In the summer of 2005, some visionary Indians and Pakistanis decided to jointly march from New Delhi to Karachi, meeting with communities along the way and talking about peace. This is a short film on that march following it for a week through the plains of Punjab, India.

Just One Peace March is a 25 minute film that can be watched online. It follows the marchers from Beas River where the Pakistani delegation that was delayed by Indian and Pakistani bureaucracy finally joined the marchers to after the Wagah border where the Indians were refused visa and the Pakistani marchers crossed over to keep the march going. It presents the perceptions of communities meeting the marchers as well as discussions, debates and the learnings of the marchers themselves.

As an initiative, this march is perhaps as revolutionary as any seen in India and Pakistan, driven by a notion that sustained peace between India and Pakistan will come about with the involvement of citizens of both countries in the peace process. Such involvement, however, needed breaking down of prejudices inculcated and maintained through decades by various governmental and nongovernmental institutions.

The film shows some of the initial signs of conversations breaking down these barriers – where school children meeting Pakistanis are welcoming, warm and curious and yet, without any malice, spout forth the usual innuendo that anything harming India must have its roots in Pakistan. Another discussion on the myths of terrorism with children is also quite enlightening – pointing quite clearly our prejudices.

It takes us to a community of small businesses, farmers and laborers welcoming the marchers in a small town outside Amritsar – their warmth and expression of welcome and yet, their curiosity at meeting their first Pakistani. And the spontaneous joining in of Indian tourists in peace sloganeering at the Wagah border.

This film will also be shown at the f film festival on peace being organized on 13^th January across cities and town in India and Pakistan.