Poverty, illiteracy big evils of South Asia : NGOs
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Islamabad, Sept. 18: Peace lovers from Pakistan and India have described weapons of mass destruction (WMD), poverty, illiteracy, intolerance and extremism as the root causes of economic instability in South Asia.
Addressing a press conference at the Lahore Press Club under the auspices of the Institute of Peace and Secular Studies, Lahore, in collaboration with Action Aid-Pakistan, they said love was the most effective weapon. They said the diversion of national resources of the South Asian countries towards offensive purposes in the guise of defence expenditure has kept the counties (Pakistan and India) backward. Ms Shazia Shaheen, a women’s rights activist, criticised the politicians for their tactics to hinder the proposed legislation on the Hudood ordinance for their own vested interests. Ms Richa Singh, an Indian participant, highlighting the plight of the Indian women said that illiteracy, poverty, evil social norms and intolerance contributed to the poor social environment and biased attitude towards women in rural areas of India. Dr Uma, the head of the Pak Studies department of the Jawahar Lal Nehru University, stressed the need for annihilation of extremism on both sides of the border to make the Indo-Pak peace process successful. "The people of South Asia should press their governments to resolve all the issues without the intervention of any super power," she said. She added that none of the countries in the region should enter into any defence or nuclear agreement with any super power, which might provoke the sentiments of hatred and fear in spite of peace and interreligious harmony among the people of this region. Col. (retd.) J.V. Chopra, who came to visit his birth place, Jhang, said that the people of the Indo-Pak region should dispel fear and pessimism from their personal and social lives as these sentiments propagated a sense of disparity in society. He said that he was aware of the catastrophic effects of war on civil society and cautioned that war and the border escalation should be avoided at all cost. "Peace, stability and security cannot be achieved through accumulation of missiles, tanks and submarines. Dialogue leads to the pragmatic solutions of all territorial issues all over the world and it would also be instrumental in resolving the issue of Jammu and Kashmir," he said. Ms Nusrat Sheikh, an activist of Action Aid-Pakistan, said the participants had to undergo many hardships for getting their visas. She stressed visa-free entry to all the South Asian countries for the people of the region, as it would help accelerate and promote religious harmony in the region. The participants of the 2nd Visa-Free and Peaceful South Asia Convention hailed the leaders’ decision to resume the peace talks between India and Pakistan at a meeting in Havana. Popular Indian ghazal singer Srinivas launched his music album Shanti Yatra and another Indian singer, Sima Ghazal presented Kalam-e-Faiz. The participants also staged a hunger strike in front of Lahore Press Club and demanded of both Pakistan and the Indian governments to relax the visa restrictions between Pakistan and India. "Nukes are nothing but weapons of destruction, relax visa restriction, abolish nukes from South Asia, and let the divided families unite again," a participant said. Source: The Asian Age |
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