Frontline
July 2001 
Editorial

Praying for peace

As we put this issue to bed, the scheduled summit meet of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf is barely a week away. Needless to say, we share the sentiments of all peace-loving people on both sides of the border, including the maulanas from mosques in Srinagar and elsewhere in the troubled Kashmir Valley, who are praying or hoping that after the euphoria generated by Lahore and the mass hysteria produced by Kargil, sanity will be the outcome of Agra. No one expects the suspicions and mistrusts, the rancour and bitterness that have accumulated over half a century during which three-and-a-half wars have been fought to vanish overnight. But no one in his right senses can ignore the crying need for peace in the sub-continent today.

Forget the argument oft-repeated by peace makers that morality apart, common sense dictates that nations unable to provide safe drinking water, food, education and health-care to its citizens should concentrate their resources on these rather than on piling up arms to fight against their neighbour. Forget the benefits of mutual business and trade, forget about cultural exchanges and a shared past. Just think of two nuclear-powered neighbours, both armed with bombs to cause unimaginable human misery. And think of the jehadis on one side and swayamsevaks on the other, both equally enthused by their growing proximity to the instrument that can finally settle the "unfinished business of partition".

That neither India nor Pakistan can afford to ignore the imperative for peace is obvious. But Vajpayee has also to think of the saffron parivar of which he is but a product, while Musharraf has also to worry about the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Jaish-e-Mohammed and other ‘Soldiers of Islam’ that the Pakistani establishment has bred and nurtured over the years.

Whether the two leaders succeed in initiating a coherent and concrete peace process we will have to wait and see. Meanwhile, we are happy to report to our readers that a newly created NGO has made the initial breakthrough in starting a peace process on the ground in Kashmir. Our cover story this month highlights the perspectives of other peace-makers who have been striving over the years to promote friendship between the people of India and Pakistan. Included in this exercise has been our own effort at promoting the idea of ‘Peacepals’ between children in India and Pakistan through our project for secular education in schools.

To remind our readers that it will take much more than exchange of pleasantries at the summit for the peace process to get underway, we reproduce the report of a fact-finding team of human rights organisations. On its recent visit to J&K, the team found that rights abuses remained rampant in that hapless state even during the months of ceasefire announced by the Vajpayee-led NDA government. On a different level, but no less worrisome is the sustained arms training camps that are being organised in different parts of the country by the Bajrang Dal, the VHP and the Shiv Sena to create a private ‘Hindu army’. This, and the resurgent stridency over Ayodhya dispute, is ominous to say the least. We urge our readers to take serious note of this brazen attempt at the ‘Talibanisation’ of India by the saffron brigade and join our campaign to shake the agencies of the State out of their complacency and prevent India’s descent into anarchy.

On the hopeful side, it now appears that at least some of those guilty of gross communal misconduct during the Mumbai riots, in December 1992 and January 1993, will not go unpunished. The Mumbai high court has refused anticipatory bail to Ramdeo Tyagi, a former police commissioner of Mumbai, who has been charge-sheeted for his role in the gunning down of nine innocent Muslims. It is perhaps for the first time in the history of independent India with its growing spiral of communal violence, that a senior policeman is being held accountable for criminal conduct born out of prejudice. Action has also been initiated against some politicians. If some of them finally end up in jail because the court finds them guilty of the charges against them, India will have shown to the world that it still remains sworn to the principles of equality and the rule of law.

— EDITORS


 


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