Let us not be strangers

“We stand estranged after so many encounters and easy intimacy,/How many meetings will it take to be that close again”
— Faiz Ahmad Faiz
Faiz Ahmad Faiz wrote the poem ‘Hum ke Thehre Ajnabi’ in 1974 after his return from the newly separated state of Bangladesh, epitomising feelings of estrangement and losing the trust of the Bangladeshi people.
Forty years down the road this verse defines the uneasy path of India- Pakistan relations in retrospect. Despite sharing a common border and unending socio-cultural ties, the two neighbours feel estranged, particularly today when political tensions have stoked their flames high across the border. How many meetings will it take to reconnect with India again?
One way to foster closeness is to promote cross-cultural contact. Pakistan took the initiative and invited a few Indian guests to the much-revered Faiz Festival in Lahore. The welcoming eyes, warm smiles, loving embraces, and uninterrupted social activity marked the event. – a perfect cultural fusion.
The amazing Sonam Kalra performed a ghazal, even though maestro Ghulam Ali was constrained from performing in India not so long ago. Indian artists and intellectuals like Naseeruddin Shah, Atul Tiwari, Anuradha Bhattacharjee discussed their views frankly, free from fear in stark contrast to the malicious reception faced by Pakistan’s former foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, on his book launch across the border. And not to mention the threat of security to many of our artists working in India at that time.
The objective of emphasising all this is not to score points but to show that it is difficult to understand the trajectory of this love-hate relationship that has persisted for years now. What is indeed commendable on the part of the government and civil society was the welcome extended to the Indian guests; no incident of harassment or highhandedness was reported. The tradition of welcoming guests, which is part of the Indian cultural milieu and official policy, has placed Pakistan on a high moral ground for which we deserve praise.
The event nevertheless served its purpose of identifying some major realities pertinent to Pak-India relations. First, the progressive and humanistic ambience of such relations could flourish despite a bitter confrontational mode. Second, no amount of politics can circumvent the depth of these relations. Third, peace has a fair chance to prevail by diffusion of cultural nuances, which may have the ability to then defuse political tension in the long run. What better occasion for an illustration of peace than the Faiz Festival which symbolised freedom, tolerance, and friendship for us estranged neighbours.
There have been other steps recently, mainly from the Pakistani side, with an intention to promote peace, especially when the air was rife with hostility across the border. The compassionate return of Gita to her native land could not have been more timely; this was acknowledged by the Indian authorities as well. Recently our Rangers have resumed the ritual of exchanging sweets with their Indian counterparts at the Wagah border. This practice had been abandoned as a consequence of continual cross-border firing at the LoC a few months ago.
The participation of Indian delegates at a recent two-day conference in Karachi on India-Pakistan relations – held under the auspices of the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, a local non-governmental entity – was encouraging. The objective was to promote peace. The participants included Mani Shankar Aiyar, a diplomat and now a Congress MP, Sudheendra Kulkarni, a BJP politician and journalist, and Salman Haider, a former Indian foreign secretary. They all exchanged their views and ideas amidst a wide audience.
The momentum of cross-cultural communication must be kept alive. But there are other avenues where the two neighbours can cooperate for their mutual benefit, especially in dealing with issues like poverty, socioeconomic conditions, security, trade, tourism and investment. Unfortunately, this is where no substantial headway has been made despite the previous encounters.
A few factors must be kept in mind when dealing with South Asia. China and India, despite a border dispute and deep mistrust, signed agreements worth billions of dollars in 2013 as the two emerging markets pledged to broaden commercial ties despite political tensions. This was followed by inking border defence cooperation in a bid to settle their decades’-old stalemate on overlapping claims to the long stretches of the Himalayas. Two years ago, the two countries signed a security agreement to boost bilateral security cooperation, enhance coordination on anti-terrorism endeavours and share intelligence information regarding regional and international terror groups and their activities.
This can serve as a good example for Pakistan and India but it all depends on whether the two countries are willing to set their differences aside. The ball is now in India’s court, whose leadership must value the importance of peace for the ultimate benefit of the people.
The writer holds an LLM degree in international economic law from the University of Warwick. Email: beelam_ramzan@yahoo.com