First, there was the announcement of granting Most Favoured Nation status to India, and then came S M Krishna’s visit, which resulted in a liberalised visa regime and the lifting of restrictions on Pakistanis investing in India and vice versa.
But this kind of track-one diplomacy, as official government-to-government diplomatic exchanges are called, have proven to be painfully slow and superficial, subject to the whims of changing governments and pressure groups, and are very often stymied by terrorist attacks or transgressions by either of the parties.
A real and lasting change in the relationship between the two countries can only be brought about by altering the ingrained mindsets of the people on both sides of the border. And this can be achieved in a short period of time. Don’t believe us? Well, a civil society programme called Exchange for Change (EFC) actually managed to achieve this kind of change and create a constituency for peace in just 16 months!
The EFC is a programme run by two not-for-profit organisations, the Pakistan-based Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP) that works to spread education and awareness about national heritage and the India-based Routes2Roots (R2R) that is involved in building cultural and trade ties between Saarc countries. In 2010, the two organisations dabbled in a unique project: it got schoolchildren from the two countries to write letters to each other, opening an unlikely communication channel with ‘friends’ from the ‘enemy’ territory.
The project involved 2,400 children from 10 schools across Delhi, Mumbai, Lahore and Karachi. Every few days or weeks, a CAP or R2R representative would arrive at the schools with a stack of letters, postcards and photographs sent by their cross-border counterparts and hand them out to the excited students who would eagerly pore over them and write back. At the end of the project, some Pakistani students even managed to visit Delhi, while their Indian counterparts took in the sights of Lahore.
With this simple initiative, the age-old barriers of mutual suspicion and hatred began to melt.
The EFC strived to “bridge the intergenerational divide between two great nations, India and Pakistan,” as Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, the Oscar award-winning filmmaker and president of CAP, put it.
“The exchange will hopefully help students realise that the children on the other side of the border are just like them and have similar hobbies and daily routines.” said Tina Vachani, co-founder of Routes2Roots. “When students participating in the project voice their experiences to other friends and family members, hopefully, it will be worth more than a drop in the ocean and a chain message will spread from student to student.”
What the EFC achieved at the end of the project was nothing short of remarkable. After a year-long communication, exchange the children, who initially overwhelmingly considered their counterparts from across the border as ‘hostile,’ realised they were in fact no different in their culture and lifestyle than the ‘other’.
The EFC reports that as many as 45 per cent of the participating students agreed that Pakistan and India share many similarities, which they were unaware of before the project, while 72 per cent stated that they now believe that India and Pakistan can co-exist peacefully. Around 54 per cent of the participating Pakistani students said that their opinion about India had been positively affected and 67 per cent of them said they wanted the programme to continue and would like to know more about India.
Hence, when children got to know each other first hand, stereotypes were shattered and they were able to form their own opinions about the others. What the governments of the two countries could not achieve in so long — building a peace constituency that can ensure amicable relations — a few hundred schoolchildren managed to do. Perhaps, members of the two governments and their armies need to undertake a similar exercise to break the ice once and for all!
Taking a cue from the positive response, the EFC has now decided to launch a second round of the programme this year. This time, around 3,500 school children between the ages of 10 and 14, from 17 schools across Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Delhi, Chandigarh and Mumbai will become pen pals.
“When we launched this project in 2010 we believed that this was one small step towards enabling our next generation to build bridges with India,” says Swaleha Alam Shahzada, executive director of CAP. “Now as we relaunch EFC 2012 - 2013, we know that we have made a giant leap in our shared history. Our stories are the same — we just need to share them!”
All material courtesy of CAP and Routes2Roots
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, September 23rd, 2012.
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COMMENTS (18)
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Like poles repeal and unlike poles attract each other --- this is a fact. Now from this we should go forward because it has a greater chance of being sustained.
@Max: Was "Babri Maszid " a mosque. The case is over 110 years old. Till the court gives its final verdict it is just a structure.
People conveniently forget that 65 years ago Pakistan was carved out of India and the fact that they share the same language, culture and traditions. Pakistanis just happen to be Indian Muslims and there are millions of them in India as well.
Ideological narratives are political constructs invented for political reasons and these false ideologies cannot erase what is in the DNA of people from the subcontinent.
Hi All,
I want to say here that apparently we may appear same but in fact i don't think other than territorial traditions, ideologically we are on opposite sides to each other.
@gp65: "Don’t their Hindus burn down mosques? No." All that verbosity and yet you forget Babri Masjid. Like they say, empty vessels...
@Pir Bulle Shah: Let me answer your questions as they relate to Hindus (not identical to Indians by the way):
Don’t their Hindus burn down mosques? No. kill people when their ganeshas are maligned? No. Can you quote an instance when this has actually occurred? have antiblasphemy laws to jail Muslims? A total of 7 blasphemy cases have been filed in India since 1931. I do not have religious break-up that this has been disproportionately used against Muslims. Do you? Don’t they claim to have the best and the final religion too? No. Don’t they love kilash in China as much we love Mecca Medina and are willing to die for it? SOme maybe willing to die for it but I hope none is willing to kill for it.
Also the underlying premise in your statement is India = Hindus. You should be aware that India has 240 million non-Hindus including 150 million Muslims.
Two nation theory suggests we are unlike you. and hence Pakistan
@Pir Bulle Shah: " Don’t they claim to have the best and the final religion too?"
No. There were 3 other religions that took birth in India after Hinduism i.e. Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism. So no Hindus do not insist on this. Also you are wrong about the notion that India = Hindus. India has 240 million non-Hindus including 150 million Muslims.
Good experiment. Hope it succeeds. We must remember that there were no visa controls in 1965 - people did go back and forth in India still Operation Gilbratar happened. In 1946 neighbour turned on neighbour - so it was certainly not lack of familiarity that led to hatred. If political elite (in Pakistan that also includes the army) do not put poison, normalcy can be restored. Let us hope that happens. Both countries can benefit from using funds currently allotted to security for uses such as education, hunger, health etc.
The two great subcontinental rivals, Pakistan and India,
Neighbours, Yes.
Cooperative Neighbours, Hopefully.
Estranged Neighbours, Matbe.
Adversaries, even Enemies , If you insist.
But Rivals? Certainly not.
Rivals usually covet the same thing, our world vision, our goals are too divergent for us to be RIVALS.
How come all fanatics are objecting to I am just like you? Don't their Hindus burn down mosques, kill people when their ganeshas are maligned, and have antiblasphemy laws to jail Muslims? Don't they claim to have the best and the final religion too? Don't they love kilash in China as much we love Mecca Medina and are willing to die for it? I am sure they are no different.
P.P.S I'm anything but like you!!
indian culture is secular culture, india is a secular country. this is a very very different culture
Just like them is a very strong word. Our core values r very different.
why now???
Students from other areas may also be added to the list cities in 2012-2013 program for widespread cross border people to people contact. You have selected the right section of the society having have long positive results on both side of the borders.
Please accept heartiest congratulations for the splendid job.
A Peshawary.
This is a good move. Let the younger generation grow up prejudice-free and capable of taking decisions based on the current reality rather than historical bias.