Driving from Lahore to Wagah border, signposts show bitter relationship between India and Pakistan

Driving along the Grand Trunk Road from Lahore towards the Wagah border, it was not a coincidence that the first bar on my cell phone indicating renewed mobile connectivity appeared in Batapur village, soon after crossing the Bambanwala-Ravi-Bedian Link (BRBL) Canal. The feeble bar blinked near the Batapur monument, commemorating a bloody battle waged during the 1965 Indo-Pak war, in response to Pakistan's Operation Grand Slam, which it had launched in Kashmir after the failure of Operation Gibraltar India had moved its 15 Infantry Division, supported by the 14 Scinde Horse and Tank Regiment under Major General Niranjan Prasad. The latter crossed the Wagah border on September 6, 1965 and captured Pakistani territory up to this point, just 19 km from Lahore. The Batapur Monument on the road divider, indicative of the excoriating relations of the two nuclear nations, is reminiscent of how the blood of Indian soldiers had mingled at this point with that of 3 Baloch Regiment of the Pakistan Army, who put up stiff resistance to prevent the fall of their main city.

The smiling Punjabi speaking girls manning the immigration counters on the Pakistani side and, a few yards away after crossing zero-line, the sturdy Punjabi men working behind Indian immigration and customs counters busy stamping passports and checking baggage don't make it seem that one has crossed over to a different territory. A few years ago, the International Space Station's (ISS) Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at the Johnson Space Center had released satellite images of the 2,900 km Line of Control (LoC) and the India-Pakistan border, which showed a winding orange line cutting across the Kashmir Valley and meeting the Arabian Sea. The port city of Karachi was seen as a bright cluster of light at the bottom left.

There are just five crossing points along this long border — Attari (Punjab) and Munabao (Rajasthan), which are railway points, and Wagah, which can be crossed on foot and was also used as a major transit point during the 1947 migration. Others like Ganda Singh Wala (Kasur district, Pakistan) and Hussainiwala (Firozpur district, India), stand closed.

The lowering of the flags ceremony at Wagah is a daily military ritual that the security forces of India (Border Security Force) and Pakistan (Pakistan Rangers) have jointly engaged in since 1959. It's an aggressive drill marked by elaborate and rapid movements, ending in the perfectly coordinated lowering of the two nations' flags. Attended by thousands of people from both sides, passions run high depending on the political situation.

Both countries have also competed in placing their flags on tall poles. Two years ago, India hoisted the tallest flag on a pole that was 360 ft high. One hundred and twenty ft long, 80 ft broad the flag was visible from the outskirts of Lahore, till Pakistan put up an identical pole. Though the flag was exposed to high wind speeds and extreme weather conditions, India responded by increasing the height to 400 ft, invoking a similar move from the Pakistani side, which increased the height to 410 ft. This led to new standards being set in cost and patriotism because it was realised that the flags – a symbol of national honour – were prone to greater wear and tear at that height. Since this race has begun, the flags have had to be replaced many times, costing huge sums. An officer told this writer that lately they have not had to be frequently replaced as a foreign company has provided new material for the flag — aluminium-coated fabric. It will be no surprise if the same enterprise has provided this technology to both sides to keep their national egos high!