Daily Diary (DD) - Day 257 of 2021

1945hrs: 

With so many thoughts and responsibilities going through my mind, it is difficult to pin down what to write but it is important to be as frank as possible. That is my defence as well as attack. I am not working for any ideology with global aspirations but am pursuing geographic nationalism viz. a neutral State with regional as much as global solutions in the shape of water management.

This alone will not save me from political exploitation despite my pursuit being peaceful, educational, economic and cultural.  

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Today was the third day in a row of cross LOC interaction aiming to create cultural possibilities, primarily through rebuilding religious harmony. 

Here's a compilation of videos which cover today's activity:

The following video was taken on the other side of the divide. In Teetwaal village itself:

There was coverage of this event by local media too:

Urdu:

English:

Then, finally at the end of the event I gave my closing statement in Urdu:

This was probably the first time in 74 years that civil society interaction between both sides of divided Jammu Kashmir & Allied areas (JKA) took place in such a manner. Whereby a group of Hindu devotees of Sharda (on this side of the divide) led by Ravinder Pandita (Head of Save Sharda Committee), performed puja on the banks of the River Neelam (Kishenganga) to revive a centuries old yatra (journey), that pre 1947 would begin in Kupwara (now, on the Indian controlled side) and end at Sharda (now, on the Pakistani controlled side).

Ravinder Pandita and a few of his colleagues were also able to come to the bridge linking the two sides. However, civil society on the Pakistani-controlled side were not and in fact were misinformed by the Pakistani army that no such activity is happening on the other side.

What was essentially a cultural event striving towards long lost religious harmony via people to people contact on both sides couldn't escape the arousal of political sentiment when all 3 co-existing nationalist narratives in the contested territory of JKA came face to face.

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