An Indian in Pakistan

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#75 by nazarhayatkhan on April 20, 2004 0:29am PT

Yes. Another good thing is that has emerged is that most Indian hindus now appear to clearly differentiate between the terrorism unleashed on Indian citizens by the Pakistani Fauzi hukumats and the warm regard that ordinary Pakistani citizen has in recognizing the common stock of the people of this sub-continent.

correction to #80
``This is generally true of Panjab but may not be true of Sindhis outside Pakistan``
I meant Sindhis outside Karachi.

dost:

on hindus wearing qaumi libaas

in the mandirs in karachi (don`t know if you visited any)...i noticed mata written in urdu -- meem alif tey alif -- and other inscriptions as well...

at one mandir the kids ..playing cricket outside, what else!...gheraoed M and asked her `Aap kaun hO?`... wanting to ascertain if she was a hindu or a muslim...and they were quite persisitent even after hearing her reply `maiN aik insaan hooN`

rgds

t

T-the-Boss, write up is not flowing as yet, also affairs of home and office front as well as workplace, but I have my notes alright . . . am placing a separate un-censored version after clearance from some of my friends here.

Just one addition to Dost-Mittar`s interact - for a few decades now, enough Indians and Pakistanis have been visiting each other on what is called ``relative visit`` visa, the only thing is that most of these people, say about 96%, are not people like us. They are from the slightly lower ends of society, and the terminology for them on both sides of the borders is ``savaree``.

Investigating this further, I found that the implication is that these (poor?) people are couriers, even if they go to visit family, they carry commercial goods of all sorts, human flesh trade white slavery included if you please, in both directions, to offset costs or make profits. Fair enough. That`s life.

The other 4% on relative/visit visa are from the extremely upper strata of society as well as a very small number of ``middle class`` people. I can not reveal where I get these figures from.

The middle class is the one which takes the lowest amount of risks. So they don`t ravel. Even I was warned by almost 90% of my friends/well wishers not to go. I am also thinking twice before I put my real views on the trip on the Internet, and will leave out stuff that may imperil my future visits or my friends worldwide.

Based on that, I think that the last few months of a middle-class Indian deluge into Pakistan, where the price of a cricket match ticket was the entry barrier, has been un precedented.

Now how this impacts the ``K-word``, I don`t know, though I think many of the poorer Pakistanis are simply fed up of feeding the Mullahs as well as the Kashmir efforts. All I know is that these visits should have sparked some amount of debate in a greater segment of Pakistani society than the old ``savaree`` clan and drawing room clans, on a variety of other subjects like Bangladesh `71, ``other`` kind of Muslims in India, economic growth and agricultural growth in India, role of women, cost of copybooks/newspapers, education in English, availability of chemists and medical treatment, maybe even democracy with its attendant issues?

I would not be surprised if these visits re-awaken the issues behind recent conversions over the past 40-57 years too. Especially where Sikhs converted to Islam. I will expound on this soon, but over the past few weeks about 3000 Indian Sikhs were in and around Pakistan from Amritsar to Panja Sahib . . . and about a thousand Pakistani Hindus have gone to Ujjain for the Maha Kumbh . . . all by special trains which have moved well inside Indian and Pakistani territory. I have met more than a trickle of Pakistni Muslims who have come over to India to meet their relatives, some of whom are no longer Muslims, having chosen from the vast variety here.

I do not know why mainstream media does not report on this, maybe mainstream media uses airplanes only.

More . . .

veeru:

the middle class angle is interesting...

(digression: personally i think the biggest obstacle to a certain degree of normalization between the two countries is the occupying army ... but that is perhaps a minority view...so feel free to disregard it)

in addition to the middle class angle... the relations between I and P depend on (a) the two governments intentions.. we have seen the signs of the thaw after the escalation and freeze of 2002...and (b) a follow up...the cricket visit is ..if i may put it charitably just a cosmetic intrusion...let us wait and see for more concrete measures...

...let me forward another minority view...this cricket interlude is Mushy`s gift to BJP...just like Sharif `helped` his pal last time around;)

rgds,

t

ps: and having gone through the entire post with that word...i also think that it is the army`s raison d`etre...religion notwithstanding!...there!

temp#84
This was the normal thing in mandir-gurudwaras in what is now Pakistan. The names of donors to gurudwaras in Pakistan (all hindus and sikhs) are still inscribed in Urdu. Some of the old inscriptions of donors are inscribed in Urdu even inside the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
[BTW I have lost all info. on computer due to some manufacturing defect. Could you pl. email your coordinates again? Thnx]

Temporal Boss . . .

1) The middle class is growing factor Number 1 in India. For everything.

2) How about ``Occupying Armies`` in Kashmir? All three of them? Yours, ours the Chinese, the Yanks, and that is four of them three?

At Kashmir Chowk, in Pindi, the ``Srinagar-307 kms`` sign looks cute.

Romair #66
``It is interesting to now see individuals like sadna, arjunm, gujjubania etc. running around for cover, as all their arguments have been turned on their heads.``

This is what I meant on the other board. There is no way my post #43 can be interpreted the way this prime exhibit describes it unless there is real mental retardation. Between pathological lying and an iodine deficiency, the right choice is clearly the former.

Romair #66
Apparently you donot read the papers. This is a report from April 01 2004.
``Last month, Saeed was allowed to travel to Islamabad to attend the funeral prayers organised by Pakistani bureaucrat-businessman Zahoor Ahmad Awan, whose son, a Lashkar operative, was killed by Indian troops in Jammu and Kashmir. He told the assembly that the fighting in Jammu and Kashmir was ``the greatest jihad in the entire history of Islam,`` and vowed to continue warfare until ``the brutal Indian Army vacates the land of the innocent Kashmiris.``

As important, the Lashkar has again been given considerable freedom to continue building its infrastructure. In the build-up to the Id festival this month, the organisation, now operating under the new label of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, was reported to have raised Rs. 780 million from the sale of the hides of sacrificial animals donated by followers.``

Dost-Mitter # 80

(I think that the change has been more pronounced in the last 3-4 years and has particularly affected Pakistan`s civil society, i.e., English reading people)

No. I think it goes back to 10 Years or so. During the 90s, both the mainstream political parties - PPP & PML (N) tried to normalize the relations with India. But the Army stumped their efforts. Qazi Hussain of Jamaat Islami also played his part.

The smaller nationalist parties (Sind, Baluch, Pashtoon) were always for normalization. Punjab does not have any nationalist party. Like the military, it has voluntarily accepted all the responsibility for the country. The religious ideological stuff has also made more inroads into Punjab and NWFP.

Though belated, the Army itself now seems to have realized what is the sensible course. Some of the U-Turns, thankfully, were forced upon by the world community. Frankly, now there is no other option. There is an overwhelming cornering from many directions - geopolitical, internal politics, economic.

So this time it is possible that it is not a false start like many previous occasions.

veeru:

just want to make sure we are on the same page...anytime i mention occupying army i mean the one occupying what was formerly known as west pakistan...

...once that bull is shown out of our glass houses other `problems` lose their significance and can be humanely dealt with

T-Boss, yup, even I mean the armies that occupy former West Pakistan . . . have you ever wondered who now owns the products on your streets from Daewoo Heavy (Tata), Tetley Teas (Tata), Iveco-Hino (Hindujas of Ashok Leyland), Bridgestone (ACC of India) . . . etcetc? Armies don`t always come with guns.

Every time I hear that the K-Word comes first, I wonder - don`t people in Pakistan look outside their windows?

I mean, welcome, want to buy Ashok Leyland buses/trucks marked ``Hino-Pak`` at three times the price, fine by me, but look closely at the engine block and where it was cast, not to mention the other aggregates? Want to drink tea packaged in England from Tetley, but won`t buy Tata Tea again at one third the price.

Even the Motorway tolls . . . I still have to research where they are flowing!!

So sure, the K-Word comes first. I think the Indian industralists were just having fun that day at the conclave.

veeresh wrote:

[quote]
A great weapon I had was the Indian currency note - look carefully, it has 17 languages on it, two of which are Kashmiri and Urdu. I exchanged almost a full wad of Indian 10 rupee notes in the course of 3 days on this one point.
[end-quote]

This use is not limited to Pakistan. In the USA, I use this technique as well. I usually give away $10-$20 worth of fresh 10 rupee notes at my daughters school events.

The 10 rupee note has (1) a picture of gandhi (2) elephant, tiger, rhino. It is 18 languages (yup I counted them) and is colorful and beautifully produced. I recommend it as a basic ``Intro to India`` tool in any country !

Deepak Sapra: Very nice article, and glad you, like the 10-15000 Indians who visited Pakistan as I understand during the cricket matches, were warmly received. A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. And in your one visit to a Pakistan you learnt more about the Pakistani people than the thousands of posts one of your compatriots (Jay) as well as others from India have written on chowk trying to demonize Pakistan and Pakistanis. And his certitude about everything is all the more appalling given that he has never been to Pakistan at all!! But enough about him and his kind.

Nice picture of you and your wife wearing the Indian colors and carrying the Pakistan flag. This is what the future should and almost certainly will be like. I also read through post from a couple of the interactors. The most interesting I found were from veeresh and his account of his visit which nicely supplements what you wrote.

Lahore is indeed a city with a big heart, making it the true cultural capital of not just the Pakistan Panjabis but of the Indian Panjabis as well. A couple of comments to posters:

RSRIDHAR: I find my friend rsridhar scratching his head in his post below and thinking that all this warmth and hospitality is ``not normal``, that this is just the feudal thinking, and how he wishes cab drivers had not refused fare from Indian passengers. I think this reflects a cultural difference, and what is considered ``not normal`` is quite normal in another culture. I am reminded of the time I took a cab in the US back in 1980 which was driven by a man from Lahore. The fellow started chatting with me, lost his way, finally dropped me off after an hour - and then he refused the fare. And this was in the US! (I finally did manage to slip the $10 - 20? I owed him into his cab just as he was taking off). Of course you dont do business this way, but being one can open one`s heart at times (as the cabbies did in Pakistan) while still being a good businessman. Think of the greater interest in visiting Pakistan that this experience will generate among Indians, and you will agree that one can be non-stingy and still be a good businessman.

VEERESH: I was amused to read veeresh`s difficulty in convincing Pakistanis that he was a hindu, given that they had never seen one. And it was interesting (although not really surprising) to see how you were invited into mosques to say your hindu prayers that you were saying outside of the mosques. I look forward to the day that places of worship are seen as that - maybe one day I will get to say namaz in a hindu temple (and ring those bells before doing so, just to let God know he has a visitor). That would be neat.

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#92
Though I agree with other things I dont see what HinoPak has to do with the Hindujas or Bridgestone has to do with ACC.