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An Indian Sikh journeys to Pakistan on a special visa facilitated by President Zardari. He returns with a glowing account. How many visas do we need to build a rock solid constituency for peace?
Its not every day that the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi offers to arrange an ordinary Indians visit to its country. But Balbir Singh Bhasin, former chancellor of Magadh University, received the surprise offer just weeks ago.
Bhasin, 75, accepted with alacrity. The retired professor was aching to visit Murid, the Pakistani village his family left at partition. Desperate to go but unable to procure a tourist visa or the special ones granted to religious devotees twice a year, he wrote to Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari pleading for help in achieving, the last dream of my life (namely) to offer sajda (respect) to my zameen. It was a long shot but it worked.
Five days after posting the letter, Bhasin was talking to the Pakistan high commission. Soon enough, he was boarding the Delhi-Lahore bus.
Bhasin spent a week in Pakistan and returned a changed man. He endlessly recounts the warmth of the welcome and the emotion-churning reality that the hotel in Chakwal did not charge me anything.
Bhasin says the love he found on the other side of the border has erased every misconception he ever had about the Pakistani people. Our minds have been poisoned, he declares, those people dont have any hatred for us".
One man, one special visa and the constituency for peace with Pakistan advances by one. How many more to break down the walls of hatred between neighbours? Unfortunately, such special visas are few and far between.
At present, it takes an awfully long time, a lot of patience and considerable hard work for Indians and Pakistanis to apply for visas to visit each others country. In 2009, the Indian High Commission in Islamabad granted a little over half the 92,467 visa applications it received. The pattern continues in the first half of 2010, with 25,998 successful of the 46,881 visa applications. Indian applications are reported to be even less well received and there are fewer success stories.
Even so, Bhasins extraordinary case and his altered perceptions underlines a truth everyone knows but does little about, namely that things could dramatically change for the better if the two countries liberalized bilateral visa rules and allowed their people to participate in each others lives. This is why dreamers on the sub-continent typically pose this hypothetical question: how many visas would it take year after year to create a critical mass that can make for a significant constituency for peace either side of the border?
N Radhakrishnan, chairperson of the Indian Council of Gandhian Studies in Delhi, has actively supported a 10-year-old Campaign for Visa-Free India and Pakistan. He says it is impossible to quantify the number of visas required to create a critical mass but almost any number would help. It could be 10 200 2000 or anything. He adds that it is desperately important for India and Pakistan to foster people-to-people relations, something thats possible only if we allow more and more people to cross the border. Admitting that he is something of a dreamer, Radhakrishnan says the visa-free campaign is a dream that will be realized someday. Why cant India and Pakistan consider granting liberal visas as a prelude to a day when there will be no visas required just like has been done by some European countries?
The rhetorical question is echoed from across the border. Professor Rasul Bakhsh Rais, who teaches political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences, says, I am very optimistic about the peace constituency growing through trade, cultural exchanges, and visits of influential groups pertaining to performing arts, music, agricultural and academics
Rais points out that the official bottlenecks that inhibit contact has rendered relations between both countries unnatural. He says this is especially so in the light of global transformations.
Not everyone agrees. Sceptics such as security expert B Raman say the idea of a critical mass building up to a rock solid constituency for peace is rubbish. Raman says that people to-people contact is less important than contact between the two bureaucracies. Indo-Pak relations are in a rut. The bureaucracies are extremely suspicious of each other and would drag their feet on any initiative, he stresses.
An Indian Sikh journeys to Pakistan on a special visa facilitated by President Zardari. He returns with a glowing account. How many visas do we need to build a rock solid constituency for peace?
Its not every day that the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi offers to arrange an ordinary Indians visit to its country. But Balbir Singh Bhasin, former chancellor of Magadh University, received the surprise offer just weeks ago.
Bhasin, 75, accepted with alacrity. The retired professor was aching to visit Murid, the Pakistani village his family left at partition. Desperate to go but unable to procure a tourist visa or the special ones granted to religious devotees twice a year, he wrote to Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari pleading for help in achieving, the last dream of my life (namely) to offer sajda (respect) to my zameen. It was a long shot but it worked.
Five days after posting the letter, Bhasin was talking to the Pakistan high commission. Soon enough, he was boarding the Delhi-Lahore bus.
Bhasin spent a week in Pakistan and returned a changed man. He endlessly recounts the warmth of the welcome and the emotion-churning reality that the hotel in Chakwal did not charge me anything.
Bhasin says the love he found on the other side of the border has erased every misconception he ever had about the Pakistani people. Our minds have been poisoned, he declares, those people dont have any hatred for us".
One man, one special visa and the constituency for peace with Pakistan advances by one. How many more to break down the walls of hatred between neighbours? Unfortunately, such special visas are few and far between.
At present, it takes an awfully long time, a lot of patience and considerable hard work for Indians and Pakistanis to apply for visas to visit each others country. In 2009, the Indian High Commission in Islamabad granted a little over half the 92,467 visa applications it received. The pattern continues in the first half of 2010, with 25,998 successful of the 46,881 visa applications. Indian applications are reported to be even less well received and there are fewer success stories.
Even so, Bhasins extraordinary case and his altered perceptions underlines a truth everyone knows but does little about, namely that things could dramatically change for the better if the two countries liberalized bilateral visa rules and allowed their people to participate in each others lives. This is why dreamers on the sub-continent typically pose this hypothetical question: how many visas would it take year after year to create a critical mass that can make for a significant constituency for peace either side of the border?
N Radhakrishnan, chairperson of the Indian Council of Gandhian Studies in Delhi, has actively supported a 10-year-old Campaign for Visa-Free India and Pakistan. He says it is impossible to quantify the number of visas required to create a critical mass but almost any number would help. It could be 10 200 2000 or anything. He adds that it is desperately important for India and Pakistan to foster people-to-people relations, something thats possible only if we allow more and more people to cross the border. Admitting that he is something of a dreamer, Radhakrishnan says the visa-free campaign is a dream that will be realized someday. Why cant India and Pakistan consider granting liberal visas as a prelude to a day when there will be no visas required just like has been done by some European countries?
The rhetorical question is echoed from across the border. Professor Rasul Bakhsh Rais, who teaches political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences, says, I am very optimistic about the peace constituency growing through trade, cultural exchanges, and visits of influential groups pertaining to performing arts, music, agricultural and academics
Rais points out that the official bottlenecks that inhibit contact has rendered relations between both countries unnatural. He says this is especially so in the light of global transformations.
Not everyone agrees. Sceptics such as security expert B Raman say the idea of a critical mass building up to a rock solid constituency for peace is rubbish. Raman says that people to-people contact is less important than contact between the two bureaucracies. Indo-Pak relations are in a rut. The bureaucracies are extremely suspicious of each other and would drag their feet on any initiative, he stresses.
