[sacw] SACW #1 | 11 Jan. 02

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Thu, 10 Jan 2002 21:05:50 +0100


South Asia Citizens Wire #1 | 11 January 2002

------------------------------------------

#1. Pakistan Can Defuse The Kashmir Crisis (Mansoor Ijaz)
#2. Fighting Over Identity: Keeping people apart suits the agenda of=20
the generals in Pakistan and the
nationalists in India. ( Salil Tripathi)
#3. War doesnt divide Indians, Pakistanis in Atlantic City (Madhusmita Bora=
)
#4. U.S. Indian-Pakistani Bonds Defy Hostilities Back Home (S. Mitra Kalita=
)
#5. Madness at noon (Irfan Husain)
#6. New York Indians and Pakistanis Have No Problem With Each Other=20
(Celia W. Dugger)
#7. Message from Peace activist in Pakistan
#8. Pakistani Peace Activists plan anti war meeting In Karachi

________________________

#1.

Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, January 9, 2002

PAKISTAN CAN DEFUSE THE KASHMIR CRISIS
By MANSOOR IJAZ

Shock therapy now seems the required antidote to resolve South Asia's
nuclear brinkmanship. Last weekend's choreographed handshake in Katmandu
between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee--and the rhetoric that followed it--demonstrated
again how domestic political considerations for each are wreaking havoc
on the security of 1.2 billion people.

The most recent crisis, sparked by a Dec. 13 terrorist attack on India's
Parliament, which killed 14, has escalated into a dangerous game of
chicken in the Himalayan peaks of Kashmir. The confrontation is fueled
by Pakistan's religious zealots, who seek to create an Islamic utopia
there, and by India's Hindu nationalists, who seek to control Kashmir's
Muslims.

These unrealistic dreams are manifested today by Pakistani military
brigades moving from the Afghan border to fortify against massing Indian
troops to the east--thus compromising the U.S. war on terror--and light
artillery fire across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir. Only one
shot need go awry to spark full-scale war; both sides have begun
assembly of nuclear warheads.

In India, Vajpayee cannot be seen as soft on terrorism as his party
faces crucial state elections in February. To buttress his "wag-the-dog"
electoral arguments, Vajpayee has demanded moral equivalency between Al
Qaeda's terrorists, who seek to dismantle the Western way of life, and
Kashmir's Arab-dominated militants, whose primary agenda is harassing
India into relinquishing control over its only Muslim majority state.
All the while, New Delhi continues to ignore calls by the United Nations
and others to hold elections that would give Kashmiris the right of
self-determination.

Bold ideas are needed to bring these nations back from the brink.
Pakistan must offer the first. Musharraf should follow the example of
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and invite U.S. Special
Forces and counter-terrorism commandos into Pakistan to help root out
foreign terrorist cells that have decimated Pakistan's moral authority
in Kashmir. One mini-step in this direction was the announcement Tuesday
by U. S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the Afghan campaign, that
U.S. forces will be allowed to pursue Al Qaeda terrorists fleeing
Afghanistan into Pakistan. A more comprehensive offer by Musharraf would
pose little risk now; without the Arab financing that evaporated with
the World Trade Center attacks, the large-scale violence promised by
Pakistani fundamentalists is unlikely to ever materialize.

Musharraf should encourage indigenous Kashmiri militants like Hizbul
Moujahedeen to renew the August 2000 unilateral cease-fire offer. In an
unprecedented admission of Islamabad's official complicity in Kashmir's
guerrilla war, Musharraf last week ordered an end to Pakistani
intelligence support for non-indigenous militants operating in Kashmir.
And in a telephone call to the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad, as reported
in the New York Times, Musharraf summed up his dilemma: Is Pakistan
responsible for the behavior of every lunatic or outraged Kashmiri who
attacks an Indian official?

Selling these steps to his army's hard-liners shouldn't be complicated.
Musharraf could point out that if they stop him, the world community
will first condemn Pakistan for its continued support of radical
Islamists and then destroy the terrorists without consideration for
sovereignty. If the army supports Musharraf, maybe the world will muster
the courage to stare down India on finally offering a political solution
for Kashmir.

By removing each part of the argument New Delhi's hard-liners have used
against Islamabad on the terrorism issue, Musharraf would strengthen
Pakistan's moderate political class, further reduce the power of Islamic
zealots and bring South Asia a giant step closer to permanent peace.

Mansoor Ijaz, an American Muslim of Pakistani origin, is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations.

_____

#2.

The Asian Wall Street Journal
Jan. 9, 2002

Fighting Over Identity
Keeping people apart suits the agenda of the generals in Pakistan and the
nationalists in India.

By Salil Tripathi.

Kashmir is supposed to be the root cause of the 50-year dispute between
India and Pakistan, a dispute which has brought the two neighbors, now
nuclear-armed, on the brink of another war in the subcontinent. But beyond
Kashmir there is a deeper issue dividing the two nations: the notion of
national identity.

To what extent is Pakistan part of South Asia, and to what extent is it
part of a bigger Islamic world? This is the dilemma that successive
leaders of Pakistan have failed to resolve. And that failure is
deliberate, for it reopens old questions, which are often painful and cut
through the heart of Pakistan's raison d'etre.

The more Pakistan tries to be South Asian, the more it adapts a democratic
structure and a secular identity where minority rights are protected; the
more it intends to live up to Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah's
vision of Pakistan, the more it begins to resemble India. At that point,
the question becomes one of existential angst: If we are just like India,
was there any need to form a separate nation and carve the old, imperial
British India into two, and now three countries?

If Pakistan is radically different from India, it must look and feel
different. And Pakistan's leaders, particularly in the last 20 years, have
sought that distinctness in religion. It is Islam that sets Pakistan apart
from India, even though the 1971 Bangladesh war demonstrated that Islam is
not sufficient glue to unite peoples across the subcontinent.

Asserting separateness actually deracinates the people of Pakistan, who
indeed have a lot in common with their cousins across the Radcliffe Line
which divides India and Pakistan. Former prime ministers of Pakistan and
India, Nawaz Sharif and Inder Kumar Gujral are both Punjabis; former
Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and India's hawkish Home Minister
Lal Krishna Advani could converse in Sindhi, if they wish.

And it isn't just language that binds people across the two countries.
There is culture--music, food, history, monuments, architecture, cinema,
dance--all the aspects that make up a civilization. They eat mangos and
samosas on both sides of the border, and unlike in Arabia, water is
plentiful in Punjab, which means the land of five rivers. Middle Eastern
fruits like dates are even considered exotic, as the 2001 Nobel Laureate
V.S. Naipaul observed once. Yet, asserting that separateness, and
hankering for a more glorious past, when Muslim rulers who came from
Central Asia ruled the Indian subcontinent, is an important part of
Pakistan's psyche.

What complicates the equation is that asserting separateness is an
important part of the agenda of the Hindu nationalists as well, and they
currently govern India. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya
Janata Party is staunchly Hindu nationalist, and one of the government's
less-scrutinized projects is to rewrite the history books of Indian
schools. The intention is to inculcate in young Indians lessons from a
violent past: how successive Islamic invaders destroyed Hindu temples and
enfeebled Hindus. One particularly fanciful theory, which stands
conventional history on its head, is that there was no invasion of India
by Aryans from central Asia and Europe millennia ago. In other words, the
Indus Valley civilization of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa was indigenous.

That arcane, academic-sounding debate hides a sophisticated political
agenda. If Aryans did not invade India, then Hinduism can indeed be deemed
the natural faith of the people of the subcontinent; for Vedic
civilization and Hinduism are the earliest known, widely-practiced
philosophies and faiths in the subcontinent. Other faiths, then, could
only have come from abroad, as they did--Islam and Christianity. (Sikhism,
Buddhism and Jainism, the nationalists assert, evolved from and are
branches of Hinduism).

After that it becomes relatively simple to relegate Islam and Christianity
to lower positions as alien faiths. The missionaries and the Moghuls came
with the sword and the Bible or the Koran, and their practitioners in
India, by definition, are loyal to forces beyond India. Hindus, then,
become what the Malaysians call bumiputras (sons-of-soil, itself a
Sanskrit word). That's the heart of the Hindu nationalist project.

By painting Islam as a "foreign" religion, and emphasizing the violence of
Islamic rule, the Hindu nationalists seek to demonize India's current
Muslim population, which, at nearly 120 million, makes India the world's
third-, and by some reckoning, second-largest Muslim country. That
demonization has violent consequences. Riots between Hindus and Muslims in
India are hardly uncommon. And when disputed history is added to that
cauldron, the consequences are horrendous: In 1992, Hindu nationalists
(then in opposition), led by Mr. Advani, razed a 16th century mosque in
Ayodhya, leading to months of rioting and killing across the subcontinent.

Only direct, person-to-person contact between Indians and Pakistanis can
break this cycle of conflict. When the two meet in other countries, they
are astounded to find how much they have in common. Realizing the
implications of that, astutely, the BJP-led coalition has closed all forms
of people-to-people contact between India and Pakistan during the current
build-up.

Train and bus links have ended, and India has withdrawn permission for
Pakistani civilian aircraft to fly through its airspace. Pakistan has
matched this by banning Indian television programs. India has banned
direct-dial long distance facilities from pay phones and Internet services
from cybercafes in Jammu and Kashmir. Keeping people apart suits the
agenda of the generals in Pakistan and the nationalists in India. In the
1980s, when Pakistani businessmen asked General Zia-ul Haq if he would
allow greater trade between Pakistan and India, he said, no; he did not
want a powerful pro-India lobby in the form of domestic businessmen.

While India has offered Pakistan the inappropriately named Most Favored
Nation status (because all it does is offer the same concessions to
Pakistan that India offers the rest of the world), Pakistan has refused to
reciprocate, at a huge cost to its own economy. Pakistani businesses have
to pay substantial premium for products which India could offer more
competitively across the border, as a Stimson Center study calculated in
the early 1990s. Pakistan's bureaucrats realize the anomaly: At Doha,
during the World Trade Organization meeting last November, Pakistan
supported India in virtually every intervention India made to seek a more
open textiles and agriculture trade regime.

The current military build-up, however, makes it unlikely that the issues
which work to unite the two countries will come into play. So long as
India-Pakistan relations remain in the hands of powerful elite--the
generals and the nationalists--who have much to gain from asserting their
distinctness and separateness, a longer-term solution will remain elusive.

Kashmir is only a symptom of this separation, not the cause. It will
remain at boiling point, and the two armies, both nuclear-capable, will
continue to stare at one another suspiciously. The sad reality is that the
kind of visionary leadership that can leapfrog over history is in
extremely short supply in both India and Pakistan at the moment.

______

#3.

Atlantic City Press
December 27, 2001

War doesnt divide Indians, Pakistanis in Atlantic City
By MADHUSMITA BORA

ATLANTIC CITY - Tamoor Ansari, an immigrant from Pakistan, said he is=20
really worried about
the escalating tensions between his homeland and neighboring India.

"No one likes war," he said. "There shouldn't be any war. I am really
worried about my family back home."

Like Ansari, most immigrants from India and Pakistan say they do not see
violence as a solution between the two countries.

"War always brings destruction," said Surinder Singh, an Indian immigrant
who operates the Citgo gas station in North Wildwood. "I worry at times
for my family, but these days I have just resigned to fate and left
everything to God."

Tension between the two recent nuclear powers accelerated in the past few
weeks after a militant attack on the Indian Parliament. India claimed to
have identified two Pakistan-based militant outfits to be responsible for
the attacks.

Today both countries are precariously close to a war with each mobilizing
its troops and missiles near the borders.

"They have no food to eat, but they have guns to fight," said Maqbool
Hussein Bhatti, a Pakistani immigrant. "It's ridiculous. We are the same
people with similar cultures and I don't see why we are going through
this. It's a shame."

Bhatti said he blames politics and religious fundamentalist groups for the
friction between the neighbors.

"They (fundamentalists) are putting nations against each other," he said.
Yatin Patel, an Indian who works at the Picture This store at the Shops at
Ocean One agrees with Bhatti.

"Politics is mostly to be blamed for the problems," Patel said.

India and Pakistan once were the same country, fighting against the
colonial British. But since they gained independence in 1947, the two
countries have fought three wars, the last one resulting in the creation
of Bangladesh from Pakistan.

"The common man has never wanted war," said Kuldip Bhargava, an Indian,
who owns a store at Ocean One. "It's very unfortunate what's happening
there."

Mohammad Shakar, an immigrant from Pakistan, said he does not see any
difference between people from the two nations.

"We pray together in the same mosque here," Shakar said. "All Muslims
belong to one community. It doesn't make a difference whether someone is
from India, Syria or Pakistan."

Shakar said Islam brought him closer with his Indian brethren. He said
over the years he has made many Indian friends, Hindus and Muslims alike.

"Bottom line is, we are the same people, and we should live in harmony,"
Shakar said.
______

#4.

Newsday
January 7, 2002

U.S. Indian-Pakistani Bonds Defy Hostilities Back Home
By S. Mitra Kalita

Inside a Jackson Heights hair salon, Harshad Kumar Valand and Muhammed
Rafi have snipped and shaved their way to a relationship most unlikely in
their sparring homelands.

Valand hails from India, Rafi from Pakistan.

On a slow afternoon recently, with no customers seated before them, the
barbers appeared insulted when asked about their friendship of three
years.

"Dost nahi hai," Valand said in Hindi, pointing to Rafi. "Mera bhai."

Not my friend, my brother.

Steps away, on a table in the Rose Beauty Salon's waiting area, lies a
reminder of why the barbers' bond grows ever more noteworthy. "COLD WAR!"
blares the headline of an ethnic newspaper, above parallel photos of
India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistan's President Gen.
Pervez Musharraf.

"I live in the U.S.A.," Rafi said. "This problem is government to
government, not people to people. When we are together doing our jobs, all
people are happy."

Along the South Asian commercial strip in Jackson Heights, Indians and
Pakistanis patronize one another's shops, employ one another and work side
by side. In Long Island, they gather as teammates for weekend cricket
matches in the spring and summer months. Indeed, the relationships Indians
and Pakistanis have forged on U.S. shores appear to defy the ever-growing
hostility on the subcontinent. Observers say business interests, economic
dependence and cultural similarities bind the communities together here,
thousands of miles from home. But loyalties and patriotism still run deep
among many immigrants - and will perhaps deepen as India and Pakistan
skirt with waging their fourth war since partition in 1947.

On Dec. 13, militants attacked India's parliament in a suicide mission
that killed 14 people. India accuses Pakistan of financing the militant
group it holds responsible; the conflict has also brought renewed
attention to Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan territory to which both India
and Pakistan lay claim.

"Sometimes you do feel what choice are you left with if such attacks are
carried out again," said Ramesh Navani, an Indian immigrant who is
president of the 100-member Jackson Heights Merchants Association. "We try
to keep above these developments, of course. A businessman by nature tries
to stay away from politics. You have all kinds of customers."

Evidence of Indian shopkeepers marketing to Pakistanis, and vice versa,
lines storefronts along 74th Street. At Sahil Sari Palace, the "Eid
Mobarek" sign still hangs in the window of the sari and fabric store owned
by Hindus, offering greetings to Muslims who observe Eid ul-Fitr. The
holiday marks the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting.

"We're not Muslim, but it brings people in," said Sunil Chugh, whose
father owns the store. "On Eid, I gave my friend a hug three times. I
didn't see a difference. When there's Diwali, they gave me sweets," he
said, referring to the Hindu festival of lights.

Across the street, Shereen Mahal, a restaurant owned by Pakistanis,
advertises specials for masala dosa and sambar, foods native to South
India. "Pakistan and India were the same country 55 years ago," said owner
Tasawar Hussain, who lives in Searingtown. "So many people think it's the
same country."

Indeed, in a spate of bias incidents after Sept. 11, attackers often made
few distinctions between Indians and Pakistanis, Sikhs and Muslims and
Hindus. "After Sept. 11, we shared in the racial discrimination," said Ali
A. Mirza, president of Americans of Pakistani Heritage, which represents
1,000 Pakistanis in Brooklyn and Queens, and Nassau and Suffolk counties.

And community leaders who emigrated from India - a secular country that is
majority Hindu but includes Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists
and followers of other religions - said they have spent recent weeks
touring mosques and churches and temples to present a united front as
Americans. "Right after Sept. 11, there was a joint prayer meeting at the
mosque in Westbury," said Arvind Vora, chairman of the Long Island
Multi-Faith Forum who is a Jain from India. "People probably didn't expect
me to be there, but I was there."

Nonetheless, other immigrants say they have noticed an escalation in
discussion and debate within the South Asian community. "Half our staff is
Indian, the other half is Pakistani," said Tariq Hamid, owner of Shaheen,
a chain of sweet shops throughout the city. "Between them in the kitchen,
they talk. Of course sometimes they get into heated arguments ... but it
stays friendly."

When Anil Vyas moved to a new home in Williston Park a few weeks ago, he
had a housewarming party and invited the Pakistani teammates he plays
cricket with on the Long Island Cricket Club. His gathering of 40 or 50
guests fell on a weekend after the Parliament attack and included a
handful of Pakistani families.

"You don't want to start talking about religion," said Vyas, an Indian
immigrant. "It's a never-ending story. If somebody starts arguing over
something, you divert the conversation to cricket or something else."

Cricket matches between India and Pakistan are infamous for the intense
rivalry they foster. But in the United States, Vyas said, Indians and
Pakistanis often find themselves on the same team.

Many immigrants say rooting for their homeland's cricket team remains the
extent of their patriotism.

"In Pakistan, I cheered for Pakistan," said Mohammed Irfan, owner of
Kohinoor, a jewelry store in Jackson Heights. "That's a game. War is not a
game."

______

#5.

Dawn
05 January 2002

Madness at noon
By Irfan Husain

In an apocryphal story that did the rounds after the 1965 Indo-Pak=20
war, a group of Indian and Pakistani officers met at the border soon=20
after the fighting had stopped. One Sikh officer asked his Pakistani=20
counterparts with a grin: "Yar, we sardarjis are supposed to go mad=20
at noon, but what happened to you guys?"
Thirty seven years later, the question is what has happened to=20
everybody in the subcontinent? Or at least to everybody who matters=20
in Islamabad and Delhi? Judging from the words and actions of the=20
sorry cast of characters in the current shoddy drama being played out=20
in and over Kashmir, the proverbial midday madness of the Sikhs is=20
highly contagious. Consider the inflammatory words of George=20
Fernandes, the Indian defence minister, when he spoke about his=20
country being ready to survive a 'nuclear first' strike and then=20
completely destroy Pakistan. For a responsible politician to utter=20
such bellicose words at such a sensitive time is to betray not just=20
his deep hostility, but his ignorance of the lingering and deadly=20
effects of a nuclear holocaust. To him, an atom bomb is just a bigger=20
conventional bomb.
Indeed, the chain of events, threats and counter-threats since the=20
attack on the Indian parliament on December 11 seem oddly divorced=20
from the realities of the 21st century. The attack itself was as=20
reprehensible as it was amateurish. Mercifully, no Indian MP was=20
killed or wounded. In the scale of casualties caused in South Asia by=20
the terrorists of one ilk or another over the years, a dozen dead=20
(including the terrorists) does not appear to justify talk of nuclear=20
Armageddon. It is clear that the Indian government has seized upon=20
this bloody incident as a justification to inflict serious diplomatic=20
and possibly military damage on Pakistan.
But for its part, Pakistan has opened itself to the charge of=20
sponsoring the Delhi attack through its decade-long policy of=20
supporting the uprising in Indian Kashmir. Despite Islamabad's=20
protestations that it has extended only 'diplomatic and moral' help=20
to the freedom fighters, some Pakistan-based groups have reportedly=20
been arming and training volunteers to take part in the Kashmir=20
'jihad'. In addition, a number of powerful underworld fugitives from=20
Mumbai have also taken refuge in Karachi.
It has long been evident that Pakistan's ISI has been acting on its=20
own shadowy agenda. While its activities in influencing the country's=20
internal politics have even been revealed before the Supreme Court,=20
its role in Afghanistan and Kashmir has long been shrouded in=20
secrecy. Nevertheless, the existence of training camps run by radical=20
Islamic groups supported by Pakistani intelligence agencies has been=20
the subject of press reports in the past. Some religious parties have=20
been openly collecting funds and recruiting volunteers for the=20
Kashmir cause in major Pakistani cities for years. Even when the=20
government tried to ban such activities, these groups openly flouted=20
the decision.
In brief, the last twelve years or so have seen the evolution of a=20
jihadi culture in Pakistan driven by events in both Afghanistan and=20
Kashmir. Each has fuelled the other, with Pakistani religious groups=20
providing support and sustenance to both the Taliban and the Kashmiri=20
freedom movement. The extent of the involvement of Pakistani=20
governments and intelligence agencies in these covert cross-border=20
activities is a matter of surmise, but given their track-record, it=20
should come as no surprise that they have exercised considerable=20
control over both movements.
Our relationship with the Taliban has been consigned to the dustbin=20
of history, thanks to American 'daisy-cutters' and other assorted=20
munitions, but General Musharraf and many others in Pakistan have=20
sought to draw a distinction between terrorists and 'freedom=20
fighters'. While a very powerful legal argument can be built to=20
justify the difference between the two, the fact is that in the=20
post-September 11 scenario, such sophistry is just not acceptable to=20
the only superpower in the world. The leaders of three countries=20
plagued by 'terrorists' or 'freedom fighters' have all jumped on=20
board the anti-terrorism train with great alacrity: thus, Putin,=20
Sharon and Vajpayee have used the attacks on New York and Washington=20
to deal their own armed opponents fearsome military and political=20
blows.
Pakistan finds itself in a particularly difficult bind as it has=20
committed itself to opposing terrorism while it is simultaneously=20
supporting a freedom struggle. But Vajpayee has made Musharraf's task=20
even more difficult by blaming Pakistanis for the attack in New Delhi=20
without providing a shred of information. His demand suggests that he=20
considers India to be in a win-win situation: without leaving his=20
Pakistani counterpart any face-saving way out, he may well be=20
precipitating a war nobody needs or wants.
While in New Delhi for a week in November, I met a number of=20
politicians and journalists, and was struck by the fact that even the=20
most liberal ones seemed convinced that there was no possibility of a=20
settlement over Kashmir. The most they thought India could ever=20
concede was the conversion of the Line of Control in Kashmir into the=20
international boundary. I pointed out that this was hardly a=20
concession, but they seemed totally wedded to the official Indian=20
position in a way that is not true in Pakistan where a number of us=20
have consistently questioned the government's policies over Kashmir=20
and everything else.
Apart from wanting to bring the uprising in Kashmir under control,=20
what else are the Indian aims? In a letter to the Guardian recently,=20
a reader wrote: "India's war aim goes far beyond the 'short,=20
conventional campaign' to topple General Musharraf envisaged by Peter=20
Preston. The Indian plan is to drive into Pakistan with armour and=20
infantry to the point that all north-south ground communication is=20
cut. That achieved, India could declare a cease-fire and sit tight to=20
await the disintegration of a sundered Pakistan, and thus fulfil the=20
dream Hindu nationalists have held since the 1947 partition."
Had this letter appeared in a Pakistani newspaper, it would have been=20
rightly dismissed as the rambling of a deluded jingoist. But the=20
writer is Neville Maxwell, an eminent journalist and scholar, and=20
author of "India's China War", a superb account of the 1962=20
Indo-Chinese war. I happen to disagree with Mr Maxwell's gloomy=20
analysis simply because I don't think responsible Indians want a=20
volatile, disintegrating Pakistan as a neighbour.
Ever since the crisis escalated into a threatened nuclear exchange, I=20
have been asked by friends in London to explain why India and=20
Pakistan are on the verge of such a catastrophe. It is not easy to=20
tell them about the contagious madness at noon.

______

#6.

ARCHIVED STORY

The New York Times
August 15, 1997

New York Indians and Pakistanis Have No Problem With Each Other
By CELIA W. DUGGER

NEW YORK -- Up a narrow flight of stairs in Jackson Heights, Queens, above
the rich scents of curry and the high-pitched melodies of Indian pop divas
that wash over the bustling sidewalk, two spare offices appear to house
nothing more remarkable than a businessman and an accountant.=20

But the second-floor office of Kanu Chauhan, a concert promoter and
developer from Bombay, is the headquarters for this weekend's 50th
anniversary celebration of India's independence, while just upstairs, the
office of Manny Beg, an accountant from Karachi, was the nerve center of
Pakistan's 50th anniversary festival, held last Sunday.

Fifty years after Pakistan was carved from India at the moment of
independence from the British Raj, this layering of celebratory efforts --
Chauhan, a Hindu who owns the building, rents to Beg, a Muslim -- is no
anomaly in Jackson Heights. Thousands of immigrants from countries that
have been enemies since 1947 live together peaceably in the commercial
heart of New York City's South Asian population.

"It's not a perfect harmony," said Madhulika Khandelwal, acting director
of the Asian-American Center at Queens College. "There are moments of
misgiving, but what you see in everyday life in Queens is a lot of
interaction among peoples from South Asia."

Indians and Pakistanis buy from each other. They work for each other. The
belong to the same merchants' association. They share the same few blocks
of commercial space along 74th Street. They idolize the same Indian movie
stars and watch the same cricket matches.

And, most importantly, they share a common story: they came to the United
States in pursuit of a life better than what they left behind.

"Sometimes, people say money is the cause of evils," said Ramesh Navani, a
part owner of the India Sari Shop and a Hindu with childhood memories of
fleeing Pakistan for India 50 years ago in a noisy propeller plane. "But
sometimes, money keeps you so busy you have no time to think of nasty
things."

In the New York metropolitan area, a magnet for more Indian and Pakistani
immigrants than any other urban region in the nation, nostalgia for home
has blended with ethnic pride to produce a burst of independence
celebrations that may be more festive than those on the subcontinent,
where the daily drip of political venality and the ever-present tragedy of
poverty have complicated the moment.

This past Sunday, police estimated that 10,000 people gathered for the
Pakistan Day festival in Battery Park to picnic on fragrant, spicy food,
listen to singers from home and feast their eyes on Pakistani movie stars.

This coming Sunday, the India Day Parade, billed as "unprecedented,
spectacular, colossal," will sail down lower Madison Avenue, with the John
Wayne of Indian movie stars, Amitabh Bachchan, in the lead as grand
marshal.

But in the midst of the parades, banquets, concerts and conferences that
are the public face of immigrant celebrations of independence, many of
those who left home because they were dissatisfied with life on the
subcontinent are in a mood that is more meditative than joyous.

Saeeda Qureshi, 43, who emigrated from Pakistan 21 years ago and has
raised her children here, said she was glad to be Pakistani, but disgusted
by the state of politics in her homeland. "I feel very good about
independence," said Mrs. Qureshi, who lives on Staten Island. "But the
politicians are very bad in Pakistan. There is too much corruption."

Indian immigrants, too, have complex feelings about their nation's
progress. They say they take pride in being from the world's largest
democracy, but abhor the corruption that has debased it. They take heart
in the growth of the country's middle class and the loosening of state
control over the economy, while mourning the high rates of illiteracy and
poverty.

And some ponder the persistence of communal conflict between Hindus and
Muslims. The Global Organization of People of Indian Origin, a nonprofit
group based in New York, has invited experts to speak on that theme, among
others, at a 50th anniversary conference Aug. 30 at the New York Hilton
and Towers.

The integration of Hindus and Muslims in neighborhood and civic life
within India, which echoes in relations between Indian and Pakistani
immigrants here, may well be the key to peace between them, said one of
those experts, Ashutosh Varshney, an associate professor of government at
Harvard University.

Varshney has compared some of the most riot-prone cities in India,
including Ahmadabad and Hyderabad, with the most tranquil, Lucknow and
Calcutta among them. He found that cities where Hindus and Muslims had
everyday relationships at the neighborhood level and joined together in
business, labor, professional and voluntary associations, were the most
resistant to violent polarization.

And peace is actually far more prevalent than it appears, he said. His
study found that from 1950 to 1995, 18 cities with only 8 percent of
India's population accounted for two-thirds of the 7,300 riot-related
deaths. "Peace does not make news," he said. "It's not good copy."

But coexistence, Queens style, is a visual feast. The daily pageantry of
Jackson Heights, where women shop for brilliantly-hued saris ($29, $35 or
$39 at India Sari Palace) and men thrust plump fresh chickens into
tandoori ovens, is a show that runs free for the watching.

The first waves of immigration to New York from the subcontinent began
after 1965, when U.S. immigration quotas that had favored Europeans were
abandoned. Many Indians, who far outnumber Pakistanis in New York, came
under rules that gave a preference to the highly skilled and educated.
They, in turn, brought their wives and children, siblings and parents, in
a chain of familial migration.

By 1990, U.S. Census figures show, the New York area had 199,010 Indian
residents, about half of them living in the city, and 21,726 Pakistanis,
two-thirds of whom lived in the city. From 1990 to 1994, 14,486 Indian
immigrants and 7,465 Pakistani immigrants moved to the city, according to
the city Planning Department.

Typically, Queens has been the newcomers' first home. But many immigrants,
as they have become more prosperous, have scattered to New Jersey, Long
Island and Westchester County.

And increasingly since the 1970s, Jackson Heights has become an ethnic
marketplace for South Asian immigrants from all over the region. The
everyday connections between Indians and Pakistanis here are everywhere
evident.

The first Indian-owned store in the neighborhood, Sam and Raj, opened in
1973 to sell 220-volt appliances to immigrants for shipping home to
relatives on the subcontinent, where that voltage is standard. The store
hired a Pakistani salesman, Atif Hasan, in 1978. Hasan has since risen to
be the store manager.

"They never made me feel I was hired because I'm Pakistani," Hasan said.
And Nitin Vora, a part-owner of the store, said Hasan was right. "We hired
him because he's a nice person," Vora said.

Across 74th Street, at New York Gold Co., Vasantrai M. Gandhi, 60, who
emigrated 20 years ago from Bombay, was carefully weighing a ring,
necklace and bracelet for sale to Raj Kanchwal, 37, who came from Karachi
12 years ago and runs his own health food store in Forest Hills. Kanchwal,
hunting for gifts for his wife, found the shop in the Yellow Pages.

"I have a lot of friends who are Indian," said Kanchwal, whose parents
were among the millions of Muslims who fled India for Pakistan in 1947, as
millions of Hindus emigrated in the opposite direction. Gandhi, who
advertises his gold store in the Pakistani ethnic press, piped in, "Here
there is no difference except for politics."

Among the second generation, the remaining divisions may fade further.
Ritika Chadha, a 26-year-old accounting student at the State University in
Albany who emigrated from Delhi as a child, still cherishes her ethnic
identity, but she is also influenced by American culture. She admires
Mohandas K. Gandhi, the great Indian leader -- and tellingly, she gleaned
some of her impressions of him from Ben Kingsley's depiction of Gandhi in
the 1982 movie.

As she munched on french fries while window shopping along 74th Street one
recent afternoon, she recounted her experiences from a January trip to
Delhi. Her family had hoped she would find a husband while she was there.
She was introduced to three or four young men, but none was quite right.
"I was a little too picky," she said. "I wanted more of a choice."

Indeed, Ms. Chadha had a choice of her own in mind back in New York City:
a Pakistani limousine driver. They are to be married this week, she said.

"My parents are really against it," she said. "I'm Hindu. He's Muslim. But
if I married an American, they wouldn't like it either. I'm a rebel with a
cause."

______

#7.

Message from Aasim sajjad (Pakistan)

dear friends and colleagues
it is important that activities continue throughout the country, and=20
indeed across the border. the incidents at the wagah border and in=20
karachi are an indication that all is not well in terms of the=20
attitude of the authorities towards our activities. in such a=20
situation it is even more important to continue highlighting our=20
principled stands and being unafraid to take political positions on=20
issues, including our right to expression.
as most of you know, there are events being planned in lahore and in=20
islamabad on saturday, and these may coincide with musharraf's public=20
address. i would like to suggest that we issue a statement from all=20
of our peace groups, which i will circulate tomorrow. those who agree=20
can go ahead and circulate it.
i also believe that some of our friends in lahore are thinking=20
seriously about calling a meeting in which all of us can come=20
together and think about further actions, and positions, as well as=20
longer-term strategies in which we should be calling for paradigm=20
shifts of all kinds.
once again, i encourage all to continue sharing information, and=20
collaborating to the greatest extent possible.

regards
aasim

______

#8.

Peace Activists Meeting In Karachi

there is a meeting of Joint Action Committe for Peace on Jan 11,=20
friday 5:00 pm at HRCP (1/1C block 6
pechs [Karachi]) all political and active people should come as we=20
need more and more
people to help organise the next protest, the peace mela, teach-ins and
letter-writing for anti-war/pro-peace all of which were decided in the last
meeting. it is important that everyone attends and brings as many friends o=
n
jan 11 as possible...

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