Daily Times

Talking about India-Pakistan peace, praising Lahoris or Delhi-wallas for their warm hospitalities, or questioning why there is a conflict despite having similar culture, food, language, etc, has become part of a behavioural norm followed by almost all who visit the other side of the India-Pakistan border. Bluntly speaking, this type of norm is far from reality. If I am wrong, then I have a few questions: if Lahoris are like the residents of Delhi and vice-versa, then why have the two countries, even after 66 years of their sovereign existence, failed to resolve even a single dispute between them? Why does the India-Pakistan border remain tense? The answer to both questions is: the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) type statements made by the representatives of a particular class, whose interests shift with changes in bilateral relations between the two countries.

To improve bilateral relations between India and Pakistan there is an utmost need to increase people-to-people contact — this is an accepted mantra — but what is the definition of the people? Is it limited to a certain class or an inclusive category? Discrimination is pervasive in granting visas to poor people. I witnessed this form of discrimination when in November 2013 I paid a visit to the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi to obtain a visa. I was standing in a queue with more than 100 people vying for a visa to Pakistan. Unlike me, most of them wanted to visit Pakistan to attend either marriages of their relatives or to see them. There were people who came from Rampur or Ajmer, and other far-off places. As they did not have enough money to lodge in a near-by hotel, they spent their night outside the Pakistan High commission’s visa office. Another reason to sleep there was that they could stand first in the queue. After all sorts of trouble, they were not sure whether they would get a visa or not. In fact, a few of them were trying their luck for more than the first time. The emotional bond was so strong that despite being denied a visa a few months back they returned again to try their luck with the Pakistan High Commission’s visa office. For that they had to spend a part of their meek savings, for which they were not remorseful.

The nature of the political relationship between India and Pakistan is such that a callous reaction to human sentiments is always expected. I remember there was an 80-year-old woman who had a desire to meet her relatives in Pakistan before she died but was denied because of lack of ‘legitimate’ documents. With moist eyes she was cursing her fate and told me that she had been trying for a Pakistani visa since April 2013. I also met a gentleman who was from Surat, Gujarat. He was married to a Pakistani lady and the couple had two children aged 15 and 17 years. The lady still holds a Pakistani passport because she had been denied Indian citizenship to which she is entitled because of her marital status. She has to renew her visa status after every three years. This time she was going to Pakistan to renew her passport. In the queue there was also a Hindu woman from Baroda who wanted to visit Karachi to see her ailing father. Many more people were there in the queue with their own wicked experiences and sufferings due to the India-Pakistan visa regime.

Fortunately, I got the visa for Pakistan because I was invited for a conference and had a clearance letter. After a forgettable experience at Wagah, in Lahore, I interacted with a few common people from Pakistan who had a similar fate at the Indian High Commission, Islamabad. I met a gentleman who told me that his only wish was to pay a visit to Daryaganj in New Delhi, from where his father had migrated to Pakistan during the bloodied partition of 1947. To fulfil his only wish he had unsuccessfully tried a few times to get a visa for India. I met another gentleman who wished to visit his ancestral home in Attari, which is a stone’s throw distance from Wagah border.

Unless the marginalised people get a chance to cross the border, the purpose of the peace process will remain unfulfilled and elite-centric. Instead of praising the other side’s hospitality, the need is to fight for the rights of the marginalised groups who are being emotionally oppressed due to India and Pakistan’s callous attitude towards their poor. There are groups who are fighting for it; the need is to intensify their fight against the establishments from both sides of the border. In case we fail to do so, the whole peace affair will remain a showpiece. In 1947, the ruling elites instigated the common people to cut each other’s throats to fulfil their political ambitions. Today also they are trying to hijack and regulate the peace process to fulfil their class interests. The genuine peaceniks have to fight hard against this.

Amit Ranjan is a PhD student in South Asian Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. He specialises in Indian internal security and foreign policy as well as regional water conflicts