By C. Raja Mohan

Date:08-03-05

Source: Indian Express

Not matter who wins the Test match, the ultimate winner is Punjabiyat

C. Raja MohanWhile the Indian and Pakistani teams slug it out at Mohali, the Punjabis and their many brethren from across the border will have a ball inside and outside the cricket stadium. The four thousand Pakistanis who are here to enjoy the game at Mohali will be hugged and feted as never before in Punjab this week.

The excitements of Indo-Pak cricket at Mohali are only matched by the heady revival of Punjabiyat and the growing support across the border for reconciliation in the land of the five rivers. In less than a year, the movement for the recovery of Punjabiyat has taken big strides. In ’04, the two Punjab chief ministers — Amarinder Singh and Pervez Elahi — have traveled across the border and were received warmly.

Next month Amarinder Singh heads again for Lahore; this time to participate in a forum being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry for economic cooperation between the two Punjabs. The first ever Punjab games were held last December in Patiala. The pressure from the Punjabis on both sides has forced reluctant governments in New Delhi and Islamabad to agree on starting a bus service between Amritsar and Lahore later this year.

Pakistan has also given in to a demand from East Punjab to facilitate better links between Amritsar and Nankana Sahib (in West Punjab). Nankana, where Guru Nanak was born, is the holiest of shrines for the Sikh Community; however, it has remained inaccessible to Indians for all these decades. During his visit last December to East Punjab, Pervez Elahi promised to make Nankana Sahib a model city. When he visits Lahore next month, Amarinder Singh along with Elahi will lay the foundation stone for a new road to Nankana Sahib. There are other straws in the wind too. One of Pakistan’s greatest cricketers and former captain, Inthikab Alam, is now the coach for the Punjab cricket team. This is the first time that India has given a one-year visitor’s visa for a Pakistani sportsman.

As artists, theatre groups and musicians travel across Wagah every day, there is no shortage of new ideas for greater engagement between the two Punjabs. The appeal of the cultural syncretism and the universal humanism of the undivided Punjab is not an abstract one. Evidence: the huge success of Rabbi Shergill’s Sufi pop, ‘Bulla ki Jaane’.

At the level of the mundane, the visit of a few thousand Indians to witness the cricket match in Lahore last year revealed the immense prospects for tourism between the two countries. Neither of the Punjabs is hot on the international tourist map. But Punjabis in both countries and the diaspora are dying to travel across the fractured land. Until recently, India and Pakistan had no notion of a tourist visa in relation to the other. They have just agreed on the idea of a group tourist visa. By expanding the current limited travel to religious purposes and by consciously promoting tourism, both the Punjabs will make immense economic gains.

By allowing people to drive across in their own vehicles, and by giving visas on arrival to many categories of people, the two sides could tap impulse tourism and weekend travel through the Wagah border. India and Pakistan now allow third country nationals to drive across their border but deny the privilege to each other.

Some thoughts are already on the Indo-Pak negotiating table. These include the laying of a diesel pipeline from Ludhiana to Lahore and the opening of the Wagah border for bilateral trade. Pakistan is yet to respond to these Indian proposals.

The rise of Punjabiyat has not been greeted with enthusiasm everywhere in the subcontinent. Some communities in Pakistan believe that the Punjabis are cornering all the gains of Indo-Pak normalisation. The answer does not lie in limiting the interaction between the two Punjabs, but expanding it to other regions along the border. The chief ministers of Sind and Rajasthan are free to establish contact and communication. What stops the civic leaders of Mumbai and Karachi from getting together?

While the progress between the two Punjabs has been amazing, it also remains remains fragile. Will it lead to dangerous ethnic chauvinism in the Punjab? Must we let Punjabiyat hijack Indo-Pak relations? Would Pakistan take advantage by renewing support to the Khalistan movement? How does India square the promise of a bus service between Amritsar and Lahore with the fact that East Punjab remains out of bounds for all Pakistani nationals?

The sum of all fears about the rise of Punjabiyat cannot overcome one simple reality: the normalisation of Indo-Pak relations and the resolution of the conflict over Jammu and Kashmir is tied inextricably to an enduring reconciliation among the Punjabis who suffered the most from the Partition. For that reason alone the entire subcontinent should welcome the return of Punjabiyat.

As the Punjabis press New Delhi and Islamabad to loosen up a little and set new standards for contact and connectivity across South Asian borders, they will pave the way for change on other frontiers.

In Assam, there is mounting pressure from regional leaders of all political hues to open up the old Stilwell Road that links India and China through upper Myanmar. The chief minister of Sikkim Pawan Chamling wants a bus service between Gangtok and Lhasa. In Jammu and Kashmir, the people of Ladakh want to know why the border with China cannot be opened up to facilitate tourism into western Tibet? If a bus can run between Srinagar and Muzafarrabad, and between Amritsar and Lahore, why not one between Ladakh and Mount Kailash? Kolkata and the two Bengals will gain immeasurably from the revival of transit trade between India and China across the many passes in the Eastern Himalayas. Why can’t Chittagong in Bangladesh regain its status as the main seaport for North East India?

As it drives the Indo-Pak peace process, Punjabiyat heralds a different future for the Subcontinent as a whole. In a globalising world, Punjabiyat reminds us, the Subcontinent can no longer be a mere collection of nation-states. South Asia will also have to re-aggregate well-defined regions that have existed for millennia before recent borders were drawn 57 years ago. Rediscovering the regions of the subcontinent does not mean redrawing borders. It is about reconnecting people by transcending linear boundaries.