Sushobha Barve; against Dal Lake,Srinagar, Kashmir (photo of Sushobha by Altaf Mohammed Abid, Kashmir by Niloufer Rakhangi)

A people’s ‘peace constituency’ has grown in India, Pakistan and Kashmir, nudging governments to move. Mike Brown meets Sushobha Barve who is part of it.

Despite three wars fought since their bloody partition, despite nuclear armaments, terrorism and over half a million troops on both sides in Kashmir, peace is coming between India and Pakistan, argues Sushobha Barve.

‘We can look forward to ending the bitter legacy of the last 60 years and begin a new chapter in our bilateral relations,’ she told a conference in Caux, Switzerland, last August. The most visible sign of a change is the peace dialogue between governments which ‘has been sustained over four years, despite serious provocations’.

At breakthrough talks in 2003, both sides modified their long-held positions on Kashmir, and launched a ‘composite dialogue’ which has made progress on multiple issues, including border security, combating terrorism and economic cooperation. Several rounds of talks have been held on the Kashmir dispute, on such issues as cross-border trade and travel, troop reductions, re-uniting families and humanitarian relief.

In Kashmir last July, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the moment had come when ‘people are energized’ to make a genuine effort ‘to build peace and create the conditions for an historic reconciliation of hearts and minds’.

Sushobha Barve agrees. This ‘emerging story full of hope’ is based on her 20 years’ involvement in the growing ‘peace constituency’ in India and Pakistan. Progress made by governments has been largely ‘people-driven’. This movement has begun to reverse the ‘trust deficit’ accumulated over six decades of ‘deep-seated distrust and hatred between us’. The first significant civil society initiatives began in 1995. In Delhi, 200 Indians and Pakistanis met for the ‘Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy’. The following year, the meeting was repeated in Lahore, and then annually. At the height of the Kargil war in 1999, a women’s group travelled to Pakistan from India, affirming their commitment to peace. The return journey to India brought a senior lawyer, Asma Jehangir, who apologized for Pakistani aggression in that war.

Sushobha first visited Pakistan in 1986, meeting women activists. Initially, she felt some lingering suspicion towards Pakistan. But through many visits, staying in homes, her mistrust melted. Today, the team from the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation which she directs, is in touch with ‘all the key relevant persons in the two governments, as well as dissident Kashmiri leaders’.

For Sushobha, that process started with a Muslim classmate in college in Mumbai. As a Maharashtrian Brahmin, Sushobha began to face her prejudice against this fellow student and apologized for it. ‘This encounter opened the windows of my heart’ to the Muslims in India. It also opened Sushobha’s volunteer work with IofC (then Moral Re-Armament) in India for some 30 years.

A critical turning point came in 1984 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. Sushobha was travelling on a train, stopped by angry mobs. She tried to protect two Sikh businessmen in her compartment, but was grabbed by the neck and pushed aside. The Sikhs were brutally beaten, dragged from the train, stoned and set on fire.

Traumatized, Sushobha was ‘tortured at night by not being able to save the lives of the two innocent men’. It shattered her image of India. Feeling national repentance was needed, she wrote letters of apology to prominent Sikhs. She learned that the Sikh businessmen had somehow survived their massive injuries, and found her way to their homes. ‘I cannot express the joy I felt when I saw Bhupendra Singh lying on his bed. I was greeted not with hostility but as an old friend of the family.’

Sushobha’s work took on a new urgency. In 1992, the destruction of a mosque by right-wing Hindus set off waves of rioting and serial bomb blasts in Mumbai. Thousands died. For three months, Sushobha moved through communities where minority Muslims were under threat, opening communications with the police, confronting hostility at the street level. With Mumbai’s former police chief, she spent years setting up citizen-police ‘mohalla’ committees in 24 areas, rebuilding trust between divided communities through dialogue and practical projects, such as sports facilities.

In 2000, she launched the ‘Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation’ (CDR) in Delhi. In numerous conflict situations, such as the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, she has been actively involved in mediation efforts and research studies.

But Kashmir has been her toughest challenge. ‘Going there over the last ten years has made me realize another side of the story. Kashmir is not a Hindu-Muslim question but a political issue which has never been settled. Even now, many Kashmiris say they don’t know where they really belong.’

The CDR began a series of dialogues, starting in homes, mainly with women. ‘Our ground rule was not to talk about politics but how the conflict had affected us. Each one’s experience, bottled up, was heard.’ The women began to think how they could help others. Someone spoke of a village where there were only widows – they helped them get the compensation that was due. Others set up a project to train destitutes in weaving Pashmina wool.

Eight of these dialogues were held in Srinagar, Jammu, more in Delhi-Gurgaon. They brought in Kashmiri Pandits, the minority Hindus, thousands of whom had fled in the 1990s. ‘We found that both communities had developed their own narratives of the past, completely opposite. But both were based on real experience.’

Many women feared for their sons. A professor expressed how warped life had become for children: ‘Young people are trained to use guns, but there are no courses in how to resolve conflicts.’ So began CDR’s programme of ‘Educators for Peace’ which, since 2003, has trained some 150 teachers to take a peace curriculum into government schools.

In 2004, CDR held the first of seven ‘Intra-Kashmir Dialogues’ for representatives from ‘both Kashmirs’. These have continued in Islamabad, and in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Former foreign
secretaries of both countries have participated, sending proposals back to policy makers.

The dialogues aim to include the most diverse points of view in order for reconciliation to have a chance. They have engaged significant ‘dissident’ leaders such as Yasin Malik, pioneer of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front who, following his release from prison, renounced violence and is leading a non-political Safar-e-Azadi (Journey of Freedom), going village by village in trucks. His message, says Sushobha, is that Kashmiris should not suspect the intentions of the peace process but, at the same time, insist on their right to be included in deciding any
agreement.

Sushobha supports this principle. She quotes one woman: ‘Why are Kashmiris always expected to accommodate Indian and Pakistani interests and suppress our own aspirations? Why don’t you take us into your confidence? Trust us that we will consider your difficulties while responding to your national interests.’

Establishing this trust, Sushobha insists, is the key. ‘I’ve always known you cannot hold people by force. If they don’t feel part of our country, that’s something for us Indians to think about. You can’t appease them by giving money.’

The peace process has to be taken to the masses by Kashmiris themselves. ‘The dialogue participants must be responsible for keeping the lines of communication open so that opportunities for peace are not missed.’

Most difficult for her to ‘keep on learning’, she admits, ‘is to find my own sense of neutrality. So often without realizing it, one suggests something to one side or the other, and then your objectivity gets diminished. This work forces me constantly to face others’ pain and suffering, prompting me to look into my own heart to overcome my pride and blind spots about my country.’

What stops her getting cynical? ‘In the last seven to eight years I have seen what was unbelievable actually becoming a reality. The fact that the peace process is moving forward, and that so many are taking overall responsibility, that’s what gives me hope… Of course there are times when I feel discouraged. But those moments last less and less.’
For more detail, see www.himmat.net/cdr.htm