Farewell Karamat Ali: A journalist in India remembers a Pakistani peace activist who brought home her late grandfather’s ashes

Posted on July 7, 2024 by beenasarwar

Guest post: A personal tribute to Karamat Ali (19 August 1945 – 20 June 2024) by Mandira Nayar in Delhi, for Sapan News

Karamat Ali was many things but for Mandira Nayar he was always the person who returned her grandfather Kuldip Nayar to Lahore, where he was born and which he considered home. The relationship between them defies labels but it has a bond that is deep and unbreakable, stronger than many relationships with names, she writes:

There are many words for friendship. Arabic has twelve. You can choose from friendships of different shades — the intense saqeeb, a true friend;  sameer, someone who you like to have a conversation with, or the casual zameel, an acquaintance. 

  • Announcement from Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy for an online memorial
  • Memorial meeting at Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, for Karamat Ali
  • Comrades at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in Lahore remember Karamat Ali

English has just the one — a bland ‘friend’. The short dost (friend) in Hindustani encompasses in its tiny frame a sort of bro-code for the intense relationship that Hindi film songs refer to, between Maana Dey’s ‘Yaari hai Imaan’ (My friend is my faith) to Sholay’s anthem ‘Yeh Dosti Hum Nahi toRe.nge‘ (This friendship we will never abandon). 

‘Dost’

So I struggle to find a word to describe the relationship between Karamat Ali, labour leader, peace activist, revolutionary, lover of music, and my grandfather Kuldip Nayar, journalist, peace-activist and fellow dreamer. And by extension, my relationship with Karamat Sahib. 

This relationship without a name has a bond that is deep and unbreakable, stronger than many relationships with names.

Karamat Ali was many things but for me he was always the person who returned my grandfather to the home he was born in.

Continue reading →

Filed under: journalism, Obituary, Pakistan-India, Southasia | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

“Why are India and Pakistan at war?” asks 14-year old Kshitij…

Posted on November 7, 2013 by beenasarwar

Like father like son: Samir and Kshitij Gupta

Like father like son: Samir and Kshitij Gupta

My article published in The News oped, TOI blogs and Aman ki Asha on Monday, Nov 4, 2013 

“Why are India and Pakistan at war?”

Beena Sarwar

Some days ago I got a call from my friend Samir Gupta, on his way home after picking up his son, 14-year old Kshitij, from a Delhi train station late at night. Kshitij was returning from a school trip with some 30 other students from Delhi Public School, Ghaziabad. They’d taken an early morning train to Amritsar and watched the flag-lowering ceremony at Wagah Border.

Samir, a passionate advocate of peace and good relations between India and Pakistan, asked Kshitij about the trip. Continue reading →

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Peace Hankies Chain & QBR at Wagha border – and Milne Do

Posted on July 1, 2010 by beenasarwar

Posted to beena-issues yahoogroup yesterday:

Pakistani and Indian schoolchildren at the white line marking the border. The Pakistanis were about to pass the banner signed by 1900 kids from Abbottabad to their Indian counterparts. And oh look! Someone's actually standing ON the line!! Photo: Beena Sarwar

Aman ki Asha, Milne Do, Peace Hankies Chain & the Queens’ Baton Relay… Much has happened since my last post, the Aman ki Asha Milne Do curtain raiser. The foreign secretaries met in Islamabad and so did the Home Ministers. We had a senior reporter give each of them a set of our Milne Do campaign — editorial, my curtain raiser, op-ed articles by Vazira Fazeela and Manvendra Singh, the Aman ki Asha page of June 23, and the TOI page of June 24, plus the ads we’ve run since last week focusing on the main issues (city specific visas, police reporting, same entry/exit points, no tourist visas etc). Continue reading →

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