India and Pakistan: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/04/in...04kash.html?hp

India and Pakistan: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
By AMY WALDMAN

Published: July 4, 2004

UROOSA, Jammu and Kashmir - From his front porch in this village at the edge of Indian-held Kashmir, Muhammad Sharif looks out, as he always has, on the steep and lovely hills of Pakistan-held Kashmir.

He sees, like a reflection, the faint outline of Rehmand, the village opposite, where he presumes people speak the same language, practice the same religion, eat the same foods, although, never having met them, he cannot say for sure.
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But these days, Mr. Sharif, a 50-year-old farmer and father of six, sees something else as well. Up the hillside on the Indian side of the 1972 cease-fire line - a 460-mile narrow swath of territory known as the Line of Control, which divides the two Kashmirs - there snakes a new manifestation of that division. It is a fence, meant to keep at bay infiltrators from Pakistan who are seeking to separate India's portion of Kashmir from India.

India has been building the fence for about a year, and it is largely completed. It follows the construction of a less politically delicate fence along the India-Pakistan border. It has the symbolic potential, in some eyes, to make the cease-fire line more like an international border, as India desires.

The cease-fire line took its present format the end of the last of three wars between India and Pakistan. The conflict dates to the partitioning of India and Pakistan in 1947 into predominantly Hindu and Muslim states. At the time, Kashmir's maharaja, a Hindu, joined the fortunes of his Muslim-majority state to India. Pakistan invaded in 1947 and took part of Kashmir and has contended ever since that all of Kashmir has a right to self-determination.

After Pakistan failed to take all of Kashmir in war, it began backing an insurgency in 1989 that at first relied mostly on indigenous Kashmiri militants, then on Pakistanis, Afghans and others crossing the cease-fire line to take up the fight. Kashmiris from the Indian side crossed the other way, for training, then returned.

The line runs along beautiful but rugged territory over three mountain ranges that rise to 17,000 feet with deep gorges in between. Passes through the peaks and folds of the mountains have enabled thousands of hardy militants to cross back and forth across the line. Now, crossing - in or out - is that much harder.

The fence is similar to the barrier being built by the Israelis to control the infiltration of militant Palestinians. But the Indian fence has received far less international scrutiny than the Israeli barrier and surprisingly muted opposition from the Pakistanis. Last November, a cease-fire was negotiated between the Indian and Pakistani armies, which regularly shelled each other and civilians living in between. That cease-fire has greatly expedited the fence's construction, and Pakistani officials say that Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, knew that it would when he agreed to the cease-fire.

In January, Pakistan agreed not to allow its soil to be used for terrorist attacks against India. One theory for Pakistan's low-key response is that the fence will make it easier for the country to better control militant groups.

Constructed on almost vertical mountainsides - here at an 80 degree angle - the fence is an engineering feat. Until the cease-fire, much of the construction was done at night to avoid the shelling.

The fence, which breaks only in deference to unconquerable terrain, stands about 12 feet high and is about 12 feet wide. Coils of concertina wire are layered between rows of pickets. Sharp-edged metal tape and, in places, electrification make crossing even harder. So do the soldiers standing guard.

"No obstacle in history, whether the China wall or the Maginot line in France, can prevent movement unless there is surveillance," said the governor of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, S. K. Sinha, a former army vice chief of staff.

The fence is part of a larger effort by India to buttress its defenses and uses equipment acquired from Israel, France and the United States, including motion sensors, thermal imaging devices and night-vision equipment. It also has allowed the parceling of the cease-fire zone into a grid system so that officers can be held accountable for movement in designated areas.

And there is a kind of border tourism now a days. The relative peace (no shelling across the border) made it easier for people go close and touch the fence!!. And may be pose and take a few snaps too. There was a write up about this trend in a recent daily. Mostly this is a fascination for the domestic tourists. This is happening at the less sensitive areas of the border.

Bij, thanks for the article!

beach, that border tourism reminds me of the Berlin Wall... although I am yet to go and touch it!

Yeah and like the Berlin wall I would like a piece of said fence when they finally tear it down.
Nice article bij!!

cyber, i had the impression that the stronger the "wall" is, the more chance of the LOK turning into an international border... so i wouldn't want a piece of it

unless Kashmir becomes a sovereign state (in my dreams) and the wall truly becomes redudant

so, cyber, when you're visiting it, do me a favour, keep in intact

Saw "Main Hoon Na" last night, and it has a very touching scene of prisoner exchange at the border. Looked like real villagers, not actors in that scene.

After 'Main Hoon Na' , it’s time for hiring a copy of PINJAR , the indo-pak themed bollywood lovestory. Urmila went to the Waga border to release a copy to the Pakistani soldiers.

A tale of love and visas, lovers know how to jumb over the fence

that hardly sounds like a love story to me, listen to what the boy said:


it's just a twist on the Arranged Marriages scenario, what prevails: the ages old custom or modern political map? the custom seems to have won in this case

also, the boy is a journalist and has grabbed his chance on one moment of fame... possibly wrote the article himself... no wonder his picture perfect photo is right at the beginning of the article.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20031029/main6.htm

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20031030/main7.htm


This was featured in a number of Indian TV channels too. I remember the bride came alone for her marriage, as her parents could not get the visa. There was a lot of hue and cry at that time about this (the visa issue). And there are any numbers of families with relatives living either side of the border.

And it was indeed a love marriage