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Thursday, Sep 21, 2006
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Sarvodaya activist hails India,Pakistan peace initiative

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: "The willingness shown by India and Pakistan at the Havana U.N. Convention to arrive at a joint mechanism to counter terror augurs well for peace in the region," said Nirmala Deshpande, Rajya Sabha MP and member of the Association for Peace of Asia.

Speaking to the press here on Wednesday, the veteran Sarvodaya activist hoped this would mean reopening the peace process that had stalled following the Mumbai blasts.

"You can change history books, but not geography," she said. "We have to live together, so let us live as friends. There is no other choice."

Attitudinal change

Asked if the earnestness of political initiatives were suspect given the history of many abortive peace negotiations, Ms. Deshpande said she had seen a sea change in people's attitudes in the last 12 years in the Subcontinent.

Ordinary people on both sides of the border wanted peace, she said, and quoted a slogan of Indo-Pak peace activists: "Goli nahin boli chahiye. [We don't want bullets, we want talks.] Pressure from the people can build and force political will."

Kashmiris victim

Answering a question on the role of Pakistan Army in Kashmir, Ms. Deshpande said: "People of Kashmir also have grievances against Indian Army officers. Our own people are not happy with us. Kashmiris want peace with justice." She recalled what a Kashmiri had told her during a visit: "If a bullet is fired from this side, it's a Kashmiri who dies. If a bullet is fired from the other side, it's again a Kashmiri who dies."

Economist and member of the Association for Peace of Asia Devaki Jain said one had to choose between war and poverty alleviation since defence expenditure ate into allocation for developmental works.

Hope still

Seen in a global context, she said, the India-Pakistan situation was not as hopeless as it was in South Asia or Africa.

"We are at least talking, let us celebrate it," she said.

Environmentalist Suresh Heblikar and journalist-activist Shudra Sreenivas, also members of the Association, stressed the need to diversify the nature of India-Pakistan dialogue by keeping it alive in areas such as culture and environment.

Mr. Sreenivas said Pakistan had a vibrant civic society that was trying to negotiate changes within the country.

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