Daily Times

KARACHI: “Pakistan and India need to do serious introspection to develop an understanding of each other’s limitations and compulsions so that a sustainable dialogue can be started,” said Om Parkash Shah, a peace activist based in India.

He was speaking at a seminar titled “Challenges to Indo-Pak Relations and Secularism” arranged jointly by the Awami Workers Party and the Society for Secular Pakistan.

Shah, who is the chairman at Center for Peace and Progress in India, said, “A meaningful dialogue between India and Pakistan is the only way forward to improve relations.”

He elaborated that the two neighbors must build an atmosphere of trust and confidence before resolution of their longstanding disputes.

To a question, Shah said that no single political party in India could take any major policy decision on resolution of contentious issues with Pakistan. “There has to be a national consensus achieved in a sitting of different political parties in India on how to move forward to normalise relations with Pakistan,” he said.

He said that India and Pakistan have not been able to live in peace since partition of the Sub-continent.

“Indo-Pak people want peace because both countrries have the same problems. Instead of fighting each other, we need to fight together against poverty and ignorance,” he added.

Further, Shah said that if the two countries had any confusion on how to move forward, they should think of the common people. “They should take steps that benefit the common people in the two countries”, he added

A variety of opinions, backed by anecdotes and incidents from personal experiences, were shared by speakers and participants of the seminar.

Ms. Anis Haroon from the Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy stressed the need for people-to-people contact to create conducive environment for a purposeful dialogue between the two neighbours.

She also shared her memory from a trip to India with her daughter who was 10 years old at that time. While entering India, she recalled, her daughter said to her, “It doesn’t seem to me that we are in a different country.”

Mr. Akhtar Hussain, secretary general of the Awami Workers Party, said that India and Pakistan should try to have a relationship based on cooperation along multiple issues, rather than seeing their relationship in identity-driven, mythological terms.

One of participant highlighted that the realities could still not be ignored, including the troubled history of Indo-Pak ties, centrality of the Kashmir issue and the post-Cold War dynamics.

The speakers urged the Indian authorities to make relax their visa policy, especially for journalists and social activists working for peace in the region.

Babar Ayaz from Society for Secular Pakistan earlier gave a brief introduction of the speakers, noting that without moving towards secularism, Pakistan will remain at war with itself and medieval religious-political value systems.

Published in Daily Times, March 24^th  2018.