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aman ki asha Destination Peace

INTERNATIONAL

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Wednesday, October 16, 2013

AN INITIATIVE OF THE JANG GROUP AND THE TIMES OF INDIA

A KITE FROM MULTAN

On October 12, on Malik Saabs 71st birthday, I contacted my friend Raajan in Amritsar and asked him to get a special gift delivered to Malik Saab in Amritsar
That was just the beginning of a long
struggle. However with great perseverance Ajit Kumar Malik fought on. Growing up, he joined the local government
while also continuing his education.
On November 22, 1971 he got married to Shobha Malik, but while they
were in Shimla on their honeymoon, war
broke out between India and Pakistan
and the newlyweds had to cut short their
trip.
Ajit Kumar Malik and his wife
Shobhas three daughters post graduated with distinction and learned true
human values from their parents tolerance, love and compassion for all of
humanity.
After an illustrious career during
which he also did his Masters in town
planning, Malik Saab retired as Additional Commissioner Development &
Town Planning. Today he lives peacefully in Amritsar, and has everything he
needs. But there was one thing he did
not have. And I thought I should somehow deliver it to him.
On October 12, on Malik Saabs 71st
birthday, at 3 pm I contacted my dear
friend Raajan in Amritsar and asked him
to get it delivered to Malik Saab at his
house in Amritsar.
I also requested all my friends on
Facebook to wish him on his daughters
facebook page, while my friend Yadvendra Mehra delivered a birthday cake to
Malik Saab on my behalf on very short
notice.
At 3.45 pm, someone rang the doorbell at Malik Saabs house. As he opened
the door, something wrapped in paper
was delivered to him. He was informed
that it was a gift for him.
Malik Saab was a bit surprised and as
he opened the wrapping paper what
he saw was a white kite with the words:
from Multan.

By Waseem Altaf
y friend, Neelu Malik
Gauri from Amritsar
had told me that on
Partition, her father
Ajit Kumar Malik,
along with the entire
family had to migrate from Multan (now
Pakistan). Her father would often remember his childhood days spent in that
city.
Ajit Kumar Malik was born seventyone years ago in Multan Cantt, where
his father was controller of Multan railway station. The ancestral house was located inside Hannu ka Chhaja, a part of
the old city where the families of all
brothers (Ajit Kumars uncles) lived together. One of Ajit Kumars uncles
namely Ghanshayam Das Malik was Superintendent at Deputy Commissioners
office in Pakpattan.
Though Neelu never asked, I thought
it would be a unique experience for her
father to see photographs of his ancestral house and the streets as they stand
today, a place where he spent his childhood and flew kites - something he was
very fond of doing.
I asked Neelu to send me some clues
about the location of the house where
her father would fly kites and play with
his peers - Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs,
all living together in harmony.
She told me that the house, belonging to her grandfather Jagan Nath Malik,
was located in the middle of the street
near a mandir. After receiving the relevant information about the landmarks, I
contacted my friend Zeeshan Habib
Chaudhary in Multan. The following day,
Zeeshan went to the location along with
a professional photographer and took

Ajit Kumar Malik (extreme left) with

elder brother Mohinder Kumar Malhotra
and younger brother Parminder kumar
Malhotra (seated) with sister, Varsha,
early fifties at a mela in Ludhiana.
pictures. The same day, he sent me the
prints as well as soft copies that I
emailed to Amritsar.
The very next day Neelu, a prominent entrepreneur of Amritsar, invited
her father to her office. Then came that
emotional moment when after an interlude of 66 years Ajit Kumar Malik saw
the roof top where he used to fly kites.
He was overwhelmed. This was something he and the entire family never
imagined, for they never returned once
they had to abandon everything and
leave.
Tears would roll down his cheeks as
my father recounted the memories of
Multan, recalls Ajit Kumar Malik. We
had to leave behind all our belongings,
wonderful friends, everything.
Being in the railways, Jagan Nath
Malik managed to transport his family
safely to Amritsar, although there were
some hairy moments along the way. At
Raiwind railway station, the train
stopped so that passengers could get
drinking water stored in a reservoir

The old gate to the Hannu ka Chhaja locality in Multan, where the Malik familys
ancestral house is located.

A kite from Multan in Amritsar.

The mandir near the Maliks ancestral

house.
that was poisoned, they found to their
horror. Rioters then attacked the train
but the driver smartly drove it off.
In Amritsar, Ajit Kumar Malik, aged
five, saw gruesome scenes of trains carrying blood soaked bodies of human beings going to and coming from the other
side. For several days the family had to
languish in a refugee camp until they
reached some relatives in Jagraon.

Ajit Kumar Maliks fathers house: windows. Photos: Zeeshan Habib, Multan. Neelu Malik
Gauri adds: While dad was going through the pictures with extreme excitement and moist eyes... I saw
that he stopped at this picture (with windows) and held it for a little longer than the others. I asked him the
reason and he didnt reply and kept on staring at it as if trying to find some thing in the pic. I asked again..
he looked up at me, tears rolling down his face. He touched these blue windows and with a choked throat
said that these were the windows he and his friends would hang out from, that gave them the best view
of the sky, full of his favourite kites... and this window is still there, holding my dads beautiful childhood...

AKA Peace Debate update

B R I E F S

Cross border prayers and

greetings
s Cyclone Phailin headed towards India, Pakistani
members of the Aman ki Asha facebook group
shared warnings and prayers. The disaster was
averted and thousands of human lives saved thanks to the
Indian governments timely response.
Facebook group members also posted many greetings
wishing each other for Dussehra (Oct 13-14) and Eid (Oct
15-16). The Admin team wishes all members a very
Happy Durga Puja, Dussera, Navratri and Eidul Azha,
posted Bhatta Som on Oct 12 with a visual. Raj Aaryan
(writer, poet): Sabhi ko Eid aur Dashera mubarak...
pyar aur samman

Fishermans death: PIPFPD urges dialogue, inquiry

May the sunshine all day long.

Everything go right n nothing go wrong.
May those u love, Love u back
and may all the wishes u wish, come true.
And May Allah Shower
His Countless Blessings
On You
Friends EID MUBARK Rajinder Singh

Dussehra and Eid greetings; graphic by Bhatta Som

countries to meet and engage with each

other in order to reduce animosities. It
is important that the government of
India facilitates such initiatives, says
the statement.
The Indian fishworker, Naranbhai
Sosa, 30, was killed during firing by the
MSA on Friday Oct 11. The MSA also
arrested 30 Indian fishermen and confiscated five Indian boats.
We have been consistently working
for the release of arrested fishworkers
of both countries, along with bringing
forward the issue of confiscation of
boats and in our experience, many severe situations have come up but incidents of firing have hardly
taken place. It is shocking
to see that the government is not showing
any willingness to
take action on this
issue,
says
PIPFPD.
This issue can
either be used by
war mongers who
are undoubtedly capable of ruining the
fragile peace process or
it could be thought of as an
issue that both countries could
work towards positively in the light of
it being a strong Confidence Building
Measure (CBM). We strongly believe
that there is a need for positive dialogue and for our governments to act
on the issues faced by the citizens.
PIPFPD notes that the issue of fishworkers of both countries is one of the
least discussed.
The Prime Ministers of both countries must take it up immediately and
act on the various mechanisms to work
on this issue that have already been created like the Task Force, the Judicial
Committee on Prisoners etc.

Last day to register

The greatest sports rivalry

Aman ki Asha, pyaar ki bhasha
he Greatest Rivalry in all of Sport, a 30minute documentary by award-winning
sports journalist Ken Shulman premiered at
Hit Wicket, the first cricket-themed bar and restaurant
in the United States, in Cambridge MA, last week.
Aman ki Asha, pyaar ki bhasha, shout Indian
and Pakistani cricket fans in one of the scenes that
Shulman filmed in New Delhi during Pakistans cricket
tour last winter.
The documentary is the pilot for Away Games, a
television travel series currently under consideration with PBS World Channel. The film looks at
the history and current state of the India-Pakistan conflict through their shared passion of cricket.
For more information visit the website.

oday, Oct 15, is the last day for Pakistani teams to register for the
First Aman ki Asha Indo Pak Peace Debate to be held at NUST, Lahore. Formal Invitations have already been sent to selected universities. Any other interested universities or educational institutes, please
contact VOICE, the debating arm of NUST by this evening. Meanwhile,
since clearance has been obtained for Indian participants, teams from
across the border have started applying for visas and its all systems go
for what promises to be an exciting, ground-breaking event.

CONTACT:
Email voice@lhr.nu.edu.pk with queries, or: Uzair Ghumman, Convenor - tel.
+92-3004-128-369; email umg88@hotmail.com; Muhammad Wasee, VOICE
president, tel. +92-3218-495-699; email: wasee09@hotmail.com. Registered
Indian participants - please contact Abhijeet Singh Narwal with concerns and
queries at tel. +91-9595-404-560 or email abhijeetsinghnarwal@gmail.com

A dialogue with a difference

Both governments must implement the

recommendations of the India-Pakistan Judicial
Committee on Prisoners
ollowing the death of
an Indian fishworker
and the arrest of 30
others by the Pakistan Maritime Security
Agency (MSA), the Pakistan
India Peoples Forum for
Peace
&
Democracy
(PIPFPD) has urged the governments to arrange an urgent meeting of the Task
Force consisting of Indian
Coast Guard and Pakistans
MSA, as well as a proper inquiry in the case and punishment of the guilty.
In a recent statement,
PIPFPD urged both
governments to implement the recommendations
of the IndiaPakistan Judicial Committee
on Prisoners,
Lahore, April
30,
2013,
which said that
fishermen must be
repatriated by sea
along with their boats.
Moreover, there is an urgent need to take forward the
demand for a No Arrest Policy, which would be a significant Confidence Building
Measure.
At present, Pakistan holds
around 280 Indian fishermen
and about 780 Indian boats,
while India holds around 180
Pakistani fishermen and 125
Pakistani boats, according to
activists.
The PIPFPD statement
stresses the importance of allowing the people of both

The writer is a teacher who grew

up in Rawalpindi. He originally
posted this story the Aman ki Asha
facebook group
www.facebook.com/groups/
amankiasha1

By Tridivesh Singh Maini

hile the Prime
Ministers of
India and Pakistan
were
preparing for
their meeting in New York on the
sidelines of the United Nations
General Assembly, another set of
leaders were in Islamabad, exploring new ways to improve the
bilateral relationship. They
hailed from a range of fields:
politics, media, the arts,
academia and medicine, who
had been chosen by the Asia Society, New York as Fellows for
the year 2013-2014, under the
India-Pakistan Regional Young
Leaders Initiative (IPRYLI). In all
there were 11 delegates, five
from India (including myself)
and six from Pakistan. The
three-day conference in late
September was jointly organised
by the Asia Society and the Jinnah Institute in Pakistan.
There were two obvious differences between the prime ministers meeting and the brainstorming session in Islamabad.
First, Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif
restricted their conversation to
tensions across the Line of Control (LOC) and the terrorist attack in Jammu. In contrast, the
young leaders in Islamabad were
not bound by politics, and felt
free to discuss a gamut of issues,
although there was a focus on
the visa regime, which affects
ties in virtually every sphere, especially trade, education and

Group photo of the

IPRYLI young leaders:
time to move ahead, in
peace.
tourism.
Second, both Singh (born
1932 in what is today Pakistan)
and Sharif (born 1949) belong
to the older generation. The
young leaders in Islamabad were
not around to witness the wars
of 1965 or 1971, and remember
only the Kargil War of 1999
(which occurred during Sharifs
second stint as Pakistans prime
minister). So although they were
familiar with the terrible stories
of partition and conflict, they
carried less historical baggage.
Many agreed that online jingoism is partly to blame for the acrimony between the countries.
The young leaders dialogue
was remarkable in a number of
ways. For one thing, the delegates came from very different

walks of life, and this ensured

that the conversation did not
focus excessively on any one
sphere. Consequently, we discussed a number of issues: easing visa regimes, facilitating student exchange, releasing
prisoners and fishermen, recognising the need for India and
Pakistan to explore synergies in
spheres such as medicine and
law, and using social media for
promoting meaningful dialogue.
Moreover, unlike many IndoPakistan exchanges, the dialogue
was refreshingly unique, for the
simple reason that none of the
political and security issues that
generally dominate discussions
between the countries were
given too much space, although
they were mentioned.

Third, dialogues between

India and Pakistan tend to ignore the perspectives of the diaspora of both countries, although the diaspora have a
significant impact on ties, acting
as both spoilers and bridge
builders. The interaction in Islamabad was fortunate to benefit from several individuals who
have been living overseas, like
Mumbai-born Satchit Balsari, an
emergency physician in New
York, Priti Radhakrishan, a New
York-based lawyer who is the director and co-founder of the Initiative for Medicine, Access and
Knowledge (IMAK), and Sarah
Hussain, a poet now residing in
Pakistan who has spent most of
her life abroad.
Finally, the conference was

interesting because apart from

bilateral issues, it also considered the domestic problems
shared by both India and Pakistan. This gave an insight into
the similarity between many of
the day-to-day challenges in law,
healthcare and the status of
women in both countries.
The message from the threeday conference was clear: Both
countries need to live like normal neighbors, and the extreme
positions on both sides must
end.
The writer is a New Delhibased columnist, policy analyst, and Asia Society IPRYLI
Fellow (2013-14). This piece
is adapted from his article in
The Diplomat

THE FIRST STEP

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A peace initiative whose time has come...

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Email: amankiasha@janggroup.com.pk
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Destination Peace: A commitment by the Jang Group, Geo and The Times of India Group to
create an enabling environment that brings the people of Pakistan and India closer together,
contributing to genuine and durable peace with honour between our countries.