Pakistanis have always faced problems obtaining visas to India - and vice versa. I have family on both sides of the border who have faced these problems. My mother's sister moved to Pakistan as a teenager and could never visit India again. My father's sister, the only one of her siblings who lived in India, last visited Pakistan in 1993 for a family wedding. She passed away in 2005 without ever being able to return.
I remember how crazy it was when I first applied for an Indian visa, in 1988. The consulate was still operative in Karachi then, and I had to get in line at 5.30 a.m. I remember seeing a lot of elderly people in tears because their visas were denied.
Things haven't changed much. In fact, the visa process has become more difficult. Aman ki Asha is doing a great job of raising people's awareness by highlighting these issues and one hopes the situation will improve.
What really needs to be highlighted is the problems of people from either country who have moved across the border, leaving family behind, particularly the elderly, and women of Pakistani origin married to Indians, or of Indian origin married to Pakistanis.
Rubina, a Pakistani supporter of Aman ki Asha, wrote to me to share the story of her mother. Mehrunissa was the only member of her family who moved to Pakistan after 1947 along with her husband and his family.
After her husband passed away and her only daughter (Rubina) got married and moved abroad, Mehrunissa wanted to visit her siblings in India. She applied for a visa in 2000, travelled to Islamabad, stayed in a hotel, got in a long line for three days before she was called into the Embassy - where she was denied the visa.
Mehrunissa repeated this process every year and was denied each time. In 2004 she was very sick when she applied. Told to come to the Embassy in person, she appealed for a special consideration. She was still waiting for a reply when she passed away in August 2004, without being able to see her siblings one last time.
"My khala (mother's sister) in India also tried to come and meet her and she also couldn't get a visa to Pakistan," writes Rubina. She appeals to the authorities on both sides of the border to be "lenient towards sick and elderly... We need to make it easier for them to be able to visit their loved ones."
As Krish, an Indian supporter of Aman ki Asha, wrote, these elders "have already witnessed a lot of bad things, losing many of their loved ones. And now, the visa denials."
Given that arranged marriages are the norm in this region, why should young people be penalised for conforming to their families' wishes? If people want to marry across the border to keep up the family or friendly ties why are they being discouraged from doing so? Why are visas denied to daughters of India who are married to Pakistanis - and vice versa?
People often give up their original citizenships when they get married and move to a foreign country. However, this poses no problem elsewhere in the world. They are still able to visit their original countries without a problem. Getting married to a foreign national should not mean cutting off ties to your homeland.
But for girls giving up their Indian nationality and becoming Pakistani citizens, and those giving up their Pakistani nationality to become Indian citizens, that's exactly what it ends up meaning. Visas are denied or the process made so complicated as to put them off trying.
Fatima from Mumbai was my neighbour when she first came to live in Karachi after getting married to a Pakistani in 1990. We lost touch after I left Pakistan in 1996, but after reading my article on visa issues ("Let's get to know each other, work together", Aman ki Asha, June 22, 2011), she contacted me, and shared her experiences.
Her sister Aisha is also married to a Pakistani. Both sisters have found it almost impossible to visit India since getting married. Aisha was unable to get a visa for India to be with the family when their father passed away. Fatima says that when Aisha applied for a visa in 2003 at the Indian Embassy in Islamabad after their father's death, the visa officer told her: "Why are you crying if your father has died, did you not know he would die when you married a Pakistani?" She was denied a visa and returned home in tears.
Aisha finally obtained a visa in 2009, after their mother also passed away. The process involved submitting the death certificate, bills and other documents to prove her identity. Aisha's children also applied, but were denied the visa.
If the girl is married to a government officer, as Fatima is, she dares not even apply for a visa to India for fear that her husband will be put on a surveillance list for having ties to a 'hostile' neighbour. After getting married, she met her father only once when he visited Pakistan in 1995. The last she saw her mother was in 2004 when she visited Pakistan. She feels that she might never have a chance to visit India. It is highly likely that her children who haven't visited India yet might never have the chance to visit their mother's homeland.
It is not that people of the two countries do not want peace or that they reject friends who move to a different country after getting married. Fatima still keeps in touch with her friends in India via email and facebook. Their attitude towards her has not changed, she asserts.
I cannot understand how these girls who grew up in India and love their homeland become a security threat if they are married to Pakistanis? They miss their family, the streets they grew up in, the colourful festivals they attended, and the laughter and the tears they shared with their friends. Why do they have to be exiled from their homeland? Why do their children not get a chance to get to know their mothers' birthplace and share their love for their homeland? Why should grandparents not be allowed to enjoy their grandchildren? Why should cross-border children not get a chance to experience the love and affection of their grandparents?
Fatima is pessimistic. Things won't change, she feels, until families of the concerned authorities "don't share the pain that we are going through, ...the pain of marrying their daughters (across the border) and the feeling of uncertainty about when they will next have an opportunity to meet their daughter or whether they will die like my parents did, without ever having the chance to meet again".
"Every daughter of India in Pakistan and every Pakistani daughter in India should get to visit their parents on either side of the border," believes Fatima - and she is right. She hopes fervently that things will change in her lifetime and that she does not have to "wilt away waiting for a solution," as she puts it.
This is a heartfelt appeal to the governments of both countries: Please give these daughters of both nations the right to visit and meet their loved ones
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