As India and Pakistan inch towards normalising relations, each is also beleaguered by its own internal problems, political, economic and social.
In this situation, it is all the more important to build an active people's movement for peace, a movement that also encompasses related issues like homelessness, hunger, gender justice, minority rights and literacy, argues Harsh Mandar.
Mandar, who resigned from his position as a senior civil servant in India in the aftermath of the Gujarat carnage two years ago, is leading a delegation of fellow activists in Pakistan to forge links for such a movement that pushes 'not just for peace, but for a just peace', as he puts it.
Currently Director Actionaid India, Mandar is also active with Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (Anhad), an organization formed by the well known political activist Shabnam Hashmi, whose brother Safdar Hashmi was killed by Congress-backed hooligans during a street theatre performance in Delhi in on January 1, 1989.
(Ten persons were finally convicted of the murder, in November 2003).
The Anhad delegation is due to return to Delhi from Lahore on Monday.
Besides Harsh Mandar and Shabnam Hashmi, it includes the respected historian Dr K.N.
Pannikar, the well known actress Nandita Das (who was part of Safdar Hashmi's theatre group Jan Natya Manch), the scientist, poet and documentary filmmaker Gauhar Raza, and Saumya Sen, who left a career in corporate advertising to focus on campaigning issues of social justice and for peace between India and Pakistan.
All of them are moved by a sense of urgency to reclaim the secular, democratic space which they believe is being squeezed out of Indian polity.
Their sense of urgency is not shared by all the progressive forces of India.
They're, among many of those they interacted within Pakistan, who are similarly fighting for such a space in this country.
It may at times feel like a losing battle - 'but we will not stop fighting', vows Shabnam Hashmi.
Her words echo those of the mild-mannered, respected journalist, the late Aziz Siddiqui, when he was asked about what appeared to be a losing battle against extremist forces in Pakistan.
While agreeing that the situation appeared very grim, he added, 'Does that mean that we should lay down our weapons?' It was clearly a rhetorical question, and it envisaged only one answer.
Those who are fighting retrogressive forces in India, Pakistan and elsewhere in the world must carry on.
Were it not for their resistance, these forces would by now have had an easy walkover.
It is their commitment that forms one of the barriers standing in the way of that walkover in India and elsewhere.
The ripples of this battle reverberate beyond national boundaries.
As Indian and Pakistani activists recognize - and as their governments might be starting to accept - religious extremism and militancy stem from their internal socio-economic and political problems.
The Catch-22 situation is compounded by the fact that religious extremists on both sides feed upon and draw sustenance from each other.
So when NDTV's Rajdeep Sardesai told Qazi Hussain Ahmed that he felt he was talking to Bal Thakaray during a heated, live debate on Geo TV during the Saarc conference in Islamabad recently, his contention that these two entities are basically two sides of the same coin struck a nerve, offending both.
Rahni Ennor, an Australian researcher, has collected evidence of how the two apparently different groups learn from each other on either side of the border.
The political leaders of India and Pakistan seem to be realizing that they will only be strengthened by each other's strength, and weakened by each other's weaknesses.
But most of the visiting Indian activists appear to have little faith in their government's sincerity or ability to carry the peace process forward with any great degree of consistency - given that it relies for its strength on fascist parties, even as the Pakistan government panders to similar forces here, while being propped up by the military.
The general feeling appears to be that the Vajpayee government is pushing for peace because it is this card that will win the votes in the forthcoming elections - just as the previous state elections were won on the development, rather than the Hindutva, card.
Politicians, on both sides, obviously realize that there is a groundswell for peace in both countries - it is this, as much as pressure from any western capital that may be providing the impetus to their current overtures to each other.
The question is whether they will feel constrained to move the process forward even after the elections are over, or once the pressure from Washington eases up as the momentum ofthe global war on terror starts to die down, as it eventually must.
It is the present move for peace between India and Pakistan that the Anhad delegation seeks to build on, to ensure that it is not allowed to fizzle out.
They are keen to translate the people's desire for peace and friendship into a voice loud enough that the governments will feel obliged to listen to.
'When Evil Stalks the Land', Gauhar Raza's powerful film on the Gujarat carnage, is a call to artists and ordinary people to speak out, to act against injustice in all its manifestations - because it is this injustice which leads to such carnage in the long run by providing a space for retrogressive forces or 'terrorists' to build their fascist armies or prepare the desperate for suicide bombings.
It is this injustice on either side that must be addressed alongside talks for peace, if there is to be a lasting peace, not just within this region, but also on a global level.
*(Beena Sarwar is a Karachi-based producer of Geo TV-Pakistan) About us | Advertise | Other Publications | Subscriptions | Weather | Letters | Send Mail Disclaimer: Information is being made available at this site purely as a measure of public facilitation.
While every effort has been made to ensure that the information hosted on this website is accurate CHAIRMAN: VED BHASIN Kashmir Times Group of Publications Edited, printed and published by Prabodh Jamwal Editor-in-Chief, The Kashmir Times, Residency Road, Jammu, J&K, INDIA.
Executive Editor: Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal E-Mail: vbhasin@sancharnet.in, jmt_prabodh@sancharnet.in
