In the past eventful decade, Communalism Combat has carved out a special niche for itself in the world of activism and journalism in India. At a time when the basic tenets of humanity and human rights as articulated in the Constitution of India came under assault from all sides, starting with the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, it was Combat which was truly able to raise a much needed voice on behalf of millions – be they Muslims and other minorities, Dalits, Adivasis or women – whose fundamental rights as citizens of India were being increasingly threatened and questioned. The editors have stood tall and uttered their ‘Noes’ from deepest conviction in the face of threats and provocation where lesser mortals might have indeed said ‘yes’ in order to avoid trouble.

Coincidentally, it was also during this period that the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) came into being, in order to further people-to-people contact, to work for peace, democracy and demilitarisation, and to pressure our governments to divert our scarce resources to fighting the common problems faced by the peoples of both countries rather than each other. It was no coincidence that one of the editors of CC was among the early members of the Forum, and that over the years, key issues pertaining to the difficult relationship with Pakistan have been regularly featured in editorial and other writing in Combat.

I have been asked to reflect on the contribution made by CC towards building bridges with Pakistan in particular, and towards the overall promotion of the twin objectives of democracy and peace that underpin the work of the PIPFPD.

This is no easy task – and I would be doing them less than justice without a deeper study of the volume of past editions and a detailed analysis of the kind of subjects that they have covered during the decade. I will, therefore, confine myself to highlighting some of the major national and regional developments that have taken place during this period and which have deeply impacted on Indo-Pak relations and on security issues as a whole – and on the inevitable fall out on minority groups, Indian Muslims in particular.

Let us review briefly some of the major developments in the region and internationally during this period.

The Rath Yatra undertaken by LK Advani, the then president of the BJP, in February/March 1992 sowed the seeds of communal hatred and destabilisation of the country. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 was a direct outcome of the rise of communal politics and the BJP’s Rath Yatra. This was followed by terrible riots in Mumbai where thousands of innocents lost their lives in violence instigated by the Shiv Sena. Then came the bomb blasts in March 1993, causing a further widening of the gulf between the two communities.

Shaken by the violence and the depth of anti-minority, especially anti-Muslim feeling in our secular democratic polity, a number of initiatives, designed to act as watchdogs and to protect minority rights from assault, began to surface. The launch of Communalism Combat in response to the growing communalisation of politics and public discourse in August 1993 was among the more notable public expressions of concern and determination to act.

While these were taking place in the domestic domain, so to speak, other related concerns were surfacing in the South Asian region. Many thinking citizens from the region’s two largest nations realised that unless they took matters into their own hands, governments on both sides would continue to spend precious years and resources in an arms race and increased militarisation of the area.

A group of Indian and Pakistani academics and activists met in Lahore on September 2, 1994, to form the Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy – (PIPFPD) – primarily to address the continuing animosity between the two States and governments – which did not facilitate or encourage ‘people-to-people contact’. Teesta Setalvad, co-editor of CC, was one of the founding members of the Forum. In many ways, the struggle for communal harmony within India and the equally tough struggle to build bridges and different relations with our neighbours were twin tracks with common features and personalities who straddled both endeavours.

The coming to power of the BJP-led coalition government at the Centre in March 1998 resulted in the Pokhran Nuclear tests on May 11, 1998. Predictably, Pakistan responded with its own tests, at Chagai on May 28, 1998. Both these events marked a huge setback to South Asian peace and security in general and Indo-Pak relations in particular. On the positive side, the tests did succeed in galvanising public opinion against the bomb on both sides, which crystallised in the formation of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) in India, in November 2000.

The slow but steady progress made by groups like the PIPFPD and others in cementing people-to-people contacts till this time, also became victims of these developments. However, it is to the credit of these fledgling groups who succeeded, for the most part without any substantive resources at their disposal, to hold four joint conventions at which several hundred Indians and Pakistanis crossed the border to meet and celebrate their common heritage and to raise their voices for peace and democracy.

Mainstream media, with some honourable exceptions, was at best ambivalent, and, for the most part, uncritically accepting of the right-wing revivalism, the legitimising of institutions of the sangh parivar – especially the RSS. Most dangerously, the print and electronic media often fed into and overtly supported the jingoistic expressions of unabashed militarism, the glorification of our new-found nuclear nationalism and the idea of a Hindu nation – in blatant disregard of the secular underpinnings of the Constitution of India.

It is in this milieu that Communalism Combat, published from Mumbai, the multi-edition daily newspaper The Hindu, published from Chennai and elsewhere, and the Sahmat group in Delhi stand out for their fearless articulation of the vision of a plural, secular democratic polity and for amity with our neighbours, when so many others pursued a totally opportunistic path to please an increasingly strident and scarcely veiled anti-minority, anti Pakistan agenda.

Extreme right-wing domestic politics also meant the sharpening of rhetoric and increased tension with our long term ‘enemy’ – namely, Pakistan. Groups like the PIPFPD had often to plough a lonely furrow in bringing all levels and categories of people together across borders. And it is to the credit of the steadfast, believing few, with overt and covert support from intrepid friends in select circles, who dared to brave the open accusations of being anti-national, unpatriotic and much worse – if one dared to take stances that were different from the official ones.

So, whether it was the Lahore Declaration between Prime Minister Vajpayee and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999, followed shortly by the Kargil war and later by the re-emergence of military rule in Pakistan in October that year, each rapid development, singly and collectively, created fresh challenges for Indo-Pak relations. Groups like the Forum, Combat, Chambers of Commerce and limbs of the women’s movement can legitimately claim some credit for hammering away at the soundproof doors of officialdom in both countries. The Agra Summit between Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf in July 2001 can be seen as one example.

Although the Agra Summit was dubbed a failure by the media, in actual fact, the two leaders had virtually agreed on all necessary points in order to continue the dialogue process. Unfortunately, the progress made in this regard was dealt a severe blow by the Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. The subsequent war on terrorism, the war on Afghanistan and the Taliban, and the attack on the Mullah Omar government, is all now history.

The attacks by militants on the Srinagar Assembly on October 1, 2001 and the Lok Sabha on December 13 of the same year virtually closed all the usual channels of dialogue between India and Pakistan. High Commissioners were recalled, all communications were terminated; road, rail and air traffic was terminated and over flights denied. It took serious international diplomatic effort to prevent the two nations from going to war, including a likely escalation to the nuclear arena.

Once more, one must point out that it is to the credit of several responsible newspapers and journals in different parts of the country that they have consistently addressed many of the issues referred to above – and CC has always been in the forefront – carrying special dedicated and in-depth articles over sustained periods of time.

The recommendations of the Justice Srikrishna Commission report on the Mumbai riots and bomb blasts have not yet been implemented, nor have the guilty been brought to book. The entire report has been published by Communalism Combat – a big step in bringing such information to the larger public.

However, it was after the Godhra incident and the subsequent genocidal violence unleashed by the state machinery in Gujarat that Communalism Combat really provided some extraordinary leadership, of which the editors and management and all of us who read them can be truly and deservedly proud. The citizens’ report on the carnage in Gujarat is a courageous document, which will stand out amidst all others produced during those darkest of times.

For those of us who found it hard to face the challenges and the accusations of India’s treatment of minorities from our friends across the border and elsewhere, the kind of detailed testimonies made at the public hearings, together with the individual sagas and tales of personal courage recounted in issues of Combat – served as invaluable source material on which we could draw, to reaffirm our own faith in the Constitution, and the innate goodness, decency and still secular attitudes of millions of ordinary human beings.

Today, with yet another peace initiative on the cross border anvil, it is clear that many more such efforts are needed, and that there will be a time when we might even persuade our governments to say, in the words of the 40 kids who have just completed a ten-day residential workshop just outside Karachi, "Bas – Enough!"

I would like to offer through these columns, my warmest good wishes and congratulations to Communalism Combat for the completion of an eventful decade, and share my hopes that we shall continue to walk the difficult road together in the future, knowing that the road ahead is long, hard, lonely and full of pitfalls and potholes.