LAHORE, May 27: The four-day seminar on “Assessing people-to-people initiatives” concluded here on Friday with an emphasis on the need for making South Asia a nuclear weapon-free zone to ensure safety of its people. In a declaration read out after its conclusion, the seminar proposed joint opposition to the US bases in South Asia, and solidarity in the region with struggle against occupation of Palestine and Iraq.

The declaration was read out by Ms Kamla Bhasin and Mr Smitu Kothari from India and Mr A.H. Nayyar and Mr Muhammad Tehseen of Pakistan. Around 50 peace and rights activists from Pakistan and India attended the moot.

According to the speakers, the seminar proposed protection of shared ecosystems in the region and widening of its people-centred economic and trade activities. A museum of partition should be established to let the coming generations know about its painful impact on the peoples, they said.

The moot also demanded decolonization of the regional countries’ legal and institutional fabric, creation of a South Asian news service and a popular magazine.

The participants pledged to publish a book and produce CDs in Urdu, Hindi and English containing a comprehensive history of initiatives in order to acknowledge, document and disseminate this important aspect of peoples’ history. The moot, they said, further pointed to many challenges that needed to be addressed in future for the betterment of the peoples of the region.

These included difficult and humiliating visa situation, abject poverty, religious fundamentalism, vested interests, civil-military bureaucracy, military-industrial complex, repressive and discriminatory laws, prejudice and stereotypes, extra-regional influences, adverse impacts of neo-liberal economic globalization, and state-centred security conceptions.

They said the workshop was held to critically assess 40 years of the people-to-people initiatives for peace, justice and democracy that had been taken by groups in India and Pakistan.

This assessment was made possible by the concerted efforts of organizations in both countries, including the South Asia Partnership (Pakistan), Shirkatgah, Intercultural Resources, Lokayan and the Sangat South Asia. The gathering was supported by the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.

The context within which these initiatives had taken place had been the progressive breakdown, since independence, of political relations between the two governments, which had critically affected a free flow of people and information.

The shared civilization history of the region had been fragmented by nationalism framed by antagonistic attitudes, they said.

They further read out that there had been efforts by political actors on both sides of the borders to deepen rift by stoking distrust and hatred. The people of the two countries had also faced adverse impacts of gradual militarization (of the region) and with the advent of nuclearization in 1998, a climate of tension and distrust had further compounded the situation.

They said Pakistan and India also shared endemic social and economic problems ranging from polarization of wealth and power to bonded and child workers, from discrimination and violence against women to marginalization of minorities and other vulnerable groups, from harsh living conditions for a majority of urban dwellers to growing displacement and dispossession of rural dwellers from their sources of subsistence.

Economic policies increasingly directed by non-national interests and an exponential growth in defence and nuclear expenditure at the direct expense of basic social programmes are among other ills the two neighbours had shared.

Numerous groups and movement had taken root in both societies to these challenges. Many of the groups felt strong need to exchange and share energies to collaboratively address these issues, they said.

The seminar participants shared a widening belief that the real security of the subcontinent lay not only in reduction and resolution of political issues, but also in a firm democratic process.

Thousands of initiatives had been taken over the past four decades not only by transnational organizations like the Pakistan-India Forum for Peace and Democracy, but also by theatre groups, women, students and professionals.