Playing the visa card

Promoting popular goodwill is also shrewd diplomacy
It is gratifying that the one area where the Lahore spirit seems to have had a great impact is in the dismantling of the visa restrictions that Pakistan and India had imposed on citizens seeking to visit their neighbouring country. In a unilateral decision, India has eased visa and travel restrictions for eight categories of people who will now be entitled to multiple-entry visas of up to one year. On its part, Pakistan has liberalised visa restrictions for aged people, women and children from India. The significance of these decisions can be gauged from the fact that it is the first time since Partition that the two countries have thought of allowing freer movement of people across the Indo-Pak border. The rules that were framed with a view to preventing closer interaction between the people of the two countries belonged to an era when communal passions overruled all other considerations. The two governments believed in the perpetuation of many amyth that justified visitors from the other country having to report to the local police station. This was a system designed to discourage people-to-people contact. Yet, ironically, even when the visas were almost impossible to come by and the governments concerned sought to build higher and higher walls of suspicion, such visitors often had the unforgettable experience of receiving spontaneous welcome and hospitality from the ordinary people.

If anything such expressions of warmth, vouchsafed by every Pakistani and Indian visitor, show how keen the people are to know each other. Nothing surprising in this as they continue to share many things, including history, culture and language. The popularity of Hindi movies and Indian sitcoms in Pakistan and the crowds that throng Pakistani musicians performing in India point to the ultimate reality that despite the divisions, Indians and Pakistanis are of a common stock. It was precisely to prevent this realisation from dawning on people, that artificial barrierslike visa and travel restrictions were erected in the past. Seen against this grim backdrop, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee8217;s bus journey to Lahore on February 20 marked a turning point in Indo-Pak relations. More than India, it is Pakistan which has been wary of greater people-to-people contact as was underscored by the cold response the lighting of candles organised by public-spirited Indians in the past evoked on the other side of the border.

Thus it was a measure of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif8217;s bold approach to bilateral relations that he wholeheartedly reciprocated Vajpayee8217;s initiative. That the Indian Prime Minister even staked his government8217;s stability to enable the Pakistani cricket team to play in India must have made an abiding impression on the Pakistani establishment.

Easing of visa restrictions is just one aspect of the Lahore declaration. There is a case for the further simplification of travel procedures as there is for strengthening bilateral economic relations, which are of a moreenduring nature. India8217;s capacity to meet a part of the import requirements of Pakistan and Pakistan8217;s capacity to meet to some extent India8217;s increasing power requirements have never been in doubt. These are steps that will put bilateral relations on an even keel before the two countries can move on to the core issue of Kashmir that, unfortunately, continues to separate them.