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Forging ahead: Five years on

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

O
Re-visiting the
first ever Aman
ki Asha joint
statement,
January 1, 2010

n January 1, 2010, the

Jang Group of
Pakistan and
The Times of
India launched
an unprecedented initiative for peace
between Pakistan
and
India. The occasion was marked
by another unprecedented move: a
joint editorial simultaneously published in both
countries, in Jang Group and
TOI publications.
Five years on, the Aman ki
Asha community of peacemongers is growing every day,
with dozens of organisations
and individuals, particularly
youth, inspired to join the
movement. This is a good time
to re-visit the joint statement
published on Jan 1, 2010. Extracts:
Peace between India and
Pakistan has been stubbornly
elusive and yet tantalizingly
inevitable. This vast subcontinent senses the bounties a
peace dividend can deliver to
its people yet it recoils from
claiming a share.
In this perennial season of
inertia and zero-sum calculations prejudices continue to
fester, stereotypes are entrenched and myth replaces
reality. We believe it is time
to restore the equilibrium.
Public opinion is far too potent a force to be left in the

hands of narrow vested interests. Skepticism about the

given is often the genesis of
faith. This skepticism has
been brewing. It can be unleashed to forge a new social
compact between the people
of this region. A social compact based on a simple yet
powerful impulse - Aman ki
Asha. A desire for peace.
The media in India and
Pakistan can help in writing
a final chapter, adding a happy
twist to a story that seemed
headed for tragedy. It can do
so by shaping the discourse
and steering it away from rancour and divisiveness. It has
the maturity to recognize the
irritants and obstacles to
peace and will not take a timid
stance towards the more intractable and contentious issues whether relating to

Aman ki Asha Strategic Seminar, New Delhi, December, 2012.

Photo: Sanjay Sekhri
Kashmir, water disputes or
the issue of cross-border terrorism. It can offer solutions
and nudge the leadership towards a sustained peace process. It can create an enabling
environment where new ideas
can germinate and bold initiatives can sprout
The Times of India Group
and the Jang Group have
come together to energize the
process of peace between our
two countries. We believe that
this is an intervention whose
time has come. We recognize
that set backs will occur but
these should not derail the
process. We will need to reach
Strings and Indian Ocean: concert in Bangalore, 2012
out and pluck the low hanging

B R I E F S

Pakistan Childrens
LitFest goes to Delhi

By Renu Shah Bagaria

hortly after joining the
Harvard
Kennedy
School of Government,
while walking back to
my apartment in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, it struck me that
I was finally encountering the
moment I had waited for so
long all my life. It was the
evening of July 1, 2014 and I
was walking with a Pakistani
for the first time in my life,
someone I knew would become
a friend for life.
Having lived in Nepal for
some years, I had met Pakistanis before, but only briefly, without much chance for personal
interaction. I always believed
that the problems between
India and Pakistan are more political than anything else and
had always wanted to talk to a
Pakistani who did not represent
the politics or the political system of the country. I did not
know that it would take so
many years, and that I would be
so far away from home, India,
before that would happen.
That day, Malik Siraj Akbar,
my classmate at the Kennedy
School, confirmed my views. He
was as worried about what was
happening inside Pakistan and
the immediate attention Pakistans internal issues needed as
I was about my country, India.
Together, we wondered why animosity between our countries
continues to surface.
We walked around looking
for a restaurant that served desi
food as an Indian and a Pak-

Childrens LitFest, Lahore 2014

he Childrens Literature Festival
(CLF) initiated in Pakistan is heading to New Delhi on January 29-30,
2015. The event, being held in collaboration with the Pakistan High Commission,
follows 15 Childrens Literature Festivals
held in cities across Pakistan.
Over 335,000 children, teachers and
parents have attended these events in different cities so far, including Quetta, Peshawar, and Swat. Three Teachers Literature Festivals have also been held in
Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore.
Writers and journalists in India interested in being a part of this initiative are
invited to contact the organisers.
Email:maham.ali@itacec.org

wo youth groups in India and Pakistan recently launched their third Indo-Pak
peace calendar featuring selected paintings by students from India and Pakistan
and messages from well-known personal-

ities.
The calendar will serve as a daily reminder of
shared dreams and hopes for friendship, says Aaghaz-e-Dosti, a joint initiative of Mission Bhartiyam,
India and The Catalyst, Pakistan.
Students from around both countries participated
in the calendar competition, sending entries from
Delhi, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Lahore, Islamabad,
Rawalpindi, Chitral and Karachi.
The launch in Delhi on Dec. 28, 2014 was followed by a seminar titled Sharing of Hopes. Speakers as well as audience members including some
Pakistani visitors to India highlighted the commonality of cultures, their experiences of meeting the
other, and the need for more people-to-people exchanges.
Prof. Chman Lal, Professor-Coordinator at Centre for Punjabi Language, Literature and Culture,
Central University of Punjab, Bhatinda, highlighted
the importance of shared heroes like Bhagat Singh,

Jab

Dividends Economic Conference, Lahore 2012: PTI chief Imran Khan with Indian delegation leader Adi Godrej, chairman of the Godrej Group and Jang Group MD Shahrukh Hasan. Photo: Akmal Bhatti
fruit in the beginning before
we aim higher. Issues of trade
and commerce, of investments, of financial infrastructure, of cultural exchanges, of
religious and medical tourism,
of free movement of ideas, of
visa regimes, of sporting ties,
of connectivity, of reviving existing routes, of market access, of separated families, of
the plight of prisoners, will be
part of our initial agenda
We owe our unborn gener-

we

A dream of open borders

meet

Learning from each other

By Malik Siraj Akbar

istani we had similar tastes in
food. We talked in our shared
language, Hindustani; his
speech has overtones of Urdu
while mine has Hindi overtones.
We easily and immediately connected with each others experiences. We talked about our
countries and our families. We
had similar anxieties about our
families and visions for our
countries and the South Asian
region.
So where was the difference
that I had heard about through
the media all my life? For now,
all these differences seemed
so irrelevant. A thought crossed
my mind: if Malik and I could be
such great friends and neighbours then why could not our
countries, India and Pakistan,
which we represented in a way
at Harvard, live in peace? It
troubled me to acknowledge
how different, and difficult, the
ground realities are.
Since then, I have made sev-

eral friends from Pakistan here

in Cambridge. Every time I meet
someone from Pakistan, we instantly connect. Over these past
few months I have repeatedly
asked myself this
difficult question:
why India and Pakistan are considered so different
when the people
from these countries
are so similar.
I feel so privileged for having so many friends from Pakistan. I looking forward to traveling to Pakistan one day not
just as a tourist but also explore our common roots and to
take with me the message of
peace. I hope that my dream of
open borders between the two
countries will one day become
a reality.

ations the right to rise out of

the depths of poverty, and
squalour There are external
elements at work in the region that thrive on the animosity between the two
neighbours. They have a stake
in keeping the region in turmoil. We need to combat
them by making them irrelevant.
Our subcontinent needs to
follow the footprints left behind by the great poets, sufi

hen I got a rare opportunity to study

in India in 2005,
the rich learning
experience I had there completely reshaped me as a
person and broadened my
world vision. I was the
first recipient of South
Asia
Foundations
Media
Scholarship
along with Huma
Sadaf, a female student
from Lahore. The scholarship
took us to the south Indian city
of Chennai where we completed a post-graduate diploma
at the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ). Unfortunately, this
excellent learning program has
had to be discontinued because several future batches of
Pakistani students were denied visas.
In the decade since I gradu-

Renu Shah Bagaria and Malik Siraj Akbar are Mid-Career

students at the Masters in Public Administration (MC-MPA)
Program, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

ated from ACJ, there has

hardly been a day in my personal or professional lives
when I have not utilised the
rich lessons I learned in India.
One of my biggest challenges
as a Pakistani is to convince
people back home how diverse
India is and how unconcerned
ordinary Indians are with Pakistan. In contrast, if you listen
to some segments of the Pakistani news media, you begin
to believe that India and Indians are out there for the sole
purpose of destroying Pakistan. In reality, Indians face
the same hardships of everyday life including the challenge
of making a living and staying
healthy, just like Pakistanis.
By continuing to strain
diplomatic relations and staying adamant against softening
visa restrictions for each
others citizens, India and Pakistan are denying our people,
especially youth, great learning
opportunities. Our generation
should revolt against such policies and demand more regional integration and openness. Students from both
countries should be encouraged and assisted to go visit
each others universities and
initiate dialogues and conversations that we have intentionally avoided for decades.
What is funny as well as

A daily reminder of shared dreams and hopes

Saima Sayed, First Secretary, High Commission of

Pakistan, New Delhi: with a student at the peace calendar launch
B.R. Ambedkar and Tipu Sultan.
Graphic novelist and political cartoonist Vishwajyoti Ghosh shared his experiences of love and hospitality during his visit to Lahore and talked about

THE FIRST STEP

LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK

Feedback, contributions, photos, letters:

Email: amankiasha@janggroup.com.pk
Fax: +92-21-3241-8343
Post: aman ki asha c/o The News,
I.I. Chundrigar Road, Karachi

the need to engage more critically with the discourse

on partition.
Deepak Malviya, Secretary of Servants of the
People Society, established in 1921 by Lala Lajpat Rai
in Lahore talked about Lala Lajpat Rais legacy, that
includes Gulab Devi Hospital in Lahore. He also
talked about the need to increase people-to-people
interaction.
Saima Sayed, First Secretary (Political) at High
Commission of Pakistan, highlighted the need for
student exchange programmes, interactive sessions
and initiatives like Zindagi channel that help to bring
people closer and realise they are the same.
Manoj Jain, owner of Ultrawalls, one of the event
sponsors, said that peace is the desire of the people
and is the way forward.
Secretary of Gandhi Global Family, Ram Mohan
Rai remembered Dr. Nirmala Deshpande, known as
Didi, whom India honoured with the prestigious
Padma Vibhushan and Pakistan with Sitara-e-Pakistan. He talked about his visit to Karachi where he

Ravi Nitesh of Aaghaz-e-Dosti: shared dreams and

hopes
found no difference in the thinking of people.
In India for a conference, Dr. Rafida Nawaz from
Multan said that she had found Indians to be just like
Pakistanis, warm and loving. She urged people to forget the past and move on for a prosperous future for
both countries. She said that there should be compe-

saints and the bhakts who

preached and practiced love
and inclusiveness. This is the
land of Tagore and Ghalib, of
Bulleh Shah and Kabir, of
Nanak and Moinuddin Chisti.
It is their spirit that will guide
us in this journey. The one
and half billion people of this
region await the dawning of
an age where peace, equality
and tranquility prevails. This
will happen when every heart
beats with Aman ki Asha.

tragic about my meeting with

Renu is that we, two South
Asians, had to wait to come to
America to meet each other
because it is easier for Indians
and the Pakistanis to travel to
the U.S. than to visit each
others countries. Since I finished my studies in Chennai, I
have met more of my Indian
classmates abroad, as I was
unable to obtain an Indian visa
and return there to meet them.
From my experiences, I
can testify that educational,
cultural and professional exchange programs are powerful
tools to empower individuals
and societies. The two governments should initiate exchange
programs so that students
from both sides of the border
have an opportunity to live,
study, play, debate and work
with each other.
You cannot (and should
not) learn about your neighbors only through television
news. In order to know people
better, you have to walk up to
them, interact with them,
share each others sorrows
and, more importantly, help
each other during hard times.
Thats how you strengthen relationships with your neighbors. Thats how you end misconceptions and get to know
each other better.
Indians and Pakistanis
have missed these great learning opportunities for decades.
They have allowed hardliners
in both countries to disrupt
cooperation and openness on
the pretext of religion and national security.
The sooner regional integration and cooperation overpowers obscurantist elements
on both sides, the faster we
will march on our path to normalisation of bilateral ties.
This is what will lead to an
epoch of regional prosperity.

tition but it should be confined to cricket matches.

Renowned Hindi poet and journalist Pankaj Singh
also shared his experiences of interacting with Pakistanis when he worked with the BBC. He developed
strong bonds of friendship with them that still exist.
Pankaj Chaturvedi from National Book Trust
talked about the need to strengthen the civil society
in both countries. He denounced the war industry
that people need to be aware of.
Students from Delhi whose paintings were selected were present at the events along with their
parents and teachers. They talked about their paintings and vision for peace.
Parmod Pahwa, one of the organisers of the
blood camp in Delhi held in solidarity with Peshawar, shared his experience of visiting Pakistan
and stressed that peace talks are the only way
ahead.
More launches are planned in January, in
Chandigarh, Nashik, Panipat, Ajmer, Chennai, Lahore and Islamabad. This years calendar initiative
was organized in collaboration with Indian Council
for Talent Search and Competitions and Yuvsatta,
India and Social Awareness Media and Art Junction
(SAMAAJ), South Asian Writers and Artists Network (SAWAN) and JAD Foundation, Pakistan.

A peace initiative whose time has come...

Destination Peace: A commitment by the Jang Group, Geo and The Times of India Group to
create an enabling environment that brings the people of Pakistan and India closer together,
contributing to genuine and durable peace with honour between our countries.