LAHORE, Aug 29: Dr Nirmala Deshpande, a prominent Indian peace activist, says the efforts to bring peoples of the two neighbouring states closer have started bearing fruit. “In a northern Bihar village, a candidate for the top local body slot won the recent elections as her slogan was Hind-Pakistan Dosti (India-Pakistan Friendship),” she told Dawn here.
Affectionately called Didi (elder sister) by both Indian and Pakistani peace activists, Dr Deshpande had recently led a 50-member delegation, comprising peace activists, ex-army officers, educationists, parliamentarians, social activists and intellectuals, that participated in the 250th annual Urs of Sufi poet Hazrat Baba Bulleh Shah at Kasur.
“The peace process is on the right track though the pace is slow. Let us hope we’ll move fast in future and I am optimistic something concrete in this regard will happen soon,” Dr Deshpande, who is a member of the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Indian parliament) and chairperson of the People for Asia organisation, said.
“People in every nook and corner of India want to have contacts with Pakistanis. They want to visit Pakistan. Same are the sentiments here,” she added. In India, people had the slogan ‘Jay Hind’ (Victory for India), but now we have a new slogan: ‘Victory for the whole world for peace’”.
She said the public opinion was very powerful and it was now time to use that power for peace.
Dr Deshpande said she was in favour of more and more initiatives that could bring the peoples of the two neighbours closer. “This is the only way to enable the peoples of the two states to exert pressure on their respective governments (to make them realise) that they want peace. Only then the governments would realise and act accordingly.”
She said Pakistan was like her second home and she had been visiting it every year for the last 13 years or so.
“But the visa policy on both sides is a major hurdle in this regard. India and Pakistan should make the visa process easier. There should be concessions for all or at least for the senior citizens who migrated in 1947,” she maintained.
She said when she was arranging a delegation’s tour to Pakistan some two years back, an octogenarian doctor from Panipat came to her and said: “`Didi! Hamain aik bar apna watan daikhna hai, aik bar sirf aik bar apni janam bhoomi jana hai (Sister! I just want to see my homeland; at least once I want to visit my birthplace.)’ After visiting his ancestral place, that was somewhere in Multan, she said, the doctor told her: `Didi! Sub acha tha, parr maira koi dost na tha, kisi ka baita mila tao kisi ka pota. (Every thing was fine, but none of my friends was there; I could only meet the people from younger generation)’. “The doctor died within months of visiting his birthplace,” recalled Dr Deshpande.
Dr Deshpande, who was born in Nagpur on October 17, 1929, said there seemed a sort of flexibility on both sides over the Kashmir issue.
She was of the view that Kashmir issue should be resolved through a dialogue and both the countries were competent enough to carve out a solution in this context without intervention of any other country(s).