Raazi for rapprochement

Poonam Khaira Sidhu

AS I watched the movie Raazi and the intelligence folks moving in and out of the two countries quite seamlessly, I could not help realise the similarities we share with Pakistan and its people, who are no different from us. It is strange then that a bloody history and ‘cobra fences’ and mined 

borders separate us. 

Anyone who has watched the Beating Retreat at Wagah or Hussainiwala border would have felt a wrench, seeing the crowds gathered on either side, straining to look across the border, even as our BSF and the Pakistan Rangers strut and shadowbox on respective sides. Most Indians who live along the long porous border through Rajasthan, Punjab and J&K have lived through air raids, screaming sirens of at least two wars and Kargil-type faceoffs. Many have seen their lands cut off by cobra fencing. And because joining the Army is still a proud privilege in these parts, even young ones are taught to hold a gun and aim straight at the dushman.  

As I watched the movie, I was reminded of another ‘Indo-Pak war’: one that broke out sporadically on the playgrounds of Brian Redhead Court in Manchester many years ago. On a Colombo scholarship, at the University of Manchester, with Commonwealth bureaucrats that included some Pakistanis, we had a strange experience. Our children went to the same neighbourhood school and play group. But every other day, there would be a spat. Either my boys, raised on stories of Pakistanis who had shot at and wounded their soldier-grandfather, would take up the cudgels on his behalf and attack Pakistani kids; or Pakistani kids inspired by similar stories of Indo-Pak dushmani would start a ‘shoot-out’ with toy guns, much to the horror of British teachers. At ages 3 and 7, their inspiration was the stories they had heard of Indo-Pak wars, even though they shared a happy comradeship with Pakistani kids.

If we introspect this strange love-hate relationship with our neighbour — they love our movies and television dramas while we love theirs; they love our clothes and jewellery, we theirs — it is then that you realise that the only option for us is peace. The only way forward is to set aside our history books, forget about the bloodshed of Partition and the wars, and start sharing resources. We need all the resources we can garner to fight the battles of the 21st century — illiteracy, shortage of food and water, diseases, global warming, pollution — so that our coming generations have amity and abundance instead of festering enmity. The people on either side of the border will be Raazi for rapprochement.