A genuine desire for peace on both sides of the divide
KARACHI: Despite the air of mutual mistrust and suspicion pervading officialdom in both countries, there seems to be a genuine desire for peace among the masses on both sides of the divide.
This seemed to be the impression one would have gathered by the frank and forthright discourse between the Indian delegation from the Mumbai Press Club and the journalists and intellectuals at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs on Thursday morning.
Discussions between the Indian journalists and their Pakistani counterparts ranged over a wide range of issues. However, Kashmir dominated the discourse.
Naresh Fernandez, a staffer of Time Out, Mumbai, set the ball rolling by asking what from Pakistan’s perspective was a viable solution of the Kashmir issue.
A noted TV personality and journalist, replying, said that a viable solution from Pakistan’s perspective would be one which catered for the wishes and aspirations of the people of Kashmir. It was the Kashmiris, he said, who were the pivotal factor. “How could you ignore the loss of 100,000 lives in Kashmir for the liberation of their motherland?” Masud said to drive home his contention.
He also cited the UN Resolutions of 1949 on Kashmir and said that the viable solution Pakistan talked of would have to be within the ambit of those resolutions.
Masud mentioned some supplementary steps taken by the previous government to lessen the tenuous relations between the two countries. He also mentioned the soft borders policy on Kashmir whereby former president Pervez Musharraf had allowed land trade between Azad Kashmir and India-held Kashmir.
Jatin Desai, leader of the Indian delegation, was of the opinion that Kashmir was a more sensitive issue in Punjab than in Karachi. In the latter, he said, the issue of proper demarcation of the Sir Creek marine border to permanently solve the humanitarian issue of straying fishermen from both sides was considered more vital.
According to Desai, the UN resolutions did not hold good any more as the resolutions viewed Kashmir as a bilateral issue which it was not anymore. Now, he said, Kashmir was a trilateral issue.
Anwar Jamal Kidwai advocated enhancing and normalising trade and moving away from political issues to cultivate the cordiality of ties that should exist between neighbours.
The call for trade enhancement was echoed by a number of other participants, including from among the visitors.
Retired General Sikandar opined that the greatest stumbling block to normal neighbourly ties was the collective mindset on both sides which had been condition to hate and acrimony. It was this, he said, which had to be made to undergo a radical change.
Many of the participants thought that frictional ties also stemmed from the lack of awareness about each other, and blamed the media for their lackadaisical approach in this regard. They felt that the media on both sides had failed to present an objective and real picture of each other.
In this regard, Dr Masuma Hasan, Director, Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA), recalled how on one of her visits to New Delhi it came as a surprise to her Indian hosts that there were jetliners in Pakistan. So abysmally false was the perception of Pakistan in the Indian mind, she said. Earlier, Dr Hasan gave a brief narration of the inception of the PIIA in 1948.
Source: The News
Date:11/18/2011
” 
” 
” 
” 
” 
