MUMBAI | Like many school kids, Gaurav Bhawnani thought Pakistanis were dangerous, regressive and violent. But his perspective changed after three weeks at an international camp in Maine (US), where he shared a room with some students from across the border. “The camp was an eye-opener as it helped dispel a lot of misconceptions about the two countries. Now, some of my best friends are Pakistanis,” the Std IX student from Yashodham High School, Goregaon, said. “And our friendship is life-long.”
Bhawnani was among the 10 Indian students who recently spent three weeks at the Maine camp in the US as part of the Seeds of Peace (2009) programme. Sponsored by the US State Department, the Seeds of Peace is a conflict-resolution camp for young minds from different regions of conflict across the world.
The students, who come from some of Mumbai’s prestigious schools, seem to have metamorphosed into Indo-Pak peaceniks after the camp. They shared their experiences at a media meet at the American Center on Tuesday, where they joined by their counterparts in Lahore via video conference.
Ruth Verma from J B Petit School didn’t think she would know a Pakistani so intimately before she met Noorzadeh Raja from Lahore. “Now Noorzadeh is more close to me than my own sister,” Verma said. The campers debated, among other issues, Kashmir, the Durand Line (between Pakistan and Afghanistan) and terrorism.
“Pakistanis felt cornered in all the three debates because they were involved one way or the other with all the three issues,” Daksh Mehta from New Era School said.
26/11 did figure in their discussions at the camp. But the Indian students want their compatriots not to blame all Pakistanis for this. “We faced one 26/11. But Pakistan is being brutalised by terrorism constantly,” Zeenia Kolah from J B Petit reasoned.
Launched in 1993 by award-winning author John Wallach, the non-profit Seeds of Peace programme has undertaken a project to present both Pakistani and Indian versions of history as taught in the textbooks of the two countries.
Read Mohammed Wajihuddin’s article at The Times of India »