Outbreak of India-Pak peace at CWG

Gold Coast, April 7

Online, a war of words has broken out among Indian and Pakistan cricketers over Kashmir. Shahid Afridi on one side and Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan etc on the other.
Offline, here at CWG, there’s lots of peace. “All Indians we’ve met are just awesome,” says Laiba Najeeb and Muhammad Jazlan, students from Lahore, sent here by their school because they’re just awesome in studies.
But all Indians they’ve met can’t be so very awesome, surely? Those who live in India can actually vouch for the fact that all of Indian people, 100 percent of them, aren’t “just awesome”.
“Well, the ones we’ve met are awesome,” says Laiba, head girl of City School in Lahore. “Today we went to the Games Village and we met lots of Indian athletes. All of them were really very nice.”
“I’ve met many Indians, and all of them were wonderful, very polite and friendly,” says Jazlan, who is of Telugu heritage. “My forefathers had moved from Hyderabad in the Deccan to Hyderabad in Sind after Partition,” he adds, confessing that he does not at
all know the Telugu language. But he speaks a very friendly language about the Indian people he’s come across through his life. “In Malaysia, I’ve met many Indian students. And
I mean it, they really were awesome.”
The two schoolgoers want peace between India and Pakistan; they say it would be nice if the younger people of the two countries are given the opportunity to be friends and live their lives in peace.
Peace!

There’s no hostility among Indian and Pakistani journalist as well — far from it. We come across four journalists from Peshawar and they express their view that love must replace enmity. “On TV or social media, the people or players start this tamasha,” says Asim Sheeraz, who runs a sports publication in Peshawar. “It’s a fight provoked by the media. Many of these people, Afridi or Gambhir, don’t realise that they’re being provoked so that the ratings of TV channels and websites go up. On TV, they start programs named Takra and Jung. It’s not right.” He says what he is saying represents the majority opinion in his country.
Sheeraz believes that there are individuals/groups in both countries who benefit from the tension — politicians, for one. “They would go out of business if there is peace,” he says. “The budget on arms would fall. Some people don’t want that.”
“The tension has always been there between India and Pakistan,” says Ijaz Ahmad, also of Peshawar. He remembers fondly the visits he’d made to India, especially in 1998 when he was hosted in Delhi by “IG of Police Mr Sharma and his wife”. “I stayed in their home for many days,” remembers Ahmad, relating stories of meeting nice people wherever he went — Delhi, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Kolkata, everywhere.
“If the Europeans can be one, then why should not the Asians come forward and have a calm, peaceful Asia?” says Ahmad, who’s represented Pakistan in hockey in the 1980s. “We should do it for the younger generation. That’s the right way to live life.”
Laiba Najeeb and Muhammad Jazlan, bright-faced students from Lahore, at the threshold of life as adults, agree wholeheartedly — that it would be just awesome.