FES sponsored Indo-Pak conference in Kathmandu

The capital city of Nepal last week hosted an exclusive seminar on India-Pakistan relations. It was exclusive in the sense that the leading personalities attending the said seminar were from India and Pakistan who dominated the entire proceedings of the talkathon. Needless to say the participants belonged not from the official establishments of the countries concerned. The Germany based International Non Governmental Organization, the FES, had sponsored the seminar in order perhaps to facilitate the impending Indo-Pak talks which appears to be heading in a direction from confrontation to reconciliation. As Manfred Haack of the FES told this newspaper regarding the objective of holding of this seminar in Kathmandu was solely to bring the intellectuals of both the countries together in a "neutral: country like Nepal so that they could in turn influence their governments in arriving at a peaceful settlement to their five decades plus imbroglio. The FES Chief’s assumption was more than correct in the sense that the luminaries attending the seminar in Kathmandu were one time or the other been associated with their respective governments’ and the people in general in South Asia presume that they in more ways than one could still influence the stances taken by their establishments against each other.

The deliberations that took place in between the participants of the two warring and recently nuclearised nations for consecutive two full days gave a clear impression to the rest of the participants from Nepal that both India and Pakistan now see reason for the resumption of the talks in between the two. That they would now very much wish to see each other at the negotiating table became pretty evident from their implied assertions that if they don’t talk or shift the talks ad infinitum, some other powers might force them to come to terms. What was taken as a grand departure from the previous Indian stands of not bringing in the third party mediation for the talks with Pakistan when some Indian participants reiterated Indian Prime Minister’s saying wherein he had recently hinted that "we have to take lessons from the events Iraq" which was interpreted in a manner that hinted that India too this time unreservedly would go in for talks with its declared rival-Pakistan. For example, Sundeep Waslekar, a prominent Indian intellectual who is the founder chairman of the International Center for Peace Initiatives based in Mumbai admitted to this newspaper during an interview that "there is certainly some prompting from the United States" which apparently forced India to take a rather flexible stance vis-à-vis Pakistan. There is perhaps a sort of realization in India now that the two countries sharing same cultural and traditional backgrounds since centuries and centuries should come to terms or else will be forced to do so.

However, this should not mean that the Indian participants did not spare the other side in hurling allegations that they had been still causing troubles to the Indian establishment by engaging in acts of cross-border terrorism. As was expected, the Pakistani side as usual tried to fire back at the other side whenever they found it opportune in their bid to defend themselves from the verbal attacks from their Pakistani friends.

The two ways allegations and counter allegations made the seminar lively but what was very important that both the participants from the two countries didn’t overreact to each other’s allegations. Both the participants from India and Pakistan gave the impression that the cost of confrontation in between the two had really been colossal and that the time had come to mend their political differences. This meaningful change in their feelings needless to say pleased the rest of the participants from Nepal who wished that the manner the Indian and the Pakistani luminaries talked, dined and led the proceedings of the seminar together have got to be continued. Such acts definitely go a long way in bringing the warring nations closer to each other which in turn

The fact is that when the informed citizens, more specifically speaking, the intellectuals, media men, littérateurs, parliamentarians, civil society members and the likes from both the countries meet together give an impression that they can coexist with each other long time to come. But when they presumably get influenced by their national sentiments they begin talking any thing under the sun against each other which sends chilling waves in the population of the smaller south Asian nations fearing that it is this population which will suffer either way if the two elephants make love or war.

We are happy that the conference ended with a happy note. Both the sides wished that confrontation had got to be replaced by reconciliation. Both sides got a clear message from the recent events in Iraq. We in Nepal, as very good friends of both the India and Pakistan who have been fighting with each other since decades and decades wish that the two South Asian elephants reconciled. The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung under Manfred Haack deserves deep appreciation for having conducted such an important seminar in Nepal, which will go a long way in bringing the two warring nations closer.

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