As we approach the 50th year of our spectacular victory in 1971, the plight of those missing and in indefinite detention in Pakistan’s captivity must be recalled
As we approach the 50th year of our spectacular victory in 1971, one emotive issue remains. The plight of those missing and in indefinite detention in Pakistan’s captivity. This is an unethical aspect of the conflict that has still not been brought to closure. There is enough compelling evidence and credible leads to suggest that they were undoubtedly in Pakistan, as revealed by Time magazine dated 27 December 1971, with a photograph of two Indians peering through the barred door of a prison. One of them was unmistakenly Major AK Ghosh of 15 RAJPUT. The magazine should have been approached to reveal the prison’s location and pin down Pakistani denials. Unfortunately, we never asked the “right questions at the right time”.
There is a table laid out at the National Defence Academy every day for the “Missing Man” at the National Defence Academy. An empty table near the entrance. It is laid out for a solitary diner with complete crockery and cutlery. However, it is never occupied: The chair is tilted forward, and the crockery is upturned. The table has a vase with a red rose and a red ribbon, an empty glass, an unlit candle, a slice of lemon and salt on the bread plate. This “Table for One” is in remembrance of all those soldiers who fought in various wars but never returned — neither alive nor dead. They were either taken as Prisoners of War (PoW) or declared as Missing in Action. But when it gets woven with the fabric of despair, a feeling of guilt embraces one.
One of the first things drilled into any soldier is that you never, ever, leave a man behind, dead or alive! War is a business where often no quarter is asked for or given, but when the dust settles, both sides are expected to play by specific rules. In 1971 while a new nation had been created and India was basking in the glory of one of the finest military victories, we as a nation collectively failed a final test–for which we must now forever carry the cross!
The story of Major AK Suri of 5 ASSAM, who was presumed dead in the Battle of Chhamb, is deeply poignant. He wrote a hurried letter to his father in mid-June 1975 from Karachi and was successfully smuggled out. The Ministry of External Affairs had the handwriting examined forensically and declared it authentic. His family received multiple confirmations of his captivity, including his handwritten notes. His father, the Late RS Suri, a man of “rare determination and persistence”, spent the rest of his life retrieving information about his son’s whereabouts but always seemed to hit a wall. He even mounted an organised effort for other men similarly missing in action. Despite securing a visit to Pakistani jails, no progress could be made. He died a bitter man in March 2000.
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Another such story is of Wing Commander HS Gill or “High-Speed Gill”, an ace MIG pilot shot down during the 1971 war near Badin and declared dead. Yet, there were repeated indications by eye-witnesses that not only had he been taken into captivity, but curiously, he had been “loaned” to the US to help unravel the secrets of the Soviet-made MiG-21 aircraft. Incidentally, the Head of US Military Advisory Group at Islamabad, Colonel Chuck Yeager, the man who broke the sound barrier, is on record that he had questioned IAF pilots in various Pakistani jails on technical aspects of aircraft.
Clearly, he would have known the places of their detention, but he “had a hard unconcealed hatred for Indians”; and was even more upset that his plane had been destroyed by an attack on Chakala airfield by none other than Lieutenant (later Admiral) Arun Prakash. Gill’s brother Gurbir Singh Gill has spent his life pursuing all leads for his release. His words: “I know he may not be alive. But then we should be told the truth. in the absence of the truth, you keep hoping that he will come back, don’t you?” sums up their despair.
The families even set up the Missing Defence Persons Relative Association. Few of them even visited Pakistan. The two visits were widely spread in years and conduct. During the first visit in 1983, Ajit Doval, then posted to the Indian High Commission, was their pointsman. The second ten-day visit in 2007 was far better organised in terms of the backing of the Pakistan government, but both visits lacked deliverable substance and were pointless. They were not given full access. Records shown were in Urdu, which the families could not read. There should have been someone from our jails accompanying them so how these records were maintained could be understood. Further, reciprocity was lacking to the Pakistani delegations in India.
The timing of the first visit coincided with Sonia Gandhi demanding the release of Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan in Parliament. Simmi Waraich, the daughter of Major SPS Waraich of 15 PUNJAB, missing in the battle of Hussainiwala; maintained a meticulous record of the unsuccessful visit. His presence in Pakistan custody had been confirmed to Colonel Dara, the legendary hockey player by Lieutenant General Riaz Hussain, a former Governor of Balochistan in 1972 and subsequently by Mohinder Singh, a returning Indian spy in 1988. But unfortunately, the families always came back dejected.
Once the fog of war cleared, both countries began repatriating their prisoners of war, completed by 1974. However, what is evident is while India returned all 93,000 prisoners and also shielded 195 of them from being tried for war crimes by Bangladesh, Pakistan still retained some in custody. India’s focus was on the recognition of Bangladesh as a sovereign nation and the release of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.
There is bitterness on the issue regarding these missing prisoners: “Those about whom nothing definitive could be said, their bodies had not been recovered, they were not part of the Prisoners of War List to be repatriated, but their names had been announced on Pakistan radio as having been captured.” Ironically some of them had been declared dead in our records which were later corrected. We refused to involve the United Nations or any other international forum treating it as a bilateral issue under the Shimla Agreement.
The government’s stand articulated to the Delhi High Court in 1999 by Vivek Katju states it is “committed to solving all matters with Pakistan on a bilateral basis without third party intervention”. Fortunately, for Kulbushan Jadhav, the late Sushma Swaraj, as External Affairs Minister, decided to go to the ICJ in 2017 in a sharp departure from this policy. Relatives who approached ICRC when they found they had declassified old records from 1966 to 1975 realised that documents pertaining to this conflict are private until 2035.
The fate of POWs can be grim. Victoria Schofield, in her book Bhutto: Trial and Execution, refers to an Indian POW in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail. She states, “He was subjected to a peculiar harassment in captivity,” and quoting his lawyer states, “every night the screams of the Indian prisoners, soldiers detained from previous wars would prevent him from sleeping”. How many of us can still hear them screaming? Their families, of course, remained emotionally and physically drained.
Reports meticulously researched by Chander Sutta Dogra in her book Missing in Action suggest that many have become insane because of mental and physical torture. It is clear that those who slip “through the cracks on the surface of an establishment and fall into the crevices of the deep state, lost forever and are neither heard nor seen again”. Only their trace and some circumstantial leads remain to be explored, often in vain, by their family members who leave no stone unturned to find them. Even visits by the next of kin to the various jails mentioned in such cases yield no result. The visits themselves are rare and difficult to organise. Their retention in captivity by Pakistan remains both immoral and unethical.
There is a Committee for Monitoring Missing Defence Personnel. In 2009, I happened to be part of that Committee when posted to Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff and worked under Air Marshal Dheeraj Kukreja. It had representatives from Service Headquarters and relevant Ministries and was a platform to push this agenda. There is no doubt that this issue has been raised multiple times at the highest levels by the government, including personal involvement by some prime ministers, but to no avail, as Pakistan continues to deny their presence and accept any evidence as accurate.
No joint bilateral investigation is possible due to the “lack of human aspects of relationship” between India and Pakistan. Individuals in Pakistan, including Ansar Burney, a lawyer and human rights activist, have also taken up this cause. Unfortunately, the long arc of the moral universe in this instance has not bent towards justice.
When the present government came to power in 2014, Colonel NN Bhatia and historian and filmmaker Shiv Kunal Verma took the matter up with General VK Singh, the Minister of State for External Affairs. He asked for and examined all records.
Says Kunal, “For Pakistan, it was a Catch-22 situation. They had been lying through their teeth on about various issues, be it their non-involvement with tribal Lashkars in 1947-48, guerrilla forces in operation Gibraltar in 1965, involvement in Kargil in 1999 and sponsoring of terrorism in J&K. in this case if they were now to make any concession, the mask would be off! It is truly one of the most significant failures of diplomacy.
“Forty prisoners of war 1971 was the figure announced in Parliament in April 1979; this was then enlarged subsequently as fresh evidence was obtained to fifty-four, including the names of three prisoners of war of 1965. Their families were shocked, many of whom had resigned themselves to the idea that these brave soldiers had been killed in battle are now paralysed with restlessness. Their lives changed forever, and some have died in misery, having spent their lives in a futile wait for the return of their loved ones.”
An officer who has interacted with the families of these persons, states: “Everyone’s experience of pain is unique and that they don’t like to talk about their pain.” There is silence in their screams, but that cannot absolve us from being deaf. We have an unfinished task of getting our prisoners back.
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is about an existential situation where Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for someone we are not certain will even arrive. It’s a play where ‘nothing happens. Fifty years in captivity under these circumstances will probably leave these gallant men who, if alive, would be in their eighties with little trace of what they were and their families with wounds that cannot be healed. For the families, there seems to be no meaning to make sense of the crushing sadness they have had to endure. It’s not only a sad story but also one of an unspeakable crime beyond all normative bounds. As we are now celebrating the Golden Jubilee of our decisive victory and the creation of Bangladesh, there is also a need to reflect on this dark side of that splendid achievement.
“Let’s go.
We Can’t.
Why not?
We’re waiting for Godot.”
(excerpt from Samuel Beckett’s, “Waiting for Godot”)
The author is an army veteran. Views expressed are personal.