More on Wagah Border

It's really good news that India and Pakistan have decided to open up the Atari-Wagah border to trade. In case you missed it, this was one of the decisions by Zardari and Manmohan Singh when they met in New York on 24th September.

Atari-Wagah is the main land crossing between the two countries ( the other one is the Munabao-Kokhrapar crossing, and trade is also going to be allowed on that one). The A-W crossing has been closed to all normal traffic of people and goods of the two countries since the 1965 war. Four decades and three years! Maybe they'll also think of opening it to people traffic one of these days.

This must be the only land crossing in the world between two countries that is closed to the two categories of people that stand to gain the maximum from it -- Indians and Pakistanis. Of all the perverse things in the world, this has to take the cake. The whole world can go through it provided they are americans, canadians, british, australian, whatever, but not indians or pakistanis -- not unless they hold passports of some other country, or they are diplomats of either country, or have SPECIAL permission. Meaning?

Meaning, a royal runaround to get that SPECIAL permission. I have experience of the Pakistani side, so let me recount that. I had to make a sudden trip to New Delhi in May, and having just returned from India the month before, I wanted to save money, plus what the hell, I wanted to experience the border crossing. For two years, I'd heard my Indian diplomat friends swap stories of how long it took them to drive from Islamabad to Amritsar, where they dump their car with a pal, board a plane or take the Shatabdi and voila, they're in Delhi by 11pm. As part of the working classes, I can't drive my car through, but I figured I could ask for permission to walk through. "On Foot" permission, it's called. Bureaucrats will think of the clunkiest ways to label things.

My chase began with writing to the Pakistan government Information Ministry's External Publicity Wing (it deals with foreign journos) asking for the permission. They would forward my letter to the Interior Ministry, who would then give me the permission, and a letter to carry with me that I would show at the border. No problem, I was assured by an official. I was lulled. I concentrated on the next task on the road to Atari, which was to get a clearance from the Min of External Affairs that I could walk through the Indian side of the border. That was not really a problem, it was granted almost immediately.

When the countdown to my departure began and with the permission from the Interior Ministry still nowhere in sight, I started panicking and started calling the Information official three times a day. Each time she said it's on its way. The day before, I asked her, are you sure it's coming? And she said yeah, yeah, sure. Hope so, I said, hanging up. That afternoon, at 4 pm, I got a call from her saying, please make some other arrangement to go or postpone your visit, because your permission has not yet arrived from Interior.

Angered almost to tears. I'm afraid I was plenty rude to her. But never get mad, work on getting the job at hand done. Which is what I set out to do next. I trained all my heavy guns on getting the permission, spoke to one minister, got a message through to three others -- like using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito. But no assurances from anyone. I packed my bag that night, and caught a bus to Lahore the next morning, determined at least to make a scene at Wagah if nothing else. On the way, I worked the phones, and finally one official gave the good news that it was done.

Phew!!! At least 700 of the hair on my head must have greyed, and I must have gained a 100 more wrinkles on my face with the sheer effort of getting this wretched SPECIAL "on foot" permission.

Compare and contrast with what a British journalist based in New Delhi told me when I bumped into him once in Lahore. We were both in the city to cover Benazir Bhutto's house arrest in November 2007.

When did you get here, I asked him. Oh, just a few minutes ago, he said. It was early afternoon, and I said, what do you mean a few minutes ago? There are no flights at this time from Delhi.
No, no, he said, I didn't fly out. It's so easy with this Shatabdi from Delhi. I got on the train in the morning, got to Amritsar in five hours, got to Atari and crossed over. Here by lunchtime....

I was really angry when I heard how easy it was for him, and thought about how difficult it is for Pakistanis and Indians who own that border.

The India-Pakistan Circus At Wagah

I'm starting this blog today, and no better way to inaugurate it than with the combined India-Pakistan circus called "Flag-Lowering Ceremony" at Wagah!



I read this PTI report from Atari the other day about how the guards on the Pakistan side had gone back to their aggressive postures and gestures, so the Indian side also decided, no doubt with a heavy heart, that they would also revert back to their aggressive ways.

The first time I saw this drama, way back in 2006 -- by the way, I have only ever seen it from the Pakistani side -- I came back really angry and wrote something about how horrible it was to put up something that openly encourages hostility. It was two days after the Indian side had decided that the BSF jawans would not goose-step as high as they used to. In Pakistan, they said they would not make any changes.
http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/11/stories/2006111106781100.htm

Going by the PTI report, it seems that both sides had modified their actions somewhat, though I never noticed any major changes in the several times I've seen it since then. But I have to say that I look at the whole show slightly differently now I'm convinced it's all a put-on tamasha, choreographed jointly by the Rangers and the BSF to the last detail. It's what they call nura kushti in Urdu -- fraud wrestling. Plus imagine, if they were to stop doing it, it would be a real dhakka to the fragile economies of Atari and Wagah. The one time I crossed into India by foot, I saw guys selling VCDs of the ceremony in Atari, just beyond the gates. A whole row of restuarants have come up to service the hundreds who come every day to watch the ceremony. There's an entire lot of taxi and bus drivers making money out of ferrying people to the thing. On the Pakistan side too, Wagah that is, I'm happy to report the taxis are doing well, so are the food and drink stalls, and it's only a matter of time before they start doing the CDs as well. The whole thing is a real picnic.




Yes, it still encourages us think we are enemies locked in mortal combat and appeals to some deep down tribal instinct, but the number of people who flock to the gates on either side and wave to each other after the circus ends, shows that lots of folks know to differentiate between real wresting and nura kushti. So let the people enjaaaai, as they say.

But if there's one real reason to stop this ceremony, it's the stress fractures that it must be causing in all those poor goose-stepping guards. I've seen it up close so I know that when a guard brings down his foot with that thundering explosive sound, you can see things rearranging themselves all the way up, on his face. I'm sure their jaws must be getting dislocated routinely. What shape their knees must be in, I hate to think. I wonder if these guys get good medical attention, especially the ortho kind. And they'll all need knee replacements soon. At least they should rotate them every six weeks. But I guess that's difficult, because these chaps are like actors doing well-rehearsed parts. There's one guy on the Pakistani side who does an imitation of an angry rooster, puffing out his chest fiercely shaking his head in a way that the fan of his black turban shakes exactly like it's in a cockfight. He's been there forever, well, at least since 2006. It's a hard act to follow, that's why he'll never be transferred out.