Appeal on behalf of the daughters of India, Pakistan

[Bang Galore]

Appeal on behalf of the daughters of India, Pakistan

Pakistanis have always faced problems obtaining visas to India — and vice versa. I have family on both sides of the border who have faced these problems. My mother’s sister moved to Pakistan as a teenager and could never visit India again. My father’s sister, the only one of her siblings who lived in India, last visited Pakistan in 1993 for a family wedding. She passed away in 2005 without ever being able to return.

I remember how crazy it was when I first applied for an Indian visa, in 1988. The consulate was still operative in Karachi then, and I had to get in line at 5.30 a.m. I remember seeing a lot of elderly people in tears because their visas were denied.

Things haven’t changed much. In fact, the visa process has become more difficult. Aman ki Asha is doing a great job of raising people’s awareness by highlighting these issues and one hopes the situation will improve.

What really needs to be highlighted is the problems of people from either country who have moved across the border, leaving family behind, particularly the elderly, and women of Pakistani origin married to Indians, or of Indian origin married to Pakistanis.

Rubina, a Pakistani supporter of Aman ki Asha, wrote to me to share the story of her mother. Mehrunissa was the only member of her family who moved to Pakistan after 1947 along with her husband and his family.

After her husband passed away and her only daughter (Rubina) got married and moved abroad, Mehrunissa wanted to visit her siblings in India. She applied for a visa in 2000, travelled to Islamabad, stayed in a hotel, got in a long line for three days before she was called into the Embassy — where she was denied the visa.

Mehrunissa repeated this process every year and was denied each time. In 2004 she was very sick when she applied. Told to come to the Embassy in person, she appealed for a special consideration. She was still waiting for a reply when she passed away in August 2004, without being able to see her siblings one last time.

“My khala (mother’s sister) in India also tried to come and meet her and she also couldn’t get a visa to Pakistan,” writes Rubina. She appeals to the authorities on both sides of the border to be “lenient towards sick and elderly... We need to make it easier for them to be able to visit their loved ones.”

As Krish, an Indian supporter of Aman ki Asha, wrote, these elders “have already witnessed a lot of bad things, losing many of their loved ones. And now, the visa denials.”

Given that arranged marriages are the norm in this region, why should young people be penalised for conforming to their families’ wishes? If people want to marry across the border to keep up the family or friendly ties why are they being discouraged from doing so? Why are visas denied to daughters of India who are married to Pakistanis — and vice versa?

People often give up their original citizenships when they get married and move to a foreign country. However, this poses no problem elsewhere in the world. They are still able to visit their original countries without a problem. Getting married to a foreign national should not mean cutting off ties to your homeland.

But for girls giving up their Indian nationality and becoming Pakistani citizens, and those giving up their Pakistani nationality to become Indian citizens, that’s exactly what it ends up meaning. Visas are denied or the process made so complicated as to put them off trying.

Fatima from Mumbai was my neighbour when she first came to live in Karachi after getting married to a Pakistani in 1990. We lost touch after I left Pakistan in 1996, but after reading my article on visa issues (“Let’s get to know each other, work together”, Aman ki Asha, June 22, 2011), she contacted me, and shared her experiences.

Her sister Aisha is also married to a Pakistani. Both sisters have found it almost impossible to visit India since getting married. Aisha was unable to get a visa for India to be with the family when their father passed away. Fatima says that when Aisha applied for a visa in 2003 at the Indian Embassy in Islamabad after their father’s death, the visa officer told her: “Why are you crying if your father has died, did you not know he would die when you married a Pakistani?” She was denied a visa and returned home in tears.

Aisha finally obtained a visa in 2009, after their mother also passed away. The process involved submitting the death certificate, bills and other documents to prove her identity. Aisha’s children also applied, but were denied the visa.

If the girl is married to a government officer, as Fatima is, she dares not even apply for a visa to India for fear that her husband will be put on a surveillance list for having ties to a ‘hostile’ neighbour. After getting married, she met her father only once when he visited Pakistan in 1995. The last she saw her mother was in 2004 when she visited Pakistan. She feels that she might never have a chance to visit India. It is highly likely that her children who haven’t visited India yet might never have the chance to visit their mother’s homeland.

It is not that people of the two countries do not want peace or that they reject friends who move to a different country after getting married. Fatima still keeps in touch with her friends in India via email and facebook. Their attitude towards her has not changed, she asserts.

I cannot understand how these girls who grew up in India and love their homeland become a security threat if they are married to Pakistanis? They miss their family, the streets they grew up in, the colourful festivals they attended, and the laughter and the tears they shared with their friends. Why do they have to be exiled from their homeland? Why do their children not get a chance to get to know their mothers’ birthplace and share their love for their homeland? Why should grandparents not be allowed to enjoy their grandchildren? Why should cross-border children not get a chance to experience the love and affection of their grandparents?

Fatima is pessimistic. Things won’t change, she feels, until families of the concerned authorities “don’t share the pain that we are going through, ...the pain of marrying their daughters (across the border) and the feeling of uncertainty about when they will next have an opportunity to meet their daughter or whether they will die like my parents did, without ever having the chance to meet again”.

“Every daughter of India in Pakistan and every Pakistani daughter in India should get to visit their parents on either side of the border,” believes Fatima — and she is right. She hopes fervently that things will change in her lifetime and that she does not have to “wilt away waiting for a solution,” as she puts it.

This is a heartfelt appeal to the governments of both countries: Please give these daughters of both nations the right to visit and meet their loved ones.

Appeal on behalf of the daughters of India, Pakistan

 

[blackops]

My best friend grand father wanted to visit lahore to see his village and his home but he never got a chance to do it though it may be possible for him to visit this year

 

[Mani2020]

There are many people not only muslims but also hindus and sikhs whose families live across the border but due the the restrictions and strict policies of visa issuance on both sides result in their inability to meet their relatives for years and some even unable to attend their funerals . But there are some valid issues causing hindrance in the process , People can't be facilitated in a better way until and unless relation b/w these two countries get better

 

[fd24]

Nice post Bang. It must be hard to not see family. Such a shame

 

[lem34]

Shame on both corrupt govnts for not resolving these issues

 

[Jade]

I cannot believe that in this age cross border marriages are happening. Know India Pakistan relations, why do people arrange for such marriages, unless they don’t want to see their daughter ever again.

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Shame on both corrupt govnts for not resolving these issues

I would not blame India and Pakistan governments for this tragedy. I would blame the families for putting their daughters in such situations.

 

[Omar1984]

I cannot believe that in this age cross border marriages are happening. Know India Pakistan relations, why do people arrange for such marriages, unless they don’t want to see their daughter ever again.

---------- Post added at 03:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:09 PM ----------



I would not blame India and Pakistan governments for this tragedy. I would blame the families for putting their daughters in such situations.

So many of our Urdu speaking Mohajirs in Karachi and Hyderabad marry within their families left back in India. Most Pakistanis, who always lived in the land of Pakistan, have no relatives in India and we dont go to India to get married.

I know an Urdu speaking Mohajir who has Pakistani citizenship here in the U.S. who married his cousin in India and now they both are living in U.S. She has Indian citizenship and he has Pakistani citizenship they both are cousins and now are husband and wife.

 

[Jade]

So many of our Urdu speaking Mohajirs in Karachi and Hyderabad marry within their families left back in India. Most Pakistanis, who always lived in the land of Pakistan, have no relatives in India and we dont go to India to get married.

I know an Urdu speaking Mohajir who has Pakistani citizenship here in the U.S. who married his cousin in India and now they both are living in U.S. She has Indian citizenship and he has Pakistani citizenship they both are cousins and now are husband and wife.

That is fine, but family relations cannot be more important than their daughter's future.

 

[kugga]

So many of our Urdu speaking Mohajirs in Karachi and Hyderabad marry within their families left back in India. Most Pakistanis, who always lived in the land of Pakistan, have no relatives in India and we dont go to India to get married.

I know an Urdu speaking Mohajir who has Pakistani citizenship here in the U.S. who married his cousin in India and now they both are living in U.S. She has Indian citizenship and he has Pakistani citizenship they both are cousins and now are husband and wife.

Nt only mohajirs living in karachi but also people living punjab have their families in india (I wont call them mohajirs btw).. so when its your family you don't care about country you just marry your son or daughter 'cause its your family.

 

[Areesh]

I cannot believe that in this age cross border marriages are happening. Know India Pakistan relations, why do people arrange for such marriages, unless they don’t want to see their daughter ever again.

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I would not blame India and Pakistan governments for this tragedy. I would blame the families for putting their daughters in such situations.

I agree with this post.

 

[Mani2020]

You can't blame just governments of both sides for that because public is also to be blamed, the reason is hate, even if governments allow easy visa rules still going across the border is not easy and many people who go never come back because some of them are killed and some got hurt by different means there are also some who return back safely but still a good proportion of people are afraid from going across the border, that fear has resulted to influence the strict rules for visa , no country wants to create a scandal where they can be blamed, because there are certain elements who don't want relationships b/w these two countries to go smooth, like the incident in which a Pakistani tourists bus was attacked by few extremist in india , so that factor had really played in the mind of the people, and the ones who by somehow came back Pakistan safely would never want to go again to india , similarly there can also be few elements in Pakistan .

So when you have such mentality in general public its never easy for you to grant easy mobilization. If public from both sides really want easy cross border mobilization then they have to really show their honest worth for relationship .

Though in past few months Pakistani leadership (all three leaders of 3 biggest parties) showed their positive gesture to india and for indian public (although i am one of many who still thinks that there gesture was not the right one for Pakistanis to ease through relationship because there were some elements that were way beyond the positivity and directly contradicting with the ideology and Quaid-e-Azam concept, but that was for Pakistanis but for indians that was highly positive gesture by political parties of Pakistan) so they needed to respond it in order to regulate good relationships but there was no response.

Basically if you consider all the pros and cons carefully its very difficult to have good relationship b/w these two countries, atleast for me , you may call me pessimist or realist but thats what i think, both these countries can have good relationships in patches but forever is impossibility . one can always see the roller coaster pattern in relationships of both countries , you can judge it from this that currently both countries are having its 3rd generation of people but still the hater is as it was .simply because many people are not ready to accept the partition , they still can't digest the fact , until and unless such mentality prevails ,for me its a no end street

 

[Omar1984]

Nt only mohajirs living in karachi but also people living punjab have their families in india (I wont call them mohajirs btw).. so when its your family you don't care about country you just marry your son or daughter 'cause its your family.

All of the Punjabi Muslims who lived in whats now Indian Punjab migrated to Pakistan, were killed in the way, or live in a small city called Malerkotla (far away from the Pak-Ind border) where Sikh people's holy man told Sikhs not to harm Muslims, everywhere else in Indian Punjab Muslims have been wiped out. So we Punjabi Muslims have no relatives in India. Maybe a few Pakistani Punjabi Sikhs and Hindus have some relatives in Indian Punjab who migrated to India in 1947,and they chose to stay in Pakistan, but the chances of Pakistani Punjabis having relatives in Indian Punjab is very slim.

However, there are still plenty of Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, Gujrat, Mumbai, Calcutta, etc where Urdu Speaking Mohajirs came from.

 

[Mani2020]

"Aman ki asha" was a good thing started by the two entities i.e geo and times of india. but what will "aman ki asha" do when at one time times of india showing "aman ki asha" and all friendly stuff but 100's of other indian channels showing programs filled with hater and all fabricated not even one of them holds any solid ground.

I am a Pakistani but if you ask me on neutral basis there is hardly a Pakistani news channel who shows any propaganda or hater filled programs against india during normal times, i can openly say to indian members that they can themself stick to Pakistani news channel for a whole day and i can assure you , they will not find a single hate filled program against india, but indian news channels nothing needs to be said as you people know what are they upto ,it seems they have enough spare time to create some stupid programs like they created the potato with pimples and portrayed them as Pakistan nuclear weapons, or an indian airforce aircraft shown and portrayed as Pakistani aircraft lol, every second day they show some highly exaggerated and fabricated propaganda . Many people like us on this forum know the reality and have some awareness so we may not believe that channel or even next time we will not see it but what about those who have no knowledge? what about those whose sole source of information is TV channels? still there is high rate of illiterate people in both countries who have no awareness and believe what they hear , so for them these channels have become source of hate towards Pakistan . If one really wants to have good relationship b/w these two countries one needs to stand against these channels or other sources spreading false propaganda, which seems highly unlikely , so for me this "aman ki asha" thing is not going to have any huge impact

 

[Mech]

Self delete.

 

[Mech]

I feel, the parents ought to be more prudent. Its not the governments fault. Rather, the fault lies with the folks who make it happen despite the knowledge that they are intentionally screwing their kids.