Connecting the dots: Pune to Delhi to Karachi

Earlier this week, I had two friends from Pune staying with me. They were on their way to Lahore — via a few days in Delhi — for the Faiz centenary celebrations. A writer and a professor of film studies, for both this was their first visit to Pakistan and their excitement was palpable. Faiz is a familiar figure to many Indians, particularly in the literary world and in the world of civil society — in fact, one of the most popular slogans in processions in northern India is Faiz’s famous line, bol ke labh azad hain tere — and my friends were excited to be going for the celebrations. But as much as Faiz, it was Pakistan that caught their imagination. What would it be like? What should they take? Were people hostile to Indians? What was the public transport system like? And how should one — more accurately how should women — dress? And I was reminded once again of how little we know about each other, and how much we want to know.

Every morning, over masala chai and biscuits, as we talked, the conversation inevitably turned to Pakistan. I told them, jokingly, that the questions they were asking were the exact mirror image of questions my Pakistani cousins had put to me when they wanted to come to India. How would Indians react to them, they wanted to know. What was it like for Indian Muslims? What should they take as gifts?

The week before my friends were to go to Lahore, I was meant to go to Karachi for the Karachi Literature Festival. But I had to cancel at the last minute because the visa did not come through. “But you’ve been there so many times,” my friends said, “what were the authorities worried about?” I found myself explaining that with India and Pakistan, the immigration authorities were not concerned so much about people going and settling in the other country (as, say, the US or the UK might be), as they were about things like terrorism and perhaps, infiltration.

And yet, I had to ask the question, as they did, why was there this quite irrational concern? Surely those who want to create trouble will hardly take the legal route, and if they do, they’ll have done enough preparation to get through regardless. Is the security of nations really threatened by ordinary people wanting to cross borders for perfectly harmless reasons — most people who travel from Pakistan to India or from India to Pakistan do so to meet families, to visit homes or places of religious pilgrimage, to attend events, or to participate in cultural and other meetings. It’s just the odd one somewhere whose motives may be different, why should the majority be penalised for this one individual?

These questions have no easy answers. Our two countries have, for six decades now, maintained a distance and a hostility towards each other. If there’s anyone who has ruptured this broad discourse of hostility, it is ordinary people who have, despite the obstacles, persisted in their efforts to maintain relationships and friendships, believing that there is so much we have to learn from each other, and there is no reason why we should be denied the opportunity.

This is why it is heartening to see that the two countries have started to talk again — or, at least, have indicated that they are willing to talk, and that no issue is beyond the pale of discussion. The dialogue may not be composite, but it will, we are told, be comprehensive. This isn’t the first time of course. Previously, too, dialogues have happened, and then broken down, they’re resumed, and then they stop again, and so on. For each step forward in normalising relations between the two countries, it seems as if we take two back.

But hope refuses to die. And now that the two countries have expressed their intention to continue to keep the dialogue open and to discuss all issues — ranging from confidence-building measures, to water issues, to political issues such as Jammu and Kashmir, to action on the Bombay attacks, to action on the Samjhauta attacks, and more, there’s further reason for hope.

Indeed, one of the interesting things about the discussions between our foreign secretaries in Thimphu this week is that, apart from agreeing that all outstanding issues between the two countries need to be addressed, there’s been a move to look at issues that affect the region as a whole, in particular Afghanistan. And there’s no reason why this should not happen, for it is in the interest of both countries to address regional issues, separately and together.

But it’s important to remember that any time there’s a flicker of hope that things will normalise between our two countries, there is also a note of caution. The unfortunate truth is that it takes so little to destroy the good intentions and derail the dialogue. This is why it becomes essential, I believe, for civil society actors to keep their level of dialogue open. For no matter how small the scale of civil society interactions, whether they be cultural or political or humanitarian, they help to keep up the pressure.

My friends who are currently in Lahore celebrating the Faiz centenary are doing precisely that. They’ve gone with enormous quantities of goodwill, and, no doubt, have been received with the same and more — Pakistani hospitality is famous after all. And in the interactions, the discussions, the music and celebration that they will see there, lie the seeds of many friendships that will sustain us all, and help us to build up pressure for peace between our countries.

And that’s not all for here, too, preparations are afoot to celebrate Faiz’s centenary and the return of the delegation that went from here is anxiously awaited, so that a second set of celebrations of our shared cultures and literatures can begin. Dare I say it? The politicians could learn a thing or two from ordinary citizens.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2011.