I am a member of an informal group called Indo-Pak Youth Forum for Peace. This group came into existence after the interactions between Indian and Pakistani delegates during the World Social Forum. Ours is a group which works towards the people to people interactions between the two countries. Well, we were anticipating the arrival of 20 Pakistani youths to India by 25th of December. They were to come to India and visit, Delhi, Pune and Mumbai in that order. We had an elaborate schedule prepared for them for their stay and other programmes including cultural stuff, sight seeing, interactions between the students of Mumbai etc. But as luck would have it, the Pakistanis couldn't get the visa and now their whole trip stands cancelled. But we plan to go ahead with an interaction programme we had planend with the students of Mumbai. This is a symbolic gesture just to show that we inspite of their absense, the message of peace would be sent.
It is very disheartening especially after the amount of time we have put in for meetings, discussions etc. detailing every single thing of their trip and stay in Mumbai. But this is the reality of the Indo-Pak relations. Whenever there has been a talk about Indo-Pak relations, I have always never been really affected by it. But this time it is different. We have actually had the chance to witness the visa problems the citizens of both the countries face in order to visit their friends and relatives. The problems or well, exagerrated problems, are so trivial that one wouldn't encounter of such things if one is travelling to some another country. But well....life goes on and we expect them in India real soon. Such increasing animosity just doesn't make sense any more and such events just make me wonder what GOOD RELATIONS are we talking about?
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5 comments:
Why dont they ever plan to bring Pakistanis to the South? It is always the cliche'd 'North' that seems to represent India. We have a whole different set of things downstairs you see!
Posted by Anand
Here are a few of my thoughts on India- Pakistan relations or for that matter any warring countries.
http://atheistbishop.blogspot.com/2001/08/i-am-going-to-jammu-tommorow.html
http://atheistbishop.blogspot.com/2001/08/in-delhi-i-donno-why-but-i-hate-this.html
http://atheistbishop.blogspot.com/2001/07/question-how-important-is-politics-to.html
I hope to join your forum sometime.
Posted by Anonymous
Its sad this whole thing about India and Pakistan.
But can peace be really achieved by sidelining the real issues....
What about the gross injustices that have been committed by both parties.
What about the innocents who have lost their lives in the conflict.
Peace must be given a chance.....but not at the cost of someone's tears
Posted by The Hissing Saint
I, Me and Media!
BlogBack Closing 13th October 2005. Read more...
Apple:
Sometimes I am forced to believe that the whle thing is a farce. At the rate at which we are going, any improvement in Indo-Pak relations is a thing we can only hope for in the years to come. Fingers crossed.
2004-12-21 18:58
dee:
since i dont know what to say, i'll line maro apple.
hey, how you doing? ;)
(please bf of apple, dont keel me)
2004-12-21 19:40
Shankar:
Ya, these are trivial , but i feel the peace is just an exaggerated word which is never going to happen. Even here where i am staying, we had a fight when india-pak match was telecast, between indian & paki students in our university. Close friends became enemies just because of few words exchanged about countries.
Leave that alone, i feel being strict in visa is natural, everyone knew few months back when a kerala girl was rejected pakistani citizenship after she fell in love with a pakistani collegemate. After settling in pakistan leaving her family behind, changing the religion, they didnt accept her. I dont blame both sides because every human has the natural tendency to take revenge for each others actions. Remember, Pakistan grows economically fast and gets more benefits for being friendly with India. Even strategically, India wouldnt want to loose its competitive advantage to pakistan in Asia, as US is trying not to loose to china.
Its just my personal view and dont think that i am a fanatic or pessimistic or part of some organisaitons, but when the two country's people living abroad see the other in a different way, i find it hard to digest all these talks and good will gestures. I still have pakistani friends, but trust is something i am scared with them. i know they feel the same about me. I feel both are deeply divided by religion and fake patriotism and none of the country is ready to concede anything because of pride and status, which is very much understandable. Its a good thing with people like u trying to bridge the differences and hope the people involved in direct talks understand ur efforts and feelings. i also hope to change from my narrow views soon.
Also this strikes me as a south indian, is there any difference between south indian and north indian people at first?????? Sometimes i feel, students form as south indian or north indian groups, may be because of language issues. Because we have lots of funny discussions which ends with "Tum sab sale south indian aise ho" or "Tum sab Gujarati G***** people" :)
2004-12-22 04:05
Vaibhav:
thats sad! when you've put a lot of effort you really want to see the results but anyway keep going on your path of 'karma' theory:)
2004-12-22 08:07
screamer:
hmm, i think the thing is that its just human tendency. there are times when we end up trying way too hard and are left with no result. (though i'm not talking about the effort you guys put into the forum.)
and as far as visas and travelling and peace is concerned, i think the two countries have just come to a stage where trust has become almost negligible, atleast political trust if not trust in the general public.
and shobha, again you call a visa for india/pakistan to the other country a trivial matter. its just that other countries of the world DO NOT share a relationship like these two. so its butt obvious that these problems arise. after all all these years the fight has been about my territory and your territory, so if a citizen goes to the other country, its just natural that visa like problems (which i again insist are not trivial at all) will arise.
and as for you being disheartened, i'd just like to say, sometimes, the satisfaction is not in meeting results, but just going through the process.
wat say DEE!?!?
2004-12-22 10:47
Nattu:
I am an optimist, I believe things are improving. With more people to people contacts they are bound to get better. Of course there will be problems along the way, of course politicians and their ilk would try as hard as possible to scupper the whole process, but i think there is a certain inevitability about peace. sooner or later it will come.
Just keep up the good work!
2004-12-22 14:56
Russ:
if the pakis do come…..tell them their cricket team is playing superb…..aloo ^:)^ ….buhaha
2004-12-22 18:27
Pallavi:
I think we all should get over this Indo Pak hostility thing.. lot of water under the bridge… but some obviously have strong emotional history attached to them … so to each his own I guess !!
2004-12-23 09:52
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