One School For The Children Of Two Opposing Governments

India and Pakistan have had an unhealthy relationship for the last 60 years. Within this timeframe they have fought several wars, militarized and mined their border, and developed nuclear weapons to ward off the other. The region of Jammu and Kashmir, straddling the two countries and being a major flashpoint between them, is home to the world’s longest-serving U.N. peacekeeping mission.

On this area’s southern boundary is the Punjab, which the British partitioned in 1947 to form the Punjabi Province for Pakistan and the Punjab State for India. The only established crossing point within the Punjab, one of only two between India and Pakistan, is where The Punjabi School will be built. More specifically, the school will straddle the line between Wagah, Pakistan and Atari, India.

This location lies on the Wagah Road, which connects Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab Province, and Amritsar, the headquarters of Amritsar District in India’s Punjab State. Families with members working for their respective governments in these two cities will be invited to send their children to the school, and spaces in the student body will also be given to the general public. The school and its location is an easy drive for school buses each day as neither Lahore nor Amritsar is more than 30 km from this point on the border.

Though some of the students might be Pakistani Muslims and some might be Indian Sikhs or Hindus, almost all of them will be Punjabi people, an ethnic group that speaks a language of the same name. It will up to the parents and local educational leaders as to whether Punjabi or English will the primary language of instruction at the school. Without ignoring each student’s need for unique civic and religious pride, the school will highlight the students’ shared Punjabi identity and the commonalities that they have with all Pakistanis and Indians. In their final year of secondary school, the students will take a political science class in which they will be asked to brainstorm solutions to the Kashmiri stalemate and ideas on how to strengthen relations between their respective countries.

The crossing point at Wagah is famous for its intense but cordial gate-closing and flag-lowering ceremony, which occurs every evening. To watch a fascinating clip that was filmed on the Pakistani side, click here.