Message from a Stubborn Youth!

A day to celebrate the efforts of all peace harbingers and to re-instill the feeling of ‘World Peace’ is the objective which I de-code from the occasion of International Day of Peace. From spreading the message of ‘Peace is Possible’ and awareness amongst the people drives millions of ‘ignorant’, ‘war mongers’ to take on the white flag than guns and ammunitions.

I won’t shy away from sharing that I was not aware about the fact that we have a day especially for PEACE and we have a PEACE BELL made of coins donated by children of every country except Africa, which is rung at UN Headquarters in NYC giving a boost to the Peace aspirants. The bell is a reminder of the human cost of war and the inscription on its side reads, "Long live absolute world peace”). Isn’t it a beautiful manner of making each person understand how much does a war takes toll over human life?

Coming to this month’s theme i.e. how does we can keep the Peace Process between India and Pakistan alive-  I believe amidst the hatred spewed by the people on the both sides, there exists deep rooted- distorted history, naïve misunderstandings, and deliberate misrepresentations which we can’t just change within seconds. There has to be a constant sweeping away of the implanted news and the information along with the destruction of the multiple interpretations of much debated history. (On a lighter note, after seeing historians and parliamentarians fight over what actually is correct history, I realize this is the same reason why I scored badly in this subject.)

Also, it might sound very mindless but why we are so hinged upon our history. No doubt, it is a source of reference and it gives us insight into how, what and why the people of a country reacts and grows but then again, are we going to keep our grudges to what has happened in past and not welcome the extended arms from the other side?

Extended Arms? It seems like I have lost it as there has been no such action taken by the governments in the recent past. But, wait they had! Prime Minster – Nawaz Shariff accepted the invitation sent out by Prime Minister- Narendra Modi for the latter’s swearing in ceremony. Also, Mr. Modi gifted Mr. Sharif a saree and had a decent talk though small but effective.  Isn’t it a manner of extending arm? The problem lies with expecting way to beyond than what is possible. Indians would wait to Sharif to hand over the terrorist and Pakistanis would expect India to hand over Kashmir. We never see a silver lining in small but constructive dialogue and that is where we transgress from the aim of ours i.e. peaceful co-extistence.  

Appologise for myself getting de-railed from the centric theme! Coming back to the means that we could apply to have peace songs across the borders are as follows: 

• A change from ‘ME’ to ‘WE’ i.e. let’s not look at Indo-Pak problem from the prism of one’s hatred but let’s plunge out of the prism and see the search for peace in the eyes of masses. 
• Putting a stop to the blame game and flow out a carpet of Understanding i.e. be considerate to the others problem and be patient enough to acknowledge the reason behind any failed talks, cancelled meet from the either side. 
•  Move ahead from Hostility to Friendliness+ Anger to Happiness which would mean to shift the agenda from mocking and demeaning the member of neighbouring country to accepting the flaws and helping him/her to rectify it. 
•  Placing the Pride beneath the Love. I am not asking you to not to feel proud of your motherland but before the love for your country comes love for mankind. 
•  Replace Jealousy with Co-happiness.  Rather than wasting time to demolish the achieved product of one country, we can use the said time for productive sharing of knowledge and grow together. 
•  Emphasize more on being humble than powerful. I think this quote will explain this point- “Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself- Blaise Pascal”. 
• Be sympathetic to each other’s losses than to be cold. We both lose our men and resources by spending it on each other, while we can put both man force along with means to a better work. 
• Intolerance to Tolerance, I am not again asking you to tolerate if any armed men from our side intrudes into yours but we can be tolerant enough to the harsh words spoken by those in power and not react impulsively which would make us repent later. 
•  Switch from self-denial to self-acceptance. It is funny to see actually when in the age of technology, the state representatives defending the act of their men when their act is in public domain. 
• A drive from Social In-acceptance to Social Acceptance i.e. to treat people of both sides irrespective of their affiliation. At the end we share same culture and lifestyle.

These are few of the many methods in which we can build up our relations and help the animosity fade away.

Also, though Fatiq is unavailable for a while to continue our monthly chat because of his prior commitments, it doesn’t mean that I will cut off and call our peace process an end. Similarly, it is the manner in which the governments of India and Pakistan should work; more maturely, more sensibly and giving a cooling off period to each other. Not every time is apt to continue the talk but it doesn’t mean we will stop the dialogue mechanism as a whole.Further, we might have one leader from Pakistan who claims to get hold of whole Kashmir and gift it to the awalm of Pakistan or a leader trying to embed the bogus idea of ‘Love Jihad in India, but they won’t succeed as people belonging to both nations are not living under the period of ignorance at present.

We might have thousands war mongers but we also have millions like us who strive for a peaceful tomorrow.  It (Peace Day) is not a one day affair and it is also not a utopian practice, in fact it is the day when we commit to ourselves that we shall bring Peace to this globe.

Dear Pessimists, we know it is not an easy task to replace bombs with hugs, but we are a bunch of silly stubborn souls who loves to take difficult task on our platter and successfully achieve the objective.

At the end I don’t know what would constitute an ideal peace process for India and Pakistan as I am still learning what it takes to be Peace Builder. As I have mentioned above, I am at stage first, I hope to get hold of the issue as time passes and from my co-peace builders.

Till then, PEACE !

Likely Alike!

This is the second month of the Building Peace Project with my counterpart - Fatiq and finally, though a little late, we had our second Skype session dutifully to discuss on the April issues of the curriculum. The talk was scheduled at 8 PM on 20^th of April. I was ready with my bundle of questions and so was Fatiq with his own pack. The talk started with apologies from my side for not been able to read about Toba Tek Singh by Mr. Manto which we happened to talk about in our last session. One thing lead to another and soon enough it got us into discussion about the elections for new LUMS student council and his friend Huzaifa Ahmed’s campaign. I was glued to the campaign, from creation of the Fan page to the personalized video message getting uploaded; the team Huzaifa had it all. Likewise, he was curious to know about India’s dramatic and immensely popular elections for Lok Sabha 2014. The people across the border including Fatiq were also not left from the heavy promotions of the one of the contending parties of election i.e. BJP and the troll pages of “Ab ki baar Modi Sarkaar”. The team Huzaifa, used this very troll to create a meme for the campaign in LUMS, now there is the message “Politics is not always divisive, it can be unifying for a moment also”.  He asked me about the Narendra Modi's ability to win and my answer was affirmative. He was positive, until I told him about the two statements made by his party leaders last week itself. The both statements were based on one central theme of “Say anything against Shri Modi and you will be deported to Pakistan”. This, which in fact should have been a serious moment during our chat, was taken over by laughter as I told Fatiq, he can expect me anytime soon infront of his home in Lahore in a box! 

Then, he enquired me about my cousin’s marriage that was on the same day of our talk, though I was tired but it was fun, I answered. The socializing aspect of the marriage is what we both don’t like along with the ‘smile’ plastered on the face for the guests. Fatiq, observed there is really not much difference in Indian & Pakistani weddings, leaving apart the traditional custom; we have similar cuisine, songs, dancing guests, happiness and excitement spread over. The one moment which I really like in Pakistani weddings is of exclamation of “Qabool hain” three times in a row and his favorite moment is what he has generally seen in bollywood movies.  Soon, the talk started shifting towards the central issue of this month’s topic i.e. ‘Misconceptions and what the other country means to you?’ 

We paused for a minute and we digressed from topic and started our discussion on the positive aspects of Pakistan, like the video I saw of “Pakistan’s Places” which are breath-taking and are never shown in our Media, by looking at which I (or us, as a matter of fact) can let the brain imagine a different Pakistan. Lahore’s architecture is mostly very British and the lanes and the alleys are magnificent. He appreciated the beauty of his city on the same lines but out with the next breath he accepted it to be a ‘false image’ of Pakistan. According to him, it is just eyewash, no doubt Lahore is developed but large parts of Pakistan are demolished. From Quetta to Baluchistan, things are not in pretty good shape. There is a constant battle between the Shias and the Sunnis. Talking about the peace prevailing in Lahore, I was told about the pact between the Shahbaz Sharif and the terror outfits, to have a peaceful co-existence. Then, once again he told me about the girl called ‘Nabeela’ whom he met and how a part of missile of drone attack was stuck in her brother’s leg and how traumatizing it is so see the young innocent children becoming victim of the hate planted by their ancestors. Talk on ‘Lal Masjid’ was the next, where the Pakistani govt. was suspicious of the presence of terror outfits and which made them attack on the Madrassa where supposedly young children were being brainwashed and the result was a scene of young faces wrapped in the white satin clothes absorbed in red.

After this discussion on the critical topics, we shifted our talk towards our view point for the each other’s country. He asked me first and my three points were the same stereotypical ones regarding Pakistan–

• Freedom deprived nation
• Fundamentalism at its best
• War than development

And then his viewpoints on India were-

• Rape Capital
• Dirty Politics
• Illogical bollywood flicks

That was it; we expected a clash of thoughts, but no! We accepted each other’s views whole heartedly. This wasn’t an exaggerated stand by both of us regarding each other’s nation; this was what people on the both sides of border generally perceive. The difference between the others and us lie on the fact that we amicably accepted our faults and did not go ahead relentlessly defending our respective countries.

Though, it was a moment to hang my head in shame as it wasn’t only my country where we are talking about the increasing crime rate against women but we as India are now a global capital for Rape? The answer might not be yes superficially but, in our hearts we accept the breakdown of the moral fabric in the country which once celebrated essence of womanhood.

I don’t know what made me ask him the ‘connectivity or relativity between Christianity and Islam’, it might be because of the discussion on which of these two came earlier into existence or may be because of me having friends belonging to both religion made me question him but to my surprise he answered ‘Islam was born out of Christianity’ . I recalled our last chat and our discussion on Feminism, thereafter we discussed about the successful culmination of the campaign by FemSoc of LUMS. It was one such idea which made me think and appreciate the beauty of the society in modern time. It is without a single doubt it is tough to pull off FemSoc in society which is dominated by men but these chaps in LUMS should be applauded for their work. We then were back to our talk on Indo-Pak, that is when he told me the name of NWFP has been changed to “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa”, which he spoke around three times and I couldn’t even understand what he meant.

Then again, we entered into serious discussion on how every single child is given a different perspective of other nation and especially in the case of India and Pakistan. We are told, since childhood, the country next to us is our enemy and we have to fight against it. It might not be so explicit but it lingers in minds of every Indian and Pakistani somewhere down the line.

My love for Urdu is never ending and his passion to learn Hindi is unbeatable. My love for Sufi Music is unmatchable and his zest for strong message oriented Hindi films is unsurpassable. This mutual love and respect for each other and each other’s religion/customs/traditions is not as tough to achieve as pictured by our countrymen. All you need is one big heart and one sane mind, and luckily me and Fatiq are having perfect combination of both, which is why we decided to go for our masters together abroad!

Fatiq's Take on Peace Project

From the 2001 section my brain, contributed by a surfeit of layers of nostalgia, a rusty image of the Wagha Border rushed through my brain, screening moments of conceited conformity, moments when I stood and watch the Flag of my country and saw red instead of green. It is said that when Molana Abul Kalam Azad was asked about Partition he found it to be absurd and said that Muslims would die in this part and Islam would die in that part. He later became the first Minister of Education in the Indian government and died denouncing the concept of Partition.

The uniformed voices of the soldiers’ beat reminiscent of an automaton reverb through my ear drums. In the air above them, I see demons in the sky sniggering jests on their misery. And in that subtle moment I joined those demons because they, fortunately, had the power to think.

In this demonic world the first person I met was Saadat Hasan Manto who hailed me into Toba Tek Singh, a city with no religion, no heaven above it and no hell below it; a city of dreams. It was located right above India and Pakistan. Manto was the minister of propaganda under the cabinet of Molana Abul Kalam Azad who was the Chancellor. And the rest of the cabinet was still to be made.

For years I didn’t want to leave that city because for me, Partition didn’t happen. It was like a blank page in the books of Nigel Kelly, a misplaced thought in my mind and a fictitious account in the words of others. But for some reason I didn’t felt proud of myself. There was guilt, a feeling that what if I was on the wrong side what if my heaven was hell after all. This confusion and anguish seemed never to end, until, until 2nd March 2014, when I talked to Aakash Chandran. Someone I never expected to meet, a sheer coincidence which proved out to be the greatest incidence in my life.

I remember we talked for about 2 hours, and as much I would like to brag about being delighted to explore a new friend with an entirely different culture to explore. I won’t. Because I won’t be saying the truth then.

Aakash seemed to me someone who lived next door, someone I meet everyday, for starters we had the same language, the same belief, the same understanding of how things were, he knew about Ramadhan and Eid, I knew about Holi and Diwali, where was the difference?

My guilt didn’t lose it that simply. We started asking each other questions, like existent questions, personal questions. Our family structures, again the same. The choices we had for college, that same too. Indian and Pakistani politics, and that was too  And then the moment when Mirza Ghalib came up, my guilt vanished and I knew I was right, the boundary between us was just an imaginary strait of steel.

This project for me was particularly special because it helped me realize the reliability of the ideas in my mind. Aakash for me was what Pluto called the other half of my being. He was an individual who represented an entire part of me which was torn apart in 1947.

This peace project for me was not life changing perhaps but it is life assuring. Aakash and all the other people I met in this journey made me realize that we are not alone. There are people out there who still believe in Toba Tek Singh. People who still believe that the truth always does prevail. People for whom there is no India and Pakistan. What only exists is humanity. And that is all that counts.

Building Peace Project- for a better tomorrow !

It was one evening when I stumbled upon Kirthi’s (Director, Red Elephant Foundation) status on Facebook saying last call for “Building Peace Project”. The name of the Project caught my attention and made me check it the very same moment. I was glad that my half a second of wait was totally worth as what I read kept me awestruck. It was not merely peace factor which captivated me but it was peace between India and Pakistan is what intrigued me. One of the rarest opportunities you can get is being a part or I should say being provided with a platform to discuss and ideate on International relations between the two much talked and 'enemy made' countries. Red Elephant Foundation brings 10 people across each border together, divided in pairs of two for a year with the agenda to reach at an amicable solution for the prevailing conflicts. It was a pleasant surprise for me to get a mail from the organization saying ‘You have been selected for the BPP’, completely contrary to what I thought when I applied. The very thought of working with an aim to come up with a peace resolution along with a Pakistani counterpart is what motivates me. Fatiq Nadeem, 19 year old, an investigative journalism aspirant is my partner for the project from Lahore. As far as I know,we are the youngest of all the pairs rolled in for the project,this gives both of us a much needed exposure into the cultural and social aspect of India & Pakistan at such an early age.  There exists curiosity wrapped with a tinge of tension not because of the existing radical views against each other’s country but because of the ways in which things will unfold. The purpose of this project is not to enter into a peace agreement only, but to acknowledge and dig out the unheard stories from the lands which were once together but now are separated by huge metallic gates. The past undoubtedly had been treacherous but what has stopped us from waving a white flag to our neighbours now? This beautiful project conceived by Kirthi and her team has given Fatiq and Me an opportunity to represent our nation and to plunge into debate/exchange of ideas/ challenging norms of both the sides, which I am extremely energized to take on.  Looking forward to expanding my friend zone beyond India, disintegrate the planted beliefs and to envisage a peaceful future belonging to both the nations.

Let peace prevail!