Active Citizens using Social Media to Push for Peace among Afghanistan, India and Pakistan

The Pul‐e‐Jawan program kick‐started at Kabul in September 2011 when fifteen citizen Journalists, five each from from Afghanistan, India and Pakistan met, debated and collaborated to create a common ground to bring peace in this region. The Kabul forum has led to Pul‐e‐Jawan forums within India and Pakistan to encourage more citizens to express themselves in common issues related to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Last Saturday, on 14th of April 2012, the Pul‐e‐Jawan India forum was held at India International Centre, New Delhi, which brought together citizen journalists, senior journalists, alternative media practitioners and representatives of cultural organizations promoting peace in diversity and conflict situations.
Osama Manzar, founder of Digital Empowerment Foundation, began the proceedings by hosting and the anchoring the first session “Freedom of Expression & Activism”.

Dr Madanmohan Rao, editor of the Asia‐Pacific Internet Handbook, described how social media is helping activists work on causes within a country as well as between countries. It is easy to protest (at least in democracies) but tougher to go beyond “smart swarms” and build stable movements. Social media helps activists and ideas connect via exchange and circulation of ideas and online and offline meetups.

Barun Mitra, Liberty Institute, indefenceofliberty.org, opined that poems are the oldest form of social media, starting off in the oral era and for social media to be successful, ideas have to connect, not just technology. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta joked that journalism began with a ‘mission’ but has now been converted into ‘commission’! “India is the only democracy in the world where government still controls news on radio, this must change,” he said.

An Urdu storytelling session called Dastan‐e‐Taqseem‐e‐Hind (on the Partition of India) in medieval format of Dastangoi was performed by Ankit Chadha and Darain Shahidi.

Dastangoi is a lost art form of storytelling in Urdu being revived recently by Mahmood Farooqui and Danish Husain. This was a hair‐raising performance and shook all participants as different tales and facets of the tragic and gruesome partition of India was retold with surprising elements of humor.

A video connection was established with Shahzad Ahmad of BytesForAll, Pakistan, who made a passionate plea to work together towards peace. One of his suggestions was to deliberate on the possibility of converting Siachen into a Peace Park, rather a symbol of conflict and animosity.

In the next session, “New Media & Technology: Creation of Alternative Spaces”, commenting on the evolution of media, Jay Vikram Bakshi, Social Media Evangelist, said that desktop publishing has now evolved to “push a button in your hand” publishing and the challenges in digital media are new narrative skills in creating and following multiple threads of discourse. “Cloud power is unleashing new streams of consciousness, but we need curation on top of wisdom of the masses,” he said.

Jessica Mayberry, Founder Director, Video Volunteers.org, said her media NGO is addressing those who have been excluded from mainstream journalism. “We had 60 journalists who documented the presence and impact of ‘Untouchability’ in India,” she said, and showed a few videos, including that of of kids being separated in schools during lunchtime based on caste and dalits going to cities for a haircut because the village barber would not cut their hair.

Shubhranshu Choudhary, founder of CGNet Swara in Chattisgarh, said that less than 1% of the state’s population is online. “Pre‐1947 media in India was undemocratic, and ruled by colonisers and aristocratic classes. It is still aristocratic – can we change it with new media?” he asked. Marguerite Miailhe from “Imagination For People” explained how her organization is connecting people with imagination for the common good, using wiki platform. “Social managers” in South Asia can connect with projects and communities via their portal imaginationforpeople.org.

During the session, “Citizen Media for Culture and Community”, Archana Kapoor, founder of Community Radio Mewat, urged the government to change the relevant laws and let community radio broadcast news. Chintan Girish Modi, writer and educator and part of “The Kabir Project” said Kabir’s work has lots of relevance in today’s context as well. A core message from Kabir is to ‘stop pointing fingers’ and blaming others for problems, but take charge actively oneself in coming up with the solution.

Piali Bhattacharya, from Breakthrough.tv shared on Bell Bajao, showed how social media and local community interaction can be used to tackle domestic violence. Rajendra Negi, founder, Henvalvani Community Radio, said his radio station was launched in March this year and has already received more than 2,000 listener calls so far. Roshan Nair, program director of Gram Vaani Community Media, said that India has a big Internet literacy curve in rural India. Osama Manzar observed that mobile phone converges community radio, citizen media, and the Internet, and can help fill this rural divide.

On the final session on Peace & Conflict Resolution, Gautam Chikermane, Journalist and Blogger, began by explaining that he blogs about religion, and that can unfortunately attract a lot of hateful comments. “Religion is not just a faith but an organiser of society,” he said. “One must watch out for unsubstantiated statements on social media,” said Gautam Chikermane. He wrote about the deportation of Peters Heehs (biographer of Sri Aurobindo), and got “shallow reactions” from many twitterati. But there can be harmony between large and online media, as the Huffington Post shows.

Sharib Ali, researcher and citizen journalist, was part of the India team which visited Afghanistan recently. “I met an Afghan film‐maker who made videos of day‐to‐day events and joys in Afghanistan. He got a standing ovation, for showing stories beyond the extreme, and not from foreign media,” he said.

Raju Moza, citizen journalist, said his team interviewed people in Afghanistan and they want stability from the Pakistan side. “We need to remove hatred towards each other’s countries, by all tools and medium including social media,” he urged.

Shivam Vij, journalist and founder of Kafila.org said that, “Social media helps you listen in during internal conversations of each others’ countries, and gives you new insights. Unfortunately, India‐Pakistan online debates often lead to attack on each other’s founding leaders and finally degenerate into personal abuses.”

“I know of family members in India and Pakistan who interacted online after decades. A Pakistani girl also got to India to watch a cricket match thanks to support from Netizens for tickets, visa, and travel.

Social media shows you the power of kindness of absolute strangers,” Vij observed. Dilip Simeon, Chairperson Aman Trust, made a strong appeal to citizens and journalists to stand up for fair judgments from courts and politicians. Citizen journalism requires courage, and journalists must be prepared for the consequences. “In India we are expert in changing the subject, and end up condoning violent acts like disruptions of movie shootings,” he added. He argued against notions of collective guilt.

One can’t blame all Muslims for India‐Pakistan partition, or blame all Hindus for Dalit oppression, or blame all Christians for the Inquisition. “Keep talkshopping, it will get you somewhere. There is nothing wrong with talkshops!” said Shivam Vij.

“Use social media to organise online, but go offline, meetup and actually do something on the ground,” advised Sharib Ali. “Pick concrete issues around which to have a debate, not just hot air,” added Dilip Simeon.

“We need regional talkshops not just online, but face‐to‐face also,” concluded Osama Manzar. Pul‐e‐Jawan is an initiative of Internews with Digital empowerment foundation (DEF) as country partner in India, Bytesforall in Pakistan and Afghanyouthvoices in Afghanistan .

Earlier on 11th and 12th of April 2012, Pul‐e‐Jawan Pakistan was held in Islamabad, Pakistan, titled “Celebrating diversity ‐ Social media connecting Pakistan & beyond!” The event received overwhelming response and interesting part of the event was the theatre performance called Aman Girah –Entangled peace by William Parvez and group of artists.

Influenced by the increasing role of social media and citizen media networks, DEF in India has taken Pule‐Jawan to the next level by initiating Citizen Media Network ,which has been formed as an umbrella activity to consider social media as tools for free expression and to be advocated to be used for relationship building between people, regions and nations .
About Pul‐e‐Jawan Pul‐e‐Jawan literally means “Bridges of Youth” in Dari, as well as in Urdu and Hindi. The aim of Pul‐e‐
Jawan is to transform the conflict in South Asia by highlighting youth perspectives on common challenges and aspirations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. By facilitating an exchange between citizen journalists of these three countries, and providing a platform to discuss issues usually ignored in the debate about security, Internews hopes to create a paradigm shift in the discussions about peace and reconciliation in the region. This initiative is supported by Ploughshares Fund.

Amarendra Srivastava, cj@defindia.net or

Shahid Siddiqui (siddiqui@defindia.net)

Citizen Media Network, 3rd Floor, House No. 44, Kalu Sarai, (Near IIT Flyover) New Delhi – 110016
Tel: +91‐11‐26532786 | Fax: +91‐11‐26532787 | www.citizenmedianetwork.org