Shame on India - The Pioneer
Editorial
()
26 May 1997
Title : Shame on India
Author : Editorial
Publication : The Pioneer
Date : May 26, 1997
A patriot had to die because his benighted country, far from
recognising his sacrifices for the nation, hounded him as a
criminal. If even the martyrdom of former Tarn Taran SSP Ajit
Singh Sandhu does not awaken us to the consequences of collective
masochism, nothing else can. The irony is that those who never
dared to budge from the comfort of their air-conditioned retreats
while the Punjab Police was fighting the nation's war on
secessionists, are today sitting in judgement on transgressions of
the law they allegedly perpetrated. Was the killing of thousands
of innocent men, women and children by an insane bunch of mercenary
terrorists not a transgression of the law? Was the attempt to
dismember a part of the country at the instigation of an unfriendly
neighbour not a transgression of the law? Did those policemen and
their families who died at the hands of the terrorists have no
human rights? Are human rights a privilege to', be enjoyed only by
merciless killers and their self-appointed intellectual patrons?
Do those who conspired to hound and humiliate a proud nationalist
like Ajit Singh Sandhu realise that his death is probably being
celebrated at the headquarters of Pakistan's ISI? The ISI has
every reason for jubilation: What trunkloads of cash, tons of RDX
and tens of thousands of AK-47s supplied by them could not achieve,
has been accomplished by their accomplices in India in the name of
human rights. They ridiculed Ajit Singh Sandhu and exulted when he
was assaulted inside a prison by terrorists.
Even in his emaciated state, Sandhu was man enough to deny his
Lilliputian detractors the opportunity to drain out the last
vestiges of his pride drip-by-drip. He chose to opt out of what he
rightly termed "zillat ki zindagi". It is improper to condone
suicide, but in this case it was euthanasia-Ajit Singh Sandhu took
mercy upon his own putrefied state of being and refused to submit
himself to further torture by a nation of ingrates. Those who have
been yelping for his blood should now be smirking at their
achievement. This, more than anything else in recent history, well
further their cause of demoralising security forces all over the
country; this will help them realise their goal of reducing the
Indian state to pathetic impotence. But why blame them? They are
merely acting according to their calling; for them nationalism has
always been a dirty word. By succumbing to their campaign of
calumny it is we who drove Ajit Singh Sandhu to despair and death.
He waged a ]battle against terrorism and secession because as a
loyal police officer he was commanded to do so. And when he and
his brother officers retrieved Punjab from the brink, we charged
him with unspeakable crimes against humanity and accumulation of
illicit wealth. The state told him he had to fend for himself., he
had to raise his lawyers' fees by selling family heirloom. And, as
anybody who has visited the modest Sandhu home in recent times
would testify, he did not have enough money even to replace
tattered upholstery in his living room.
If this Government, as the repository of the will of the people,
has a modicum of conscience left, it will do something at least now
to give a helping hand to the thousands of Sandhus scattered all
over Punjab, Kashmir and the North-East.. It must enact a law to
grant them immunity from prosecution for actions committed while
combating insurgency. When the tricolour is raised from the
ramparts of the Red Fort for the 50th time on August 15 this year,
the nation would do well to spare a thought for those valiant
patriots who have sacrificed their all so that the flag can flutter
from an erect pole. Even if the nation is too squeamish to
acknowledge their contribution, let us at least pledge to hound
them no more. Let Sandhu's death not go in vain. We made him lose
faith in his country in life. Let us try to restore it in his
death.
