Living in an enemy state

I have always wondered what it would be like to live in country that has a declared state policy of enemity with the country from which you hail.

The country I come from, India, has been, for a good part of its independence from the U.K, at logger heads (to put it mildly) with its western neighbour.

People say its territory, some say its idealogical, others sibling rivalry. And there are some who also say its the unfinished business of partition thats keeping it going, as if by some miracle if that business were to be solved tomorrow, the hostility would end !

I have always read in newspapers how Indian diplomats are routinely mistreated in that country. And I have also read in their online news portals, how their diplomats are treated worse.

But never have I heard from anybody who has been part of any of these incidents, until a few days back when I was talking to one my friends in office.

Once I got to know that his father was part of the diplomatic corps and was also posted to that country, my interest peaked. I quizzed him if there was any truth in the newspaper stories.

Following are a couple of incidents he narrated.

He had done some three years of schooling there. And he would always be singled out for "special" treatment by his teacher. Schools are supposed to be beyond politics and inter-state rivalries but apparently the teacher did not think that way. He would pull up my friend on purpose and would ask him rather gleefully to point out where Kashmir was on the map !

One day when a class was going on, a peon entered the class room and whispered something into the teachers ears, glancing over to the indian students in the class.
The teacher called out all the indian students and asked them to report to the principals office at once. Not knowing what was going on, they all trooped down to the principals office, where they were given the news. India's PM Mrs.Gandhi had been done away with by her own body guards.

Apprehending trouble, the school wanted all indian students to go home as soon as possible. So all were bundled off. On his way home, my friend saw in the streets, massive celebrations. People were celebrating India's tragedy by distributing sweets.

If this was not enough, the next day when he went back to school, he witnessed utter hostility. Folks in the schools said India deserved this and what happened to its PM was right.

No offence to the peaceniks who always blame the rigidity of the respective government positions as the reason behind these two countries continuing to be in perputual hostility, but I feel the problem is more deeper.

There IS latent hostility that sinks deep into each nations populace also. Its totally another thing that each nation finds its own ways to express this hostility. But hostility is there and there is no denying it.

So clamping artificial solutions to so called territorial problems might solve the problem for the short-term but in the long-term people will find some other grudge from goodies bag to quarrel over.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. European countries have gone through bitter rivalries and world wars. But today the European Union is slowly becoming a reality.

Will todays SAARC mature into an EU for South Asia tomorrow ?