INDO-PAKISTAN RELATIONS
Rita Manchanda on Peace March by Indians and Pakistanis in Calcutta
What were these hundreds of Pakistanis doing walking hand in hand with Indians on December 31? With one voice they cried, "no to war, we want peace", and Ek Mata, Do Santan - Bharat aur Pakistan", as they wound their way past College Square to Esplanade. Fifty years after a people were divided and boxed into antagonistic nationalist ideologies which preached hatred and enmity, 500 citizens of India and Pakistan were trampling on the walls of prejudice which kept them apart. Among them were the nostalgic who dreamt of confederation. There were the romantics who basked in the glow of a symbolic lighting of candles on either side of the border. There were others to remind them that the wounds were too deep. But, above all, there was a common recognition that state-sponsored ideologies, demonising "the other", had militarised the polity and civil society. The nationalist discourse has been reduced to a security complex, subverting democratic rights and eroding pluralistic space in both countries. War and war preparations have drained resources from health and education, and kept millions poor.
The citizens of India and Pakistan now want to forge a new pro-peoples agenda, to show the leadership in both countries that there is a constituency for peace and for working together, without peace, democracy will be a chimera. The vision which inspired a group of Indians and Pakistanis in Lahore, in 1994 to found the Pak-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy - the vision of a people’s movement for cross border democracy – was realised in Calcutta. Earlier, in 1995, in Delhi and Lahore, 200 Pakistanis and Indians had met to discover that they agreed more, than they disagreed, even on contentious issues like Kashmir, arms build up, nuclear weapons and minority rights.
In Delhi, it took courage for citizens to cut through the jingoism of Kashmir as an integral part of India and urge their respective governments to recognise that "Kashmir is not merely a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan (and) requires a democratic solution which involves the people of the Jammu and Kashmir." In Lahore, it took courage to call for a reduction in force levels by 25 per cent, to urge the two. Governments to prevent cross border support for insurgencies and proxy wars and to call for India and Pakistan to conclude their own Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
The importance of the Forum's Third Convention in Calcutta was that for the first time it became a people's movement ... (and) held the first ever public rally of Pakistanis and Indians. As C.M. Jyoti Basu reported remarked, "If 200 Pakistanis have the courage to come, then the least West Bengal can do is to make them welcome". And Jyoti Basu himself, with infinite patience, posed for photographs with groups of Pakistanis, atreasured memento of an evening with the man who could have been India's Prime Minister.
For the Pakistanis, there was a consciousness of making history. About 145 of them had walked across the strip of no-man's land between Wagah and Attari to reopen the road from Lahore to Amritsar. It had been closed since 1983, a symbol of the obstacles put up to keep the two peoples apart. At Attari, immigration had no information about a special dispensation for the Forum's delegates to walk across. It took five hours to traverse the immigration pickets dotting the strip. Then into trains.
Reopening closed roads, reading each other's newspapers and books, and peoples on both sides freely coming across, is the surest way to break down the "enemy" stereotype to discover the many "other voices" in India and Pakistan beyond the voice of an establishment locked in a confrontationist mindset.
As Nirmal Mukarji, the Chairperson of the Forum's India chapter said, "as more people come across and see for themselves, the demonising of India and Pakistan as enemy" will fall apart. His Pakistani counterpart, I.A. Rahman, reflected on now ... the ordinary people had no road or rail link.
But moving from competitive to cooperative politics is never easy. At the Press conference, reporters made an issue of the fact that India was relaxing its visa regulations and Pakistani artists were performing here, but Indian artist could not go to Pakistan. Rahman gently interposed, "till recently even Pakistani artists were not allowed to perform in Pakistan". Mukarji called for Big Brother India to unilaterally pull down the barriers.
A Statement on Gujral Doctrine External Affairs' Minister I.K. Gujral On Neighbourhood Policy, London, 23 September, 1996
The United Front Government's neighbourhood policy now stands on five basic principles: First, with the neighbours like Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka, India does not ask for reciprocity but gives all that it can in good faith and trust. Secondly, no South Asian country will allow its territory to be used against the interest of another country of the region. Thirdly, none will interfere in the internal affairs of another. Fourthly, all South Asian countries must respect each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty. And finally, they will settle all their disputes through peaceful bilateral negotiations. These five principles, scrupulously observed, will, I am sure, recast South Asia's regional relationships, including the tormented relationship- between India and. Pakistan, in a friendly, cooperative mould.
