Let the People Meet

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stuka,

have a great trip and share your experiences with us.
I`m glad you are a big tipper!:)

Nazarhayatkhan:

With God`s grace, I am still single. :)

I have your phone numbers and will call you when I get to Lahore. I will be in Lahore during Basant and plan on making a one day drive to the Potohar area.

Bhaun is a must. What second place would you recommend? I was thinking Ketas Raj becoz of temples. But the other place I want to see is Khewra. So, trying to figure out.

Goverments of India and Pakistan will not be able to keep people of both countries away from each other indefinitely and the process has already begun .But as of now the process of acquiring visa is such that only few inflencial people can get visas.I know what happens when there are Aalmi Punjabi Conferences or the So called Sikh pilgrims visiting Pakistan every year.With few chnges,they are same people each year....Are they the only Punjabis in both the portions of Punjab? Visa process has to be made simple and accessible to common people.I can get visa for UK and Canada from Chandigarh or Jalandhar but not for the nearest neighbor country.

Stuka # 61

All these places are very close - about 2 hours drive. But you will need to space them out. You can only handle two places in one day. I hope you are coming with your wife. All alone could get boring. Dost-Mitter`s schedule was very time-compressed. Make Lahore & Islamabad your bases. No need to waste money on expensive hotels unless it is an industry perk. At karachi, you can stay with me.

I will be in Lahore some time time in Feb for a few days. just email at nazarhayatkhan@gmail.com for coordination. This is the best period to come to Punjab.

nhk

amit #62

`` The Pakistani establishment is not like the Indian establishment. In India, different heterogeous groups all over have come together in a nationalistic consensus about what they want in India. In Pakistan, it is one province Punjab that controls everything and even within that, it is a close-knit feudal-military axis that calls the shots. In fact, I had read somewhere that 70 families control virtually everything there. They intermarry and take care of each other while maintaining strict control over the rest of the folks. It is this group that sets policies and pursues what it terms as ``national interest``. This group has fears that closer relations with India will dilute their power and control over the people.``

The Punjabi establishment will bait India as long as they feel insecure versus Sindhis, Baluchis, Pushtoons. They have achieved some control over Pushtoons by using the Taliban to marginalize the nationalists. They might stop baiting India if India is too powerful for their own good. Any amount of people to people contacts does not change the reality.

Re:bbabu#60

The Pakistani establishment is not like the Indian establishment. In India, different heterogeous groups all over have come together in a nationalistic consensus about what they want in India. In Pakistan, it is one province Punjab that controls everything and even within that, it is a close-knit feudal-military axis that calls the shots. In fact, I had read somewhere that 70 families control virtually everything there. They intermarry and take care of each other while maintaining strict control over the rest of the folks. It is this group that sets policies and pursues what it terms as ``national interest``. This group has fears that closer relations with India will dilute their power and control over the people.

Where P2P can help is to win over ordinary folks in Pakistan to the point that they will not tolerate this control by the feudal-military axis. In addition, the feudal-military axis itself will start thinking in a different way. They may see more benefit in being engaged with India rather than demonizing India. Anyway, that is the hope in this peace process.

Dost Mittar:

I have opened a thread in unplugged with some specific questions that I am repeating here...

If you have some info, that`s be helpful.

This is from your article....


``We took the Kalar Kahar exit on the Lahore-Islamabad motorway and went to Choa Saidan Shah via Ketas Raj. At Choa Saidan Shah, we asked an old man if he knew about Kussak. He did. He asked us to go in the direction of Maniala and pass the Watli spring water reservoir to reach our desired destination. ``

My father`s village is called Bhaun and it is in the same vicinity. Can you give me some idea of distances and locations?

I plan on either taking a bus to Chakwal or renting a cab from Lahore and doing a day trip.

My questions are...

1. Though my primary destination is Bhaun, what other locations are worth seeing in the vicinty. Basically, to get to Bhaun I have to take the Kalar Kahr exit from the motorway. Bhaun is about 15 minutes from Kalar Kahar.

2. The nearby towns that I know of are Ketasraj, Choa Saidan Shah, Chakwal and the Khewra Salt Mines. Can you give me some idea on distances from each other and in relation to the Kalar Kahar exit?

3. What are the places worth seeing besides Bhaun? I think Ketasraj and the Khewra Salt Mines. Is it possible to combine Khewra salt mines and Ketasraj in a one day trip from Lahore?

Any help would be appreicated. I think HamidMis from that area so if he can give help, that would be appreciated as well.


Veeresh: Due to constraints of time, I will be flying into Pakistan and out. Most of my road travel is going to be inside Punjab.

amit #58

`` Precisely!! We can influence them to change their ideology by increasing people to people contact. The more Pakistanis get to visit India, meet Indians and see things for themselves, the more likely they are to change their own system as well. Already it is having an impact. Check out the hawkish Pakistani newspapers like Nation. These papers are full of editorials and op-eds about why Pakistan should restrict or stop the people to people contact. They can see that the people`s viewpoints are changing which is a direct challenge to the existing ideology of the Pakistani establishment. ``

Over the long run the Pakistani establishment cannot be out of sync with the Pakistani populace. If the Pakistani people desire friendship with Indians the establishment will move in that direction. People to people contacts is not a decisive factor. It may influence the pace of the changes.

#58 by amit

I think that people to people contact thing is overblown. Not That I don’t support the p2p contacts. In fact, I am all for opening all borders for people to freely travel within the legal requirements/ boundaries placed by both governments. P2P would mostly benefit divided Muslim and Sindhi families and that is good as there are plenty of them. There may be some upsurge in traffic initially, but sooner than later fascination would wear off, as there is not a whole lot difference in economic living standards in both countries. The lifestyle in Punjab is so similar that tourist may not have much interest in that and tourist type of traffic would go down very quickly.
The important part is to increase cultural exchanges and both countries should agree to bring their rhetoric down. Once people have time to think with their heads not blown away by constant propaganda, they would take a rational approach.
People that would change perception would be travelers who bring some thing to the common folks. The wild eye tourists would only visit some areas and soon they will be just a source to make money.
The emphasis should be on cultural exchanges including students’ travels to educational institutions.

I am not aware of how Sindhi living in India feel about visiting Sindh. By nature they are a non-vocal group but I doubt their love for Sindh has diminished at all. I think Sindhi would love to see them back even though it may be for tourist type visits.

Re:rshridhar#56

Precisely!! We can influence them to change their ideology by increasing people to people contact. The more Pakistanis get to visit India, meet Indians and see things for themselves, the more likely they are to change their own system as well. Already it is having an impact. Check out the hawkish Pakistani newspapers like Nation. These papers are full of editorials and op-eds about why Pakistan should restrict or stop the people to people contact. They can see that the people`s viewpoints are changing which is a direct challenge to the existing ideology of the Pakistani establishment.

There are almost 150 visitors from Pakistan due into Pune today under the auspices of the ``World Foundation for Reverence`` (ideology strict vegetarianism . . .).

re:#50 by amit
``France, Germany and England fought brutal wars for centuries and have many commonalities including religion and race. Yet they are all friends today``
France, England (with allied forces) had to defeat the Nazis before they became friends with Germans.
Pak is not a problem. It is the ideology that it espouses that is the problem. If it becomes secular and democratic, India and Pak could be friends.
Gosh! Some people just don`t get it.
Sridhar

arjun_m #36
``
Says Manzoor, who spent several months making the BBC programme: ``Many of the young Hindu women I spoke to said they saw no reason to be lumped with the rioters.````

The guy was prob. too chicken to relate what the Pakistani Muslim `rioters` demographic thought of young Hindu women. Now that would have been illuminating, and would have put the issue beyond help of spin and interpretation.

Re:nikki7777#52

I agree with you to the extent that desis are a very emotional people, which leads to temporary insanity as in 1947 or temporary euphoria, as is the present state of Indo-Pak relations. If you step back and look at things from a historical perspective, the people in the regions of India and Pakistan were never rivals, even though they lived under different political dispensations. No one from the Indian side, except for the Sikhs, ruled anyone in Pakistan. Similarly no one from the Pakistani side ever ruled anyone in India. All our muslims rulers were from Central Asia, Middle East etc. Pakistanis have been muslims for 1000 years without any conflict with rest of North India. Now we do have an ideological battle going on since 1947 about whether we can live with each other or not. The reality is that we have always coexisted peacefully. Given that we Indians are in a position of strength with our economic and military muscle, we should deal with Pakistanis with confidence and do what it is necessary for our national interest.

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