INDO-PAKISTAN RELATIONS

Javed Ansari's Emotional Journey

A Muslim Indian in Islamic Pakistan

Don't I remember that sixer, exactly a decade ago, almost as clearly as I remember the birth of my child Asif? For me, even today, they are both rites of passage in an emotional journey without end. My first-born in an India which was still politically traumatized by the horrors of Partition. And my first experience that sports, especially cricket, my love, could lead to such bitterness between Hindus and Muslims in my own homeland.

When Javed Miandad whacked that gusty sixer off Chetan Sharma's last ball of the match in Sharjah to win the Asia Cup final for Pakistan against India in 1986, Muslims in the jam-packed stadium went into a frenzied celebration... I knew that the same fervour had gripped many Muslims in India. I, too, clapped. I clapped for the gusty sportsman in Miandad. But then I wept because I realized that this king of all games had been turned into a jehad. And this in a land in which most of my family had chosen to live and love even as millions of Muslims, including many of my own family, had chosen to flee to Pakistan. Like me, there were countless other Muslims who grieved for the same reason. For every one Muslim who exploded with religious glee, there must have been ten others who felt the way I did. But they still remain uncounted among the countless.

Babari Masjid, 1992 When news of destruction first reached me, my initial reaction was that of indifference. It was not as if Delhi's Jama Masjid had been vandalized. Then, gradually, I wept again, not over the destruction of a decrepit building but because it was the symbol of the destruction of my culture in which I saw Ellora, Amarnath, the Taj and Fatehpur Sikri as parts of my own indestructible emotional bonding with my compatriots. Yes, I also clapped as the days wore on. Not to celebrate some mythical victory but to applaud those countless among uncounted Hindus who condemned the act in a nation wedded to tolerance.

Last month, I was to see Miandad again. Not in India but on Pakistan TV in Karachi, where I was on an assignment. I was surrounded by members of my family who had migrated to Pakistan as we watched Pakistan lose to India in Bangalore. While Pakistanis booed and hissed at him, my heart went out to Miandad. Pakistan, it appeared, had lost a war. But Miandad, like Horatio, had tried to defend the bridge and he deserved my applause. My relatives thought I was clapping for India. It was hard to explain that I was clapping for a human being. It is never easy being an Indian-Muslim and visiting Pakistan during a cricket match between the two. Some emotions have no explanation in applause, in silent tears. In prayer. Yes, before and after the match, I offered namaaz with my family. I prayed perhaps for the magnificent idea that is India. I prayed also for an answer to my ever-present conundrum.

For being a Muslim in India is not always easy.

our Indianness. But this time, in Pakistan, I found myself having to prove my adherence to my faiths well as my commitment to my national identity.

You might call me an international hybrid. Half my family lives in India and a part of it in Pakistan. I am torn not between India and Pakistan but torn that the two countries are sworn enemies despite ties of blood and kinship. I was, in a sense, in hostile territory. But I cannot conjure up the kind of hostility that the Pakistanis are capable of, who refuse to believe that a Muslim can live with any kind of dignity in India. And how can I? Here, in Pakistan, are my grand-aunt., and an assortment of first cousins and aunts. And they, too, have bittersweet memories about India. And they're an uncomfortable lot.

The scene at my grandmother's house. The elders are nostalgic and reminisce about the good times and friends. "Back home". I tell them I am here to cover the World. Cup for my magazine. "But you are a Muslim, how did you manage to get such a job?" asks a neighbor. "Just the way everybody else does," I retort, a trifle baffled. He- finds it hard to believe. He knows only of riots and Muslim deprivation but not about the untrammeled. freedom of religion, opportunities and offices that Muslims enjoy in India. Grand-aunt has one last wish: "1 want to go back to my house in the village (near Azamgarh in U.P.). Ghar ki khushboo soongnee hai (1 want to smell the air of home)". Nadeem, her grandson does not like it one bit... The old lady is not the one to give up. "You won't understand. That is the land of my forefathers, that's where I was born. Marne ke pahle ek baar ghar dekhna chahati hoon (Before I die, I want to visit my home once)", she says.

India remains a magnificent obsession with most Pakistanis. They have an unquenchable curiosity about it. Under normal circumstances, Indians are welcomed with. open arms. But this appears to evanesce during an Indo- Pak cricket match. Every latent hostility seems to come to a boil... I get sucked into the vortex of this argument and say to my astonishment: "If Allah is in anyway involved, then India will surely win because there are many more Muslims in India than in Pakistan."

Next day, the nation was in mourning. Most of my relatives could not understand what they considered to be my nonchalance about the defeat of a "Muslim" cricket team. When I prayed to Allah on the day before. leaving, memories of my past flashed before me. My past was not just the Partition but also of relatives who were Indian heroes my uncle, Brigadier Usman Ansari, one of India's first war heroes, my grandfather, M.A. Ansari, one-time president of the Indian National Congress.

After my namaaz in Pakistan, I began to know a little more about myself. A proud Muslim. My roots solidly in Yusufpur village in UP. My pen and typewriter in Delhi. My cricket bat safely tucked away in my son's cupboard.

Indo-Pak Amity Meet Declaration

A three-day Indo-Pak Amity Meet on 15-17 May, 1996 organized by the Association of Peoples of Asia is a continuation of a number of earlier non-official initiatives for Indo-Pakistan people-to-people Dialogue with a view to supplementing and consolidating the work already done and to concretizing measures through more intensive and in-depth studies and discussion and further promoting atmosphere of goodwill and improving cultural relations. The response all such exercises have received in both countries clearly reflect the innermost urges of the people on both sides for peace and friendship; notwithstanding many contentious issues that divide them and efforts of vested interests to aggravate mutual tensions. The advantages of such exercises and attempts are too obvious to require any further narration. The Amity Meet feels that the existing system of governance and basic values underlining it, inherited from colonial past, is a major cause of estranged relations between the two countries. A new system is needed that promotes harmonious relations between the State and the civil society, between the rulers and the ruled.

Mutual fears and suspicions have led to a vicious circle of competitive militarization. It has not only diverted scarce resources from developing the fullest potential of their economies and utilizing them to combat poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and resourcelessness of their teaming millions. It has led India and Pakistan towards an endless arms race and both are spending more than 3,60,000 crores on war systems due to lack of amity. It has also deprived them of their due role in the world... Amity imperative involves demilitarization of Indo-Pak borders, reduction in arms purchase and stoppage of nuclear arms race in the Sub-continent. Militarization of their mind is threatening mutual relations and the civil society in South Asia.

Broadly speaking, to the extent democracy, genuine federalism, decentralization, pluralism, human-rights, including the rights of women, ethnic groups and nationalities, and all kinds of minorities, the right to dissent and a spirit of tolerance are promoted within each country, they will contribute to Sub-continental harmony as also enrich socio-cultural and political life in each country. There is need for closer linkages between groups working for these objectives in the two countries. Likewise, there is need for closer cooperation between women's movement, youth organizations, environment, groups, business organizations, trade unions, professional groups, academicians, writers, cultural and social activists.

The Meet recognizes that while sovereignty and integrity of each country are sacrosanct, there are a number of trans-national identities which can strengthen emotional and cultural bonds between the two countries. Development of common literary and cultural fora can promote people-to-people unity.

As far as contentious and sensitive issues and promote and encourage growth of informed public disputes are concerned, the first requirement is to opinion and active participation of people on both sides. The Meet believes that only such informed public opinion will lead to a peaceful and mutually satisfactory solution of disputes. For these objectives, it urges the intellectuals, NGOs, academic institutions, social organizations and public men and women of the two countries to contribute their ideas and suggestions. It also urges the two governments to facilitate exchanges of people by gradually relaxing visa restrictions and for eventually abolishing them altogether. They should also remove restrictions on the free flow of information, books, newspapers, literature and films.

In this context, the Indo-Pak Amity Meet decides to form a Steering Committee with the following menibers from Pakistan:

Dr. Mubarak Ali                      Mr. M.B. Naqvi

Dr. Abdullah Memon              Dr. Rubina Saigol

Dr. Zulfiqar Gilani                   Mr. Karamat Ali

and

Ms. Nirmala Deshpande        Prof. A.M. Khusro

Mr. Balraj Puri                        Mr. Dev Dutt

Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed                Prof. M.H. Quareshi

Dr. Anand Kumar

 from India with Ms. Nirmala Deshpar.de and Dr. Mubarak Ali as Co-conveners with a Secretariat in each country.

Programme of Action:

The Amity Meet underlines the need for presenting a positive vision of future South Asia with regional harmony as an alternative to almost 50 years of negative view based upon mutual antagonism and strife. For this purpose, the following persons are included in a committee for preparing a draft which will be completed within 3 months and circulated for wider discussion by the Association of Peoples of Asia (APA).

Prof. A.M. Khusro, Mr.N.B. Naqvi, Mr. Balraj Puri and Ms. Nirmala Deshpande (Convener).

A Committee shall be formed for study of the economics of the two countries which can develop faster with mutual cooperation.

A Committee of Historians and Educationist with Dr. Mubarak Ali as Coordinator is being formed to initiate the process of correcting distortions in the sub- continental history which are source of tensions among the people. The committee will involve scholars in its endeavor to facilitate presentation of objectives and balanced view of the past before the people particularly the younger generation.

The Meet expects that a committee of social scientists from-Pakistan and India may be constituted to highlight the bias in textbooks, by looking at their respective school material. Both may prepare reports on how anti-India and anti-Pakistan attitudes are promoted through such material. Their findings should be publicized as a joint publication with joint authorship and disseminated through NGOs, Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed is requested to coordinate the team formation process.

The Meet calls upon voluntary organizations and peoples groups of both countries to join hands in promoting mutual understanding and cooperative efforts in addressing the issues of human survival, basic needs. health, information, literacy and peace. The Steering Committee is advised to form a Task Team for this purpose.

The Meet will try to facilitate sponsoring of lectures, workshops, cultural projects and literature dissemination through academic institutions and socio-cultural organization including APA.

At the end, the Meet rededicates itself to peace and friendship to harmony and cooperation to dialogue and improvement in mutual relations.