March for Peace
By Beena Sarwar
Mazher
Hussain from Hyderabad, India, has a dream that
many others share. The energetic peace activist
dreams of the time when people from India and Pakistan
can walk together on public roads in each other's
countries. When he first talked about this peace
march idea during a visit to Karachi over a year
ago, the first thing that came to mind was the difficulties
of such an exercise. Visas... security... organization
(lack of, especially in Pakistan where the grassroots
or community organizations are not as strong as
in India).
But Mazher, who heads a confederation of voluntary
organizations (COVA), was not to be daunted. It
would be like a relay of marchers, he said, with
a core group walking the entire distance, while
local organizations would prepare the ground for
their meetings at the villages and towns they would
pass on their way. "It is doable, and it will
work. You will see," he insisted.
A year later, Mazher is part of the dozen peace
marchers from India that Pakistan finally granted
visas to (out of the 70 who applied) and allowed
to cross into the country on foot for the final
leg of the march. They had reached the border on
April 18, and waited there until the permission
arrived on May 7.
The group includes the young activist filmmaker
Monica Wahi, who moved from Delhi to Ahmedabad after
the Gujarat communal riots (carnage, rather, as
the Indian human rights groups labeled them) and
took up residence in an apartment block there in
her quest to help the affected women. Supported
by other women's groups, she set up a system for
them to be able to earn their own livelihood by
making and selling readymade garments, simultaneously
promoting traditional hand-loom, dying and block-printing
methods.
Led by the veteran and respected social activist
Dr Sandeep Pandey, the Indian delegation has not
been allowed to 'march' in Pakistan but only to
drive, due to 'security reasons' according to the
Pakistani authorities.
It is odd that thousands of Indians and Pakistanis
can be allowed to roam on public roads and markets
in each other's countries if they are ostensibly
there to see a cricket match, but not if they are
explicitly making the trip to promote the cause
of peace.
Still, the very fact that they are here at all is
testimony to their persistence and patience, and
that of their fellow peace activists on either side
of the border.
The march began on March 23 in Delhi, at the shrine
of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. India granted special
visas to only nine Pakistanis (out of the 70 who
applied), listing the cities they would be passing
through on the journey. However, at the last minute,
the Pakistani authorities prevented them from crossing
into India on foot.
At the inaugural of the march, meanwhile, the presence
of celebrities like the Indian director Mahesh Bhatt
and the Pakistani film actress Meera (one of the
three Pakistanis present there) ensured a fair amount
of media coverage for the walk.
Meanwhile hectic efforts to secure permission for
the other Pakistanis to join the Indian marchers
continued, and on April 9, Pakistan finally allowed
nine of them, including four women, to walk across
the Wagah border to join their Indian friends who
by then had reached the River Beas. The Pakistani
women included Lali Kohli, the courageous former
bonded laborer from Sindh who recently won her freedom,
and young Nayyar Habib of the Labor Party.
The insistence on crossing the border on foot has
political significance. It highlights the fact that
the Indian and Pakistani governments normally restrict
visitors from each other's countries to trains,
airplanes and buses, which is far more time-consuming
and expensive. Visa holders are restricted to the
entry and exit points stipulated on their visa applications
- you can't change your mind later and return to
Karachi from Bombay if your visa application has
Delhi as the exit point.
The peace march ended on May 11, the seventh anniversary
of the Indian nuclear tests. Interestingly, the
marchers' arrival in Lahore coincided with the authorities
removing the replica of the Chaghi hills from in
front of the railway station - followed by the clarification
that the move is being made for 'repairs', a convenient
escape route in case the hawks become louder than
the doves.
As for the doves, the reception in Pakistan has
been 'amazing', says Monica. Large numbers of people
turned up to greet the marchers, from Lahore, to
Sahiwal, to Chichawatni and Multan. "It was
beyond all expectations, even of the local organizers,"
she adds. "Isn't it a great injustice for the
governments to not allow us to walk as we had asked?
To keep people apart who want to meet? Is this why
they didn't give us permission to walk, they were
afraid of this huge response?"
The organizers also raise the very valid question
of how Pakistan hopes to host the forthcoming Asia-Pacific
Social Forum in Karachi, January 2006, for which
the Prime Minister has promised full support, noting
that after all, he also promised full support to
the 150 peace marchers - a far smaller number than
the 20,000 expected for the Social Forum.
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