It's been long since our immoral politicians, generals and religious bigots, have cheated us. Lets make a new beginning with new friends...let's get over our pre-conceived notions and convictions and write a new chapter in the history of Indo-Pak relations.
This community is dedicated to the tears shed silently on both sides of the border due to 60 years of hostility between India and Pakistan, for one reason or another.
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“Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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IPFC Magazine
India-Pakistan Friendship Club proudly presents; the first issue of IPFC Magazine. The magazine can be read online here or can be downloaded here(PDF format, 590 KB).
The 30-page magazine contains articles and features of common interest of Indians and Pakistanis. It also has a special section about the IPFC, its objectives and history.
Days after the recent skirmishes at the Line of Control, when the composite dialogue between India and Pakistan was threatened, an alternative reconciliation was underway in Lahore. Music became the metaphor of shared ground between the two countries, challenging divides between them that can become violent.
If you live in Lahore and choose to go North-West, you will be in Gujrawala in about an hour’s time. And if you move from Lahore to the East, on the same Grand Trunk (GT) Road which Sher Shah Suri, the Afghan Warrior-King, carved out, in about the same time you could be standing in Amritsar—except for the ordeal of crossing the Indo-Pakistan border.
Since 1947, Kashmir had been offered toffees and chocolates to stop its tears as one does this to a small kid weeping. No one realized that the agony of Kashmiris lies deep inside their hearts. Since last 17 years of insurgency, approximately 100,000 people have been killed. Thousands of young boys and men between the ages of 15-65 were taken to the custody for investigation by security forces but their return remains uncertainty for their families.
“They are like my two eyes,” says the fabled Pakistani folk singer Reshma, speaking of India, the country of her birth in 1947, and the country she has lived in since infancy. Similar emotions are echoed by another lauded singer, the Mumbai-based Seema Anil Sehgal, known as the ‘Bulbul (nightingale) of Jammu and Kashmir’. Last May (2004), she dedicated her CD, recorded at the first ever concert in Mumbai on the poetry of Allama Iqbal, the man credited with the idea of Pakistan, to “India-Pakistan friendship”.
Blame for the problems of Afghanistan is widespread. The Pakistanis are at fault; no, the Afghans; no, the United States. NATO isn't stepping up to the plate. Is it the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or Pakistan's intelligence service that is pulling the strings? Is President Hamid Karzai powerless, or is he boosting the warlords, or is he a puppet for Americans, or all three? But a large part of the problem is being missed. There is talk about the U.S.-Pakistan-Afghanistan tripartite, but it's the wrong focus. The focus should be on the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India triangle.
There is a growing need for a peaceful solution to the age-old conflict between India and Pakistan. Although enmity runs deep, and the issue of Kashmir will be difficult to resolve, by establishing an environment of patience, trust, credibility, and goodwill, peace may be possible in South Asia. It is time that the people of both Pakistan and India unite with the international community in sending a message of peace to their leaders.
My parents are from Delhi, and my wife's from Hyderabad (Deccan). They settled in Lahore and Karachi respectively, and I was brought up in Pakistan (mostly in the Himalayan North West Frontier, and Lahore for medical education). Recently we took our 2 children to India and Pakistan (the first time back for me after 18 years in the U.S.).
We have a three-hour stop over at Lahore airport on our way back to Delhi from Islamabad. I am excited about going back home, but, at the same time, am sad at the thought of leaving Pakistan. I don’t know when, if at all, I can come back here, if I can ever again meet some of those wonderful people whom I almost instantly bonded with in my short week-long visit to the country. I wonder if I will again be fortunate enough to get a visa to visit Pakistan.
Days after the recent skirmishes at the Line of Control, when the composite dialogue between India and Pakistan was threatened, an alternative reconciliation was underway in Lahore. Music became the metaphor of shared ground between the two countries, challenging divides between them that can become violent.
If you live in Lahore and choose to go North-West, you will be in Gujrawala in about an hour’s time. And if you move from Lahore to the East, on the same Grand Trunk (GT) Road which Sher Shah Suri, the Afghan Warrior-King, carved out, in about the same time you could be standing in Amritsar—except for the ordeal of crossing the Indo-Pakistan border.
Since 1947, Kashmir had been offered toffees and chocolates to stop its tears as one does this to a small kid weeping. No one realized that the agony of Kashmiris lies deep inside their hearts. Since last 17 years of insurgency, approximately 100,000 people have been killed. Thousands of young boys and men between the ages of 15-65 were taken to the custody for investigation by security forces but their return remains uncertainty for their families.
“They are like my two eyes,” says the fabled Pakistani folk singer Reshma, speaking of India, the country of her birth in 1947, and the country she has lived in since infancy. Similar emotions are echoed by another lauded singer, the Mumbai-based Seema Anil Sehgal, known as the ‘Bulbul (nightingale) of Jammu and Kashmir’. Last May (2004), she dedicated her CD, recorded at the first ever concert in Mumbai on the poetry of Allama Iqbal, the man credited with the idea of Pakistan, to “India-Pakistan friendship”.
Blame for the problems of Afghanistan is widespread. The Pakistanis are at fault; no, the Afghans; no, the United States. NATO isn't stepping up to the plate. Is it the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or Pakistan's intelligence service that is pulling the strings? Is President Hamid Karzai powerless, or is he boosting the warlords, or is he a puppet for Americans, or all three? But a large part of the problem is being missed. There is talk about the U.S.-Pakistan-Afghanistan tripartite, but it's the wrong focus. The focus should be on the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India triangle.
There is a growing need for a peaceful solution to the age-old conflict between India and Pakistan. Although enmity runs deep, and the issue of Kashmir will be difficult to resolve, by establishing an environment of patience, trust, credibility, and goodwill, peace may be possible in South Asia. It is time that the people of both Pakistan and India unite with the international community in sending a message of peace to their leaders.
We have a three-hour stop over at Lahore airport on our way back to Delhi from Islamabad. I am excited about going back home, but, at the same time, am sad at the thought of leaving Pakistan. I don’t know when, if at all, I can come back here, if I can ever again meet some of those wonderful people whom I almost instantly bonded with in my short week-long visit to the country. I wonder if I will again be fortunate enough to get a visa to visit Pakistan.
