No war, but no peace

I have not been able to see the logic of closing all avenues of people-to-people contact between India and Pakistan. Newspapers and books are already banned. Visitors are not allowed to cross the border. The stoppage of train, bus and plane services snaps the last tenuous link. Islamabad has gone a step further: it has banned all the Indian TV networks.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was foreign minister when he had proposed some 25 years ago to make the borders between India and Pakistan soft. The then prime minister, Morarji Desai, had snubbed him, arguing that spies from the other side would come in, as if they used only such channels to cross over. Vajpayee, now prime minister, has veered round to the same point of view which he had then resisted. The suggestion of soft borders has, however, spurred thousands of people to assemble each year on the Wagah-Amritsar border to light candles on the night of August 14-15, to mark the moment when the two countries were born. The Pakistanis were slow to respond. But they were 45,000-strong this year compared to 20,000 from India.

How do you snuff out relations? Officially, the governments have snapped ties. But what makes them assume that a mere fiat will smother the sentiments which men and women, young and old, have nurtured over the years? For thousands of them, who have struck relationships, the time spent in each other’s countries is a precious memory they cherish. How do they become strangers all over again? They had made no efforts to adjust or conform. There was natural kinship. They had always sensed one another and even a chance meeting ignited familiarity.

Many in both countries have argued whether the contacts really helped or whether the efforts reeked of appeasement. What they forget is that the contacts became the pressure which resulted in summit meetings, like the ones at Lahore and Agra. Even otherwise, the talks between people from both countries have allowed catharsis, given them a venue to vent their anger. A dialogue bruises pride and evokes humility. How does people-to-people contact put government interests in jeopardy?

The attack on Parliament demanded the strongest action against the terrorists or those who nourished and sponsored them. The nation was justifiably angry. The series of diplomatic measures, from recalling the high commissioner from Islamabad to halving the mission’s strength, indicated the depth of feeling. Was it also necessary to stop people of one country from meeting those in the other? It has unnecessarily queered the pitch.

Terrorists and obstructionists have their own agenda of hate and hostility. They are the ones who have never liked the idea of people-to-people contact. They have succeeded because guns fall silent when people talk. Now all ties at the non-official level have been cut off. With no information, there will be more ignorance, more suspicion and more hostility. The liberal school of thought, which is beginning to emerge in Pakistan and ask for normalisation of relations with India despite the Kashmir problem, may be crushed ruthlessly. In the past decade, a new breed of Indians and Pakistanis have been coming up with no baggage of the past and with all eyes fixed on the future, devoid of rancour and recrimination. They are not apportioning any blame nor are they dwelling on the past. They are talking in terms of trade, technology and an economic zone. They cannot even meet, much less plan. The ground has been left completely to those who are opposed to any relations between India and Pakistan.

My impression is that the hawks have won. Their mindset has dictated the new policy. They were always against any contact beyond the formal and diplomatic. In Pakistan, they could not sustain the two-nation theory when people from the other side spoke the same language, ate the same food and wore the same clothes. Keeping the two apart was the best method available to them. In India, the hawks had a sense of superiority and behaved like a Big Brother who had an area of influence and who expected small countries to look up to it.

Some of the hawks, who occupied high positions on our side, in their heart of hearts believed the two-nation theory, although they talked in terms of one nation. Such elements made Gandhiji fast unto death to force New Delhi to pay its liability of Rs 67 crore to Pakistan after Partition. By closing access from across the border, New Delhi has played into the hands of fundamentalists in both countries. They are the ones who hate liberalism and open thinking. New Delhi also has let down those Pakistanis who are fighting dictatorship on the one hand and bigotry on the other. They are trying to develop a South Asian identity, transcending religions and borders. It is partly their pressure that has forced Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to take action against the fundamentalists. Not only that, the people-to-people contact was nurturing a common sentiment in the subcontinent. It was conveying the message that the governments had developed a vested interest in their quarrels and, therefore, people must take upon themselves the responsibility of sorting out their differences. Stopping the contact was the worst thing that New Delhi could have done.

That the Pakistan government is not answerable to people is well known. But the Indian government is. It is a pity that the latter has taken the initiative of distancing the people of India from those of Pakistan. Because of the communal elements, the anti-Pakistan feeling turns anti-Muslim. India cannot afford that. We have 140 million Muslims. A democratic, pluralistic society like ours should formulate a policy that would differentiate between the Pakistan government and its people. The government should be chastised but not the people. In anger, New Delhi has made no distinction.

As a person who has worked for reconciliation between India and Pakistan for decades, I find the New Year arriving on a somber note. India and Pakistan are growing distant. But I do believe that one day the high walls that fear and distrust have raised on the borders will crumble and the peoples of the subcontinent, without giving up their separate identities, will work together for the common good. This is the faith I have cherished ever since I left my hometown in Sialkot some 55 years ago. And this is the straw I have clung to in the sea of hatred and hostility that has for long engulfed the two countries. It is this hope and not so much the nostalgia with which both Indians and Pakistanis often look back.

But the reality is, I feel, that events will continue to meander to a situation where, even if there is no conflict, there will be no settlement; even if no hostility, no harmony; and even if there is no war, there will be no peace.

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