Bharat Dogra
AFTER days of escalation of India-Pakistan conflict, the people of these countries and the wider South Asian region heaved a big sigh of relief when the two countries announced a complete ceasefire from the evening of May 10, Saturday. This decision of ceasefire from 17.00 hours Indian time includes ceasefire on all fronts including land, air and sea.
This ceasefire has led to widespread feelings of happiness and relief, particularly keeping in view the fact that the conflict had been steadily witnessing escalation and highly worrying attacks had taken place till just a short while before the announcement of the ceasefire.
Going further up the escalation ladder for just a few days more would have led to very high risk situations and fortunately, with wisdom prevailing over recklessness, this has been avoided.
Leaders of both sides, while deciding in favor of early ceasefire and giving up escalation, have shown commitment to peace and safety of people. The leaders of both sides equally deserve high praise for this. They should carry forward this good work to further strengthen peace in the coming days. At the same time any outside leaders and diplomats who contributed to this peace and ceasefire also deserve our thanks and appreciation.
Leaders of both sides which have taken this peace initiative should get wide support from people and particularly from all forces of peace, overcoming narrow considerations. Opposition parties can be as critical as they want on other issues, but with regard to ceasefire they should offer their happy and enthusiastic support in both countries.
To make decisions like ceasefires more acceptable to certain segments of their people, leaders sometimes make some exaggerated claims. Let them do so as long as they remain committed to peace. As far as the forces of peace are concerned, from their point of view, everyone and anyone can declare victory in their own way as long as they remain committed to peace and ceasefire.
It is likely that some very narrow-minded persons and forces will oppose this ceasefire on both sides. Some terrorist groups as well as some extremist groups and their sympathizers and supporters are likely to be among them. However more visible may be some of the hawkish experts known for their belligerence and extreme hostility. They will try to spoil the time when people in general would like to be happy and hopeful. In fact one can already hear some such shrill and harsh voices, and these are being promoted unfortunately by big media outlets. Of course everyone has freedom of expression, but should emerging conditions of peace, achieved with a lot of difficulty, be disturbed so soon?
Such voices against peace and peace efforts should be ignored. If one is to listen to them, South Asia will never experience peace and merely go from one high risk situation to another.
Of course there are much wider challenges and tasks beyond the ceasefire. Leaders of the countries need to sit together to take decisions to ensure that the kind of deeply distressing incidents which led to such a high-risk situation should not happen again. There should be continuing and cordial dialogue to sort out all contentious issues in a spirit of give and take. This is the only way for neighboring countries to live in peace and thereby contribute to the well-being of each other. Again this is not to underestimate the difficulties and obstacles that exist. These are of a serious nature, but not unsurmountable, and if there is sincerity in resolving complex, difficult and long-disputed issues, these can be resolved to the extent at least to ensure that peace can continue.
The world has seen very prolonged conflicts in recent years with very heavy costs and loss of life. In this wider context it is particularly welcome that a ceasefire could be reached at an early stage. One hopes that the same spirit of clinching peace even in difficult conditions will continue to guide the people and the leadership of the two countries.
C. Counter currents
