By Murtaza Ali Shah in London
Local economies would benefit hugely if India and Pakistan lifted the visa restrictions that prevent visits from foreign citizens with links to the other country
The long-standing rivalry between the Indian and Pakistani establishments extends even to their foreign missions where officials often treat those with roots in the other country as potential spies.
The United Kingdom is home to nearly three million Indians and Pakistanis, of whom approximately 1.7 million are of Indian and about a million of Pakistani descent. Among these communities, two distinctive groups stand out: Sikhs and Kashmiris, numbering about 800,000 each.
Most Kashmiri Britons migrated from Azad Kashmir to the UK in the early 1970s. Committed to the Sufi traditions of Islam despite, they would love to pay their respects at the famous Sufi shrines in India venerated by both Muslims and Hindus, like Ajmer Sharif and Dergah Bel in Indian administered Kashmir. Some of the Sikh’s holiest places, including the birthplace of their first guru Nanak Sahib, are located in Pakistan.
Allowing expatriate communities, who have nothing to do with the politics of partition, to travel freely would generate millions of pounds annually for the development of both countries, revenue that would be particularly crucial for Pakistan.
Giving a conservative estimate, Ahmed Mahboob, who has been running a travel agency in East London since 1975, thinks that Pakistan could easily net 4-5 million from European and American tourists alone if Sikhs and Hindus were made to feel welcome there. As for India, “if it relaxed its visa martial law, it could net more than 10 million each year from Pakistani origin tourists.”
Most of Mahboob’s clients are of Asian descent, and he notes a trend among the younger generation particularly to avoid traveling to the USA due to increasingly cumbersome security checks and lengthy delays at American airports.
“The rich culture of both these countries has no match in the world,” he adds. “It’s a tragedy that young British Asians go on holidays to Middle East and America but not to India and Pakistan just because they are not motivated. Shrines, temples, mosques and the rich cultural heritage of the south can attract millions of tourists each year. Pakistan’s tourism department is shambles. It has done nothing ever to promote Pakistan.”
Elderly Sikhs and Kashmiris are so frustrated by the process that they often just give up. As a result, their children — tens of thousands of new generation Indians, Pakistanis and Kashmiris who would love to travel to their land of origin – don’t even bother to try, because their parents and grandparents lost hope in the Indian and Pakistani bureaucracy.
“I would love to go to India and Pakistan, visit the major Sikh shrines and meet Sikh activists,” says Davinder Singh, a Sikh identity campaigner in Britain. He has travelled throughout the world to link up with like-minded Sikh groups but has refrained from going to the two countries he would most love to visit: India and Pakistan.
“I fear that my visit to Pakistan will be held against me and I will be seen as a suspect in India. Other family members and friends, who live in the UK and Canada, have visited holy sites in both India and Pakistan and loved the experience. They have all commented on the hospitality and respect towards Sikhs of those in Pakistan,” he adds.
Sikhs in Canada and the USA have similar experiences – or at least perceptions, given the negative stories about visit restrictions that everyone has heard. They too could be regular visitors to India and Pakistan, but are deterred by the cumbersome visa procedures.
Rami Ranger, MBE (Member of the British Empire), is a successful Pakistan-born businessman based in Britain, the son of Sikh parents from Multan. Ranger is the founder President of the Pakistan-India-UK Friendship Forum that seeks to build bridges between British citizens of Indian and Pakistani descent. He takes inspiration from his illustrious father, Shaheed Nanak Singh, assassinated in Multan in 1947 for opposing the division of India on the basis of religion. Ranger blames the break up of India on the ‘divide and rule’ policy of the British colonists.
He urges both Pakistani and Indian governments to “come to their senses and resolve all issues through dialogue. We owe it to our next generation to live in peace and harmony like good neighbours.”
Ranger has visited Sikh holy places in Pakistan, which he believes is a goldmine with a huge potential for trade and tourism — a potential that can only be realised when both countries end hostilities. “Pakistan also needs to do more to make visitors feel safe. Thousands of Sikhs and Hindus could visit Pakistan every month and generate much needed revenue. Once hostilities end in the subcontinent, the region will progress by leaps and bounds.”
Gulab Dhalu, an arts/music promoter from Vancouver, Canada, on a visit to London, has heard a great deal about Sikh holy sites in Pakistan from his devout parents. In 2008 he decided to travel across Pakistan for a month and meet his music idol Abrarul Haq – but his parents advised him against it due to the attacks by militants on religious minorities. He didn’t need much convincing. “The media was full of stories on Pakistan and how Sikhs were being kidnapped. I would love to visit Pakistan but only when it’s safe,” he says, adding that his best friends in Canada are Pakistani Canadians.
Expatriate Indians and Pakistanis who manage to obtain visas to the other country often complain that secret agencies shadow them during their visit. The role of the secret agencies carries through to their foreign missions where intelligence agents are also involved in vetting visa applications.
Sources at India and Pakistan’s foreign missions, speaking to this correspondent on condition of anonymity, admit that Indians and Pakistanis put each other’s nationals through a torturous visa process and routinely refuse visas.
“We look out for passport holders from the other country and treat with equal suspicion those Indians and Pakistanis who are either dual nationals or have given up their Indian/Pakistani nationality,” said one.
His counterpart in the other mission concurs. “If an applicant originates from the other country we mark him out as a suspect.”
British-born Ali Shawl, 34, has had his visa rejected twice by Pakistan’s High Commission in London – half of his family lives in Sialkot in Pakistan, the other half is from in Srinagar in Indian administered Kashmir. He says he did everything to fulfill the requirements of the visa application.
“I have never met some of my relatives in my life,” he sighs. “We have mourned the loss of our dear ones on both sides of the border – over the telephone. We are not allowed to meet. I mean what wrong could I do to someone? I can’t comprehend this madness.”
There are many others like Ali. Many have given up hope. Others, however, remain committed to the real and achievable dream of a dawn of thaw in relations between the warring siblings, and the establishment of a permanent peace in the region.
