‘Madam! My daughter wants to shake hands with a Hindu!’

The man on the street in Pakistan is keen to bring down the wall of mistrust and hatred between neighbours

Last November, former Ind-  ian navy chief Admiral    L. Ramdas led a 140–strong   delegation to Pakistan for the fourth annual meet of India–Pakistan Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy. The three–day Peshawar conference provided us an opportunity to exchange views with our Pakistani friends and to consider the ways and means of building trust and confidence between our conflicting states. We met many distinguished personalities, including a former chief minister and a member of NWFP Assembly Mr. Wali Khan (Jr.), the grandson of the legendary “Frontier Gandhi”, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, who was hailed as the Badshah Khan of the Pakhtoon (Pathan Nation).

After the Peshawar conference of the PIPFPD, my wife Nirmala and I went on a personal tour of Pakistan. It was an enlightening experience. We could not believe that Pakistan has a most advanced motorway system and most of its public  places and its public utilities are comparatively better maintained and clean. We found no stray dogs or animals in the streets or bazaars. Even in the crowded street, the famous Anarkali of old Lahore and around the Lahore Fort, we met no begger or commercial harassment or the filth which we suffer near the Red Fort in Delhi, or when we pass through Chandani Chowk!

The official anti–Indian propaganda notwithstanding, we heard not a word against India from the men on the street. On the contrary, everywhere it was a warm handshake of friendship and hospitality towards the ‘Indian guests’. Public places, guest–houses, restaurants and private homes were resounding with the heart–rending popular songs from Bollywood’s Hindi films. Tourist deluxe buses were showing Indian films and playing  the choicest Hindi songs and music. Except the PIA airlines’ hostess who welcomed us aboard with “Bismilla–e–Rahman–e–Rahim…”, a prayer for Peace chanted with religious fervour, nowhere was faith forced upon us. 

At a street corner shop in Peshawar, we ordered a glass of fruit juice. While we were relishing the fresh anar–ka–ras, another customer quietly paid for our drink with a friendly smile: ‘You are our guests!’

In Lahore, we walked into a sweet shop: Jalandhar Moti Chur. The young proprietor was excited to learn we had come across the border and that my wife’s parental home was Jalandhar. We were instantly served with traditional Indian sweets. Later, the shop owner refused to accept payment, insiting that he was honoured that we had visited his shop, and that he wished one day to go over to the Indian side of Punjab, Inshaallah!

The immigration officer at the Lahore International Airport chatted with us with a courtesy and warmth that we seldom experience on arrival at New Delhi International Airport.

We visited the historical sites of ancient Taxshila. Our Indian heritage of the Buddhist era is well preserved with due care and scientific acumen. But the curator lamented that he has had no opportunity to visit Indian archeological sites and museums, nor could he exchange information and studies with his counterparts across the border. How could we study the ancient archeological history in isolation? How could we research and preserve the ancient heritage of Panini, without a chance to visit the other parts of the Sanskritic civilisation? The great Sanskrit grammarian was born here, around 400 B.C., in Attuk.

In Lahore, from the ramparts of the Fort overlooking the Jama Masjid, we get a view of Mughal glory. But the guide proudly narrates the saga of the Sikh valour, of the one–eyed Maharaja Ranjit Singh — the last ruler of Punjab whose empire had extended right up to Kabul and Khandhar and from whom the British had stolen the priceless Koh–e–Noor diamond. From the rampart you can see the Sikh percham in all its saffron splendour, still flying high, just above the Mughal Masjid, as if in total defiance of the Islamic State, atop the Gurudwara built by Ranjit Singh, after defeating the Mughals.

But the most exciting experience was a visit to the Khyber Pass Agency — the land of the brave Pakhtoons who could not be subdued by the British Raj. The Pass is a misnomer as it is not really a mountain pass as we know it, like for example, the Rohtang Pass. The Khyber Pass is a vast valley sandwiched between dry, high mountains in which the weather–hardened descendants of early Aryans, tall, handsome, bearded Pathans live in huge mud–walled houses together within a clan or family. We were received with friendly smiles and warm hospitality. We experienced no hostility towards Indians. My wife moved around the place with her face uncovered, contrary to local norms. We were in the no man’s land, very close to the Taleban–controlled border of Afghanistan. But we felt no discomfort in the presence of Pathans. They let Nirmala hold their guns and insisted that we eat  with them.

At a very short notice, Dr. Wali Khan honoured us with an invitation to an informal tea session. We drove to his country home, Wali Bagh. It was our pilgrimage to the land of Frontier Gandhi, who had turned the violent Pathans into khadi–clad volunteers — Khudai–khidmatgars. Thousands of his followers had marched to the British prison as satyagrahis on the call of Badhshah Khan. He himself spent 15 years in jail during British rule, but 18 years in a Pakistani prison for refusing to accept the partition of India on religious grounds. Defiant in his conviction, at the age of 95 when his time came, as he willed, his body was taken across the Khyber Pass and finally rested in the free soil of Afghanistan.

Dr. Wali Khan and his followers are still not reconciled with the theocratic state of Pakistan. He had spent three years in a British jail, but like his father he, too, has spent five years inside Pakistani prisons, accused of being an “Indian agent”. Evidently, his home is full of mementoes of our freedom movement. How is it that we Indians have not recognised the sacrifices of Pakhtoons? Why is there no register or directory of thousands of Pathan satyagrahis who were imprisoned with Nehru and Gandhi? Why should we not offer some recognition to those brave non–violent Pathans who fought with us against the Raj? Why not install the statue of Frontier Gandhi at India Gate?

After we visited Dr. Wali Khan’s residence, our car was shadowed by a wireless–equipped police patrol right up to the campus of Quaid–e–Azam University in Islamabad. But there was no harassment in this official security operation. Escorting police officials were polite and courteous  during the entire drive from Peshawar to Islamabad.

A man in the street came up to  my wife: “Madam! My daughter wants to shake hands with a Hindu”. Inside the Lahore Fort, a group of school children and several young lady teachers surrounded us with welcoming songs and requested a photo session. They could just as well have been an Indian school party anywhere in north India. We spoke to them in Hindustani, which they called Urdu, but linguistically it is khadi–boli commonly spoken throughout the length and breadth of the northern sub–continent. 

“Why don’t you wear a burqa?” I asked the teachers teasingly. “How can we take care of children if we clad ourselves with a burqa?”, replied one pretty school teacher. The teachers expressed the hope of visiting India, some day, Inshaallah. 

Can the votaries of Hindutva understand this longing of our brethren living on the other side of the divide but who are keen to bring down the wall of mistrust and hatred?          

Dhirendra Sharma

(The writer is a Dehra Dun–based peace activist)