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COVER STORY: PAKISTAN
The Peace Merchants
Kuldip Nayar, a
Track II-ist for whom Pakistan is almost a second home a flight away from
Delhi, renews that humanism every August 14-15 night on the Wagah border-in
candlelight, to be precise. That is his peace gesture as the founder of
Hind Pak Dost. He too remembers: "I walked from Sialkot to Amritsar,
and I had only Rs 143 in my pocket." Since then he has been to Pakistan
80 times. Lahore is not elsewhere. What will Nayar do if he is chosen
as the chief architect of Kashmir peace? Simple. "PoK will remain
with them (Pakistan). I will give autonomy to all subjects in Kashmir
except defence and foreign affairs. I will hold elections in Kashmir under
the supervision of intellectuals and human-rights activists. I will open
the Rawalpindi-Srinagar and Jammu-Sialkot roads. Lok Sabha members from
Jammu and Kashmir will sit in Pakistan's National Assembly, and vice versa.
And I will make Siachen a no-man's land." Problem solved. "I
can sell it here, my problem is selling it in Pakistan."
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SHOP
PEACE: Track II delegates in Pakistan in an effort to encourage
the local economy
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Track II is all about selling ideas and winning
idealists. Post-Kargil, the salesmanship has achieved a new momentum.
Recently in Pakistan as peace merchants: a women's group led by Nirmala
Deshpande and Mohini Giri; a Delhi Policy Group (DPG) team led by Lt-General
(retd) V.R. Raghavan, and members of the Indo-Pak Soldiers' Initiative
for Peace. The Women's Initiative for Peace in South Asia (WIPSA) has
sent a busload of women to Lahore, and in appreciation, received a larger
load from Lahore. Says WIPSA activist Sayeda Hameed: "July 14 is
a defining moment. A groundswell of popular sentiments has made it possible."
And WIPSA literally prays for peace.
But the most institutionalised Track II initiative
is the India-Pakistan Neemrana Initiative (IPNI), started in 1991 by the
USIS. They meet twice a year, alternately in India and Pakistan, and every
meeting is held in camera. For the past few years, the initiative was
funded by the Indian Government. "We have the government's blessings.
Track II creates the right climate," says IPNI founder-member Satish
Kumar. And there is no shortage of people who want to make the best use
of the climate. "I get so many requests for membership," says
Kumar.
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| FREE TO DREAM: Indo-Pak cultural
exchange programmes, like this workshop for students organised in
Delhi last month, draw enthusiastic responses from academics
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So, is it something like the think tanks of the
US? Hardly. Over there, punditry emanating from places like the Brookings
Institution and the Rand Corporation can change the climate at Foggy Bottom.
An essay by one mysterious X (later revealed as the venerable George F.
Kennan) could define the Washington policy of "containment"
during the Cold War. Even today, the wisdom of a Henry Kissinger or a
Samuel Huntington or a Francis Fukuyama has a life outside printed pages.
Here think tanks are an employment exchange for the retired and the academically
challenged.And the influence of foreign policy gurus is an edit page banality.
Indo-Pak brotherhood is one of their main oxygen sources. Former foreign
secretary J.N. Dixit says Track II is a great opportunity for its participants
to expand their networking capacity-"and a good opportunity to travel
abroad which otherwise you cannot afford".
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Track
II diplomacy is all about selling ideas and winning idealists.
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Though, for someone like Mubashir Husain, a former
finance minister in the Bhutto government and founder of the Pakistan-India
People's Forum for Peace and Democracy, "talking to Indian intellectuals
has always been beneficial".
Well, Track II keeps many doves talking, not
necessarily intellectually or intelligently.
—With Harinder Baweja
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