
What is wrong with that?

Re: # 159 what a pompous AH?

Re: # 173
Also, if this train continues, it will always be a threat to India-Pakistan friendship and Pakistan will always blame India, leading to more trouble.

That is why scrapping this train and look for other alternatives is a better suggestion(maybe I should havementioned before).

option 1) Have a World class border on Wagah where they can screen people and their luggage with state of the technology like in USA. Passengers can cross on foot and tak buses on their own in India and Pakistan. If a passenger gets killed in other country then it is not Govt`s responsibility.

option 2) Let people travel through Air and let that be the only diembarkation port. Why not?

#173 #75 Dilli dillidost

Do all india cares just b/c dead are of Pakistan or /and of different faith


Terror victims that BJP forgot
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, Feb. 20: Steeped in what they call the cultural essence of their ideology, all senior BJP leaders are sticklers for rituals of any kind.

They dutifully attend marriages and engagements, promptly offer condolences and are almost always the first to visit victims of any tragedy.

Yet no senior BJP leader has cared to visit the Samjhauta Express victims or their families.

Not Atal Bihari Vajpayee, not party president Rajnath Singh. L.K. Advani (in picture), usually the most serious about such visits, did not make the trip from his Prithviraj Road residence to Safdarjung Hospital, less than 5 km away.

After the 2003 Mumbai bombings, Advani had been one of the first politicians to visit the blast site at the Gateway of India and enquire after the injured at JJ Hospital. After last July’s train mayhem, he was again quick to visit the injured at King Edward Hospital.

Is the BJP not interested this time because most of the identified victims happen to be Muslims from Pakistan?

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi bristled at the question. “What do you mean, no senior leader visited the victims? I went to the (blast) site today, so did Vijay Kumar Malhotra and Sahib Singh. The BJP president has formed a three-member team to inquire into the tragedy.”

Rajnath’s public show of concern has so far been limited to an attack on the Centre’s “soft policy” on terror at a news conference yesterday.

Malhotra, too, returned from the spot this afternoon only to launch a tirade against the government for being “soft on terror”. He spoke hardly a word on the victims or the trauma of their families.

...