AJMER: Pakistan’s president arrived in India yesterday for a weekend of prayers, peace talks and cricket, his first visit since a disastrous summit in 2001 and a sign of warming ties between the neighbours.
“I come here with a message of peace,” President Pervez Musharraf said after praying at a Muslim shrine in Ajmer, Rajasthan, his first stop.
But although Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will discuss Jammu and Kashmir — including “softening” the ceasefire line dividing it — and how to strengthen their relations, no major breakthrough is expected almost three years after near-war.
Rather, the visit itself is the breakthrough. Originally planned as an informal visit for Musharraf to watch India and Pakistan play cricket, it has turned into a virtual summit.
His first stop was the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, which he was to visit in 2001 but cancelled after peace talks with then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee collapsed.
“I wish the differences between the two countries to be reduced and that peace prevails in the region,” Musharraf, in a pink turban and white salwar-kameez, said after praying.
The Indian-born Pakistani leader and the Pakistan-born Indian leader were to meet for dinner in New Delhi later yesterday and for talks today after watching the start of the sixth and last one-day cricket match between India and Pakistan.
Musharraf’s visit comes a week after a new bus service began between the divided parts of Kashmir, a symbolic step after the neighbours came close to war over the Himalayan region in 2002.
The mood has vastly improved, but the rivals remain far apart on Kashmir and neither expects major progress from this trip.
Violence has increased in Kashmir ahead of the bus service and Musharraf’s visit – the army said 12 rebels and a soldier had died in fighting in the past 24 hours.
On Thursday, Musharraf said he had limited expectations from this visit, but he was optimistic Kashmir could eventually be resolved and the peace process was irreversible.
Last year, Musharraf suggested possible solutions for Kashmir that could involve a division of the Muslim-majority region on ethnic lines, demilitarisation, a change of its status to independence, joint control, or even UN control.
India has rejected any redrawing of boundaries. Instead, Singh and Musharraf are due to discuss ways to soften the ceasefire line, including meetings of divided families, more buses, increased tourism and trade and cooperation on forests.
“We need to look at the ... (ceasefire line) not just as a divide but as a bridge,” Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh told the latest edition of the Outlook news weekly.
“We need to work towards a situation where borders, even in our part of the world, begin to matter less and less.”
Musharraf is also due to meet Kashmiri separatist leaders, who he says must be brought into peace process for it to work.
There have been two attempts on Musharraf’s life in Pakistan and security in Ajmer and New Delhi is intense. Anti-aircraft guns have been placed on the roof of his hotel in the capital as well as around the cricket stadium on the city’s outskirts.
Thousands of police will guard the stadium for today’s match and commandos and snipers have taken over key rooftops.
After Musharraf recently gave Singh a photo album of the Indian leader’s home village in what is now Pakistan, along with some of his school reports, Singh is to give Musharraf a special copy of his birth certificate.
But some newspapers report Musharraf may be a year older than he thinks, with the laminated birth certificate showing he was born in Old Delhi on August 11, 1942, and his website saying 1943.
In Ajmer, on the edge of the Thar desert about 370km from Delhi, security forces cleared worshippers from the shrine complex and swept it and the densely built area for bombs.
“Please let our prayer for peace, harmony and amity between Pakistan and India and prosperity of both the countries be answered,” Musharraf wrote in the visitor’s book at the tomb of Chishti.
The Pakistani leader arrived by helicopter in Ajmer from state capital Jaipur, and was driven in a bulletproof car to the mausoleum.
Accompanied by his wife Begum Sehba, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri and Pakistani High Commissioner to India, Aziz Ahmed Khan, Musharraf was presented with flowers and offered a crimson “chaddar” or cloth to lay over the tomb.
A group of “khadims” or priests escorted Musharraf into the sanctum. He gifted Rs1mn ($23,000) to the complex and was handed two chaddars to cover shrines in Pakistan.
“Me, my wife and my entire delegation are very happy that we came to the dargah (shrine) and we are standing in front of you,” said Musharraf, resplendent in a large pink turban.
“I consider it my honour and also my entire delegations’ to have prayed at the shrine of the most revered Sufi saint Hazarat Moinundin Chisti,” he added in the visitors’ book.
Wasim Chishti, a mausoleum official who claims descent from the saint, said: “The last time Baba (the saint) did not call him so he could not come here. He is fortunate that Baba has called him this time.”
Musharraf’s visit came on an auspicious day, he added, explaining that the monthly prayers to mark the saint’s death fell yesterday.
Mansoor Ali Lali, president of the mausoleum committee, said the shrine had a “tradition for centuries of welcoming kings and emperors.”
The Sufi ascetic was born in Seistan, Persia in 1138 into a well-respected Syed family. He decided to make Ajmer his home after his third visit to India in 1192.
The “dargah” or mausoleum of Chishti – where he was buried after his death in 1233 – is one of the holiest places of worship in India for all religious communities.
Mughal emperor Akbar is said to have walked the more than 300km from Agra to the shrine in Ajmer in the 16th century to pray for an heir. His wish was granted.
The complex today includes many mosques, buildings, tombs and courtyards, some rated among the finest examples of Moghul architecture.
Chishti’s marble-domed tomb lies in the centre of a second courtyard in the dargah. The grave is surrounded by a silver platform.
Prominent visitors to the shrine include Musharraf’s predecessor former Pakistan president Zia-ul Haq, Bangladesh’s ex-president Hussain Muhamed Ershad, ex-premier Sheikh Hasina and Pakistan’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. – Agencies |
