20 Indians cross border to attend Bullah's Urs: Visa to 59 members delayed
By Mahmood Zaman
LAHORE, Aug 26: The Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi has reportedly delayed the issuance of visas to a majority of the 84-member delegation
which wanted to pay a goodwill visit to Lahore and Kasur on the invitation of PPP MNA Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmad.
Due at Wagah on Thursday, only 20 delegates led by Dr Nirmala Deshpande, Rajiya Sabha member from New Delhi, crossed the border. Lok Sabha members Mohammad Saleemuddin from Bengal and K Kharaventhan from Tamil Nadu also form part of the delegation which comprises people from all religions - Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Budhs, Bhais and Christians.
The small delegation was also the exponent of inter-religious faith and demonstrated this with their dresses. The Hindu monk, Dr Thondan Damandar Singh, was clad in an orange attire while Jain lady, Sadhavi Guruchaya, was covering her face with a white mask, an integral part of the Jain faith, and Bishop Karam Masih of the Church of Northern India was also in the white robe adorned with the Cross.
Members of the delegation, making a "pilgrimage" to Pakistan for inter-faith peace, are scheduled to attend the annual Urs of Hazrat Baba Bhulleh Shah at Kasur on Friday (today).
They were entertained at a reception hosted by the Joint Action Committee for the People's Rights on Thursday evening. When reporters asked Dr Nirmala Deshpande if she saw the delay in issuance of visas to a majority of the Indians as an indication of some problem in relations between the two countries, she said it was the mindset of the authorities on both sides of the political divide which gave certain messages at times.
"This mindset needed to be changed." The MP who comes from the family of Mahatma Gandhi, however, felt that the two governments were serious in sorting thorny problems and the process of dialogue would continue.
"I have no doubt in my mind that the Indo-Pak dialogue for peace will not only continue but will also pick up pace very soon. Certainly, this government (of Congress) will remove all the irritants and put the dialogue process on the right track," she added.
Dr Deshpande said that there was no such impression in India that the peace process was being derailed. "I am afraid this impression exists in Pakistan which is not well founded", she said, adding that no power could stop the people of the two countries from cultivating friendship and working for peace. "We want that the two countries should talk and not allow any problem to impeded the peace process."
She was, however, of the view that media by and large was not helping the peace process to go on. As many as 84 Indians applied for visa and the Pakistan HC issued only 25 of them the permission to travel to Pakistan.
A member of the delegation said that their visas were cleared in the evening on Wednesday. As a result, five of them could not reach Pakistan on Thursday. The list that the sponsors issued to reporters at the Wagha border included the names of eight men and women from Srinagar and Jammu. None of them reached here because they were not issued visas.
The member said that the Pakistani HC seemed reluctant in issuing visas and had been delaying the process for various reasons. Two members of Lok Sabha joined the delegation because they did not require visa.
A former vice chief of army staff Lt-Gen Moti Dar, now the president of the Indian chapter of the Indo-Pakistan Soldiers Initiate for Peace, is also accompanying the delegation.
Also part of the delegation is Dr Wishvanath Karad Dadra from Pune who is heading the World Peace Centre in Maharashtra and is also the president of the Unesco chair in human rights, democracy, peace and tolerance in that India state.
He seemed excited going to Kasur and said Bhulleh Shah's message of love and peace is similar to Maharashtra's Saint Tukram who was Bhulleh Shah's contemporary and is held in reverence throughout India.
Dr Ali Kamaruddin Merchant, vice-chairperson of Bhai's centre in India, distributed an Urdu translation of the Bhai message among reporters and the people who received the Indian delegation.
