LAHORE:
Under the Seeds of Peace cultural exchange programme, 6 Indian students arrived in Lahore on March 10. The students are being hosted by their Pakistani counterparts for one week.
Interested in working for the rights of women and children, Ruth Verma, a junior school student at St Xavier College, stressed the need for greater interaction between the people of both nations. “The conflict is between the governments, not the peoples.”
“You see hordes of people on the streets in Mumbai, be it day or night.” said Verma pointing out the relative absence of crowds on the city streets.
Jazib Ali, an A-levels students, is one of the four Pakistani students hosting the guests. He was delighted to meet his friends from a Seeds of Peace camp that happened in June 2009. “All stereotypes ended during that camp,” said Ali as he pointed out that increased interaction is the only way to eradicate assumptions and stereotypes.
The Indian students expressed surprise at the ‘lavish’ schools in the city. “Fountains in schools make them look like hotels,” one of them said. They said despite ‘biased’ media reports they had learnt to critically think through conflict situations before coming to conclusions.
Seeds of Peace Pakistan programmes director Sajjad Ahmed said there was a need to bring the youth to the forefront with such exchange programmes. With a ‘National Integration Camp’ slated to being March 23, Seeds of Peace Pakistan hopes to bring 50 youths from all over the country together.
Ira Chadha Sridhar, a 17-year-old student also at St Xaviers College said the idea that Indians and Paksitanis are quite similar was cemented during this visit. She said seeing the flag hoisting ceremony at Wagha Border was a first for her.
The students urged both governments to ease visa policies and encourage more student exchange programmes. The students, who will leave on March 17, hoped they would be able to visit regularly.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 16th, 2012.
COMMENTS (9)
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@Rania: @Huma Bakhtawar: I salute both of you for such positive thinking and hope that your govt makes urgent changes in the curriculam and remove the hatred element which is not only creating differences between the two neighbours but also spreading intolerance between different communities in Pakistan itself.
No matter what anyone says, similarities between Indians and Pakistanis are way too many, from colour of the skin to the type of music people listen to. None the less, the difference lies in the head....the difference that has been promoting hatred amongst the people, the difference that must have been buried in the archives of history instead of invoking it time and again for political gains on both sides of the border.Today, both countries are separate entities, separate governments, what's the point staying mired in the differences.
@Common Man: I think you got it wrong. Infact, they need to come to India and see our culture and hospitality and judge for themselves that how wrong their text books are in dipicting India.
GO AWAY HATERS. I have been to india in 2007 and was much of my surprised to see people behaving and talking totally different from non-sense indian media and some hate mongers on the internet.
on the other hand, we had received indian friends for festival that GCU lahore used to held few years back. They were even more surprised to be in pakistan and interacting with people here and festivities of lahore at the time of worst terrorism we had in 2009.
So my conclusion is to live in PEACE and let people meet their counterparts to let PEACE prevail in the subcontinent to uplift the living standards of poor we have in abundance (especially in india).
@Arjun Shetty
Wow...and here i thought such idiots existed in Pakistan only.
@Arjun Shetty you are right...and we believe apart from being peaceful neighbors, the difference between us and you is maintained. Nobody in Pakistan wants to be seen semi-indian, as projected by such waste od time organisations
Student exchange ? What kind of students are they talking about ? We don't need students brainwashed with hate curriculum in their text books.....
The author seems to happy potraying India and Pakistan are similar..... another lie to fool its citizens.....Islamic Pakistan and and its constitutional priorities is not India in any respect. Maybe the visiting students did not read the history books of Pakistan schools to then say understand how India differs.