Sapan News Feature – www.southasiapeace.com
Dozens of Indians and Pakistanis with ancestral roots in Chakwal, Punjab are scheduled to meet at the Kartarpur Corridor on Wednesday, reuniting old neighbours and friends.
Delhi-based Rotarian Anil Ghai, whose family has strong connections in Chakwal dating back to before Partition, will lead the Indian delegation. Ghai’s family had to flee Pakistan with their belongings in tow in a Dakota aircraft. His family still remember their neighbours. During a visit to Pakistan in 1996, Ghai had rekindled some of these ties.
The establishment of Chakwal International Group about six months ago gave momentum to the historic meeting.
“Everyone is welcome, they do not have to be Rotarians,” says Mohammed “Mo” Ayyaz, a Rotarian in London who is also from Chakwal and one of the driving forces behind the initiative.
The first meeting is a pilot exercise which Ayyaz hopes will mark the “beginning of a tsunami of peace.” Ayyaz himself plans to visit Kartarpur with other international Rotarians’ delegations to mark the UN Day of Peace on 21 September 2022.
This week’s meeting of Indian and Pakistani Rotary Club members and others at Kartarpur also highlights the Rotarians’ efforts to develop an Indus Peace Park near the Kartarpur entrance. The park is envisaged as an ‘Oasis of Peace’ where people from both sides of the border can have unfettered interactions with each other and celebrate their joint cultures.
The people of Chakwal are proud of their culture “based on the peaceful society found in the Indus Valley civilisation, complemented by the humanitarian wisdom encapsulated in the teachings of Punjabi Sufi poets like Bulla Shah and Mian Mohammed Saab,” says Ayyaz, also one of the 12 directors of the Indus Peace Park Society. The uniqueness of Chakwal district is further enhanced by the Katas Raj temple complex, a holy site for Hindus.
The Kartarpur Corridor functions by way of an agreement between Pakistan and India, enabling up to 5,000 Indian yatrees (pilgrims) from India to enter Pakistan every day. The visa-free corridor was inaugurated in November 2019 by Prime Minister Imran Khan for Baba Guru Nanak Dev’s 550th birthday celebrations.
