Double Vision

For all those who believed that the two neighbours were cursed to eternal enmity by the ghosts of the 50,000 people—mostly Punjabis—who lost their lives in one of the bloodiest partitions of the 20th century, this harangue must have come as a surprise.

But then, many cliches have been swept away in the 58 summers since 1947. So, no one was surprised when last Monday Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a joint declaration, promising freer borders.

It was a vindication of sorts for Amarinder and all those believers in Punjabiyat. As Dr Nashir Naqvi, head of the Urdu Department of Punjabi University at Patiala, puts it: ‘‘There is no difference between the two Punjabs in terms of language, heritage, culture, thought, way of life, even surnames. The border must remain but not in the hearts, and a more tractable border will gladden the hearts.’’

Citing the blood ties that unite the two sides, Naqvi recounted his encounter with a middle-aged Sikh who approached him with a letter from Pakistan few years ago. ‘‘It started in Urdu with ‘Salam’ and then went on to say that Maulana sahib is no more. At that, the man started crying. ‘He was my chacha,’ he said.’’

Dr Dalip Kaur Tiwana, a Sahitya Akademi award-winning Punjabi novelist based in Patiala, still remembers her heartwarming crossing to Lahore three years ago. ‘‘I reached my hotel only to find a group of men waiting for me. They were Tiwanas from Sindh and Rawalpindi, and had read about me in a local paper.’’

From then on, Dalip Kaur was their aapa. ‘‘I stayed in the house of one of them, and we are like family now,’’ smiles Tiwana, who has since translated many books by Pakistani writers into Punjabi.

POWER OF MONEY
IT was this belief in the unifying power of Punjabiyat that drove Fakhr Zaman, a former minister in the Benazir Bhutto government, to hold the first World Punjabi Conference (WPC) in Lahore in 1986. Zaman, whose WPC finally brought the CMs of two Punjabs on a common platform in Lahore last year, remembers the hate wave that came his way when he called the first WPC. ‘‘I was called a protagonist of greater Punjab, and dubbed an Indian agent.’’

Zaman is now hopeful that the governments will slowly inch towards the WPC goal: a permit system or a shenegan visa instead of the hard-to-get regular visa.

But traders in Punjab would rather have the government open the land route through Wagah. ‘‘Nothing binds people better than good economics,’’ says Gunbir Singh, chairman of CII, Amritsar zone, who is looking forward to a border that will facilitate trade and commerce.

‘‘Even traditionally, goods and services from as far as Persia and CIS countries were routed through Amritsar. And now with the PM pledging Rs 1,100 crore for setting up a Special Economic Zone here, our prospects couldn’t be brighter,’’ says the businessman, who hopes Pakistan will soon give transit facility to India. ‘‘It’ll be a win-win situation for both the countries,’’ he declares.

No one knows it better than Om Prakash Arora, the Amritsar-based chairman of Indo-Pak Exporters’ Association, fondly called Laati Shah for his cross-border ties: he has been to Pakistan a record 100 times.

Framed by a mountain of onions, this man with a thatch of unruly hair, gripes about the glitches in the way of trade. ‘‘We need to open the land route so that we can export perishables. Right now we have to rely on the train that plies twice a week.’’

There is a lot India can do with Pakistan and vice-versa, if you believe Laati. ‘‘Do you know the green chilly that costs Rs 7/kg here sets Lahoris back by Rs 50 a kg; that green peas are Rs 80/kg and okras Rs 60/kg? Now if we are allowed to use the land route, our farmers will find a bigger market and their buyers will get a better price.’’

The Pakistan Roller Flour Mills’ Association seems to have woken up to this, for it has reportedly sought 2 million tonnes of wheat from Markfed, a Punjab Government agency. Reason: a quintal of wheat in Lahore costs around Rs 1,200 as compared to Rs 680 in Indian Punjab.

Right now, the trade route is cold though, for the Indian Railways have not given traders any wagons for the last four months. Amarinder himself is battling red tape to get the horse Elahi gifted him last January. Last heard, the Arabian horse called Sultan had developed a limp and will now be replaced with another steed called Son of a Gun. But with no quarantine facilities at Wagah, he will be flown to Dubai and then to Delhi.

WAY BEYOND WAGAH
IT’S not Wagah alone that needs to be opened wider, people like Harpal Singh Bhullar of the Bhai Mardana Society, are fighting for reopening the Hussainiwala border at Ferozepur.

‘‘Before 1971, it was the only border that was open in Punjab,’’ says Bhullar, who is liaisoning with Foreign Minister Khursheed Mahmud Kasuri to re-open this land route. ‘‘Kasur, the province of Kasuri will then be just 8 km away,’’ smiles the unofficial pointsman for Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails.

‘‘Only yesterday, I received a letter saying that a fresh batch of 31 Punjabi youths had been interned at Machch jail in Balochistan,’’ says Bhullar, whose links across the border include Asma Jehangir, the noted lawyer-activist. ‘‘It won’t be difficult for us to get them freed once it becomes easy come, easy go.’’

It also spells good news for Pakistani brides at Qadian and Malerkotla. Tahira, who came from Faislabad to marry Maqbool Ahmad, a resident of Qadian, is yet to step out of the tiny hamlet even though she’s been married for almost two years now and has a baby girl. ‘‘She needs the permission of the Home Ministry to venture out,’’ rues Maqbool.

It’s equally difficult for girls married across the border to get a return visa. ‘‘Looser borders will have some meaning for us only if these curbs go,’’ says Maqbool.

Amarinder is hopeful that they will. ‘‘The border districts of Punjab—Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur—will be the biggest beneficiaries of the soft borders, not to mention Pakistani Punjab,’’ says the CM, neatly passing credit for the initiative to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Fakhr Zaman shares his enthusiasm, believing the two Punjabs hold the key to lasting peace between India and Pakistan. And no, he has you know, Punjabis are not chauvinists, just smug in the belief that log wasde duniya vich bathere, Punjabiyaan di shaan vakhri. (There are plenty of people in the world, but Punjabis are special).