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By Richard Leiby, Gah
Dust and dung coat the floor of the never-opened public-health center. Birds nest in the breezeway of the never-used boys high school. And staff never came to run the new womens vocational center.
The government-designated model village of Gah, in the parched croplands of Punjab province, was supposed to serve as a thriving symbol of unity between Pakistan and India. Today it feels more like a ghost town, an embodiment of fitful, frequently stalled efforts by the two nations to settle their historical disputes.
Gah, a farming community of 300 squat, mud-brick homes about 60 miles southwest of Islamabad, is remarkable only as the birthplace of Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India. Last month, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari invited Singh to visit Gah, in the latest round of so-called soft diplomacy between the nuclear-armed countries.
The offer comes as their relationship is improving slightly, at least on trade matters. Indias decision last week to allow investments from Pakistani citizens and companies was taken as another sign of progress, but there has been no lowering of the guard militarily by either side.
This is Pakistans second such goodwill invitation to Singh. He had planned to come several years ago at the request of then-military ruler Pervez Musharraf, who embraced a peace process with India in 2004, when Singh assumed office.
Under Musharraf, money flowed into Gah from the Punjab provincial government that was dominated by Musharrafs party, funding roads, water projects and social service facilities. Pakistan permitted a team of Indian technicians from an energy institute to come to Gah to install solar-powered street lamps, lighting for homes and a hot-water system for the village mosque.
Then Singhs visit was scrubbed, amid the political turmoil in 2007 that led to Musharrafs ouster in 2008. The attacks on Mumbai that November which India blamed on Pakistan-sanctioned militants severely strained a bilateral relationship already burdened by old enmities and suspicions.
Diplomats suspended regular talks on territorial disputes, including the central one of Kashmir, the Muslim-majority Himalayan region over which India and Pakistan have gone to war three times since both nations became independent from Britain 65 years ago.
Funds for Gahs projects were cut. Already-constructed schools and other facilities were never staffed.
Its all been a waste
In the impoverished village, news of another invitation to Singh revived hopes and lingering disappointments.
We resent that there was no follow-through, said Ghulam Murtaza, a 38-year-old primary schoolteacher, standing outside the shuttered health clinic. As a result, you see nothing here, and it hurts the poor people.
His family donated land for the site of the boys high school, he said, when the Punjab government asked the community for help. We kept our promises, and they have not. Its all been a waste.
To Abdul Khaliq, 51, a village leader who has long pushed for economic development, a visit by Singh would highlight a yearning among ordinary Pakistanis: We very much want peace, he said. We believe that both countries need to sit together to resolve the issues, to spend more on the development side, not the defense side.
Gahs turn in the limelight started as soon as Singh became prime minister. His Pakistani counterpart, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, bestowed model village status on Gah and directed that its primary school be renamed after Singh, who had been a student there for several years. Former classmates wrote him congratulatory letters.
Today the locals treat with totemic reverence the original class register, which shows that Singh, the son of a merchant, entered first grade as pupil number 187 on April 17, 1937, and stayed through the fourth grade.
His grades steadily improved, the registers show. The future Indian leader, who holds a doctorate in economics and won notice as Indias reformist finance minister, studied math, geography and Urdu, the most common language in what would become Pakistan.
Singhs family is Sikh. They migrated to the Indian Punjab in 1947, when the British-ruled subcontinent was cleaved into two nations.
Zardari has proposed that Singh come to Pakistan in November, around the birthday of a revered Sikh saint. He told Singh in a letter that the occasion would reinforce our mutual desire to promote interfaith and inter-religious harmony.
Zardari was following up on an overture he made to Singh in April, when the Pakistani president went to India on a pilgrimage to a Sufi saints shrine.
That visit seems to have played well in Gah, where people talk of a peaceful pre-partition coexistence among Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. It was a better time, said Murtaza, whose father, Muhammad, now aged and ill, was a schoolmate of Singhs.
There was no difference of religion or any other things, Murtaza said, citing his fathers recollections. Children played together and went to each others houses. There was no discrimination. There was coeducation.
Issues to be worked out
Whether Singh will again walk the narrow streets of his childhood village depends on various unpredictable factors. Indian authorities are keenly monitoring the political situation in Pakistan, where the Supreme Court recently disqualified a prime minister from office for contempt of court and is on course to oust his successor, too.
Amid such uncertainty, New Delhi is reluctant to make any formal announcement about the proposed Singh visit, not wanting to see a replay of the situation with Musharraf.
Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna is scheduled to visit Islamabad for talks in September. One territorial dispute believed close to resolution involves Sir Creek, a 60-mile-long strip of water that opens into the Arabian Sea. It divides a region of the Indian state of Gujarat and the Sindh province of Pakistan.
Another agreement may be near on liberalized visa policies that would enable businessmen from both countries to travel more freely across the border.
Getting a business visa is a cumbersome procedure you have to travel to Delhi, get all kinds of letters from Pakistan, get city-specific permits. And then you have to report at the police station every time you enter and exit a Pakistani city, said Rajdeep Uppal, vice-president of the Amritsar Exporters Chambers of Commerce, an Indian city on the border, said this spring.
We have been demanding changes for many years, said Uppal, who exports vegetables and spices and imports cement from Pakistan. But now it appears that the two governments mean business. They have gone beyond merely talking about it.
He spoke in anticipation of both nations home secretaries formalizing the pact in Islamabad in May, but it never happened. Pakistan postponed the deal, citing the need for more deliberations at a political level.
Another impediment to improved ties is Mumbai specifically, Pakistans continued refusal to accept evidence that India has developed against the alleged plotters of the three-day massacre that killed 166 people. Pakistani officials also have refused to jail Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group that the United States and India blame for the Mumbai attacks.
In Gah, where electricity arrived only in 1998, such disputes take on less importance than basic socioeconomic concerns. The village needs doctors. Two new high schools one for boys and one for girls sit empty, awaiting teachers.
But Ghulam Murtaza said he no longer can count on his countrys leaders to care. He looks to India and to a native son of Gah.
If Prime Minister Singh could visit, that would make a difference, he said. The people here could tell him of our problems. That is our only hope.
Pakistani village yearns for India visit - FT.com
Dust and dung coat the floor of the never-opened public-health center. Birds nest in the breezeway of the never-used boys high school. And staff never came to run the new womens vocational center.
The government-designated model village of Gah, in the parched croplands of Punjab province, was supposed to serve as a thriving symbol of unity between Pakistan and India. Today it feels more like a ghost town, an embodiment of fitful, frequently stalled efforts by the two nations to settle their historical disputes.
Gah, a farming community of 300 squat, mud-brick homes about 60 miles southwest of Islamabad, is remarkable only as the birthplace of Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India. Last month, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari invited Singh to visit Gah, in the latest round of so-called soft diplomacy between the nuclear-armed countries.
The offer comes as their relationship is improving slightly, at least on trade matters. Indias decision last week to allow investments from Pakistani citizens and companies was taken as another sign of progress, but there has been no lowering of the guard militarily by either side.
This is Pakistans second such goodwill invitation to Singh. He had planned to come several years ago at the request of then-military ruler Pervez Musharraf, who embraced a peace process with India in 2004, when Singh assumed office.
Under Musharraf, money flowed into Gah from the Punjab provincial government that was dominated by Musharrafs party, funding roads, water projects and social service facilities. Pakistan permitted a team of Indian technicians from an energy institute to come to Gah to install solar-powered street lamps, lighting for homes and a hot-water system for the village mosque.
Then Singhs visit was scrubbed, amid the political turmoil in 2007 that led to Musharrafs ouster in 2008. The attacks on Mumbai that November which India blamed on Pakistan-sanctioned militants severely strained a bilateral relationship already burdened by old enmities and suspicions.
Diplomats suspended regular talks on territorial disputes, including the central one of Kashmir, the Muslim-majority Himalayan region over which India and Pakistan have gone to war three times since both nations became independent from Britain 65 years ago.
Funds for Gahs projects were cut. Already-constructed schools and other facilities were never staffed.
Its all been a waste
In the impoverished village, news of another invitation to Singh revived hopes and lingering disappointments.
We resent that there was no follow-through, said Ghulam Murtaza, a 38-year-old primary schoolteacher, standing outside the shuttered health clinic. As a result, you see nothing here, and it hurts the poor people.
His family donated land for the site of the boys high school, he said, when the Punjab government asked the community for help. We kept our promises, and they have not. Its all been a waste.
To Abdul Khaliq, 51, a village leader who has long pushed for economic development, a visit by Singh would highlight a yearning among ordinary Pakistanis: We very much want peace, he said. We believe that both countries need to sit together to resolve the issues, to spend more on the development side, not the defense side.
Gahs turn in the limelight started as soon as Singh became prime minister. His Pakistani counterpart, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, bestowed model village status on Gah and directed that its primary school be renamed after Singh, who had been a student there for several years. Former classmates wrote him congratulatory letters.
Today the locals treat with totemic reverence the original class register, which shows that Singh, the son of a merchant, entered first grade as pupil number 187 on April 17, 1937, and stayed through the fourth grade.
His grades steadily improved, the registers show. The future Indian leader, who holds a doctorate in economics and won notice as Indias reformist finance minister, studied math, geography and Urdu, the most common language in what would become Pakistan.
Singhs family is Sikh. They migrated to the Indian Punjab in 1947, when the British-ruled subcontinent was cleaved into two nations.
Zardari has proposed that Singh come to Pakistan in November, around the birthday of a revered Sikh saint. He told Singh in a letter that the occasion would reinforce our mutual desire to promote interfaith and inter-religious harmony.
Zardari was following up on an overture he made to Singh in April, when the Pakistani president went to India on a pilgrimage to a Sufi saints shrine.
That visit seems to have played well in Gah, where people talk of a peaceful pre-partition coexistence among Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. It was a better time, said Murtaza, whose father, Muhammad, now aged and ill, was a schoolmate of Singhs.
There was no difference of religion or any other things, Murtaza said, citing his fathers recollections. Children played together and went to each others houses. There was no discrimination. There was coeducation.
Issues to be worked out
Whether Singh will again walk the narrow streets of his childhood village depends on various unpredictable factors. Indian authorities are keenly monitoring the political situation in Pakistan, where the Supreme Court recently disqualified a prime minister from office for contempt of court and is on course to oust his successor, too.
Amid such uncertainty, New Delhi is reluctant to make any formal announcement about the proposed Singh visit, not wanting to see a replay of the situation with Musharraf.
Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna is scheduled to visit Islamabad for talks in September. One territorial dispute believed close to resolution involves Sir Creek, a 60-mile-long strip of water that opens into the Arabian Sea. It divides a region of the Indian state of Gujarat and the Sindh province of Pakistan.
Another agreement may be near on liberalized visa policies that would enable businessmen from both countries to travel more freely across the border.
Getting a business visa is a cumbersome procedure you have to travel to Delhi, get all kinds of letters from Pakistan, get city-specific permits. And then you have to report at the police station every time you enter and exit a Pakistani city, said Rajdeep Uppal, vice-president of the Amritsar Exporters Chambers of Commerce, an Indian city on the border, said this spring.
We have been demanding changes for many years, said Uppal, who exports vegetables and spices and imports cement from Pakistan. But now it appears that the two governments mean business. They have gone beyond merely talking about it.
He spoke in anticipation of both nations home secretaries formalizing the pact in Islamabad in May, but it never happened. Pakistan postponed the deal, citing the need for more deliberations at a political level.
Another impediment to improved ties is Mumbai specifically, Pakistans continued refusal to accept evidence that India has developed against the alleged plotters of the three-day massacre that killed 166 people. Pakistani officials also have refused to jail Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group that the United States and India blame for the Mumbai attacks.
In Gah, where electricity arrived only in 1998, such disputes take on less importance than basic socioeconomic concerns. The village needs doctors. Two new high schools one for boys and one for girls sit empty, awaiting teachers.
But Ghulam Murtaza said he no longer can count on his countrys leaders to care. He looks to India and to a native son of Gah.
If Prime Minister Singh could visit, that would make a difference, he said. The people here could tell him of our problems. That is our only hope.
Pakistani village yearns for India visit - FT.com
