Perhaps the biggest reasons for the peace march were validated by people we met, people who stopped us, people who would not let us go, did not want us to sleep, who wanted to talk to us, ask us questions. Nodding at us when we explained why we were marching. Applauding us. Giving us water, food, Rooh Afza, sherbet. Sometimes asking whether they could come along.

I joined the Indo-Pak Peace March for the last six days of the Indian leg as it made its way through Punjab and ended in Wagah. Nine friends from Pakistan had joined us the day before – on the banks of the river Beas. And a diverse bunch they were – 5 men and 4 women. A woman who had been freed from slavery. A man who was a member of the local district council. A journalist. A very effective peace activist and organizer. Leaders of NGOs. Working on women’s issues. On slavery.

And they were welcomed. By the business communities in Jandiala Guru. By school children, teachers, and writers in Manawala. By doctors, medical students and professionals at Amritsar. By people at the Golden Temple. By college students riding motorcycles along the road. By a father and son driving along. By husband and wife along the road to Wagah. By village panchayats, by policemen and by roadside dhabbas. And by the Indians in the Peace March.

It quickly became clear that the business population in Punjab would love to see the border transit become more accessible and there be an increase in trade. Okra – or bhindi, as Punjabis call it – has a price differential of over 200% between Punjab in India and Punjab in Pakistan. It is taken from India, to Mumbai, to the Middle East and then sold in Pakistan. Would it not be more profitable for both the growers and the consumers, living within 50 km of each other to trade with each other directly? And the same example is repeated for other grains and produce, for textiles, for energy.

Two days before we reached Amritsar, visas were refused to over 100 Indians planning to attend the World Punjabi Conference in Pakistan. Various groups cited this is discussions and meetings, in a small town like Manawala as well as a larger city like Amristar. Cultural exchange today is limited to the mainstream channels of popular music and films. A much richer exchange of literature, or art, talking about day to day concerns, about values, ethics, hopes and fears are not part of such exchange. In effect, often the superficial makes it across; the richness does not.

And it is this richness that drew hundreds of people in small villages and towns along the way. That people from Pakistan looked just like us, spoke just like us, you could hardly differentiate between the groups. And they brought with them the richness of their stories, not banal tales – loud and meaningless – presented on the cinescreen. Local policemen close to the Wagah border assigned for security reasons to the group came to speak with us. A village leader who had once been an extremist came to speak with us. To hear stories from Pakistan. And share his. A principal – an old man – of a high school told us the warmth and affection of the hospitality offered to him during a visit to Pakistan many years ago. Volunteers at the Golden Temple kept asking us whether we were part of the Aman Yatra. College students asked whether they could come along. Could they come without a passport? Could not passports be waived for movement across the Indo-Pak border?

School children and teachers in Jandiala Guru and Manawala welcomed us with songs and questions. “How is Pakistan different from India?”, they asked our friends from Pakistan. “How are children in Pakistan different?” Speaking in fluent Punjabi, a number of our Pakistani friends from Punjab – Saeeda Diep, Mazhar bhai, Akbar Saab – spoke about the similarities. One member of their group – Lalee – did not even realize that they were in India – it did not seem different. The people were the same, the language was the same in Punjab, the food was similar. Families behaved the same way. Children dressed up quite similarly and went to schools that looked quite similar. Saeeda Diep, Aslam Khwaja, Mitho Khan, Mohammed Hussein – all – invited these children to come visit schools in Pakistan, invited the Principal to make arrangements so that small groups of children could spend a couple of weeks with school children in Pakistan.

There were also questions that were more cynical, more probing perhaps. And just as well. “Did we not think that making borders more open would help increase movement of terrorists?” “Don’t we need more “military” to protect ourselves?” Monica answered it best when she asked the kids whether any of our Pakistani friends who had come over looked like terrorists or whether any of the Indians, keen to go across, looked like one. Terrorists did not need visas to cross borders. Common people did. Common people looking for trade, looking for friendship, looking to visit religious places across the border.

Punjab knows terror, knows terrorism. One man who had organized a section of the march had lost his wife to terrorism. Another village leader said he had been a terrorist. These communities understand terrorism. Terror is not an abstraction that others experience and that can be used to instill fear. And having known terrorism, they do not want to go back to such a state again. As the village leader asserted, the path away from terrorism is through love and trust. It requires that we come to know others, understand them – that is the way to love and to trust, away from terrorism. Increased mistrust, increased hatred does not make for greater security, only greater terror.

At another meeting, the leader of a local gurudwara pointed out that one fighter aircraft could pay for the langar – the daily meals served at the gurudwara, free to the community – for 500 years. Where are our priorities?

Local farmers understand this. Small town traders understood this. The village policeman, the roadside shop owner, the middle-aged couple, all understood this. School children in these farming and trading towns understood this.

Sanat Mohanty joined the March during the last phase of the Indian leg to the Wagah border

Related Links
Motorbikers Invite Marchers Home
Route of Peace March
Events Planned Across the US in Solidarity with March
Pakistani Organization Working for Needs of Indian Prisoners