December 31, 2006

“WHEN I first visited Pakistan I thought that burka culture would be dominant there, given the kind of reports we read and hear in the media,” says Grishma. “This impression was immediately dispelled, and I found that the people were very much like us.” Garishma was one of the three students to visit Pakistan recently on a two-day peace conference programme, organized by Bargad, a Pakistan-based NGO.

Grishma’s case is not an isolated one. Despite being cut from the same cloth, the unfortunate relationship between India and Pakistan has never allowed easy movement between the two countries. As a result, people on either side have had to resort to skewed impressions of each other, fed to them by the media. The most important fall-out of this arrangement has been the young generation, who rarely get a chance to interact with any of their counterpart across the border.

Add to this the distorted history being taught at the academic level and it is no surprise that the youth of both the countries is bred on either animosity, or complete ignorance of each other.

Divya, another student who participated in the workshop, has similar impressions to share, but she also feels that when it comes to vital issues like Kashmir, it is mostly the populist belief that rules.

“We definitely need a policy change in a larger context if we want to see a more concrete change,” she says. A student of journalism, Divya believes that these small, continuous interactive measures can help build bridges and perhaps create a visible lobby that wants better ties between the two countries. In this regard, one of the most visible aspects is that of visa facilities.

“Isolated cases will not have a real impact in the political context,” says Grishma. “It will need full strength from both sides to bring any tangible change that will perhaps trigger both the states into rethinking its policies.”

At present, both India and Pakistan follow a very stringent visa policy, which makes it quite difficult to cross borders. Many people who have applied for visa for either of the countries would agree that issuance of visas is an event in itself; a product of toil and sweat. The embassies issue a very limited number of visas with complicated paperwork and bureaucratic managing. As a rule, city specific visas are issued which further restricts movement and, more often than not, police reporting is compulsory.

“There have been general demands from academics and other such bodies to lax the visa policy,” says Suryanarayan. Mr Narayan, a professor at Madras University, has done extensive work on India’s foreign policy. “Unfortunately, it is the security agencies who call the shots, and they look at every Indian and Pakistani as an enemy.”

A staunch advocate of track-three diplomacy, also called people-to-people contact, Mr Narayan believes that student exchange programmes are the first step which should give way to regular youth festivals, and other such youth-oriented programmes. He also believes that it will be long-term interactions that will eventually break down, what he calls, “artificial barriers” between the two countries.

But the general consensus remains that interaction does lead to shedding of preconceived notions. Seema, a Pakistani student of International Relations says: “People-to-people contact is important to prepare the population of new and friendly policy shifts and to make them more receptive of the ensuing changes. And with the new emerging geo-political situation, Pakistan and India cannot continue with a confrontational and antagonistic approach.”

Seema was a part of a student delegation that was invited to Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2000. Unfortunately, just a couple of months before the group was to take-off, 9/11 happened, and the visit had to be aborted. But earlier, she did get a chance to attend a workshop on South Asian conflict which included Indian students, an experience she calls truly “enlightening.”

“The workshop allowed students to see things in a bigger picture and hear the story of the other side” she says, “The discussion itself was very fruitful as there was little shifting of blame and more focus on resolving the differences. It also made us realise that we need to ponder and discuss solutions more then reiterating the problems.”

Women in Conflict Management and Peace (Wiscomp), a Delhi-based organisation has been actively pursuing this cause for the past five years. Every year, Wiscomp brings together young people from various fields from India, Pakistan and Kashmir to discuss various confliction issues.

“People often come to the workshop with a certain perception of the hostile "other", with some amount of unease and suspicion,” says Stuti, one of the members of the Wiscomp group. “But through interaction at the workshop and post workshop, this perception changes positively. Through the course of the five years, participants have been more open to understanding the cultures and traditions of each other and are more appreciative of the other's positions and concerns.”

As things stand, such programmes are largely dependant on the whims of the state policies. But it cannot be denied that these interactive measures can play a vital role in policy changes. What is primarily needed for both Indians and Pakistanis at this stage is to make good use of these opportunities to pave way for a better tomorrow.

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