Our Salamti Fellow Waleed Sheikh organized a dialogue session with victims of gang wars in Lyari” on 22nd September 2019 at Lyari community hall to discuss the underlying stories of affected people in area of Lyari specifically. People of Lyari gathered there and shared their painful experiences and stories of resilience under the theme, “Stories of Lyari, by the people of Lyari”. Lyari is notoriously associated with the issue of gang war in Karachi. It is the most affected area by gang wars where innocent citizens have become victims between groups of gangsters and affected by their violence and conflict. In light of this, people of Lyari came under one roof to talk about their issues and experiences of facing violence and becoming as easy target of gang war. They stated their fears and problems which included the forced abduction of family members by law enforcement agencies, gun violence and life threats. In dialogue session, 60 individuals included women, children, elders and community leaders participated where they had effective conversation and discussions. Due to such condition, people of Lyari are going through mental and emotional torture without any protection against such cause. As it can be seen at both local and national level, how Lyari kids are showing their talent and participating in different activities ranging from athletics to music. So it was suggested to keep themselves aside from negativity and encouraged parents to keep sending their children in such arenas so that they can further explore and enhance their aptitudes. It is significant to mention that coach from K27 (local athlete school) also offered them to send their kids for training so that they can explore another unconventional sport of kickboxing to reinforce their talent. Overall, this session provided the people of Liyari an opportunity to gather at one place and discuss their issues and problems and how they can be resolved with the help of each other’s collective efforts and proved to be fruitful in terms of solution-oriented discussions.

Special Operations

The agenda of the activity that we conducted was to promote peace and tolerance among the people of India and Pakistan and there is no platform better to try that other than cricket. The theme of our activity was to encourage and enable the supporters from both sides of the border to name their favorite players from both the teams, both past and present, and to make a team consisting of equal number of players from both the teams and end with a good luck note and a short message for the other team. Our aim was to spread this message among our friends from both sides of the border and let them see how we can be patriotic citizens of Pakistan and India respectively and love and support our own teams with all our heart but still be respectable towards each other and though we have our differences, we can be civilized enough to keep the resolutions to the table and not cross any line that may, verbally or physically, cause harm to anyone.

There were a total of 4 Pakistanis and 5 Indians who participated but due to some reasons you’ll see 3 Pakistani and 4 Indians in the final project. I initiated the project with the help of Mr. Ayush and Mr. Anandmai from India and all the participants in it were from diverse backgrounds. Two of our Indian participants were from Rajasthan and Delhi and the other two were from England and France respectively who belong to different schools of thought and different backgrounds culturally and academically both. Our participants from Pakistan included me, a friend who is originally from Karachi and currently in Lahore pursuing her degree in Art and Education and is also a fellow of the previous Salamti Cohort and another friend who is doing his doctorate from Norway.

The outcome of the activity is present in the form of a, not so entertaining, video which I am attaching with this but the impact of the project is worth explaining. As I mentioned above that the participants from both the countries belong to different fields and we generally have a very reactive attitude towards each other because of our history with each other and our current political tensions, therefore we decided to do something about it. From past couple of years I have been doing this activity on an individual level where me and a couple of friends from India keep discussing some of our issues in a civilized manner and keep wishing luck to each other whenever there is a contest between the two countries or between our teams and another team. I thought of extending the energy to other people and the idea was welcomed by my friends from the other side as well and therefore the people you will see in the video have a couple of BJP supporters as well whom we think would never even dare think positively about Pakistan and here you can see them telling us about their favorite Pakistani players and wishing us luck and the epitome of the positive outcome of our hard work can be seen when a diehard patriotic Indian fan who has a full sized India Flag in his room in England says that, “If Pakistan reaches the final and plays against any other team, I will definitely support Pakistan and I would love to visit Pakistan”.

I would like to end the description here, while apologizing for the slight extension in the length, by telling you that I will, hopefully, soon be going to visit India if the government issues a visa because the friends there are anxiously waiting to show me around and I won that trip because my Indian friends made a bet that if India wins they will invite me to India and show me around. We can easily say that, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”. (Neil Armstrong)