THE KASHMIR BUS

Kashmir was divided into India-held and Pakistan-held portions in 1948, after a cease fire was accepted by both countries in the wake of the mujahadeen uprising that attempted to annex Kashmir to Pakistan. At that time, people would travel from Srinagar (the capital of India-held Kashmir) to Muzzafarabad (capital of Pakistan-held Kashmir) as a matter of course. All this stopped in 1948. The cease fire line became the ‘Berlin Wall’, keeping people confined to their respective areas. The consequences were no different, families got trapped in the two sides, and human bonds were snapped. The cease fire line dividing Kashmir therefore ranks with the Berlin Wall and the Demilitrased Zone dividing the two Koreas as a living testimony of the grief and snapping of family ties brought about by wars that redefine boundaries.

A series of events going back about three years has seen a certain thawing of India-Pakistan relations, and the ‘bus’ has been both a metaphor and reality in this thawing. It was the right wing Prime Minister of India’s BJP party, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who crossed over to Lahore in Pakistan in a bus, signalling the beginning of such a bus service between the international border, through the state of Punjab in India. The popularity of the Lahore-Delhi bus, which brought many young toddlers from Pakistan to India for complicated heart operations that caught the imagination of the media and people, kindled hopes that the bus service connecting the two Kashmir’s, dormant for 57 years might restart. However, the presence of a variety of militant groups and the massive army presence from the two nations seemed to suggest that the process of peace may not be able to cross such a hurdle.

The ouster of the BJP led alliance, replaced by a centre-left alliance in the Indian elections last year rendered the peace process murky. What stance would the new Indian Government take? After initial stutters, a couple of meetings between the leaders from the two sides, President Musharaff and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not only revived the peace process, but made the possibility of the Kashmir bus a reality. And finally, the date of April 7, 2005 was set for the first bus to travel from Srinagar to Muzzafarabad, and vice versa, in 57 years. The sensible thing decided was that only members of divided families would get a ticket, and not politicians, media or tourists,

I was born in Kashmir, after 1948, and my parents would regularly travel between the two cities before the bus stopped. I can still recall the childhood stories of the other side (I am from the India side), and the descriptions of the bus and horse-cart journies my mother would recount. And as it happened, I reached Srinagar on the 6th of April, to begin a process of orientation and trainings of school teachers in order to revive school education there, which has been badly hit by the violence of the last fifteen years.

Four militant organisations, rattled by the state initiative for peace from both sides of the border, had publicly announced that they would not let the bus crossover, and had openly threatened the passengers to cancel their journey since the bus would end up being their coffin. The tension in Srinagar on the 6th of April, was electric. People were waiting for something to happen, and they were not disappointed. About 200 metres away from where some of us were standing, gunfire erupted around 3pm. Believing that the passengers were in safe custody in the beautiful building called the Tourist Reception Centre, militants attacked it in order to eliminate or shock the passengers to cancel their trip. In the ensuing gun battle, the wonderful building caught fire and was completely gutted, and I watched in dismay the erasure of a childhood city landmark.

The question now was – would the bus leave tomorrow? The Indian Prime Minister and the Congress party president Sonia Gandhi were due to arrive to flag off the bus, but would they be allowed to do so by the security apparatus? By the evening of the 6th it was announced that the two would in fact fly over to Kashmir to flag off the bus. On 7th April, Srinagar city was completely shut down. But in pouring rain at around 11am, the bus was duly flagged off by the two leaders (watched by millions on television). It was tracked by live TV cameras, and within half an hour news came in that it had survived an attack on way. By 3pm it had reached the cease fire line and would cross over anytime.

In the evening at around 8pm, passengers from the bus that had started simultaneously from Muzzafarabad reached Srinagar to an unprecedented reception, where many of us were hugging complete strangers, with tears freely intermixing.

Peace certainly scored over the gun on April 7. The bus continues to ply. But is the process of peace likely to continue and endure, or is it likely to snap in the next gun battle? Frankly no one knows. The sound bytes from the two governments are mostly encouraging - from the armed separatists and militants, confused. Violence takes place everyday. But the bus has not stopped to ply; and I will again be in Kashmir in October for a 20 day training this time. One step at a time – who knows that the bus, overburdened with hopes of peace, might turn out to be the turning point for the end of violence, and perhaps a political solution? So be it.