The real ambassadors: The making of a 'Pakistani-Indian'

[ajtr]

The real ambassadors: The making of a 'Pakistani-Indian'

Ilmana Fasih

"Relationships change minds and not knowledge". Aun, an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, began his story with this quote from the well-known writer Reza Aslan.
Aun had come over to my place to share his experiences as a Pakistani living in India. He's among the miniscule percent of Pakistani elite fortunate enough to have received the best education and grown up with adequate exposure and a wide horizon. Until age 16 he lived all over Pakistan as his civil servant father was transferred from on place to another.

Despite his elite education and exposure, he said that he always thought of India as an "enemy" country. The mention of India brought to his mind war, the conflicts between India and Pakistan over the past six decades. For this, he largely blamed his schooling as well as the media that always portrayed India as Pakistan's adversary.

His views drastically changed when he had the opportunity to actually live in India for some years, after his father was posted to the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi as Minister (Trade). But Aun's initial response to India was not very positive. He remembers the shabby New Delhi airport and "lots of slums and poverty" on the way to his hotel. He also initially hesitated to interact with locals during his first few days.

At the admission test at the British school in New Delhi, Aun met another prospective student, an Indian boy named Saurabh. In the few moments they interacted before the test, they discovered they had the same mother tongue (Punjabi), loved cricket, and craved biryani. From that day onwards, Aun embarked on a wonderful and fascinating journey of harmony and everlasting friendship with people from his neighbouring country. His best friend at school was Saurabh.
Sitting at my place, Aun recalled his economics teacher telling him of her own change of heart when she visited Lahore for the first time. The fear she felt, as an Indian and a woman, while boarding a taxi driven by a bearded driver melted as the driver, gauging her apprehension, reassured her and took her around the city. And at the end of it all, he refused to charge any money from his Indian 'guest'. No longer could she stereotype every bearded Pakistani as an extremist.

There are countless such stories of such small but enriching experiences of love and hospitality that counter the hatred and bigotry. I know many instances of shopkeepers at Lahore's Gawal Mandi, and New Delhi's Pallika Bazar refusing to take any money from the 'mehmaan' (guest) from the neighbouring country.

Aun told me that, despite his apprehensions, he quickly and easily made a fleet of friends among his Indian schoolmates, none of whom had any qualms in accepting him as one of them. His eyes twinkled as he recalled his friends in New Delhi coming over to his home to eat Pakistani biryani.
Two touching incidents he narrated demonstrate the compassion that exists among the people from both sides.

The first case involved an uncle of his, who came to Delhi for a liver transplant, needed about 25 units of blood. A shiver ran though me when I heard that it took barely a few hours for Aun and his Indian friends to collect the required amount of blood: the donors willingly gave their blood despite knowing that the recipient was Pakistani.

The other case was that of a Pakistani baby brought to India to be operated on for a congenital heart disease. Again, Aun's Indian friends got the required units of blood reserved in no time.
"When I visited the baby and his parents back in their village in Pakistan some years later, all the neighbours and extended family came to see me," remembers Aun. "They all were overwhelmed with immense gratitude for the Indians who donated blood and helped the baby to live."

Sitting in that small village in Pakistan, their hearts had changed forever; they were no more gullible to the propaganda of hate spread by the vested interests on both sides.

After finishing high school, as he left for further studies in Toronto, Aun knew that he and his Indian friends were good ambassadors for their respective countries, creating a positive impression on the other side. They had no hidden agendas or points to score against each other. They had no real differences. All that separated them was a barbed wire. Aun intends on going back to Pakistan and becoming a civil servant like his father. His dream posting? New Delhi.

He wants to do whatever he can to remove misunderstandings between the two nations. "The only way I think that is possible is to allow people from both countries to interact with each other," he says.

Aun told me that his Pakistani and Indian friends in Toronto jokingly call him a "Pakistani-Indian". It's an identity he feels pride in.

As Aun left for Pakistan recently, I tweeted the last two verses from a poem I had written for my blog some time ago:

"Oh! the lines between our lands sketched,
Let they not on our hearts be ever etched."
#IndoPak

A few minutes later I received an equally emotional reply from Namita, a twitter friend in India:
"am waiting on this side of the barbed fence, looking longingly on the other side, waiting for the gates to open.. #India #Pakistan"

I did not reply to her tweet. I had no words but only tears of anguish and helplessness, in response to her affection.

Dr Ilmana Fasih is an Indian gynaecologist and health activist married to a Pakistani. She blogs at
//thinkloud65.wordpress.com/

Daring to cross the love border




Ilmana Fasih shares some stories of building cross-border bridges through the social media
A world without borders was my childhood dream. The desperation and the need for this dream to realise, came out in the open when I embarked on my ‘pyar border paar’ journey, after deciding to tie the knot across the border. I’ve been on two decades of a topsy-turvy ride riddled with visa travails, with the hope-hopelessness cycle going round in vicious circles. Not had I ever dreamt in my wildest of dreams that my hope for a borderless world could be realised in my lifetime. By a ‘borderless’ world, I mean erasing psychological rather than physical borders.
Perhaps on ground it still remains a dream, but on the virtual terrain it has turned into a reality, with the booming world of social media, especially twitter. It is a visa free, passport free utopia where no one is asked their colour, creed or credentials.
It does not take long for one to get addicted to this borderless terrain. The most fascinating thing for me is to see Indo-Pak friendships burgeoning through social media. Thanks to this factor, we can all be a family beyond borders and beliefs, tied with passions common on both sides of the Indo-Pak border.

Indians and Pakistanis wish each other on Eid and Diwali via Twitter and Facebook, and send virtual firecrackers, mithai and biryani across the border.
The #shair hashtag which ‘trended’ on twitter some time back merits a mention. Every day, it attracts Urdu poetry loving twitterati in India and Pakistan. As Rana Safvi , who started this trend, begins to tweet the topic or the poet of the day, other #shair fans start to contribute their tweets with unmatched enthusiasm. So common is the passion for #shair on both sides, that it is almost impossible to identify which side of the border the tweep belongs to.
Rana tweets: “Twitter ne nikamma ker dia, warna aadmi hum bhi aadmi the kaam ke.” #shair
Comes the reply: “140 characters mein baat ker lete hain, DP to DP borderpaar, mulaqat samajh lete hain.
Political differences and arguments also emerge on twitter, but more than anger, what trumps are the vibes of friendship and harmony. The same thrill is felt on facebook too, with some limitations.
Some time back I was approached by two sets of people keen to tell their story of cross-border friendship developed through social media.
One was Ram, a boy in his mid twenties, from West Bengal, India who became friends with Maria, a girl in Punjab, Pakistan through facebook. As their friendship led to a better understanding and respect for each other’s cultures and beliefs, the vibes spilled over to thaw any cold feelings that their families had for the other side. When Ram’s father fell ill and was admitted to hospital, Maria’s mother and sister prayed for his recovery. He recovered, and Ram’s family attributed the recovery to Maria’s family’s prayers (duas).
Now, as Maria is about to be married, Ram’s family is sending her a present as a token of their friendship and gratitude for her family’s prayers. Ram explained that their families had no links to anyone the other side, and hence had no other reason to be warm, but for their friendship.
Maria and Ram have vowed to keep up their friendship even getting married to their respective spouses, and one day, when they can obtain visas, they hope to meet and ensure that any children they have are able to meet each other.

The second story is that of a love-struck couple who prefers to keep their identity and respective nationalities confidential. They contacted me with a request that I should intervene, (having gone through a similar ordeal), and convince the girl’s parents that tying a knot across the border can work out.
Like many others, they ‘met’ through an incidental chat on twitter some six months ago. They then added each other as friends on facebook. The exchange of pictures and other information led them to develop a better understanding of each other, until they reached a point when they decided they needed to share their lives. Both are in their early or mid twenties, and feel they are mature enough to embark on this journey.
The hope and enthusiasm that they had attached to my help made it hard for me to explain that I would prefer to stay away, and that they needed to deal with the situation themselves. Life is as such a struggle, and with a cross-border union, it gets tougher. Hence, let this be the first hurdle they need to cross together, before embarking on the real lifelong journey.
The couple cited the Shoaib Akhtar-Sania Mirza marriage as an example, but the girl’s parents pointed out that they were ordinary people, not stars. Hence they chose me, an ordinary Indian woman married to an ordinary Pakistani man to plead their case.
With this borderless world of twitter and face book, it is easy to predict that in future, there will be more virtual friendships which people will want to turn into real relationships.
As I explained to them, I would want everyone to appreciate that such decisions are never taken either in a haste or without realising the pros and cons of this life changing decision. Life is tough in any case, it gets tougher, and more so, after an Indo-Pak adventure. Since there are decisions which when taken can effectively be non-reversible. The decision of one of the spouses to forego his or her passport for the other side cannot be reversed, whether the marriage works or not. Secondly, when the couple has children, their nationality is one or the other. So if the marriage fails, the woman may have to suffer a lot in terms of losing her children, if the children happen to have the father’s nationality (or vice versa).
I have personally seen a couple of cases in which things did not work out and the mother and children were left stranded across the border, unable to meet again at all. I also know a woman, who is bearing all her husband’s abuses including his second marriage, only because she does not want to lose the children who have the father’s nationality. Moreover, her children are very young, and she can’t think of separation, as she has no family support or financial standing in her husband’s country, for which she left her own.
All this is certainly not intended to dissuade anyone from daring to cross the love border. But those who think of it should be fully informed of all the issues involved before embarking on this toughest exam of one’s real life.
The young twitter couple I mentioned is adamant that they want to tie the knot and transition their relationship from the virtual to the real world. I wish them good luck in their future journey.

Pangs of an Indian Pakistani

On departure at Indira Gandhi Airport, New Delhi her father, a man with steel nerves, exclaimed with a mask face, in a matter of fact manner,
“Now that you are going across, own the place, own the people, and own the problems the way you have owned the man from there.”
Without a trace of extra humidity in his eyes, he turned back towards the exit, without waiting for her to cross the immigration line for the last time as an Indian. The daughter, with a heavy heart, stopped to watch till the silhouette of her father, her mentor, blurred into the fog of the pre dawn.
Half a day later, the same day, in the same time zone (with a mere difference in half an hour), the same season, she stepped onto a ‘different’ land she was advised to “own”.
The faces, the attires, the language, the snail-pace of the custom officials was quite similar, with only minor difference in salutation of “Namasteji “ there on departure, while “Assalam Aleikum” here at arrival at Jinnah Terminal, Karachi.
But for her the smell at the airport was distinctly different, so was the taste of water she drank from the cooler, and as she moved out, the afternoon breeze that slapped her for the first time was quite hot and humid, unlike the cool breeze she had felt early morning in Delhi. The feeling within was weird, impossible to explain. It was neither regret nor its antonym.
The details of experience that each of the five senses from smell to touch went through, are still afresh as of today.
Today, it is a bit over 22 years from that day of February 19, 1990. A couple of years from now, she would have lived almost as many years as a Pakistani, as she lived as an Indian. A lot has happened in these 22 years. A lot means a lot.
From a dogged patriotic Indian, who cried hysterically on even a hint of anti Indian sentiments from the countless paroxismally patriotic Pakistanis, she gradually graduated into someone who now feels as hurt or happy for Pakistan as for India.
It did not happen overnight.
“You will find a plethora of stupid reasons to with fight each other, and to vent outside anger at home, but for heaven’s sake, never make India-Pakistan as one of those silly reasons. This will neither make India nor Pakistan any Heaven, but will certainly make your home a Hell.”
This singular advice from a cousin in Karachi, in the same situation, did not mean much to her, when it was said. However the golden words found numerous occasions to rebroadcast themselves in her head, pleading reason to maintain sanity.
More than anything else, what must have really transformed her was perhaps the dignity and poise with which her Pakistani spouse literally faced and braved the reciprocal mocking and even bullying from patriotic Indians, relatives or otherwise. If she got perturbed and came to his rescue, he would set her aside with a whisper: “Oral diarrhoea, beyond their control.”
For those who wished to discuss India Pakistan with a level of objectivity, and understanding, they both reversed their roles. They were, and in fact still are, the unsaid ambassadors of the other side in their countries of birth, attempting to bust the myths, and distortions piled up over decades.
However, they still find a sizable ‘visionaries’ on both sides, which never seem to budge from unseen prejudices. Their dogged convictions tend to take comical discourse…
“I know it. I am telling you….”
“How can you be so sure? You haven’t been there. I have lived there.”
“No, but I am sure. I know.”
One wonders if she has still learnt to laugh it off, like her husband. But certainly the pangs of the pain are a lot less.
Not only did they not fight at home on this, they even gave their children the space to choose their preferences through experience. Unlike a typical mother, who would glorify her mother’s side, while demonise her in laws place; it was a conscious effort on her part not to confuse the identity of her kids. It was perhaps as a concerned mother, that she wanted her children to love their homeland as much as she loved hers as a kid.
Seeing is believing, and her two grownups now take pride to announce “We love India, but we own Pakistan” not just in words, but in their actions too.(The wrath the two of them have faced since childhood, because of their parents identities, till date, would be another saga, best narrated by themselves).
However, not being a super human, what she has really not learnt to laugh off is the message of ‘not’ belonging to Pakistan or to India, which she receives, off and on, bluntly or subtly.
Cricket matches, which boil passions on each side, almost always place her on a pedestal where her allegiance is questioned, at every expression verbal or facial, both home and abroad.
Having strong opinions on political and social issues and a compulsion to vocalize critical views has its own price to pay, if you happen to be a ‘fortunate’ Indian Pakistani. Objectivity is not your prerogative, and to presume “You’re being biased”, is everyone else’s. They are always right, and you are always wrong.
“We thought you became a Pakistani”, “Didn’t you give up your nationality?”, “Does it not happens in your India?” “Worry about your Pakistan.” are just few of the judgements that are hurled at her, time and again.
Is it that being a Pakistani by birth, better than being a Pakistani by choice?
Is it that the passport being taken away makes her twenty four years of being born, grown up and groomed as Indian meaningless? Does the soul to be an Indian, also needs a passport?
Or is it that possession of passport of one side bars one to belong to the other side by virtue of birth.
Or is it being both an Indian Pakistani at the same time, an anathema, worthy of being distrusted?
She would be lying, if she said she accepted these meaningless comments with a big heart. It pains, it really pains. Sometimes it pains a lot more.
Time and again, such off hand comments serve as a reality check for her that ‘no matter how much she may boast that she belongs to both the lands, she is owned by none’.
Going back to her seemingly emotionless father, she was later told by her Mom, on the way back home, he had remarked in a heavy voice:
“The loud mouth that she is, she will certainly be a loss to us, but she will not be a gain, and more of a pain for the other side.”
P.S. This cry is not directed at any single person or incident, but at a pattern of reactions that shoot, off and on, owing to an identical mindset which many many on both sides share. However, it is the understanding & acceptance from friends both ‘real or ‘virtual’ who make our ordeal worthwhile.

 

[Zeeshan360]

Is that women in right corner you ??

 

[ajtr]

Call me an Indian Pakistani, please


Part of it published later in Express Tribune: Call me an Indian Pakistani – The Express Tribune Blog
My way of prayer for Peace between India and Pakistan, today-December 18, 2011.
I thank everyone who bothered to comment on my blog ‘An Indian moves to Pakistan’ in Express Tribune Blog ( December 9, 2011), and gave their input, be it positive or negative.
I would take this opportunity to broadcast loud and clear my childhood dream of a world without borders and wars.
Let me make it very clear, I do not have any ill-wish to undermine the sovereign political borders between India and Pakistan or between any other countries. My dream is to erase the psychological borders that are etched in our minds in the shape of prejudices and hatred for the other.
I would tell those friends who pity me, please pat me,instead. For I am an Indian Pakistani.
So what if I do not hold an Indian passport, I have 24 years of fascinating memories, an excellent upbringing that taught me to speak without fear, sealed in my heart as an Indian.
Pakistani, I am not by passport but by the love and respect that I have got from numerous Pakistanis, who took no time to accept me as one of them.
I own both the lands and a good 1.4 billion are my fellow compatriots.
What more could translate my feelings than this poem I wrote some time ago?,
To both the lands I belong
Yeah my heart throbs alike for the two lands
Yeah my love is equally blind for the two cultures.
Yeah my voice sings songs of love in two languages
Yeah my eyes see identical dream for the two peoples.
Yeah my lips whisper the same prayers for the two communities
Yeah my heart aches on hearing hatred screamed by bigots from two faiths
Yeah my tears roll witnessing the bloodshed by the misguided in two nations
But, I feel no difference between the two names the world calls INDIA and PAKISTAN
For the hammock of my life hangs between my two beloved lands I call my HOMELANDS.
I feel equally passionate about the happenings of Lok Pal bill as much as I was about the NRO case in Supreme Court.
When it was cricket World cup I got to support two teams, and whenever there is an India-Pakistan match, unlike the other billion and a half who dread for the result, I rejoice since if any team wins, my team is the winner.
I find divine tranquility in reading Kaafis of Bulleh Shah, as much as I drown in the depths of Kabir Dohas.
And I know how Kareem’s nalli nihari from Delhi tasted before it began its journey to end up a Sabri’s maghaz Nihari in Karachi.
I wear a Kanjeevaram sari and dangle a Sindhi embroidered bag together, and still boast both of them are my country’s handicrafts.
To those who ridiculed or criticised me, please shed the word ‘hate’ from your dictionaries. Look beyond prejudices.
Believe me, I bear witnesss that there are millions and millions on both sides who want to live in peace with themselves and with their neighbours.
For you I have this poetry as a reminder:
Oh the souls of the subcontinent,
Let for amity be our energies spent.
Arent we neighbours? Shall be forever,
Let being friends be our real endeavour.
How can the love our hearts not seal,
How can the vibes our minds not feel?
How can my eyes and your deny,
Shared treasures that make us sigh.
Himalayas on our heads so stand,
Lofty mountains guarding our lands.
The twist and turns in the Indus river,
Who’s ancient stories, makes us shiver
Enchanting Thar and its golden sands,
Weave beauty in each of its strands.
And then the grand Arabian Sea,
That enthrals both you and me.
How could we now live apart,
We’ve been one from the start.
Oh! Those lines on our lands sketched,
Let they not on our hearts be etched.
We have seen firsthand how hatred leads to conflicts, conflicts to instability and then to an excuse to more defence expenditure. We have already wasted measurable revenue which could very well have been used for the alleviation of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, women issues which exist in astronomical proportions on both sides of the border.
Why should a handful of bigots sabotage the road to peace we need to take reach the goal of prosperity? We do not have any other way out, but peace.
Our histories, our geographies are common,
Our genetics, our problems are common,
And with them all , our destinies are woven.
A spirit of mutual cooperation would lead to prosperity for the 1. 4 billion on both sides and in turn would mean a strong and peaceful South Asia.
Please think.

If my hand can heal, why cant INDO-PAK relations.

 

[ajtr]

Erasing psychological borders

Panchee nadiya aur pawan ke jhonke, koi sarhad inhen na roke;
Sarhad to insanon ke liye hai, socho tumne aur meine kya paya insaan ho ke
Birds, rivers & gusts of wind, no borders inhibit, : Borders are for us, think what have we gained being Humans ?
This couplet by Javed Akhtar from a Bollywood blockbuster entered my ears and shook my soul. Wow! Javed Akhtar knows how I feel each time I go to the Indian consulate in Pakistan to apply for visas for my family to visit my parents in New Delhi.
“In January 1990, a girl in her mid-twenties in New Delhi ties the knot with a Pakistani man in his late twenties. Happy, but quite unsure how the things in her life would unfold after that. She wasn’t a poor small-town girl getting married to a well-off cousin in Karachi in compliance with her parents’ decision. She was a typical city girl, who made it to a premier medical school in Delhi and was full of patriotic fervour for her homeland. Her parents did not agree to the match until she approved of it herself. It took her four painful and paranoid years to come to this decision. The young man across the border, putting aside his ego in the face of repeated refusals, convinced her that they could make it.”
Twenty years on, I can confidently say that we have made it. Our life together hasn’t been all tulips and roses of course. We’ve had our share of ups and downs, in addition to the usual hurdles any couple faces. Both of us being passionately patriotic about our respective homelands, it hasn’t been easy. What helped us was the erasing of psychological borders, knowing that humanity on both sides of the border has the same needs and aspirations. We promised to uphold sanity in our heads and not spew patriotic venom against each other. Not that outsiders spared us. Any bitter comment against the other side by a “patriotic acquaintance” from either side affected me more than my husband.
At times I would be reduced to tears after such taunts, to be comforted by my husband with a “mitti pao” attitude. It is not easy when someone passes a snide remark about your homeland. Any news of a bomb blast or riots in my city, would have me sitting paranoid, glued to the TV, wondering about the safety of my parents and siblings.
In kindergarten our children faced questions from curious friends – like, did we have fights at home during a cricket match between India and Pakistan? My son would come home crying that his friends teased him about having an Indian mother, saying, “Your mom is a traitor!” It took him some years to feel confident that his mom wasn’t a traitor.
But the only time I really, if ever, regretted my decision was when I had to queue up outside the visa window at the consulate of a country I called my homeland. Miserable is an understatement of how I felt when the man behind the counter looked at my children, asking for details, as if I was taking little terrorist recruits with me to my beloved city.
And then on our return to Pakistan, my husband would be pulled aside by the airport security, questioning him about the frequency of his visits across the border. One has to live it to feel it.
My siblings and I grew up with our eyes open to the world issues, with parents who taught international politics at a university.
We were trained to look beyond our boundaries and feel for the suffering of others be it in Palestine, apartheid in South Africa, or Gen Zia’s martial Law in Pakistan. I salute my parents for raising us as “human” beings with a wide horizon.
Some attribute my “Indian roots” to my comments on news blogs or facebook regarding political matters in Pakistan. Yes, I am proud of my roots. But I also have a husband and two kids who are passionately patriotic Pakistanis. They love both places. And so do I. I claim that I own both countries, and love both too. Karachi is mine as much as Delhi is.
We know there is good and bad on both sides. We don’t indulge in mutual blame games. We have erased the psychological borders at home and we respect our political borders. And we love this feeling.
What if the one and half billion across both the borders could also erase the psychological borders? After all, people on both sides of the border are made of the same flesh and bones, we share the same genetic pool. I wonder if I will live to see that day.

 

[Abhishek_]

^the mitti pao attitude can do wonders in Indo-Pak people relations. you should see how the kids joke and mess around with Imran Khan (the pdf senior member), all thanks to his chilled out attitude.

 

[ajtr]

Cross-border couples and their visa travails ~Indo-Pak Visa Part 1

“A marriage license doesn’t come with a job description or a set of instructions. There is definitely some ‘assembly’ required. In fact, putting together a marriage can be likened to assembling an airplane in flight” - Patricia Love
Every marriage needs a lot of reassembling in social, psychological and emotional terms. But when marriages take place across the Indo-Pak border they also involve a lot of political reassembling.
Indo-Pak marriages are different from other cross-border marriages – such unions between people from these two neighbouring countries are far tougher and more challenging than marriages across oceans between people with vast cultural differences. The distance between India and Pakistan does not entail crossing oceans or even cultures but one has to cross huge mountains of hurdles in terms of legal and bureaucratic formalities.
With the pendulous political love-hate relationship that exists between the two countries, marrying and staying happily married across the border (‘pyar border paar&#8217 is no small feat. It takes a tough mind and resilient heart to brave the challenges.
There are personal challenges involved in every marriage. But the additional challenges in Indo-Pak marriages include taking certain decisions which may be painful. As a patriotic and a proud Indian, it was hard for me to surrender my Indian passport and apply for a Pakistani. Not that I had any grudges against the latter, but to give up your national identity is an experience you have to live, to know how it feels.
You might ask why would an educated woman change her nationality? The answer is simple. No one coerced me. I did it for the desire to have a peaceful family life and for the sake of our children (who were to arrive later).
My British, Canadian and Filipino friends married to Pakistanis live without any problems in Pakistan, using their original passports. But for an Indian this is not possible.
I did quite a bit of homework before taking this life-changing decision. I knew of instances where people in this situation had retained their nationalities, leading to many practical and political challenges. Most of them advised me to swallow this bitter pill and make the change, but finally, it was entirely my own decision.
In Pakistan, the ID cards of both parents are required to obtain documents for children like B-form, passport, and ID card. A mother with an Indian passport would mean inviting trouble, with more errands from office to office, or one section officer to another, to get ‘no objection certificates’ or NOCs.
Obtaining a visa to visit family across the border is any case a Herculean task if you don’t have connections in the high offices. And for a family like ours living in a third country I would, if I had maintained my Indian nationality, have to go through the gruelling process of obtaining a Pakistani visa each time we were to visit Pakistan. By giving up my nationality and becoming a Pakistani, I thought at least we have to struggle for the visa on one side only, when my children and husband want to visit India.
Unfortunately, my having been a born Indian, lived there for 23 years, and having parents still living there, does not mean that my husband and children will be given any extra consideration when they apply for an Indian visa. I know this is also the case for Pakistani women who are married and live in India. The visa policies work on a reciprocal basis.
Our visa troubles are not a once in a while exercise, but an annual struggle. The struggle which I have been undertaking for the past twenty years, almost each year, to visit my ageing parents exactly the way any married woman aspires to visit her family. As the time nears for the visa application, I always shudder with the apprehension of “What if…”
Families like ours have no choice but to face this ordeal every time they want to visit ‘home’. Visas may be sometimes facilitated and expedited for artists going on a cultural exchange or for businessmen but the procedure, the requirements, the scrutiny, the hurdles are all exactly the same for people like us. We have to stand in the same queue as those applying for a visit visa for a conference or meeting (there is no ‘tourist’ visa between our two countries), to visit to meet distant relatives once or maybe twice in a lifetime.
Each time I stand in front of the visa submission window of the Consulate of the country where I was born, which I still love and own as I did then, I feel as if I am being punished for my audacious decision to marry across border. My counterparts across the border must be feeling the same, I am sure.
Once, I was exceptionally lucky: I obtained an Indian visa while sipping a cup of coffee in the office of the Consul General, when the Consulate was in Karachi. The CG turned out to be my father’s student. We followed the usual application procedure of course, but he expedited it. Then, as we left, a plainclothes official intercepted my husband and asked for our purpose of having visited the CG’s room. He said that our car’s plate number had been noted and that we must not repeat this again.
All told, in the 21 years of my marriage I have been lucky that despite the hurdles and the painful waiting times, I have not faced any serious disappointments in ultimately obtaining a visa for India.
The only time I faced a major setback was after the Kargil war, when tensions were so high that I could not visit my parents for three years, despite running from pillar to post, pulling various influential strings. Then, not even ‘high connections’ were willing to go out of their way to help me. However, for a vast majority of women from India married to Pakistanis, especially those living in Pakistan, it is by no means smooth sailing.

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The cost of crossing the ‘love’ border ~Indo-Pak Visa Part 2

For years after the Indian Consulate in Karachi was closed down, a cousin of mine (an Indian married to a Pakistani) whose parents live in Jaipur, followed the following trail year after year, for many years. She would travel from Karachi where she lived, to Islamabad to obtain an Indian visa. If successful, she would travel back to Karachi to pack up. She and her family would then travel to Lahore, and cross the Wagah-Atari border. They would then take a train from Amritsar to Delhi and then another to Jaipur.
The entire ordeal required her to travel over 4600 kilometres and several days, when in reality, the distance between Jaipur and Karachi is only 1066 kilometres and just a couple of hours.
I understood the real nightmare of this struggle some years ago when I had to travel from Karachi to Islamabad to get a visa for my father-in-law for his medical treatment in India.
My husband and I sat outside the Indian consulate in Islamabad for two days, sharing benches with people who had mostly come all the way from Karachi or Hyderabad. Most had been sitting there every day from 9 am to 5 pm for as long as 15 to 20 days at a stretch. The majority appeared to be daily wage earners, the poor and with no resources to take short cuts, like us, to obtain a visa – we had the parchi (‘slip&#8217 that would expedite the visa process.
A lady and her husband, a carpenter hailing from Lalukhet in Karachi, had been sitting there every day for almost 20 days, from morning till the consulate closed in the evening, without any clue about whether they would be granted a visa or not. The embassy issues a limited number of visas each day. Names come up on a given day, their luck as unpredictable as a lottery. The more resourceful among the applicants jump the line, pushing these poor people to the back of the queue.
This couple had spent so much money on the travel from Karachi to Islamabad that they could not afford even a cup of tea from the tea stall outside the embassy, which caters to visa seekers. Every day the carpenter and his wife brought with them homemade rotis and pickle for lunch. I asked the woman how long she would sit there, and she replied with certainty: “When the money runs out, I will go back home whether I get the visa or not”.
She had applied after hearing that her mother was on her deathbed and had asked to see her one last time. She had been married for over twenty years but had been able to visit her native Hyderabad, Deccan, only once, and that too 12 years ago.
Her marriage had been a stroke of fate when her husband, a cousin from Pakistan, visited them. The poor family had been facing tough times, and found this as opportunity to make their daughter’s life better, as the cousin’s family was more prosperous.
This story is all too common to many families in the lower middle class strata who marry across the border; their girls are hardly able to visit their parents a handful of times in their lifetime, mostly due to not being able to afford the time, expenses and resources involved in obtaining the visa.
They resign themselves to their fate and learn to live with just memories of home. It is only when another sibling is about to get married; or a parent is ill; or dying, that they gather all their means and courage to try to obtain a visa to go to their erstwhile homeland.
The procedure has been somewhat modified now, so that people in other cities can apply for Indian visas through a courier service, without having to travel to Islamabad. But applicants still have no idea how long the process will take. A friend who wanted to attend her parents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebrations in India received a reply after an anxious six month wait, saying that her application papers were incomplete. Some don’t hear any news for a year or more; others don’t get any response at all.
Over the last two decades I have seen a see-saw situation. Things seem to move towards easing the procedure, then suddenly something occurs and the whole change is reset from the start.
A silver lining is that the Khokrapar-Munabao line, suspended since 1965, has been revived, reducing unnecessary distance for many.
I hope and wish that the latest news about easing of the borders does not remain restricted to the artists who travel on exchange programmes or businessmen attending conferences, but is extended to this quiet, resigned group of poor, invisible women who marry across borders. I am afraid they are the group most likely to be forgotten when the categories are laid down for easing visa procedures.
Most will never be able to raise their own voice and will resign to their fate of seeing their parents or kin, barely a few times in their entire life, after they cross the ‘love’ border in matrimony.
On their behalf, I beg the authorities concerned to hear the silent wails of these women and to ease the visa process making it easier for them too, so that they may see their parents and families more often.

 

[ajtr]

Veer, Zaara And Visa:In Indo-Pak marriages, the State often becomes the tyrant mother-in-law


Varun and Wasiqa Soni
He’s from Delhi, she’s from Lahore. Met at the University of Virginia in 2001, where he was studying environmental sciences and she psychology, got married in 2006, moved to Delhi last year from NY.

It was at a residency programme for South Asian artists in the capital, appropriately called Khoj, that Masooma Syed and Sumedh Rajendran found each other, seven years ago. As their relationship blossomed, they ingeniously discovered ways to spend time together, in places as far apart as Manchester, Sri Lanka and New York. Then, bypassing their respective religions, they went through a Buddhist wedding in Sri Lanka, followed by a legal marriage in a Delhi court two years ago. Finally, after all that travelling, the woman from Lahore and the man from Kerala found a place of their own in Mayur Vihar, in East Delhi; a place that Masooma isn’t hesitant about calling home. “Life is the same whether you wake up here or in Lahore,” says the 39-year-old.

The recent hullabaloo over Sania Mirza marrying Shoaib Akhtar made it seem like this was the first Indo-Pak marriage in the history of the two nations. The reality is that there have been thousands. Indians and Pakistanis, mostly from families divided by Partition, have been marrying each other ever since Pakistan came into existence.

The modern twist, however, is that these marriages are no longer tightly framed within the comfort zones of family and community, as the Masooma-Rajendran story vividly illustrates. Mobile young Pakistanis and Indians, meeting on holiday, at foreign universities, in professional settings, and even on the Net, are thinking the unthinkable, and marrying each other, undaunted by the fact that they are not just from countries that habitually snipe at each other, but do not even share the same language, regional background, or even religion.

Most “Indo-Pak” couples prefer to live in “neutral” third countries—like Sania will do, when she sets up home in Dubai—but quite a few also take the harder route of settling down in the subcontinent. And discover, in the bargain, that the main problem in their married lives is not one of making friends, adjusting to a new culture, or winning over your mother-in-law. Rather, it is the State, in the form of the harsh visa regime followed by both countries, which makes no concessions for cross-border romance.

Masooma Syed and Sumedh Rajendran

Both professional artists. Had a Buddhist wedding and a court marriage. She has to leave India every three months for her visa.

Like Rajendran, 38-year-old Rajiv Rao is also from the South—Bangalore. The journalist-filmmaker first met his Karachi-born-and-raised journalist wife, Sonya Fatah, in 2002 at Columbia University’s International Relations programme—ironically in a class on political identity. Two years later, they were married and now live in India with their one-year-old son. When 32-year-old Sonya looks back, she feels that the usual problems of religious differences and family acceptance that dog marriages like hers are now history. “It’s a phase that has passed, and is a distant memory,” says Sonya. For her family, which has roots in Amritsar and Calcutta, it was tough to forget the ghosts of Partition, but in the end they did.

It has been, in that sense, an equally happy landing for Zainab Chandioke, who met her businessman husband Vishesh (both are now 35) in 1999 in London, while she was doing a Masters at the London School of Economics and he was working as a chartered accountant. Like many in their situation, they went through three weddings in 2002—a nikaah in Karachi, a civil wedding in London and pheras in Delhi. It is a drill her family has grown used to—her youngest sister Kiran, an architect, is also married to an Indian, Manav Patnaik, and the couple live in New York. For Zainab, Delhi, where she lives with her husband and two children, is an acceptable alternative. “It is as cosmopolitan and liberal as NY or London,” says Zainab.

Cultural commonalities help. “When people study or work abroad they end up making friends from a number of different countries. But the culture and language throws you closer to people from the subcontinent,” points out 29-year-old entrepreneur, environmentalist and wildlife enthusiast Varun Soni, who met his wife, Lahore girl Wasiqa, 28, on an American campus. “It was a huge decision to make the shift but I have many friends from the US here, which makes it easier,” says Wasiqa, of her move to Delhi, last year, from NY, three years after the couple married. The only point of conflict, she confesses laughingly, is cricket. “We have stopped watching cricket together,” concurs Varun.

However, beyond the warm circle of married life, family and friends lie the real problems in marriages like these, and they are really no laughing matter. “All problems begin and end with the visa,” says Masooma simply. The others couldn’t agree more.

For the past eight years that she has lived in India, Zainab has had to renew her spouse visa every year, and must begin formalities for renewal three months in advance. Every time she leaves the city, she reports to the police and also informs them when she is back in town. “Travelling is hard within the country, we end up going abroad more often,” she says. But even going home to Pakistan is a fraught affair. “The last time we travelled to Pakistan, my husband and kids got their visas, but I, with my Pakistan passport, was on tenterhooks about whether I would get permission to leave. Till the last minute, my plans remained uncertain,” recalls Zainab.

The easy way out is to opt for Indian nationality but why, ask these modern, educated young women, should they give up their identities? “You are made to feel that it’s not worthwhile holding a Pakistani passport,” comments Sonya.

Masooma follows a grind that is even more fraught with uncertainty and stress. She comes to India on a long-term visa but is permitted to stay here for only three months at a stretch, which means she has to leave once the three months are up, even if for a day. What prevents her from applying for a resident’s permit is the time it takes. She would not be able to leave Delhi while it was being processed, and her work commitments require her to be on the move.

There are other issues. For instance, the foreign spouse of an Indian national would normally be eligible for a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) card, but the women from Pakistan are not. “And that’s when they have roots in the Indian subcontinent unlike the other eligible nationals,” says Sonya, pointing out the irony. Even Sonya and Rajiv’s one-year-old son, a Canadian national, is not able to get a PIO card, because his mother is a Pakistani. “But a child with an Indian father and Greek mother would get it overnight. Where is the logic in that?” asks Rajiv.

Women, whether Indian or Pakistani, invariably bear the burden of adjustment in cross-border marriages, since it is usually they who move countries to be with their husbands; and for professional women, not being able to work makes it a heavier burden. The women are required to apply for permits to work in Indian companies, which, they have found, to their dismay, are not easy to come by. “It didn’t impact the women who came earlier, but for young, 21st century people, the right to work is crucial,” says Sonya. On the other side, says Masooma, the same frustrations play out. “I know for sure that it’s just as difficult for the Indian working women married and living in Pakistan they cannot work,” she points out.

And yet, personal bonds appear to prevail over national enmities, and hope over everyday bureaucratic ordeals, since quite a few cross-border couples, including some who did not want to be quoted for this story, seem to want to make their lives here. “The people, culture, concerns, chemistry are the same,” says Masooma. “Visas are not easy to get in India, but in the US and the UK, the cultural gaps are harder to negotiate,” she says.

Sonya believes India, as a bigger and more stable power than chaotic Pakistan, can show the way forward by making it easier for the Pakistani wives of Indian men to live and work here. “It can come up with more responsible policies,” she says. Personal restrictions have a larger resonance too, Rajiv points out. “South Asia is an important trading bloc. Such bureaucratic restrictions are prohibiting artistic alliances and business partnerships.” Not to mention tormenting those who’ve chosen the difficult path of a cross-border marriage.

 

[ajtr]

Cross-Border Unions: How Indo-Pakistani Marriages Prosper
By Vinita Bharadwaj for The National-UAE

While relations between their countries may be at an all-time low, Indians and Pakistanis who marry each other often find extended family ties confound their nations’ mutual hostility.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when two South Asians wed, they not only marry each other, they also marry into each other’s family.

And family matters between Indians and Pakistanis might be expected to be highly charged, given those two countries’ mutual antipathy for more than 60 years.

“When an Indian marries a Pakistani, it’s a loaded event that can only be matched by the energy of a cricket match between the two countries,” says Amra Hyder, a Pakistani.

The partition of British India into Pakistan and India is historically recorded as the largest human migration ever. It displaced millions and forced people of a common culture to choose a new geography and subscribe overnight to the idea of previously non-existent nations.

Most tragically, it split families. The ghosts of the 1947 partition loom large in the psyches of both countries’ modern histories that include three wars, a continuing dispute over Kashmir and terrorism.

Amra is originally from Pakistan and is married to Zulfiqar Hyder, who hails from India. Amra and Zulfiqar, now Canadian citizens, have lived in Sharjah with their four children since 2006.

In 1992, when the gregarious, romantic 23-year-old Amra married the 33-year old Zulfiqar, a studious man from India, she did not quite know what to expect – from married life, her in-laws and most importantly, her husband’s country. “I also never would have imagined I would be apologetic for both countries’ ridiculous obsession with ‘Shonia’,” she says of the media brouhaha over the recent nuptials of the Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik and the Indian tennis player Sania Mirza.

For long before the Malik-Mirza marriage, thousands of Indians and Pakistanis, mostly from families divided by the 1947 partition, have been marrying each other.

The difference is that now these marital alliances are formed outside the extended family circuit. Amra and Zulfiqar did not have an arranged marriage, and neither of them had any intention of settling in either India or Pakistan. They opted to overcome predictable visa hassles by initially residing in the UAE soon after their wedding, and migrated to Canada in 1996 to obtain citizenship, in the hope that it would ease their trips between India and Pakistan.

Masooma Syed, from Lahore, met her Keralan husband Sumedh Rajendran at an artists’ residency programme in Delhi. ‘I knew he understood me perfectly.’ Charla Jones
The couple first met in Abu Dhabi at a mutual friend’s party, and married within a year. The wedding took place in Karachi, with Zulfiqar’s entire family flying in from the northern Indian city of Lucknow. “It was a lovely wedding,” Amra recalls, adding that the questioning – albeit, in jest – began soon after they were married. “It was like, ‘Now you’re an Indian daughter-in-law’ and ‘Who will you support in cricket’ or even ‘Who will you support in war’?”

Her response was simple. “I married an Indian, not India. Having said that, I have been welcomed so warmly and given unbelievable respect by Indians, whenever I visit. My relationship with the people, I cherish. The politics, I don’t care for.”

Amra grew up in Abu Dhabi and returned to Lahore for university. Her childhood perception of Indians was to lump them all as people from the Southern Indian state of Kerala. “It was so wrong,” she says regretfully admitting to an error of judgment on her part, “but I honestly never really gave it any thought.” Although her grandfather was an active political leader – initially in the Indian independence struggle and later in the Muslim League, which pressed for Pakistan’s creation – she was uninterested in matters of politics.

On numerous trips to Northern India in the last 18 years, Amra has returned amazed by the cultural similarities she has observed between Indians – including non-Muslims – and her community in Pakistan. “We speak the same kind of language, we appreciate the same food, we like the same clothes, we place the same importance on family values. We even share similar pre-wedding festivities. It’s hardly an alien experience,” she says.

The differences were more to do with class and little do with the country. “Compared to my husband’s childhood, mine was very privileged. He is a self-made man and has single-handedly contributed to his family’s success. If I had to get used to anything, it was holidaying in a home that would experience power cuts and water shortages.”

Amra and Zulfiqar’s children – Hira (17), Anum (13), Zahra (11) and Ali (10) – describe themselves as desi, a generic, originally sanskrit, term used by South Asian immigrants that loosely denotes their origins. They are an animated group and debate the definition of desi among themselves, as their parents look on proudly. The conclusion: among younger generations in urban settings, desi communities have spawned a culture bound by a fondness for Bollywood, cricket, South Asian food and fused elements of their upbringing at home with the globalised, western outlook they are exposed to outside.

Having said that, India and Pakistan enjoy enormous cultural riches – largely attributable to their ethnic, regional and linguistic diversity. Both countries together are akin to the European Union – with each of their provinces having their own quirks, tastes and sensibilities. These subtleties within communities are apparent when embedded among the people in their own land.


Shadab Raza, from Lucknow, India, his Pakistani wife Sana Zehri and their six-year-old son Ali have relatives on both sides of the border. ‘There’s never been this India-Pakistan mentality in our families,’ Shadab said. Siddharth Siva / Arabian Eye

Masooma Syed, an artist from Lahore, lives in Delhi with her husband Sumedh Rajendran, also an artist, but from the south of India. They were introduced to each other at an artists’ residency programme in the Indian capital Delhi in 2003. Following that, they would arrange to meet in Manchester, Sri Lanka and New York before finally geting married in July 2008.

Their cultural backgrounds could not be more different, as are their temperaments and artistic styles. “And yet, I knew he understood me perfectly,” says Masooma of the decision to marry across the border and step into the cumbersome world of visas, soon after exchanging wedding vows in Sri Lanka.

“We never thought about a third country [to live in]. Sumedh has lived in Delhi for the last 15 years and I’ve had absolutely no problem in adjusting to living here. It’s just like Lahore. Ironically, I find Sumedh is more of a foreigner in his own country’s capital than I am. We have discussed moving to a neutral country, especially if visa regulations became tighter, but then as artists all our inspirations stem from this region. Relocating would uproot those emotions and we wonder what impact that would have on our work.”

Kerala, where Sumedh is from, however, is an altogether different milieu. “The first time Masooma visited, she was stunned,” says Sumedh.

“I thought to myself, how lucky am I to be able to see and discover these different facets of India,” she says recalling her reaction to the abundant greenery, the aromatic spices, the swaying coconut palms and the simple people.

But since marrying Sumedh, Masooma has found herself saddled with the unexpected baggage of acting as an ambassador of sorts for both countries. “It’s annoying at times,” she says. “And really it’s all because of immature media reportage in one country about the other. So I end up having to either justify, explain or make excuses for India when in Pakistan or vice versa. I’m not used to being accountable to anyone and this new role is quite tiring, even if it does come with special treatment in s ome instances.”

The challenges within an Indo-Pak marriage, according to Masooma, seem to be similar to any mixed-culture marriage. Except that among South Asian communities, tradition dictates the wife follows the husband to his home, or homeland. In the specific India-Pakistan context of the 21st century, the complications of visas and work permits make it harder for educated women to carve out an identity for themselves in their new environment. “It’s definitely much easier to be in a third country – either resident or citizen – when in an Indo-Pak marriage. Also, in today’s world, the younger generations of Indians and Pakistanis are meeting and interacting abroad, first as students and then as professionals. Marriages between different faiths among this demographic is on the rise and logistics is no longer a deterrent to falling in love.”

Masooma has been visiting India since 2003 and as an artist she has travelled, exhibited and worked in both countries. “I go through the same motions as all Pakistani nationals applying for an Indian visa. It’s a process and is easy or difficult depending entirely on how you want to look at it,” she says. In early June, the Indian government announced it was relaxing the requirements for granting the extension of long-term visas to four categories of Pakistani nationals, including Pakistani women married to Indian nationals and staying in India. The announcement was welcomed by individuals in her situation.

Her current visa is a ‘visit visa’ valid for nine months that is split into three visits of 90 days each. She has to exit India after each ‘visit’, but says it suits her work commitments that require her to travel abroad. “And I can visit my family in Lahore,” she adds.

Pakistani nationals issued visas to India are typically allowed to visit a maximum of three cities and must report to a police station on arrival and before leaving for their next destination. Masooma is now exempted from the police reporting, as she is a regular traveller between India and Pakistan and is also now married to an Indian national. “I’m allowed to visit more than three cities each time, but it will be a while before I am given complete freedom to travel like any other foreigner,” she says.

She could apply for a residence permit, but would be compelled to stay in India until the paperwork is completed, but it’s diffiuclt to predict how long that would take. Nationality, however, remains a touchy issue, particularly among the educated and liberal women of either country, who see no reason in giving up the passport of the country they originally belong to.

“Unfortunately, political relations keep changing and this spills over into visas and affects people-to-people relationships,” says Zulfiqar Hyder, a staunch believer in encouraging contact between the two countries. The Hyder family hold Canadian passports, but they still have to apply for visas to visit India and Pakistan.

In the wake of the David Headley arrest – a US citizen of Pakistani origin – over his alleged terrorist connections and involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attack, Zulfiqar says having the Canadian passport makes little difference towards easing the process. “I’m trying to get a PIO (Person of Indian Origin) card for the children,” he says of the document issued by the Indian government that functions as a long-term multiple entry visa. As things stand, the foreign spouse of an Indian national is eligible for the PIO card, but the spouses from Pakistan are not, effectively ruling out Amra and her two elder daughters, as they were previously travelling on her passport. “I don’t understand the logic that my children cannot get the PIO card, because their mother is Pakistani,” says Zulfiqar.

The national security argument does not resonate with him as much as it does with Amra. “Frankly, if my family can be assured of safe travel, I don’t mind a little more waiting or dealing with a bit more bureaucracy,” she says. He shakes his head furiously, looks at me and asks: “Did the 26/11 terrorists enter India with passports? Did they? How did they enter India?”

They arrived by night. Across the Arabian Sea, first on a small boat, then a hijacked fishing trawler and finally entered Mumbai’s waters on a rubber dinghy.

Visa-related policies in both countries are updated depending on the warmth or frostiness of the political relationship. Shadab Raza, a 35-year old Indian also from Lucknow, married Pakistani national Sana Zehri, who grew up in the UAE. They have a six-year-old son who has an Indian passport. The families arranged their marriage, as Shadab’s maternal aunts live in Pakistan. “There’s never been this India-Pakistan mentality in our families, because we have relatives on both sides of the border,” says Shadab.

Sana’s ancestry can be traced back to Lucknow, as her grandparents migrated to Pakistan at the time of the partition. On her first visit to the city after her marriage, she visited the ancestral home of her grandparents and filmed it to share with them. “I filmed the house, the neighbourhood and some of the people recorded messages for them. When they watched the video they were consumed by nostalgic sadness. I think partition hurt their generation the most. Our parents to a lesser extent, but they still feel the impact of it as they grew up hearing about it from their parents and visiting immediate relatives in the other country. For my generation, the degree of the trauma is even more reduced, because we haven’t experienced much of the consequences of it directly,” she says.

Shadab and Sana’s son, Ali, however, is quite clear about where he is from. “India,” he says firmly.

Sana laughs and recalls an incident of him wanting a carrom board specifically ‘made in India’. “My father-in-law had to get the lettering customised because the shop, where they bought it didn’t sell carrom boards with a ‘made in India’ label,” she says. In the meantime, Ali brings out his carrom board and empties out the coins from their container. He then calls out to Shadab to come and play with him.

“There’s never been this India-Pakistan mentality in our families, because we have relatives on both sides of the border,” says Shadab sitting down at the board, across from Ali, who flicks the large striker coin towards the arrangement of smaller black and white coins stacked by colour in the centre of the board. The two towers collapse, some of the coins disperse in four directions, but none of them is pocketed.

“What a mess,” exclaims Ali.

 

[pakindia]

indo-pak relations can prosper only if border issuees are solved...till then i see only dark..

 

[zip]

It is amazing to see different dimensions of life .. I dreamed to live most of them and then i am not that good so a small portion of that got realised .when i see different lifes living one one small piece of my dream i felt comfortable and complete

 

[ajtr]

Not just another border

A closer look at an Indo-Pak border crossing that defies the stereotypes.After the bravado and bluster: The end of the show at the Wagah border.

The choreographed aggression of flag-lowering ceremonies on the Wagah border dividing Punjab and frequent cross-border gunfire in Jammu and Kashmir are stereotypical images of the Indo-Pak border. They tend to resonate especially on the days that commemorate the birth of both countries – August 14 for Pakistan and August 15 for India. In both states, national narratives dominated by such images ignore other border crossings between the two neighbours. This is especially true of border crossings that emphasise not the animosity but the continuing links that exist across the border. The Munabao-Khokhrapar crossing on the Sindh-Rajasthan border is an example.


Substantive efforts to connect the border regions of India and Pakistan have centered on bus services and cross-border trade meant to connect the two Punjabs and the two Kashmirs. On the Munabao-Khokhrapar border, however, despite continuous demands to open the land route for trade, the only connection between Rajasthan and Sindh is the passenger train – the Thar Express. Recent media reports of the ‘exodus’ of Hindus from Sindh underline the need to enable further cross-border exchanges in these contiguous area, rather than hampering them as current regulations do.

One step in this direction may come from recent efforts to step up Indo-Pak trade in petrol and petroleum products. At the first meeting of the Experts’ Group on Trade in Petroleum & Petrochemical Products in New Delhi in July, officials discussed the possibility of a dedicated rail route on the Sindh-Rajasthan border. Oil was discovered in Barmer, Rajasthan in 2004, and the British energy giant Cairn and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) have set up a joint oil production facility at the site. This offers great potential for the Rajasthan-Sindh border since currently the only other point for trade in petrochemical products is the Attari-Wagah railway line, which is restricted to trade in petrochemical products of the Indian Oil Corporation.

Trade was also the main reason for the first train line ploughing through the desert area as far back as the late nineteenth century. According to the Rajasthan State Barmer District Gazetteer:

The first railway line in this area, a branch line of the Jodhpur railway from Luni Junction to Pachpadra via Balotra [all three are in Rajashtan] was opened on March 23, 1887. The main intention does not appear [to be] to provide passenger facilities but to enable the fuller exploitation of the salt beds.

Writing The Meter-Gauge of Sindh, Owais Mughal says the Karachi Chamber of Commerce was keen on greater connectivity with present day Rajasthan in the late 19th century, but though the Eastern Indian Railways did propose the idea of a broad-gauge line from Kotri (lower Sindh) to Delhi through Sindh, Gujarat and Rajasthan, the idea was shelved. It was only in December 1900, according to the Barmer District Gazetteer, that the line connecting Barmer and Sadipalli (Sindh) was laid out under the management of the Jodhpur-Bikaner Railways on what is now the Munabao-Khokhrapar route.

The start of railway services through Barmer was a setback for Jaisalmer, which was earlier an important centre of trade in the region. According to the Rajasthan State District Gazetteer of Jaisalmer in 1973: “... Jaisalmer enjoyed the privileged position of falling on important trade routes connecting prosperous trade centres in Sind, Punjab, Bikaner, Jodhpur and Bahawalpur states and beyond upto Kabul.” Lieutenant Colonel KD Erskine, in the Rajputana Gazetteers, Vol. III-A, 1909, estimates that Jaisalmer’s transit duty was about 3 lakh INR every year. While there is no doubt that Barmer was more of a transit point and that the bulk of trade with Sindh passed through Jaisalmer and Kutch (Gujarat), Barmer too was famous for certain imports even before the rail service began.

Major CKM Walter, in the Mallani Gazetteer of 1879, lists horse and camel gear as Barmer’s main export to Umerkot in Sindh. Janet Kamphorst, in In Praise of Death: History and Poetry in Medieval Mewar, underlines the close trade links between Rajasthan and Sindh, saying that “the Than Mata Hinglaj temple in district Barmer was built along the trade route connecting Sind, the Western Thar Desert , the Rann of Kutch and eastern Rajasthan.” In his book Smuggling as Subversion, Amar Farooqui argues that Western Rajasthan-Sindh provided important routes for the opium trade. Interestingly, smuggling through this route continued even in the aftermath of Partition. The Barmer District Gazetteer mentions16 cases of opium smuggling in 1960 as a consequence of the porous border.

Rail and trade
While the national media treats the Munabao-Khokhrapar train as a connection between Rajasthan and Sindh, it is especially relevant for inhabitants of the ‘Dhat’ region, which spreads approximately 400 square kilometres on both sides of the border from Umerkot (Sindh) to Jodhpur (Rajasthan). Umerkot, which was ruled by the Rajput Sodha clan, a caste which lives on both sides of the divide, was an independent kingdom under Jodhpur in the Sindh province of undivided India. In fact, because of the close links between Umerkot and Jodhpur, the then-Maharaja of Jodhpur, Hanwant Singh, contemplated the idea of joining Pakistan. His meeting with Jinnah, who was ready to sign a blank cheque, only strengthened this desire, but ultimately he ended up joining India after being persuaded to do so by his relatives. The descendants of the Umerkot royalty have continued cross-border marriages after Partition. The former Raja of Umerkot, Rana Chander Singh, who died in 2009, married the daughter of Rani Lakshmi Kumari Chudawat, a Jaipur-based Congress politician and historian. Chander Singh’s daughter is also married in Jaipur.

The links in the region go beyond royalty. The Sodha Rajputs are traditionally required to marry Rajputs, but also to marry outside their clan, thus requiring them to look for alliances in India. The visa restrictions between both countries, however, make this difficult. The Maheshwaris and Lohanas are some of the other Hindu castes in Sindh today.

While other sections of the border witnessed major upheavals at Partition, Rajasthan remained relatively peaceful, even though there was significant cross-border migration. The level of violence was nowhere near that witnessed on the Punjab border.

It was not 1947 but the Indo-Pak war of 1971 which proved to be the game changer on this part of the border, since it was then that Hindus from Sindh, worried about persecution in Pakistan, fled to India. The cross-border train service had already been stopped following the 1965 war between India and Pakistan, and resumed only in 2006. Hindu Singh Sodha, a 15-year-old at that time he fled Pakistan in 1971, has set up the Seemant Lok Sangathan, which has been fighting for citizenship rights for all Hindu refugees from Sindh. During the war, Muslims from this region also fled to Pakistan.

Until the border was fenced, it was common for villagers on both sides to cross over, often simply to buy vegetables. Sodha recalls that the border was so porous until 1965 that even marriage parties used to cross over, and neither the State Armed Police Battalion (predecessor of the Indian Border Security Force) nor the Pakistani Rangers ever stopped them. Even smuggling of goods was extremely common.

The opening up of trade through the Munabao-Khokhrapar route offers immense opportunities, especially for businessman of other states such as Gujarat, who will benefit from the revival of the old Kutch-Sindh trade route. But local businesses will also gain. Jodhpuri marble is in demand in Pakistan, as is henna from Rajasthan, whereas there is demand for the Thar cow from Sindh in Rajasthan. Sodha states that there are numerous enquiries from the Karachi Chamber of Commerce seeking exchanges with the Marwar Chamber. A Pakistani delegation visited Jodhpur in 2009 to explore possibilities of trade through the Rajasthan-Sindh border.

Today, the number of passengers on the cross-border rail service every week rarely crosses 400. This reinforces the need to ease travel restrictions. The train halts at Munabao (district Barmer), but only for a customs check. Passengers can only board and alight at Jodhpur, which is over 300 kilometres from the border. On the Pakistani side, there are three stops – Khokhrapar, Mirpur Khas and Hyderabad.


At the border the Indian train gives way to a Pakistani one, forcing passengers to alight and re-board. Though the majority of those who travel on this train are from Barmer, passengers have to travel 800 kilometres to Delhi just to secure a Pakistani visa from the Pakistan High Commission, since there is no consulate in Jodhpur. A consulate at Jodhpur would ease this problem, though it is not clear whether the Indian government would agree to one being set up so close to the border. Since there is no stop at Barmer, all passengers have to begin and end their journey at Jodhpur, which is about 200 kilometres away, even though on the Pakistani side there are three stops. Despite lobbying by local politicians, these strict rules are never relaxed, even for ailing passengers. No foreigners are allowed to go west of National Highway 15 in India, thus requiring relatives of Pakistani passengers to come all the way to Jodhpur if they want to meet them.

Though it is not a high-profile border crossing, connectivity across the Munabao-Khokhrapar border is no less important than cross-border initiatives across Punjab and Kashmir. On 15 August, as India celebrates its Independence Day, the Munabao border will be vibrant and alive. Civil society activists have planned a music festival of desert musicians on the Indian side of the border. While the artistes may still not be able to cross freely, the notes of Thar musicians will not be stopped from crossing to the other side by the border fencing, the lack of transport facilities, or the mutually hostile bureaucracies.

Home and heart
By Sarita Kumari Sodha

The Sodha Parmers, the Rajput clan to which I belong, settled in Amarkot (The royal house of Amarkot; the place was renamed Umerkot after Partition) in Sindh, now Pakistan, in 1123 AD. During Partition, my grandfather Rana Arjun Singh was asked to cede Amarkot to India, but he refused. He joined the Muslim League instead, saying that he could never imagine leaving his motherland, the land of his ancestors. Sadly he died in Janary1947.

My grandmother Dev Kunwar, who was from from Jaipur and had married into Umerkot, was asked by her brothers to return to Jaipur, but she too refused and braved Partition alone with her three young sons. She was a lady of small stature but great character who in those times rode a horse, carried a gun and refused to give an inch. The other Sodha families also stayed behind, not wanting to leave their ancestral lands.

Sindh has a unique culture of love and brotherhood, a legacy that Sindhis carry from the advent of Sufism in the 11th century. The Sodhas share their culture, language, dress and dietary habits with other groups in Sindh, but still maintain their own beliefs. Their clan deity, Deval mataji, resides in Kharore, a small place close to Amarkot. All the Sodhas worship her. At the time of the Navrathri festival, colourful fairs are organised here. It is a time for worship and gathering.

The Sodhas are an integral part of Sindh; even the folklore of the area recognizes that. The famous folk song ‘Mor thor tile rana’, sung at marriages and festivities in Sindh, praises Rana Ratan Sodha of Amarkot, who was martyred by the British in 1859 for resisting and killing the local chieftain appointed by the Raj to collect taxes.

In Rajasthan and in Sindh, the 14th-century Sodha ruler Ramdev is worshipped by both Hindus and Muslim on both sides of the border. Ramdev was married to a Sodha princess of Amarkot.

There is a strong connection between Sindh and Rajasthan as all the Sodha girls are married across the border into Rajasthan, mainly in Barmer and Jaisalmer districts, as they are close to the border area and share the same culture. For Sodha girls married across the border, the experience is is heart-wrenching, as they miss their beloved homeland and crave a sight of ‘Khejri’, a small tree found in the Thar Desert which reminds them of what they left behind. After marriage, their movement is restricted by the border and visa requirements, and many of them never return to see their families and homes again.

This is a land divided by a border found only on maps. For its people, the other part of their land is just across the desert.

~ Tridivesh Singh Maini is a New Delhi based writer and foreign policy analyst.

indo-pak relations can prosper only if border issuees are solved...till then i see only dark..

They do prosper inspite of going on between countries at political level.

 

[ajtr]

PYAR BORDER PAAR: Married... across borders

By Lubna Jerar Naqvi

Tensions between Pakistan and India have led to tough security measures and visa restrictions. It's not just those with relatives across the border, or tourists, students, professionals and journalists who are affected. Particularly hard hit are those who have married across the border.

Visa problems result in many people opting not to marry someone from across the border. Those who do, live in perpetual fear of relations nose-diving between the two countries. As a result, they opt to live together in a third country after marriage, either retaining their respective nationalities, or obtaining the nationality of the third country.

It is usually the woman who changes her nationality if she marries a foreigner and goes to live in his country. In the case of India and Pakistan, women have to apply for long term visas, or keep returning to their country to get a visa renewal. In many cases, particularly in poor or illiterate families, not knowing about the legalities and formalities involved can lead to the woman being deported, or threatened with being deported because her visa has expired, as in the recent case of Rehana Perveen from Pakistan, married to a man in UP, India.

After a decade of marriage, she was threatened with deportation - and leaving her Indian born children and husband behind - because she had never applied for a long-term visa (LTV), and her original visa and even her passport had expired.

"Her failure to apply for nationality was an oversight," reported The Times of India. "After 1947, families split by the Partition maintained relations across borders. Both cross-border holidays and match-making were common. 'We used to come here every year as children' says Perveen. Saeed was her cousin and the residence in Kairana, a second home. The match was arranged, the Saeed family travelled to Pakistan in 1999 and the marriage was solemnised there. As far as the family was concerned, all 'formalities' as they call it, were over then. They didn't bother with further paperwork; they simply didn't know any better" ('Waiting for a visa: Rehana Perveen's dilemma', by Shreya Roy Chowdhury, 28 May 2010).

The district authorities in Muzaffarnagar, UP, where she lived, initially ordered her to leave the country, but later, they made a plea to the government to allow her to stay on humanitarian grounds. Menwhile, her LTV finally arrived, and she was able to breathe a sigh of relief and get her children re-admitted in school.

This is not an isolated story. Rehana knows women who have had to wait 12 years for their LTVs. Some years ago, a nonagenarian woman, Gulab Fatima, found herself facing deportation after decades in India. She was finally allowed to stay on, on humanitarian grounds.

Recently, four cross-border couples participated in 51 Per Cent, a Geo TV show hosted by Nida Sameer. They talked about the hurdles they faced when they married people living across the border in India. Interestingly, three of the four couples got married in the UAE so that their families could attend the wedding - given the visa problems, those from across the border would not have been able to attend if the event was held in India or Pakistan. The fourth couple managed to get visas for the bride's family in India to attend the wedding in Pakistan.

All of them spoke of the visas problems they faced. All longed for the India-Pakistan border to become softer to promote not only marriage but also trade and student exchange which they felt would help both countries.

They agreed that despite all the myths that people of both countries have regarding their neighbour, they have more in common than not: the two countries, their cultures and traditions and people are very similar, and at times it is difficult to tell the difference between them.

"Culture and religion are two different things," said Haider from Lucknow, India, married to Amra from Pakistan. They live in the UAE."

People belonging to the same culture have same traditions and are quite comfortable with each other whether they live in Pakistan or India. When I first started coming to Pakistan I often forgot where I was until I saw billboards in Urdu. Karachi is just like any other city in India. One of my friends, Sanjay used to visit Pakistan some 25 years ago, when the situation between the two countries was better, and he also felt quite at home in Karachi. He would always say that he couldn't tell whether he was in Pakistani city or an Indian."

"Until people travel to each other's countries," he said, "they will always harbour fears and doubts about the people on 'the other side."

He said his Amra was surprised when she first came to India to hear the bells chiming in temples, but she was even more surprised to hear the azaan in India. He continued, "Until more and more people from both countries don't marry; pressure will not build on the visa-issuing authorities."

He congratulated The Jang Group and Geo, and The Times of India for launching Aman ki Asha, calling it a "a good endeavour". "There is no point in fighting," he added. "Things should be resolved, with softer borders."

Amra said that she loved her husband and in-laws but she also loved Pakistan. "I would not like to see a city attacked in India where my relatives live, but then if Pakistan was under attack I would be worried as well. It is true that I would feel more if Pakistan was under attack. But when you see a dead body you feel sympathy, you don't ask which country that person belonged to, because you feel for humanity in general." She said that she loved going to India, and never faced visa problems. "In fact, I am given more love and respect as a Pakistani when I am in India."

Amal from Pakistan and her Indian husband Mudassir - both also living in the UAE -- said they never felt alienated. "I never ever feel that I am married into an Indian family," said Amal, whose in-laws speak beautiful flowing Urdu. Mudassir said that he always had more Pakistani friends than Indian, and that most people thought he was a Pakistani.

Mudassir said that Pakistanis and Indians living abroad are all termed as "desis", there is "no differentiation and it is difficult for other people to tell us apart. Except for cricket matches, when we each take the side of our team, there is no telling us apart."

Indian national Nadira married her Pakistani husband Ali in Hyderabad, Pakistan. They too live in UAE . They managed to get visas for her entire family to visit Pakistan for the wedding.

Pakistani Nadia married to Indian Faiz has a different story. Living in the UAE, she had applied for an Indian visa which did not even arrive six months later. She approached the Indian embassy and demanded an explanation. "I said, is this the way you treat Pakistanis". She is still waiting for her visa to visit India.

All these couples agreed that borders cannot stop love and affection from flowing across, and said that if more people married across the border, it would help increase understanding between the two countries. They said that the media, governments as well as Bollywood can play an important role in changing the mindset of people.

Although Pakistan and India are two separate nations today with separate identities, they were carved out of the same whole. Despite all the differences that have evolved over the years, their people have a lot in common. Thousands have families across the border, and would find it difficult to severe their ties. Allowing people to people contact, an increase in trade and more joint ventures, and yes, more cross-border marriages would go a long way to creating a feeling of goodwill in this region. This could contribute to resolving the more serious issues like Kashmir.

Of course there is a need to improve security measures, but at the same time it is imperative that the hurdles in procuring visas be removed. This will facilitate both countries in many ways, especially in decreasing the tension in the region and removing misconceptions harboured on both sides of the border.

Is that women in right corner you ??

No.But i'll come out with my own experiences on same pages of the ews.

 

[ajtr]

Indo-Pak nikah not a rarity in city

HYDERABAD: Sania-Shoaib's Indo-Pak alliance might have grabbed millions of eyeballs and led to numerous debates across the country, but news of the marriage did not surprise the Hyderabadi. For them, such cross border marriages have never been a rarity, especially with the city still being the former abode of several (now) Pakistani families. While the numbers might not be telling, Hyderabadis point out that the city has been witness to many "happy marriages" in the past where the bride or groom were Pakistanis.

City's old timers explain that if the Sania-Shoaib alliance is different, that's only because the two sportspersons come from culturally different families, with one being a quintessential Hyderabadi family and the other a 'theth' Punjabi. In most cases, marriages are fixed within families and close relations that share a similar background and are culturally in sync with each other. The geographical borders then no longer count, they say.

Take for instance Aliya Shehzad, a Pakistani by birth who has been married to a Hyderabadi for the last 29 years. While hers was a love marriage that was faced with initial hiccups from both families, Shehzad says she had little trouble in adjusting in this 'alien' land, which she now calls home.

Her family's Hyderabad connection made that possible, she admits. "My father worked as a chartered accountant in Hyderabad until 1959 when he moved to Karachi . I also had several other relatives who moved to Pakistan at a later stage," Shehzad said adding, "Apart from a few technical glitches like procuring a visa to visit Pakistan, it has been a smooth ride so far." She agrees that such cross border marriages have been an old trend in the city.

So does social activist Kulsum Reddy. As a Muslim who married a Hindu several decades ago, she says that many from her family have opted for such alliances. "My nephew married a Pakistani girl almost 20 years ago and have been living in Hyderabad ever since. The geographical barriers have never been a cause for concern in our family which has seen several such Indo-Pak marriages," she said.

Reasons for this are aplenty, say Hyderabad's historians. According to them it is primarily the urge to reconnect with one's roots that lead to such alliances. "Post-1948 when the Nizam was deposed, many families from here moved to Pakistan, the UK and the US. Most of them have relations here and feel the need to remain attached to them to keep their connections with the family alive," explained Sajjad Shahid a heritage conservationist and an expert on the history of Hyderabad. Shahid observes that though such marriages have both men and women coming from Pakistan to wed a Hyderabadi, it is mostly Pakistani women who opt for alliances in the city.

Some members of the Muslim community here feel that parents are still skeptical about sending their daughters to Pakistan, owing to the unrest in the country. Also, the logistics are more complicated that way, they say. "It is more difficult for a girl to visit her parents in India in such cases," said a senior member of the community.

Some like Seema Mohiuddin (who is based in New Zealand) observe that people living outside their home countries forget their national boundaries.

"That the person is from Pakistan or India no longer matters when they decide to tie the knot,'' she says.

However, some like Shams Babar - the man who held fort for Ayesha Siddiqui -point out that this generation is largely apprehensive about such cross border marriages. "Children now are going to America and European countries to study and no longer feel uncomfortable about Indo-Pak alliances. The ones who do get into it, prefer to settle in some place other than either India or Pakistani," said Babar.

 

[zynga]

a bunch of pak and indian mslims marrynig is news?
all i can see is that there are riots all over india.
please cut this syrupy bonhomie for crissake.
one more attack on india wil put this ice for next 5 yrs.

 

[Shardul.....the lion]

Appreciate the thread, thanks ajtr.

Its quite different from the ultra nationalistic approach of PDF.