It was celebration time for people when the officers from both sides opened the LoC to let the quake relief material pass through from the Indian side, says Amrit Sadhana.
No sooner had the LoC between Pakistan and India opened in Kashmir the other day than the citizens of Pakistan surged in. It was celebration time for people when the officers from both sides opened the LoC to let the quake relief material pass through from the Indian side. People raised slogans like “Forget the past, let us rewrite the present.” It is a pity that the police had to forcibly stop the angry mob wanting to cross over.
Reading this heart-wrenching account, one questions the sanctity of the national borders drawn by politicians and governments of the world. What right do they have to separate those who are emotionally attached to each other? I am reminded of a story Osho would often tell. It may not be factual, but there is a germ of truth in it. When India was being partitioned, a mental asylum happened to fall on the new border. Unable to decide whether to allocate it to Pakistan or India, they decided to consult the inmates themselves, “You will not go anywhere, you will remain in this asylum but which side do you want to belong to — India or Pakistan?”
The madmen said, “We want to remain where we are.”
The officers again said, “Of course, you will remain here, but let us know which country you choose to go with?”
The madmen then retorted, “What do you mean, ‘where do we want to go?’ If we have to remain here, why does the question arise? Who is mad, you or us?”
Now the authorities found themselves in an intractable situation. So they worked out an ingenious solution. They just built a wall right in the middle and divided the asylum into two parts. Half of it went to Pakistan and the other half went to India.
Down the years, madmen have been climbing the boundary wall and saying to each other, “How strange! We are where we were, but now we are two people — Indians and Pakistanis.’’
The author is editor of Osho Times
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