Claire: Wagah Border Ceremony
Lets begin with a little history lesson…
One thing set forth by the Indian Independence Act of 1947 was the partition of India and Pakistan. These newly constituted states displaced up to 12.5 million people with deaths estimated as varying from several hundred thousand to a million. The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that afflicts their relationship today.
Wagah is the only road border crossing between Pakistan and India, lying just outside Amritsar. Today, the eastern half of the Wagah village remains in the Republic of India while the western half is in Pakistan. Each day before sunset an elaborate Wagah border ceremony takes place.
Before I left for India my mom begged me to not do one thing-go anywhere near Pakistan… Welp, sorry mama, but I couldn’t miss out on seeing this. I’ll pay for the salon bill to fix the gray hairs when I’m home.
Dani and I made the trip to the Wagah border during our stay in Amritsar and it was amazing! To be safe, if anyone asked we said we were from Canada, we dressed modestly, and we refrained from grabbing the giant Indian flag during the ceremony and flailing it around (it was very tempting).
It was about an hour-long drive in the trunk of a tuk-tuk jeep to get there. When we jumped out of the car we followed the crowd through a few security checkpoints. I had read on TripAdvisor that there is a separate gate entry for foreigners. I found it off the left. Gate 3, VIP entrance. Seemed a bit fancy. Outside the gate was a crowd of people trying to get through. Dani and I have learned not to throw ourselves into masses of crowding people here, so we hovered on the outskirt. One of the military men noticed us, and waved us over. He checked our passports and sent us on through. We went through another security check-point and funneled into the stadium of people. To our right, massive bleachers filled with enthusiastic Indian citizens.To our left was the gate that separates India from Pakistan, and beyond it a crowd of gender segregated Pakistanis.
There was dancing, singing, cheering-pure enthusiasm coming from our side. The security guards settled people into their seats and we got put right in front. The crowd continued to cheer and sing, and my favorite moment was when the song Jai-ho came on. The crowd went wild and Dani and I could sing a long too. It was magical. There was a cheerleader man wearing all white that would get the crowd going. HA.
The Wagah border ceremony started with India’s Border Security Force, and Pakistan’s Rangers marching down the walkway toward to gate. It was nice to see to women guards represented on the Indian side. They would all do a little jig consisting of high kicks (no joke), stomping, pivoting, and arm flailing. It reminded me of my dance team days. After their jig both sides would march to the gate, fling it open and either do a stare down and shut it again, or another jig before they slammed it shut. I was blown away when two opposing soldiers cordially shook hands over the border. It was amazing to see.
Once each soldier had their moment with the gate, it remained open while they lowered the flags. Cheering erupted throughout the whole ceremony. The choreographed parts were very entertaining, but the thing that I found most amazing was the handshake. In that moment you would have never guessed these two countries have a hostile relationship. This ceremony has been going on since 1959.
WE Travel Correspondent Blog: Intern in India 