Eminent lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar said on Friday that he suspects that relations between India and Pakistan will improve in the near future. Referring to the Satya and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, Akhtar said that India and Pakistan had lost a similar opportunity after partition. He said that there was a large displacement due to partition due to partition.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a process, due to which the victims and the exploiting class of apartheid got a chance to come together. On the occasion of the release of the book “Farewell Karachi” written by film critic-writer Bhavna Somaya, he said, “It’s some time for reconciliation. Only our people in India know what happened to them after 1947-48. The people there know what happened to them. I wish they all sat together … 75 years old, they would have been older than 90 years old?”
Akhtar (80) said that the governments of the two countries should have brought the refugees from the two sides together in the beginning or middle of the 1950s and should have given them a chance to share their memories.
He said, “Then we could know in the true sense what happened to and how many people had to face what kind of atrocities. It is not one -sided. But it has not happened. Anyway, I do not think the situation would be better in the near future.