India Calls Off Its 'Peacocks'

Taken from The Telegraph, 24.11.06
By Isambard Wilkinson

India has brought to an end the aggressive "peacock-style" posturing by its guards on its border with Pakistan in a goodwill gesture towards its arch-foe.

Every day before sunset since the British partition of India in 1947, border guards from both sides of the Wagah border crossing performed a testosterone-fuelled "Beating the Retreat" ceremony.



The martial ballet, which takes place on the border's only land transit point on the road between Amritsar in India and the Pakistani city of Lahore, featured guards hand-picked for their height, impressive facial hair and ability to perform a belligerent goose-step.

It was watched by thousands of spectators, who shout patriotic slogans from either side, and even triggered an exchange of gunfire almost a decade ago.

But the Indian Border Security Force has now ordered its guards to refrain from the provocative ritual of glaring, shouting and air-kicking and to restrict themselves to standard drill practice.

The "soft gesture" ahead of peace talks between Pakistan and India prompted great interest in both countries, which have gone to war three times since Partition. Commentators from both countries called for Pakistan's Rangers border guards to follow suit.

Yesterday however, the Pakistan army's spokesman, Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan, flatly rejected any change to their border procedure.

The Indian gesture is the latest in a series of "confidence building measures" that have included cricket matches and the opening of cross-border bus services. They are intended to improve the tense relations between the two nuclear rivals.

Peace talks were put on hold until last week following the train bombings in July that killed 186 people in India's financial capital Bombay, now renamed Mumbai.

India's Border Security Force said that in changing its drill, India was toning down its "body language". In the nuanced parlance of Indo-Pakistani politics, the lowering of a leg by a few inches carries significance. The Indian guards have agreed to not lift their legs higher than the "horizontal" level.

"Soldiers have been told to refrain from high-rise stomping of feet," said Commander Pradeep Katyal, the chief Indian official at Wagah. "The new gesture speaks of friendship, while the earlier body language bordered on hostility – a display of might."

He said that there had been no let-up in "aggressiveness" shown by the Pakistan Rangers.

An editorial in the influential Pakistani newspaper The News called for an end to the ritual. "It is high time that this surly spectacle ceremony, which is clearly out of place in this day and age and which only plays to the gallery and stirs the wrong kind of emotions among people, was stopped. One hopes that the Pakistani side will follow suit," it said.