People-to-people contact -- the view from Pakistan

People-to-people contact -- the view from Pakistan

The first half of 2000 saw some heavy crossborder traffic of peace lovers, civil and military, between India and Pakistan. Inspired by their noble vision of peace and harmony in the Subcontinent, these honest Samaritans, men and women, put their heads together for an informal and frank exchange of views about the future of the ill-served Subcontinent. How to rid it of the long and lingering legacy of the past wars and save it from the suicidal conventional/nuclear conflict of the future.

A soldiers-for-peace mission to Calcutta and a women's delegation to New Delhi, headed by easily the best known woman human rights activist of the Subcontinent, Ms Asma Jehangir, formed the most electronic media worthy feature of the up and down movement across the land and air space.

The largest single group comprising some 200-plus Pakistanis, mostly youngsters, went all the way to Bangalore to attend the peace jamboree under the auspices of the India-Pakistan Forum for Peace and Democracy...

The most substantive feature of the traffic, however, had been the visit of some of the Indian top brass, retired service chiefs and senior generals. The topic came in for some animated discussion in a number of recent PTV programmes. The question raised by the participants was: What were the Indians really up to? What did they have up their sleeve?

As for their visits, there was nothing either questionable or surprising. The distinguished visitors had valid Pakistani visas and invitations from the institutions or individuals (or both) sponsoring their visits...

The point that would often leave their Pakistani interlocutors wondering pertained mainly to the underlying conformism and identity of views of Indian guests...The Indians must have been feeling much the same way about the Pakistanis. Each trying to outtalk the other. The Indians' one concerted effort would be on early resolution of the Kashmir issue as skilfully as they could. The Pakistanis' one constant stress would be on early resolution of the Kashmir (isic) according to the UN resolutions of over half a century ago. Quite a frustrating exercise in the end...

Excerpted from `Interacting with the Indians', by Brigadier (retd) A.R. Siddiqi, June 21