Villagers along Pakistan border fear war as tensions escalate
Relations between the two countries have plummeted post the Phalagam attack on April 22 in which 26 people were killed
Daoke village is fenced from Pakistan on three sides and 65-year-old resident Hardev Singh, who has lived through multiple wars between the arch-rivals, knows the drill if another erupts.
“All women, children, cattle and most younger men moved back to safe shelters in 1999 and 1971,” Hardev said, referring to two of the worst outbreaks of fighting between the neighbours.
“We couldn’t go to our fields,” he said, adding that it was only the village’s elderly men who “stayed back to ensure that our homes were not looted”.
Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours have plummeted after India accused Pakistan of backing the deadliest attack in years on civilians in Phalagam on April 22.
Islamabad has rejected the charge, and has violated ceasefire at multiple points along the Line of Control (LoC), expelled citizens and ordered the border shut.
Residents of the frontier villages in Punjab say nothing has changed on the ground yet — but there is a growing anxiety about the coming weeks.
“The barbaric attack on the civilians was tragic, but no matter what, the lives lost are not coming back,” Hardev said, adding “Any war would push both our countries back by many years, and there would be an even bigger loss of human lives.”
A border fence patrolled by troops slices in two the farmlands near Daoke, home to around 1,500 people.
Gurvinder Singh, 38, recalls the last major conflict in 1999.
Fighting then took place far from Punjab — in the icy Himalayan district of Kargil —but the sun-baked fields around his village did not escape unscathed.
“Mines were planted on our fields, and we could not work,” Gurvinder said.
He hopes that, if the bellicose statements issued by leaders on either side do turn into military action, his village will be left alone.
“We feel that the actual conflict would happen only in Kashmir,” Gurvinder said, adding that his village is “normal right now”.
‘Not just us’
In the nearby frontier village of Rajatal, between Amritsar and Lahore in Pakistan, residents remember the days when the golden farmland stretched without restriction.
The frontier was a colonial creation at the violent end of British rule in 1947 which divided the sub-continent.
Sardar Lakha Singh’s memory stretches back to before the fence was erected.
“We used to go to the open ground on the other side to graze our cattle,” 77-year-old Lakha said, sitting about 100m (328 feet) from fences topped with barbed wire.
Farmers can obtain special passes to go close to the border, including beyond the fence but still within Indian territory. But they must always be accompanied by a soldier.
“We can’t go there whenever we want,” said farmer Gurvil Singh, 65. “This reduces the time we get to work on our fields”.
Panic gripped border villages last week after rumours suggested farmers would be stopped from accessing fields too close to Pakistan.
Lakha Singh advised younger villagers to accept their fate and not to worry.
“Whatever is going to happen will happen anyway,” he said.
“We didn’t know when the 1965 war suddenly started, same in 1971 when the planes suddenly started crossing the border,” the grey-bearded farmer added.
“So, if it happens again, we don’t need to worry in advance.”
Gurvinder Singh, 35, said he tried to take the lesson to heart.
“It would be a high-tech war, and not an invasion or a battle of swords like the past,” he said. “When the situation worsens, it would be for the entire country -- and not just us.”