The Prospects of Peace

JUNE 2003 - We walk a very thin line, we the ordinary people of India and Pakistan, when it comes to the idea of peaceful coexistence. And yet more and more people are agreeing that only the ordinary people can make that thin line into a wide and sweeping boulevard where both Indians and Pakistanis can live their lives without wanting to slit throats, shout insults and exchange death. Fifty years and more of distrust, fifty years of stoking fires that refuse to die leaves both countries precariously poised as the rest of the world vaults ahead. And here too, opinions vary. Some agree that while the two neighbours are more or less equally affected, many others are certain that India has left us far behind in many fields.

The recent visit of our MPs who had a wonderful stay in India have come back fully charged, fired by the passion and the will to forge ties of peace, brotherhood and a common goal of prosperity and progress. Mr. Bhandara in an incisive article is struck dumb by the transformation that New Delhi has undergone in just a few years. A capital that had more smog and smoke than flies has miraculously cleared up with a visionary legislation applied right across the board. Transport plying the capital cannot use anything but CNG and the results are spectacular. The gray skies are gone and so must have half a million varieties of infections that afflict Indians (and Pakistanis) alike. Mr. Bhandara crosses the border and arrives in an Amritsar where women ride mopeds, scooters and bicycles without a care in the world and fifty miles away they are vandalising faces of beautiful Pakistani women with black and red paints of shame. Half the population of this country cannot move half a yard without depending on someone else to ferry them. A few thousands in a population of millions can drive but that is a pretty small lot. The question of a lady on a moped can bring President Musharraf’s government down, so deeply have we regressed with our notions of piety and propriety. There is absolutely no doubt that both countries, women on mopeds or not, face huge and daunting problems and they are not going to vaporise into thin air. We have to find the common threads of music, culture, language and a shared heritage that goes back much further than 1947. The healing lies here.

While the two governments are beginning to take the first tentative steps towards the very long and lonely road that stretches ahead, it is heartening that people on both sides are taking initiatives to bridge the divide - it cannot ever be bridged completely because many things run too deep, but that cannot mean no bridges are possible. Two people on either side of the line have started one such effort. One, a Pakistani and another, an Indian. An unlikely partnership? Of course, but then unlikely things often transform the impossible into the possible. Some of the aims are idealistic but if all aims were rooted in reality there would be no body left to dream of unattainable things. The petition, drawn up by Nasim Beg in Pakistan and Dr. Vasant K. Bawa in India, intends "to seek the civil society's support in encouraging the governments of India and Pakistan towards finding a permanent peace. Both governments have taken some steps in the right direction; with support from the civil society, they will find it easier to move forward by shedding the baggage of the past and bringing peace and prosperity to over 1.3 billion citizens of the subcontinent."

About a year ago when India and Pakistan were within a button push of a nuclear holocaust, thousands of ordinary people of the world endorsed a petition demanding that the governments of India and Pakistan find a peaceful solution. The bulk of the signatories were Indians and Pakistanis. The petition was put up on the Internet on 27th May 2002. As a follow up of the sentiments expressed by the thousands of persons signing the earlier petition, the new petition is addressed to the civil society and urges ordinary citizens to endorse a "Friendship Treaty" between India and Pakistan, which proposes a road map for peaceful co-existence.

The Declaration asks for many things. To live in peaceful co-existence, respecting each other's sovereignty, with the principle of non-interference in each other's internal affairs and work towards economic cooperation gradually removing trade barriers and ultimately creating a common market under the auspices of SAARC. Both countries recognise that it is imperative to allocate the maximum resources towards human and economic development and that this can only be achieved through curtailment of military expenditure. This of course we all know from bitter experience is easier said than done and obviously affects vested groups on either side; perhaps more this side than theirs.

The Declaration asks for arms reduction and nuclear disarmament. This is a very tall order and again so many vested interests, obvious and hidden are at work. We all know that the business of arms trading is one of the most lucrative businesses there is - fortunes have been made and securely invested in real estate, hotels, businesses, stocks etc both here and abroad and entire clans can live for the rest of their lives in luxury without so much as having to lift a little finger to do any work. So while there is no sadder sight than the great ICBMs and Russian nuclear warheads being scrapped while both sides look on benignly, we all know too well that personal greed is a strong factor that casts aside such trivial ideals as integrity and honesty. The bigger the bucks, the faster the capitulation. There are enough known figures on either side to understand that while arms proliferation has steadily taken us away from peace, it has also amassed fortunes for some in the guise of well-intentioned nationalism. However right-minded people on both sides must constantly educate the people on the horrors of nuclear war. Pumpkin heads like Mian Nawaz Sharif who vaporised a mountain and danced with delight and the Indians who rolled with joy when their 'kulfis' shot up over the deserts of India, need to be curtailed. If people are educated about the fallout, there is a chance that arms can actually be curtailed - but it's a long shot.

An enhanced role for SAARC, development of an ultimate common market in the SAARC region, which will protect, complement and enhance the existing economic activity in the respective member countries; a move towards an open-borders policy facilitating travel and human contact and interaction within the region; a supervisory role for developing and implementing an environment protection policy for the region; and a role in developing minimum standards for human rights within the region. All perfectly viable in a rational world.

Then there is Kashmir. How in the world will we ever solve this well nigh impossible problem? Most of us have no idea except that more than most of us want an end to the killing and 50 years and more of tragedy. Whatever positions and rationale the two countries can prop up, there is no doubt that the Kashmiris have been the victims. De-militarisation, de-weaponisation, joint policing of the LOC are some of the eight recommendations on Kashmir but can we all start thinking of a time when there can be freedom of travel between the two Kashmirs and a free exchange of culture, tourism, arts and crafts? It sounds like an impossible scenario but why give in to cynicism, doubt and pessimism? Why not start thinking differently? People make rules and people unmake the same rules, so there could be a time when what sounds far fetched may not be that far fetched years later.