Talking peace
Talking peace
Tapan Bose is an India-based media man, filmmaker, human rights and peace activist. He knows every intellectual, peace and rights activist in Pakistan and South Asia by first name. He is one of the architects who envisaged the establishment of Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD), and is the Secretary General of its Indian Chapter. He is also working as Chief Executive Officer of SAFHR, Katmandu.
In an interview with Political Economy during his visit to Pakistan last week for participation in the PIPFPD forum, Bose talked about various aspects of the India-Pakistan peace developments. Excerpts follow:
PE: Would you like to tell us your expectations and hopes from the Sixth Convention of PIPFPD? You know this convention is being held after a delay of three years...
TB: Our expectations are the same as old, but the environment has changed a bit. Pakistani Government has offered in response to some of the earlier Indian offers. In the interlude it seemed that the train has stopped. Now things are moving. We are very hopeful that at least some of the things would happen. Borders will be opened at some more places, more buses would be deployed, Muzaffarabad-Srinagar route will open. The border across Rajasthan, Jammu, Gujarat and Sindh will have more exchanges. And hopefully the visa regime will also become easier. I am also afraid that it is not going to be easy and it may take more time. It is more important to start rail traffic then air because the rail is what the common man can afford.
More important is what will happen in Kashmir. If Kashmir contacts open up...if the people on both the sides of the Kashmir are allowed to meet, because opening up a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabd would mean that the two governments are agreeing to allow something, which they have not allowed in the past fifty years. That means allowing the Kashmiris to meet. Now if they start doing that, it means a substantially changed situation in Kashmir. What we have been saying all along that Kashmiris should be allowed to meet, discuss and develop their own democratic institutions where they can participate. Till this day, it has not been possible. By keeping them divided it has also been possible for the Government of India to manipulate the elite on their side and the Government of Pakistan to do the same.
Once you open the gates then the capacity to manipulate would reduce. And if this exchange begins and if it is sustained I am sure in five years time you will see change in the public opinion in Kashmir. That is what really the solution is. Look at it in 1993-94; we could not talk about openly that India and Pakistan must make peace. In 2003 we are doing it openly. Five hundred delegates are going to meet in Karachi. When the Sindh Chapter convention took place in May 2003, I was in Karachi. I saw thousands of people came to attend that meeting on a weekday. This is something, which did not happen in the past. So there is a groundswell. And the political parties and the leaders, armies and the generals have to understand. So the hopes and expectation are higher. Fear is also there. And consciously we have to step on.
I think the Forum has also come a long way. We know the problems like this time also in the middle of November we thought everything is moving on smoothly, we will get all the visas. We will get all the exits we have asked for. But suddenly three days ago we were put on hold. And there was panic and as you know the visas were given finally, even less then twenty four hours when we were to cross. There was a moment of panic, when we thought that we may have to cancel it. But it happened. It also shows that governments on both sides are also caught, as we are caught. And they also realised that you can't really stop it.
PE: There have been sudden ups and down in the relations between India and Pakistan. Now the important question is, how to sustain this momentum?
TB: There are some of us who have deep political commitment to democracy and broader democratic and social justice issues. Unfortunately, our political parties are no longer committed to social justice issues. Unfortunately, under the globalisation and liberalisation regime, social justice is no longer on any body's agenda. Poverty is not on our agenda. We are all in the privatisation agenda. So in today's world I think the only thing that will matter is if we can get the business community--'Hindustan ka Bania aur Pakistan ka Bania'. If we can get them to do cross-border investment and trade, that is a class of people who have more power today. You see that peasantry has no power; peasantry is powerless. Working class is powerless. The middle class is also powerless. It is only the traders and businessmen and the industrialists who are powerful. So if we can get the Indian businessmen to invest in Pakistan, if Pakistani businessmen start investing in India, if free trade begins, and that will happen, after a
ll in the last fifty years we have done. Look at the unnatural divide; in East Punjab there is glut of agricultural produce. Tomato sells at five rupees a kilo and here it is 80-100 rupees. There is a glut of wheat and you are importing from Canada. You see this is unnatural.
Who are you punishing? It is the ordinary consumers in Pakistan who need to consume vegetables, who need to consume wheat. They are being punished. Similarly, in India we can import your rice, cotton, sugar, and sugar cane, at a much competitive price. The Indian consumer will get a much better price. And similarly Pakistani producer and consumer will benefit and this will affect millions. This will also create a much better solution for the political problems that India is facing in the Punjab, as you are facing. This cannot go on. It is an artificial divide. Similarly, you see the automobile industry in Pakistan is new and growing. Twenty-five years ago it was a similar situation in India. The model of Suzuki, which is being sold for five lakhs here, the same model of Suzuki in India is sold for 2.5/2.8 lakhs. So Pakistani consumer is paying a much higher price. Why should the Pakistani consumer be punished? Why should the Indian consumer be punished? What is this nationalism? You are talking about WTO and free trade. You can't go on doing both things at the same time. This logic has finally come to end. I think it will break. Once you have a bania on both sides, who has a stake, then it will change. You will see the media will also change. Today it does not care. It has no stake today. After all, how can the media run without advertisements? Who will give advertisements? It is the business houses who give advertisements. Media does not run the newspapers. You and I pay in the street for the newspapers. So if the same people who give advertisement have a stake in the business in the other country they will force the media to become more responsible.
PE: How should they be motivated? There is fear in Pakistan. I was just listening to a speech by a Pakistani industrialist here at Wagha saying, "India wanted to use Pakistan just as a market but we want equal treatment"...
TB: Look you are doing trade with China. Can you dictate equal treatment to China? India is also doing trade with China. This is ridiculous. As it is, what is equality? Equality is in the market. The buyer and the seller should be able to do trade on a free and fair basis. Today Pakistan is importing 30% of its steel from India. If you are already importing 30% of your steel and you are getting both price and quality advantage, is it fair or it is unfair? If you increase it to 50-60%, will it be fair to Pakistan or will it be unfair to Pakistan? Now tomorrow are you going to say I am not going to import all these cheap batteries and calculators and computer parts from China because it is unfair? Is it fair to your consumer? What is unfair about it? Who is Pakistan? The manufacturer who is producing lesser quality goods and charging higher prices from its consumers? Pakistan belongs to whom--only to profiteers or the common people of Pakistan? You see the same happened in India. Vajpayee signed an agreement for the import of Sri Lankan tea. Sri Lankan tea is 25-30% cheaper than Indian tea. So the Indian tea lobby got together to scotch that. So who lost, the ordinary Indian consumer? In fact, Sri Lankan tea is much better than the Indian low-grade tea. So, good quality tea at a much cheaper price. But because the Indian tea lobby is so powerful they got it scotched. You see, these people are everywhere.
PE: How can it be countered? With people's pressure or people's movement? Even the peace movement is very weak.
TB: It is ultimately connected with the consumer's rights. You see democracy is just not political vote. This is also democracy. It is in fact a deeper question. Do we as a consumer have a right to demand a fair price? You cannot go on punishing us by bad products and higher price in the name of nationalism? We cannot go on saying that dependency of Germany, Japan, America and Russia is alright. But dependency on Indian production is bad for the nation and then go on punishing me. I pay fourteen lakhs of rupees for a car like this Toyota, which is being made here. A similar make is available for 6-8 lakhs in India. Why should Indian make Indigo, which is nearly 40% less in price, but is not available to the Pakistani consumer? Just to protect the interest of that one bloody manufacturer. How many jobs does he create? Similarly, why should Indians not import the Pakistani sugar, Pakistani machine parts the Pakistani expertise? Whose interest, just a few handful industrialists? Are they Indians or the millions of consumers? That is where I think we have to take them. That is, in my opinion, the future direction for Pakistan and India.
PE: Are you hopeful that things would move in the right direction?
TB: I am very hopeful and our slogan this year is "Defy the Divide, Unite for Peace". We want to develop three to four joint programmes. We want to develop a link with the farmers and the agriculture producers' lobby and traders' lobby and organisations, first to begin with the two Punjabs. And we want to organise exchange between them and want them to meet each other. We would like to create a forum, so that they come up and they demand that we will go to Ludhiana Mandi and we will buy five to ten million tons of wheat and bring that here in trucks. And they will come here and buy your cotton. So you can buy vegetable and sell it here. That is the ground level thing. So we want to create an exchange and understanding between the primary level goods producers, market and traders.
PE: Do you think the state will allow it?
TB: The state does not have much of an option. It may not be very happy, like this time also. Every thing was OK. Suddenly at the last minute we were told that now the intelligence people have raised some queries. Everything was taken back. But at the end of the day they also realised that beyond a point they cannot stop it. It is counter-productive, actually.
PE: You have brought a very good study on the violations of human rights in the Indian Punjab 'Reduced to Ashes'. You have been involved in human rights violation monitoring in Kashmir. Do you intend to do a same kind of report on Kashmir?
TB: Yes, we are working on it and hopefully by January we will bring out a smaller but a similar study. We have taken two hundred cases, which have been pending before the various courts of Kashmir. We have followed it upon a ten-year period. We have followed up exactly what happened. We have focused on how the insurgency and counter-insurgency have affected the institutions of judiciary and state--the state's capacity to deliver justice. It is also a study to show the failure of the system.
You see, every state has a right to carry out counter-insurgency. In Pakistan, when there was insurgency in Balochistan, the Pakistani state also took counter-insurgency measures. State is a state. But our point is that the state should know that it is an institution incorporated by law. Human Rights people are conservative people. We want to uphold the rule of law. We are not anti-state. In fact, we are very much pro-state. We want say to the state that if you go outside the law like the militants then there is no distinction between you and the militant. The militant by definition is outside the law. The militant is saying that the state has become so bad that it has now to change. Now I have to overthrow it. You prove the point by proving legally that you are like the militant. So this is where the contradiction is. The state thinks we are pro-militants while we are actually saying that please don't put yourself in the same place as the militant.
Therefore the path we have adopted is of judicial access. We want to demonstrate how the state is giving up its own commitment to rule of law. You see that is what the Bush administration is doing. The onslaught is on the institutions of rule of law. The onslaught is on the universality (after 9/11) and only in the name of one thing--terrorism. Is terrorism the only thing that happens? You open a newspaper, the first thing and last thing is terrorism. They are militarising the society. So you see everything is criminalised. So everybody's right to freedom of expression, right to dissent, right to oppose is being squeezed out and everybody who voices opposition to the state is being criminalized; he is dubbed as terrorist. This is a very dangerous trend. This is a straight road to fascism. Whether it is being done by a democratic government, elected government or a non-elected government, it does not matter both are doing this. They have completely destroyed the civil rights. In the US, they have started discriminating on the basis of ethnicity and religion. In America today, all Arabs and Muslim people are suspects. This is what we have to fight. And we will continue doing that because we believe that without a commitment to rule of law the state system will collapse. It will actually be a lawless state. And that is where the real danger is.
PE: Being a human rights activist, would you like to share with us the human rights situation in India, particularly in Kashmir?
TB: The human rights situation in Kashmir is very bad. This whole counter-insurgency has little ability to distinguish between the insurgents and non-insurgents. This is one problem. You have seen here also what happens or what is happening in Bangladesh today in the name of security. It has been handed over to the army and how they are killing the people who dissent. State is committing excesses. It is using force beyond its required necessity. It is failing to make distinction between the good citizen and the bad citizen; that is leading to institutional subversion This is the situation of human rights and it is allowing itself to be cornered because fundamentally its ability to follow the principles of the rule of law. This is the problem. I thing there is a lack of will on the part of the state because it is unable to deal with it. There is massive dissatisfaction and it will grow because of the nature of the state, the nature of the economic policies, the whole process of globalisation, liberalisation, and free market.
It has extensively collapsed the capacity of the economy, the traditional economy to sustain and support people who are at the marginal level. It has destroyed many professions. So it is under enormous pressure. There is disproportion. The growth rate is increasing. It is not necessary and it is proved again and again that growth does not mean development. In fact, it is anti-development in the traditional sense.
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Counting peace dividends
Gautum Naulakha is one of the founder members of Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD). He is a peace and rights activist. He is Editor Advisor of one of the most prestigious periodicals published from Bombay, Economic and Political Weekly. He has done extensively research on the Kashmir issue. He has taken part in many fact-finding missions about human rights violations in Indian-occupied Kashmir. He recently visited Pakistan as a member of the Indian contingent, which came to attend the Sixth Convention of PIPFPD in Karachi.
In an interview with Political Economy conducted at the Wagah border, Naulakha talked about various aspects of the Pakistan-India peace initiatives. Excerpts follow:
PE: What hopes and expectations do you have from the PIPFPD Karachi Convention?
GN: This convention is different from the other ones. We will be completing ten years in 2004, and many of the things we have been fighting for, like relaxation of restricted visa regimes and enabling of people-to-people contacts, seems that our efforts are paying dividends now. We have played a pioneer role in promoting people-to-people dialogue and contacts. It seems now that the two governments have found that they are reaching nowhere with the kind of politics they have adopted so for. I think they have now been forced to think on terms of moving, competing with each other trying to relax, trying to outdo each other in promoting people-to-people dialogue, which is--as far as--we are concerned very good. So we believe we have helped in creating conducive climate for even better and more enriching contact between the two people and the two countries. We hope that the convention actually takes it to the higher level. We believe that probably the time has also come to start thinking in terms of having an entire South Asian region as a visa-free area. It is an audacious thing but let us see what the convention has to say.
PE: Some people say it is a temporary phase. There have been sudden ups and downs in Pakistan-India relations. What do you think?
GN: It is very true, going by the past history. There have been moments when things seemed to improve and it looked promising, and then nothing happens and we are back to square one; so this can happen again this time. But we do believe that each time they do it, even this brief period of respite they provide to the people is some thing that we can use as a foundation stone, as a base for even greater and pushing our governments to relax even more restricted visa regimes they have imposed.
PE: How can you sustain it?
GN: There is only one way by which we can sustain it. By now it is not just a question of debating, discussing. Now I think it is time to agitate on this issue because there are millions on both sides who have their families and friends who live in the two countries and we are determined that this is not something that every government has any right to stop.
PE: Some people say that 'people to people' is just on name, but it has not really become a mass movement. What are your comments?
GN: If they mean there are not millions coming out on the streets, demonstrating in favour of it, probably that is correct. But if you look at it in another way, there are more people today, more organisations, tens of thousands of members who are engaged in this effort now and the numbers are much larger than it was ten years back when we began. So I don't see not having played any role; on the contrary, we created a much larger number of people who are engaged on both sides in this.
PE: Some people say that Vajpayee is personally very sincere in making peace, but the hawks around him always sabotage his efforts. They sabotaged Agra and they are capable of doing it again...
GN: Well it is true that leaders do play important role and to that extent one could draw distinction between Vajpayee and others, but I don't think it is a question of one person finally. I think it is a whole structure, relationships that have been built up. There is vested interest, which promotes and actually thrives on the hostility between the two countries. So I don't see it necessarily as something, which can be reduced to a person. We have to finally fight something against, whatever structure that has been created, whoever vested interested they are, which believe in maintaining the state in hostilities between the two countries. It must begin to become onerous to them. It must begin to become for them, to feel that it is not paying any dividends. So our efforts should be more in that direction.
PE: In Pakistan, no government can ignore Kashmir. No government can remain in power if it makes peace without resolving the issue of Kashmir. You have been monitoring and minutely watching Kashmir. How do you think that the issue can be resolved?
GN: Well, how it will be resolved I don't know because that is a million dollar question, all of us ask. But I do know that in fifty-six years the two governments have done nothing to resolve it. You can apportion blame. You can put more blame on the Government of India being reluctant to resolve it. But finally we have to come to terms with one basic factor: throughout the fifty-six years the people of Kashmir, on both sides of LoC have been completely ignored and I think it is that, which is the critical issue. So long as the two countries only think in terms of resolving and imposing a choice and a solution on the people of Kashmir, it is not going to work.
TNS: What is the situation now in Kashmir?
GN: Terrible. Terrible. While it is good that the ceasefire has taken place and shelling has stopped, which also means that the people living on the border can breath more easily. They don't have to live with the fear of death waiting in any corner. But as far as the rest is concerned, the counter-insurgency is continuing, that war continues.
PE: What about human rights violation situation in Kashmir?
GN: That is what I mean; I mean that it continues. The custodial killings whether it is disappearances, whether it is cordon-off operations, whether it is the presence of huge military force to impose authority of Government of India--that remains there is no change. No fundamental shift has taken place in the situation.
PE: General Musarraf has recently offered to withdraw Pakistani forces from Kashmir if India withdraws forces from Indian-occupied Kashmir and that is the requirement of the UN resolution. How do you look at it?
GN: That is true that both sides should pull their troops back into the barracks or at least to cease, to halt the operations--the military operations that are going on; that is true. I mean any relaxation, benefit and ease that people can be benefited...any ease in the situation, which helps the people is always welcome. Everything counts, no doubt about it. Finally, it is the larger issue, fundamental issue that has to be tackled. And there is no getting away from that.
PE: People say that recent elections in the Indian states have been contested on local developmental issues, and that communal or old slogans were no more relevant. Does it mean that fundamentalism is receding or it is a temporary phase?
GN: I do not think it is a question of receding anything. Development is an issue, there is no doubt about it but simultaneously it is also true that it cannot be denied that there has been a right ward shift in Indian political thinking, especially of the Indian middle classes. There is no doubt about it.
PE: How do you look at the future of communalism in India and Pakistan?
GN: I think future is dim for them, finally. In the long run, I don't think they will succeed but right now there is no doubt that we are on the defensive and we have to work harder to defeat them. Unless and unless we don't do that there is no getting away from it. The fascist forces cannot be defeated, whether in India or Pakistan.
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Dr. Ashok Mitra, the peace activist and current chairperson of PIPFPD,
Indian chapter, was in Lahore recently. He was the first Finance Minister in the Left Front Government under Jyoti Basu in West Bengal and also served as the Chief Economic Advisor to Government of India. He has been Member Rajya Sabha and Chairman of various Commissions. A notable author in English and Bangla who occupies a significant position in the public life of India.
Born in the 1920s in Dhaka, he was educated and brought up in that city. Both his parents were teachers. Interestingly, soon after partition, as a student of Dhaka University, he represented Pakistan at Calcutta, South East Asia Youth Conference -- and unfurled the Pakistani flag at that rally. As a student activist there, he was rusticated from the University for taking part in an agitation. Fearing arrest, friends advised him to cross into West Bengal. Once there, he never looked back.
He completed his postgraduate studies at Calcutta and Madras and went for higher studies to Holland. On coming back, he started teaching and then joined the government service.
After his retirement in 1972 he went back from Delhi to Calcutta. Being one of the harshest critics of the emergency, he once again faced the peril of jail and this time too friends advised him to leave the country. He had an offer from an institution in Holland, so he taught at Holland and American universities.
He came back to India in 1977. By that time emergency had lost its sting and elections were announced. Although he never formally joined the Communist Party of India, being a sympathiser of CPI(M) he was offered a state assembly ticket. He became Finance Minister after the elections and kept the slot till 1985. Having had enough of it, he resigned and later represented his party in the upper house (Rajya Sabha) for six years. Now he has retired from active politics.
He has not stopped writing. He used to write a 'Calcutta diary' twice a month in the most prestigious periodical 'Economic and Political Weekly' published from Bombay. He now contributes regularly in daily Telegraph, Calcutta.
Ashok Mitra never wanted to become an economist. His first love was literature but his father forced him to study economics and he did not disappoint his father. He also has a keen interest in music and culture.
He has written a number of books on various subjects including his autobiography in Bengali. He has read Manto in English and he feels that only one short story 'Khooldoo' was enough to keep Manto alive in the literary world: "Manto was a genius who knew the art of saying things in a few words." (Manto has been translated into Bengali).
In his recent visit to Lahore, he only desired to visit Government College Lahore and Forman Christian College, and termed it a pilgrimage.
He was given the Sahitya Academy Award, the highest literary award in 1996, on his book 'Tal-be-Tal.' Excerpts of an interview with him follow:
TNS: Besides economics, what else are you writing on these days?
Ashok Mitra: I write on the general problems of life and living, on politics, literature and poetry and on the broad philosophical issues of existence and non-existence. I prefer and feel more comfortable writing in Bengali.
TNS: What is the condition of Bengali Muslims in India?
AM: The Bengali Muslims are mostly a peasant stock; they live in the countryside and most of them are small peasant proprietors or landless labourers. Through our land reforms we have been able to transfer some land to them. Even then, I would say that there are other problems. For instance, when you set up a school in their neighborhood, Muslim girls would not readily come and avail the opportunity. But they are now getting government jobs. We encourage this absorption of a larger percentage of Muslims in government jobs, but the foremost emphasis should be on educating them.
TNS: What about castes like Dalits. Where do they stand?
AM: Caste differences are not tolerated.
TNS: People say that Brahmans are always on top in the Communist Party and even in the West Bengal government? AM: The CPI has amongst its original fathers many Muslims. We are all followers of Comrade Muzaffar Ahmed, who really is the creator and builder of the Bengal Communist Party including the CPI(M). He and another Comrade Abdul Halim were the main inspiration of the communists in West Bengal. In the West Bengal secretariat of the party, two out of nine members are Muslims. They happened to be trade unionist leaders -- one a worker and the other a peasant leader.
Abdul Halim the speaker of our assembly for the last 15 years is perhaps the most outstanding speaker of the country and has received wide international acclaim. Some of the most prominent ministers also happen to be Muslims.
TNS: What is the policy regarding cow-slaughter?
AM: A very famous film star from Bombay who is a Muslim was visiting Calcutta for the first time after we came to power in December 1977. One evening he drew me aside and said: "You know why I feel so comfortable in Calcutta. Calcutta is the only place in the country where beef is sold openly in the shops."
TNS: How has CPI(M) been able to retain power in West Bengal for such a long time?
AM: Our substantive contribution has been to set up a very detailed structure of rural decentralisation based on the Punchyiat system -- a three-tier Punchyiat apparatus where decision making power reaches down to the village level along with a continuous devolution of financial resources and extensive land reforms.
TNS: Why is BJP winning in India?
AM: It is not the BJP which is winning. It is the Indian National Congress that is losing. Although, on paper, the Indian National Congress till the last elections was the major political party in India. It is no longer a credible proposition to a very major part of the electorate.
The Indian National Congress became a dynasty. Even if you want to run a dynasty which will run a country, you can not just do with charisma and you must have competence as well. Nehru had charisma. Indira Gandhi not only had charm, she also had tremendous cunning and shrewd political sense. Her son did not have that shrewdness but he still carried the charisma.
His widow became the leader of the Indian National Congress party by succession. The Indian National Congress cannot get rid of her because she is from the Nehru-Gandhi family. It has got nothing to do with her foreign birth, it's just that she is a dull woman. So it is our fate.
TNS: How will a continuous rule by BJP affect India's future?
AM: If the BJP continues to rule in New Delhi sooner or later elements within the union of India will begin to walk away from the union. We don't like to be a part of Hindu monolith.
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