India - Pakistan Conference: A Road Map towards Peace | Heinrich Böll Stiftung

CONFERENCE

India - Pakistan Conference: A Road Map towards Peace

India and Pakistan constitute a volatile region of Asia. Distrust, suspicion and hostility has flared into wars and conflict on occasion, and kept relations between the two countries simmering even in the best of times. Efforts to improve bilateral ties in the past few years have been sporadic, although the composite dialogue formalized through a joint a statement between Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf was significant, with tremendous potential. Four rounds were completed and the fifth in progress when the 26th November 2008 attack on Mumbai derailed the entire process that the two governments have not been able to bring back on track. Additionally, some of the provisions of the joint statement at Sharm el Sheikh faced strong opposition in India.

Ever since, people in both countries who are desirous of peace, have been trying to convince their respective governments to make serious attempts to restart the dialogue. The importance of dialogue and communication between the two nuclear armed neighbours cannot be over-emphasised, as war has to be avoided at all costs. And peace ushered in through concerted and calibrated effort. War can destroy the fragile economic and political stability in the South Asian region as a whole, with disastrous consequences for the common people. The dialogue is important because it helps us sort out our problems peacefully. The idea behind organizing this conference for ‘Roadmap Towards Peace’ was to get experts and activists who have spent their lives promoting peace on the same platform to map out a charter for peace and exert pressure on both governments to pursue peace as an ideology and commitment for the development of India, Pakistan and indeed South Asia.

The Conference was announced on 7 January 2010 at the Press Club, New Delhi, India. More than 70 media persons attended the Press meeting, thereby, establishing the relevance of such a process. The minutes of all the three days of the conference have been recorded on paper. The three days Conference was widely covered by the Media in both India and Pakistan. On the third day, a Declaration was drafted based on the proceedings of the Conference which has been disseminated widely on the same evening and also widely carried in the media the following day.

Organisations part of this initiative are: ANHAD, Centre for Policy Analysis, COVA, Focus on the Global South, India; Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Hind-Pak Dosti Manch, Peace Mumbai, SAHR, SANGAT, and SAPA.