It has been three months now that peace activist Raza Khan has been missing. On Dec 2, Raza, a research student and youth activist was last seen in an event that he had organized on the evening of Dec 2. It was around the Faizabad protests that had crippled the entire Pakistan and raised questions around governance and rising extremism in the country. Raza also worked on Indo-Pak peace and this is how I was connected with him. We were part of Aaghaz-e-Dosti, an Indo-Pak friendship initiative which is a voluntary group of youths from India and Pakistan who contribute to peacebuilding, mainly through peace education activities in schools or by connecting and facilitating dialogue among youths of both countries through video conferencing and other peace sessions. His work for peacebuilding, his ideas against extremism and circumstantial evidence, including the fact that his CPU is missing indicates that this is a case of enforced disappearance. There have been several protests for him in Pakistan and outside; international human rights organisations have appealed to government of Pakistan to recover him and his case is being heard in Lahore High Court on a habeas corpus petition. Yet, there is no trace of him.
It has been three months but it seems just like it was yesterday when we, his friends in India, were told that he is untraceable. Initially, we thought that he may have just gone back to his hometown and that his phone wasn’t probably charged or working. It was only after two days that the police was approached. It is all fresh in my mind. This and the days that followed, as we continue to live the shock, despair and helplessness. I would not say that with time, it has changed in its magnitude but that it has transformed in its character. We have embodied it. It all has become a part of us, our being.
Along with this despair, there has been a profound sense of guilt. After all we all were together in this. We all were working as a team. We were partners in this crime of dreaming for a better future of the two countries but he alone is suffering. We couldn’t do anything for him. Three months and we don’t know how he is, when will he return. There are no answers. We are living with questions, with anxieties and fears. We keep posting about him on social media pages, write articles, appeals and the words, the message has become repetitive. There is nothing new that we are able to offer anymore. But this is because while for many, he may have been reduced to being just a piece of news, for us, he is a part of us.
As I think of it now, I realise that we were actually operating in a bubble of myths and illusions. In illusions that we are safe, that we are doing nothing radical or that we are completely transparent in our work. Many other illusions have left and are leaving, day by day.
While we were working for conflict resolution, we had never imagined that the conflict will eventually become this personal. As I think of it now, I realise that we were actually operating in a bubble of myths and illusions. In illusions that we are safe, that we are doing nothing radical or that we are completely transparent in our work. Many other illusions have left and are leaving, day by day. It may be still unbelievable that getting students to write letters that read curiosities to know about the daily life, the culture and people, letters that demand answers to, “What is your favorite sport?”, “What is your favorite dish”, letters that end with hopes – “I hope to receive a reply from you” could lead us to this. It is unbelievable that having students to exchange greeting cards full of good wishes, cards that not only carried wishes for festivals but also expressed solidarity in moments of crisis such as the Gulshan-e-Iqbal tragedy wherein Indian students empathetically wrote “We are with you”, “We also cry with you today” and tried to reach out to their peers across the border, can be so harmful. The video conferencing sessions wherein the students would discover with much awe that people on the screen look just like them, converse in a language that is not much different but can also relate to their everyday worlds, the sessions wherein students leave the past baggage, attempt to move ahead and ask more meaningful questions like “how much homework is given”, “how are your teachers”, “do you like math”…. We though it couldn’t pose problems.
All these efforts seem so beautiful, innocent. It is not possible that all this can be dangerous and so threatening. But the truth is that it is and that we are paying the cost of it. Building peace is the new crime in the subcontinent.
The author is a peace activist based in New Delhi