Enduring rivalry and the plight of divided families

Throughout my career as a journalist, I have campaigned for Indo-Pak congeniality at the expense of being dubbed an outcast. Perhaps that was not only my passion, but also a social responsibility as a descendant of those who made Pakistan their home after Partition.

I am also part of those children of lesser gods who had to struggle for a personal national identity in the national mainstream for decades, before being accepted as 'aliens' in footnotes. To this day, there was, and is, little regard for millions of these divided families who still have their roots on both sides of the border, and who long for lawful interaction at the pleasure of those who nurse an agenda of otherness in contempt.

Unfortunately, peace between Pakistan and India and a culture of healthy inter-state relationships were never a priority. A peripheral territorial dispute, since its inception, went on to take centre stage. Diplomacy, on either flank, was more of a tit-for-tat and reciprocity, rather than one of statesmanship. Likewise, early years were mired in tension, ill-will and suspicion.

The failure of Pakistan's political circles to assert themselves and carve out a place in national decision-making made them a pariah. Thus, normalisation of relations with India became a prerogative of those who sat on higher saddles of national security conscience. The rest is history, as the 1965 and 1971 wars made it a taboo to talk about peace and cooperation.

Notwithstanding this lacklustre bilateralism, people on both sides made some great strides in the realms of culture, poetry, intelligentsia, films and sports. This was the real mosaic of interaction that saw crests and troughs, and fell victim to political jaundice with the passage of time.

Both the countries, nonetheless, have some landmarks of cooperation to boast such as the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty; the 1972 Simla Accord; Gen Zia's air-dash to Jaipur in 1987 to watch a cricket match with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi; a 1988 treaty that prohibits attacks on each other's nuclear sites and exchange of notes at the end of each year; the historic visit to Lahore in 1999 by Prime Minister AB Vajpayee; the Manmohan-Musharraf Four-Point formula, et al, are archives in good faith.

None could graduate into a formal peace treaty or a perpetual understanding of peaceful coexistence, merely because the dispensations on either side lacked the political will and were hostage to the forces of the status quo. The degradation was evident as non-state actors crept in, making interstate relations a doomed affair. Simultaneously surfaced the politics of hate led by radicals, who had political points to score at the altar of emerging geo-economics.

They prided themselves in being dubbed as "abnormal enemies", sending shock riles from cricket to filmdom. The little or so cooperation that existed came to a standstill. The victims were the commoners, especially the divided families, for whom travelling became a mystery. No initiatives were made from either side to look into this desperation.

I can vividly recall a meeting sometime in 2002 with the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh in Delhi, on the sidelines of a Track-2 dialogue. Singh promised that journalists, businessmen and divided families would have an 'easy visa' regime. He did not walk the walk.

Likewise, MQM's MNA Kunwar Khalid Younus introduced a bill in the National Assembly calling for the relaxation of visa rules. Sadly, the bill was buried under the debris of abhorrence. MQM, being the lone spokesperson for 'migrants' from India, was a disaster.

The equation has now boiled down to misery. Thousands of families are longing for the reopening of visas to see their near and dear ones in adversity. Heavens will not fall if visa consuls start working instantly at respective missions, with this docile medium of cooperation taking precedence.

India and Pakistan are violating the basic fundamental rights of their citizens by punishing them for a failure of statecraft. Time for Islamabad and New Delhi to restart visa issuance to the aggrieved and the distressed. They are an asset and should not be mistreated anymore.