Photo Ā© Stanley Moses
What happens when young people from either side of the Line of Control (LoC) meet for the first time on neutral territory?
Conciliation Resources facilitated a series of workshops in South Africa that provided youth from either side with a āsafe spaceā in which to share perspectives and discuss opportunities for peace in Kashmir. We share the intimate reflections from two participants who found common ground and friendship.
Youth participant (India-administered Jammu and Kashmir)
All the days I spent in Cape Town have been extraordinarily different, beyond my expectation and imagination. During this trip, I learnt about many things, from management to friendship to reconciliation, to discipline to the South African experience.
Of all these things, the greatest achievement for me was interaction with the people of Pakistan Administered Kashmir. I came to know how Pakistan has treated them, how they live, how they see the Indian side of Kashmir and what are their larger aspirations for entire Jammu and Kashmir.
In our heated and threadbare discussions, I learnt about things, which were beyond my expectations.
I learnt that there is a difference between our vision and theirs, our modus operandi for resolving dispute and theirs ā¦ But the group was ready to come to common terms and resolve the long pending dispute.
During our interactions with different people who have played an important role in the freedom struggle of South Africa, I learnt that there are many things that should be done prior to freedom. I learnt that reconciliation among different people of different ideas, religions and ethnicity is important for the unifed struggle ... I learnt that that is the only thing which makes our movement powerful.
From their experience I also learnt that it is important to remain steadfast and a person should not be cowed down by any type of force. The impact of Robben Island on me was that the memorials also play a decisive role at local level as well as global level.
I had various disagreements with the people of the other side but such disagreements occur only through healthy discussions. We got connected to each other. Just before the trip, no-one knew each other but in the end we became friends forever. I realised the importance of the other part of Kashmir.
Now at the end of the trip, I see hope.
It rejuvenated the importance of the Kashmir conflict inside me and I feel that the world and international organisations should come forward to resolve this conflict as soon as possible so that the human miseries will be reduced. It is the need of the hour. It is a matter of justice, it is a matter of human rights, it is a matter of humanity.
Youth participant (Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir)
Itās a feeling induced in me from a very tender age that the relationship between the state subjects of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir isnāt a political or national relationship but a relationship of pain and common suffering. Itās a relationship of lost identities.
This pain of separation has had various forms of expression. There was a time when it was expressed through peaceful political resistance ā¦ and also a time when this pain was expressed through the barrel of a gun. But it was always expressed in some form as the journey from hell towards heaven. It reminds me of Winston Churchill when, during the Second World War, he said to his nation: āIf you are going through hell, keep going ā¦ ā
It was a result of this ākeep goingā approach that we state subjects were able to meet and this blessing came through a philosophy that was not properly known to most of us. The sentimental value of this experience, when I was able to meet them for the first time, is invaluable. People with whom I had so much to share and so much to differ.
Somehow, in a short span of time, we were able to establish a relationship where we could cherish the differences in a creative way and share common things in a constructive way.
Political differences and ideological clashes were there but in the end it was proved that camaraderie, based on the principles of mutual trust and shared dreams, is by far the most powerful connecting tool; more powerful than religion, class and culture. I donāt think we will ever be able to forget our departure scenes at the airport with our eyes filled with tears of separation.
The South Africa of today is Nelson Mandelaās dream, that he constructed in Robben Island. The dream of a nation whose core value isnāt winning the opponent over but winning the opponentās heart. This core value was alien to my doctrine of revolution and victory.
Conflict forcefully changes the entire fabric of the society. It has happened in Kashmir, where a nation having no history of violence became comfortable with Kalashnikov culture. Violence was meant to be a strategy only but it became a culture and this needs to be changed. In this regard, we can study how Madiba was able to change the culture of violence and revenge long before the conflict was solved.
Resistance to Kashmiris is a matter of life and death, but Mandelaās slogan was āFreedom in our lifetimeā. This slogan depicts a particular mindset, which values human life and which conveys the message that the freedom struggle is a way of life, not the end of life ā¦ Iām convinced that promotion of a softer narrative through softer and meaningful means is the way forward.