Indo-Pakistan bilateral issues remain deadlocked. And that includes Kashmir, which the West fears could trigger a nuclear war. Steve Percy boards a bus from Lahore to Delhi and finds that travel not only broadens the mind but brings Indians and Pakistanis closer together.

It’s 5am outside Faletti’s, a musty, colonial-style hotel in central Lahore. Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger filmed here in the 1950s. Today, a quieter drama is unfolding: ordinary citizens wait for a bus that will take us from Lahore in Pakistan to Delhi in India, across one of the world’s most tightly-guarded borders. My 40 fellow passengers, who will travel the 12-hour journey along the historic Grand Trunk Road on the so-called Peace Bus, are a mix of Pakistanis and Indians, mainly Muslims. Most are travelling to meet relatives on what many of their compatriots believe is enemy territory.

Escorted by armed police rangers, we soon clock up the 30 or so kilometres to the Wagah border post – the only official land crossing-point between the two countries. It was here in early 1999, not long after both countries exploded nuclear devices, that the Indian prime minister A.B. Vajpayee arrived by another bus to meet his now-deposed Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, to sign the Lahore Declaration aimed at mending ties.

The bus service, which now operates four days a week, was started as a confidence-building measure. But the declaration soon became a dead letter, buried in last year’s Kashmir conflict. The collapse of a recent ceasefire is another setback in the region. In some eyes, that has only elevated the symbolic status of the bus service. “We need to get to know each other, and the bus brings people of both sides closer together,” says Mohammad Rafiq of Pakistan Tourism.

The bustle of the Grand Trunk Road peters out near the Wagah border post on the Pakistani side. The bus pulls up. Passports are opened, visas checked. Through steel gates we cross the short stretch of no-man’s land, dividing 140 million Pakistanis from one billion Indians who, until partition over 50 years ago, shared centuries of history. “It’s the politicians who always put things in the way,” says passenger Qamar Saleem, a leather businessman from Madras, India.

His family travelled to Pakistan’s port city Karachi to visit their eldest daughter, who is married to a Pakistani. Saleem’s daughters have made lots of friends. Such people-to-people contacts are seen as an informal two-track approach to peace, and are being promoted by trades unionists, civil groups and even retired army officers. The bus has become a popular vehicle for peace activists. In March a group of Indian women made the first border crossing since last year’s Kargil conflict and the bloodless military coup in Pakistan. They met Pakistan’s military leader General Pervez Musharraf.

“We have been able to project a different perspective on Indo-Pakistan relations,” says Karachi-based trade unionist Karamat Ali. “We can say that we are not each others’ enemies, that we have no abiding enmity. There are disputes, but that means we should talk to each other.”

For others the bus represents a tempting moving target. “We were driving through the Indian Punjab, when a car blocked the road,” says our driver. “A mob of 40-50 people tried to stop us. Placards read, ‘Musharraf Murdabad’ – death to Musharraf. The escort pushed them back – I just had to drive through.” Press reports linked the protest to a right-wing Hindu group, the Shiv Sena.

We finally get underway, after a one-hour delay at the border. Police wave us on at every intersection; 60-70-80 kilometres an hour. We bypass the holy Sikh city of Amritsar – sadly, no sighting of the Golden Temple.

Kashmir remains the flashpoint between the two sides. “If we can resolve Kashmir,” says passenger Shamin Ahmad, who runs a cardboard box factory, “then things would be much better between us.” But peace activists say this overlooks an erosion of democracy, a culture of violence, militarism and fundamentalism.

The red ball of summer sun was setting over the Red Fort as we entered old Delhi, police sirens blaring. We were greeted with another all-out bag search in a sealed compound. When the gates opened scores of relatives besieged the passengers with open arms.
At the time of the Lahore Declaration, former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto said: “The bus service is yet to be fitted into the larger peace plan involving the two countries.” That looks some time in coming; but for now the simple truth that travel broadens the mind isn’t lost on those who cross the formidable Indo-Pakistan border.