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Writer Mod Date & Time
PARTITION: Tape 16 255MODEM 255MODEM Aug 14 08:41
TAPE 16
Side A
Kuldip NAYAR - columnist, peace activist and former diplomat;
interviewed at his home in Vasant Vihar, Delhi - 14/8/96
Former British High Commissioner in London; former editor of
'Indian Express'; former head of UNI; now a leader of Citizens for
Democracy human rights group and advocate of improved relations
with Pakistan.
In August 1947, travelled by foot from Sialkot in Pakistan to the
Indian border, as part of a "caravan". Saw hundreds of corpses.
Has been back to Sialkot a couple of times.
5 - 'reins between I and Pak is like the weather here -
hot, hotter, hottest - this time it is the hottest,
and I feel really sad cos I want the rel'ship to
improve and I want both sides to live as friends'
15 - imp of public opinion
33 - [re coming generation] 'well, I'm sorry that cos of
ignorance, and cos of lack of contact between the
two cos fears have got exaggerated, in fact I wd
say that the walls of hatred, suspicion, have
grown higher than before, and that's sad, and I
think if both side ... if they cd meet each other
interact, things cd be better
45 - books on both sides, part Pak, are very bad, 'and they
do inculcate some kind of hatred'
50 - 'yes, partition did take place, yes we were one country,
but then we separated, we became two sovreign countries,
which was a part of agreement, all leaders of that time
agreed to it, so if we agreed to it, restarte from that
... today we're entering the 50th year of ind, and still
we're prisoners of those kind of suspicions ... if we
cd accept the fact that yes partition took place, it was
bad or good, whatever may be, I don't want to go into
the merits, I don't want to go into the history, but
I want something to be done whereby these two cos live
as friends ... both retaining their identities'
77 - [47] 'I was then living in a city called Sialkot, which
is about 150 miles from Amritsar, and I travelled by
foot, my family members cd not come with me cos there
was a lot of killing so they did not want to put all
their eggs in one basket, so I travelled in one caravan;
and up to the border, that is Amritsar, the victims were
Hindus and Sikhs, specially women and chidlren, and when
we crossed over I found it was the same kind of trauma
I had seen, but the victims were now Muslims, so there
was no difference that way'
91 - 'when I crossed into I, I sd to myself I've had enough
of tis hatred, we've seen enough killing in the name
of religion, and the country we're going to build is
going to be secular, democratic, and nobody is going to |
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