Re: India’s 1971 POW rhetoric and visiting search team
I was quite keen on catching up with the team…
This article from yesterday has some good pictures and is a good write-up on the state of the relatives in the visiting team.
Once again, with no sympathy for India, its military or personnel, but with great respect for the profession of soldiering and the sacrifices a *soldier *regardless of which side of the boundary or what origin, makes for what he believes in and loves. My sympathies with the families, and respects to the soldiers who become just soldiers, and are alike in their devotion and sacrifice all over the world.
http://dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag6.htm
Forsaken but not forgotten
By Zofeen T. Ebrahim
Now in their twilight years, the brave young soldiers who put their lives at stake to protect their borders, back in 1971, today remain nameless, forgotten and forsaken by their respective governments. Both insist that there are no POWs, but their relatives believe otherwise. It is this callousness, say families, which is most painful.
“It’s been far too many years, 36 years to be exact; and our kin have spent enough years in captivity and should now be released; we plead to President Pervez Musharraf to allow their release,” said 62-year-old Dr Bhurt Kumar Suri.
Dr Suri is among a group of 14-member team of the Missing Defence Personnel Relatives Association (MDPRA) who are on a two-week visit to Pakistan to find out the whereabouts of 54 prisoners of war (POWs) who remain unaccounted for since the two-week long war between the Pakistan and India began in 1971. They believe they may be languishing in prisons in Pakistan and during their stay will visit 10 prisons.
The last time Dr Suri saw his brother Major Akash Kumar Suri, then a young man of 26, was in October 1971 at the Dusehra festival. “He told us then that war clouds between the two nations had already gathered. Soon after the war started, we heard that he had been captured. The war had not yet ended, but my father rushed to his army garrison to ascertain the news. He was told he had been captured in wounded condition. Later, we heard he was in good shape at a Pakistani camp hospital.”That was the last the Suris heard of him till they received a note, in 1974, on which was scribbled ‘I’m ok here in Pakistan’. Below was his signature and date. Then another letter arrived in 1975 from him again which asked his father to contact the Indian army and the defence ministry and get him released. “This was from Karachi. We got it verified and the army authenticated of the letter.”
As late as 2000, there was constant bickering between Islamabad and New Delhi over the forgotten POWs. Both have, most vehemently denied knowledge of these missing in action (MIA). The sad part is governments often forget that behind every missing person, lives of scores of family members remain on hold.
G.S. Gill, heading this 14-member team is the younger brother of Wing Commander H.S. Gill of the Indian Air Force, also missing since 1971. “We have with us, incontrovertible evidence that the 54 missing are in Pakistan and we have brought proofs with us in the form of notes, letters etc., which have been confirmed authentic.” He added they had been getting sporadic information from prisoners who were released as late as 1998.
“It’s been too long and the relations between the two countries have upset and disturbed many families,” emphasising that “this is a purely humanitarian mission” and should not be construed as a political one. “We appeal to the Pakistani people to help us find our kin. They should be allowed to live the last years of their lives with their loved ones. And if they are not in these civilian prisons, we should be allowed to visit detention centres run by the military or any place where they believe we should be looking. The president, as head of the state and the Army, should be in a position to solve our problem.”
So far the MDPRA has not made much headway. After the visit to Kot Lakhpat, in Lahore, their next stop was the Karachi Central Jail. Without finding any evidence, they left for Sukkur. The latter, too, was an exercise in futility.
“We are shown registers which we cannot read as they are in Urdu and the five prisoners we were allowed to meet in Karachi were all below 55, who were really of no use as our missing must now be over that age. We had also requested them to allow us, or just the women from our team, to visit the asylum for the mentally challenged but that was turned down,” said Suri who termed the trips to prisons “an eyewash exercise” with “little transparency”.
“How do you suppose the prisoners who were brought to us will give us any information when they are surrounded by prison guards and other superior officers? And even if have information, they will refrain for fear of chastised later,” said Suri.“We have requested in writing to the president to allow us visits to the Attock Fort, Sialkot Gora Jail and Chaklala base as we have information that some of the people we are looking for may be kept there.” So far they have not received a nod from the highest quarters.
“The hate and distrust between the two countries has been so grave that this exercise was not possible 30-20 years back,” says Brigadier Rao Hamid, of the Human Rights commission of Pakistan, in Lahore.
“The government has persistently maintained they do not have any POWs. But the families have never been convinced,” says Rao Hamid who has facilitated the release of several Indian prisoners in the past.
From his experience he had shared “a few ideas” to higher ups to “help make this exercise credible and to end the torment of the families”.
“I am afraid this search has been organised in a rush. Besides, climatically and politically it is not a good time to be in Pakistan. Most of them are senior citizens, I fear it may still leave some lingering doubts in their minds,” he says.
Further, “It could be an exercise in futility and may inflict yet another scar on the grieving families. So far the families appear happy at the reception and treatment, but how would they feel once they are back in their homes?”
Nevertheless, some feel it’s given the campaign the much needed media attention. “The trip is a good step forward as if nothing else it has given our campaign a new lease and people are becoming aware of our tribulations,” said Dr Simmi Warch, a psychologist by profession and a member of the association.
She, however, has no memories of her father being only three when Major S.P.S Warach, her father went missing. She and her younger sister know their father through incidents that have been narrated to them by their mother. “But everyone tells me I look just like him. I also seem to have even inherited quite a few of his characteristics, like reading, cooking and a very hot temper!”
“It changed our lives completely and this feeling of really not knowing, of not being sure whether he is alive or not is very, very disturbing,” said Warach.
Her mother remarried after waiting for 15 years, a decision fully supported by all family as well as her two daughters. “She, too, was coming to look for him, but had to cancel at the eleventh hour due to ill health.”
“In a way we are resigned to our fate and the fact that finding our fathers/brothers and husbands is unlikely, but it’s the hope in us that keeps prodding us forward. It will remain till we live,” said Warach, adding, “I feel for most relatives, their lives are still on hold.”
She also resents the fact that the soldiers reported missing following a combat mission are termed ‘killed in action’, when their whereabouts are uncertain. “This is highly insensitive and needs to be revised and such soldiers assigned the ‘missing in action’ status.
The MIA status acknowledges that the loss is not final since there is no certainty of death, an identified dead body to mourn over, and no official documentation of the person’s death.
Damayanti Tambay, 59, was just 22 when she got married to Flight Lieutenant V.V. Tambay. He went missing on a sortie, but she is sure he is alive.
A sports director at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, she says “I have been waiting for the last 36 years for my husband to come back.”
And if that is not to be, then she will not settle for anything less than a “convincing” closure.
Though the marriage was arranged and she only lived with her husband for a year, she says, “It’s those few stolen moments of time spent together” that she holds precious and which have pulled her through all these years. “I was a plain-looker, you know, someone who doesn’t like to look herself too often in the mirror; but he made me feel so special when he’d lovingly look at me and say I looked smart and pretty.”
When she heard he was captured, her first reaction was of relief and the fact that “he would not be involved in active war as he would be a POW.” It was much later, when she heard no news, that she “realised the dim possibility” of his coming back.
“Then it hit me that I need to do something as languishing in jail, he needed someone from outside to help him get released. I needed to exhaust all avenues before giving up.”
A few years after the 1971 war, Time magazine published a story with five photographs of Indians lodged in Pakistani jails. One of the pictures was that of Tambay.
“Once I had that evidence, further corroborated from Pakistani newspapers and radio, I began my mission of finding him.”
Since then she started her campaign, first alone and then when she was told by the National Human Rights office that they would be able to take her work forward if other families in the same predicament worked collectively, they formed the MDPRA. It will be Reshma Advani’s 36th wedding anniversary on June 8, 2007. At 67, the wounds of this long separation run deep. Married for just six months, she was also six months pregnant in December 1971 when her 30 year old husband Flight Lieutenant Ram Advani’s plane entered the Pakistan air space and shot down.
“I was told he was not dead as his body was not found. That was a relief at first, but I wasn’t prepared for his disappearance. The news just broke me. He went missing on the first day of war and I’ve not heard from him since. I remained mentally disturbed for a very long time. I just couldn’t stop crying.”