A Pakistani participant writes about her experience of the four-day workshop that discussed tricky issues like Kashmir, religion and the media
By Sarah Adil

Sarah Adil

An energising four-day training workshop bringing young professionals from India and Pakistan together ended with harmony, promise and trust. This annual initiative by WISCOMP (Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace) in New Delhi involves rigorous training, research and peace dialogues between young people of South Asia, with the purpose of building peace.

This year, I was among the 40 delegates from India and Pakistan from different political, cultural and professional backgrounds, who participated in WISCOMP’s Tenth Annual Conflict Transformation Workshop, dialogue-cum-training with politicians, writers, researchers, professors, journalists, activists and prominent community leaders. We stood together to break the stereotypes, challenging norms, reducing deep-rooted prejudices and hostility and transforming the antagonism into peace through the process of non-violent social change.

Shashi Tharoor, Lok Sabha member, led the first controversial session on Geopolitics and Beyond in India and Pakistan on August 23. Seema Kakran, Assistant Director WISCOMP and Manjrika Sewak, Consultant at WISCOMP, introduced us to the concept of Conflict Transformation and Peace Building.

Shweta Singh, an assistant professor at Lady Shri Ram College, discussed the facilitation processes in conflict management, extending to the limits, and possibilities of intermediary roles. Bushra Gohar, Member of Parliament from the Awami National Party talked about the role of Women Parliamentarians in Pakistan. Mossarat Qadeem, Executive Director PAIMAN, shared her perspectives from FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Senior researcher Sumone Dasgupta discussed gender identity and armed conflict and Seema Kakran shared information about WISCOMP initiatives in Jammu and Kashmir.

Breaking out of the seminar hall, cultural professor Navina Jafa reflected on religious sites, rituals, and people, at a walkabout that included Nizamuddin Dargah and the Iskon temple. Back inside, Scilla Elworthy, Founder of Peace Conflict talked about the challenges to peace building and the need for refreshing sessions to nourish and sustain ourselves. (Most of us took a power nap rather than meditate, only to hear a fellow participant snoring and some of the others giggling).

At the session on Jammu and Kashmir, the participants’ struggle between myth and reality came to the fore as some argued head-on with the experts – Salman Malik, assistant professor Quaid-e-Azam University, Yashwat Deshmukh, Managing Director Team CVoter, writer and researcher Alpana Kishore, and Zafar Choudhary, Founder Director, Indus Research Foundation.

The next morning, there was a composite dialogue to explore peace connectors, led by Isher Ahluwalia, Chairperson Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, journalist Jyoti Malhotra, and Syed Moazzam, Director of Society for Socio-Economic Development and Legal Aid. The discussion continued with persuasive arguments by Mani Shankar Aiyer, Member Rajya Sabha, F.S Aijazuddin, Principal Aitchison College, Salma Malik and a young peacemaker Anum Zakaria.

Journalists Pamela Philipose, Suhasini Haider, Vidya Shankar and Haroon Khalid led the discussion on the media, without which the training would have been incomplete.

Aman ki Asha, the peace initiative launched by the Jang Group in Pakistan and The Times of India, was held up as an example of a positive move by the media, as opposed to the sensationalist highlighting of controversies and negative news that are the norm on both sides.

The last day included interactive exercises on building cross-border partnerships for peace by Ashok Panikkar, a session on Bollywood and India-Pakistan relations by Ira Bhaskar, associate professor Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a quiz session by Pervez Dewan who provided valuable insights into the land of Kashmir and its people.

The WISCOMP workshop was about capacity-building for sustainable peace and security in India and Pakistan. One of its key successes was that participants came to accept conflicting thoughts and showed an eagerness to transform their views into productive action plans. The cross-border relationships we developed, and the concrete ideas proposed, will surely contribute to practical peace initiatives, towards a better future for our region.

The writer is a community activist and advertising account planner. Email: [email protected]