KARACHI, Dec 12: The Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy is holding what has been billed as a major peace conference between prominent citizens of the two countries. This is not the first time that such a convention is being organized and probably not the last either.

The agenda seems a worthy one, though perhaps slightly ambitious: liberalization of the visa policies of both countries and the creation of a visa-free regime. That said, one drawback of such initiatives has always been that it usually involves Pakistani and Indian elites and ordinary citizens on either side of the border are mentioned only in the declarations issued at the end of events.

What will be happening in Karachi over the next few days has a history dating back almost 20 years. It was in April 1984 that the now defunct newspaper, The Muslim, invited several prominent Indians to Islamabad for a conference with Pakistani journalists, politicians, and retired civil and military officials. The Indian delegation also included a retired vice-chief of the Indian army.

This was followed in the late 1980s by an apparent deal hammered out by the foreign secretaries of both countries. However, nothing came of that. Then came a proposal to end the military confrontation at least on Siachen but not much came out of that either.

The people-to-people exchanges and contact picked up steam visibly in the 1990s. In April 1990, a former foreign minister of India, Swaran Singh, former foreign secretaries and ambassadors, Kewal Singh, B.F. Tayabji, A.P. Venkateswaran, P.N. Haksar and Rajeshwar Dayal, editors Prem Bhatia, Rajendar Sarin and B.G. Verghese; academics A.M.Khusro, M.A. Rehman, Satish Kumar, M.L. Sondhi and Tarlok Singh and retired general J.S. Arora appealed to “to all men and women of goodwill in both the countries, to make a united front to avoid a disastrous conflict, which will not solve any of the existing problems but will only aggravate and multiply them”.

In a separate statement published in the Hindustan Times of April 16, 1990, Romila Thapar, Rajni Kothari, Ram Jethmalani and General Arora among others appealed to both countries to desist from taking any steps that might lead to war.

On April 25, 1990, 78 Indian academics and intellectuals and Pakistan’s (the late) Eqbal Ahmad signed an appeal asking scholars, professionals, political leaders, academic associations and concerned citizens of South Asia to work for conciliation. They said that armed conflict was futile and that all disputes between the two nations must be resolved through negotiation. On May 13, 1990, 50 Pakistanis issued a similar appeal. The group included Malik Meraj Khalid (the National Assembly speaker at the time), Sahibzada Yakub Ali Khan, Dorab Patel, Mubashir Hasan, Abida Hussain, Abdul Hafeez Kardar, Asma Jahangir, Air Marshal Zafar A. Chaudhry and Eqbal Ahmad. Some of them visited New Delhi the same year. They were well-received, and were hosted to a lunch by then foreign minister I.K. Gujral, Jaswant Singh of the BJP (later to become foreign and then finance minister) and an informal discussion with then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

In 1992 a group of 59 prominent Indians and Pakistanis signed a joint communique calling upon both governments to take decisive steps towards peace. Those who joined in the appeal included luminaries like Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim and Abdul Hafeez Pirzada while among the Indians who signed were General Sunderji, Soli Sorabji (later to become attorney general), Air Chief Marshal Arjun Singh and Admiral Nayyar.

The communique demanded the lifting of restrictions by both India and Pakistan on the import of newspapers, magazines and films; removal of restrictions on the stationing of media representatives; reduction of charges of postal, telegraphic and telephonic and other means of communications; liberalization of issuance of visas; and removal of delays and humiliation of travellers at the Wagah-Attari border among other matters.

Over a decade has gone and the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy is demanding pretty much the same of the two governments. Its own history dates back to 1994 when a group of Indians came to Lahore and with like-minded Pakistanis decided to form a convening committee to set up the forum. The first convention of the forum was held on Feb 24 and 25, 1995, in New Delhi, notwithstanding the fact that the Pakistani delegates were issued visas two days before the conference was to begin. The second meeting of the forum was in Lahore on Nov 10 and 11 of the same year. Seventy-nine delegates from India and 102 from Pakistan took part in the deliberations. The third conference took place from Dec 28-31, 1996, in Calcutta. A comprehensive declaration billed the Calcutta Declaration was passed on issues as crucial as demilitarization, denuclearization, religious intolerance, Kashmir, and gender equality. The fourth convention took place in Peshawar on Nov 21-22, 1998, with over 100 Indian delegates taking part and 200 from the Pakistan side. This meeting also culminated in a declaration which like the ones before it also called for the subcontinent to be freed from nuclear weapons, for both India and Pakistan to take steps to reduce human rights violations, and to do something to address concerns regarding discrimination against women and children.

Despite Kargil, the forum met again, in April 2000, for its fifth meeting, this time in Bangalore. Yet another declaration was issued, including some extremely worthy demands, most of which had been made earlier also. This time around the Indian delegation is stated to be the largest ever, with around 500 delegates expected to take part from both sides. However, those who have organized the conference probably have a wall to climb, in the form of the security and bureaucratic establishments of both countries, which have on more than one occasion defied even their prime ministers (especially in the context of making visas easier to get).

The above-mentioned abridged history of people-to-people does not even take into account the initiatives taken by both sides to end their disputes. Starting off with the exchanges between Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan right after the 1948 war over Kashmir, to the offer of joint defence pact in 1950 by Ayub Khan, to Tashkent in 1966, Simla in 1972, Lahore in 1999 and Agra in 2001, there has always been the potential for a breakthrough but a permanent peace remains elusive.