New Delhi, Nov. 4 -- Is peace between India and Pakistan an impossible ambition? Decades of conflict, political mistrust, religious nationalism, and competing interpretations of history have created divisions that seem too deep to overcome.

Yet my life has taught me that relations between ordinary people can be very different from relations between states. When I arrived in Britain as a 12-year-old boy in 1969 to join my father in Bradford, I could barely speak English. I had to learn a new language, adapt to a different culture, and find my place in an unfamiliar country.

Until then, I had lived in the village of Musa in the Harzo Chaach region of Punjab, Pakistan. I remember the multifaith character of the area, hailed for its mandirs...