Meek diplomacy claims Sarabjit Singh’s life
Although the Congress-led UPA Government is busy blaming Pakistan for the death of Sarabjit Singh, New Delh is equally answerable for the tragedy. While Islamabad must be held accountable for its ineptness to provide security to the Indian prisoner and proper medical treatment after he was brutally assaulted in the jail, the Government here did very little to compel Pakistan to scale up Sarabjit’s security despite the fact that he faced threats. Nor could the UPA regime persuade Pakistani authorities to shift the prisoner to India for timely treatment. Now that Sarabjit Singh is dead, the Indian Government is on full symbolic mode, declaring that it will fly back his body in a special aircraft and perform his last rites “with full honours”. Immediately after the lethal April 26 attack that pushed Sarabjit Singh into an irreversible coma, New Delhi should have pressured Islamabad to bring home the critically-ill patient. Instead, it dilly-dallied for days and took up the matter with the Pakistani establishment only after much public outrage. It is nobody's case that, had Sarabjit Singh been moved to India, he would have surely survived — given how barbarically he had been attacked, he had only a slim chance. Yet, that New Delhi could not prevail over Islamabad goes to show how pathetic it is at statecraft and how callously it is taken by its neighbour.
The Indian Government’s attempts to seek the enhancement of Sarabjit Singh’s security were brushed aside by Pakistan because they were so half-hearted. Everyone knew that there were threats to Sarabjit’s life from the jihadi groups and others — all wanting to avenge the recent hangings of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru in India. Ideally, security should have been increased as a matter of routine procedure — India has already done it for Pakistani prisoners lodged in its own jails. But when it comes to its own people, New Delhi ends up weak-kneed and almost apologetic.
Sarabjit Singh's case had always been plagued by the inadequacies of a feeble state. Ever since he was convicted in 1991 of allegedly carrying out a string of bombings in Punjab Province, his family has held that it was a case of mistaken identity. But New Delhi maintained a distance. More recently, Sarabjit Singh was supposed to be sent back home as part of a prisoner-swap deal which India had negotiated with Pakistan, but at the very last moment another Indian inmate was released in his place, leaving New Delhi red-faced. Ultimately, the fact remains that this Government never really cared either for Sarabjit Singh or for those that continue to languish in Pakistani jails. The only reason that Sarabjit Singh's saga received even this much attention from the Government is because his family, particularly his sister Dalbir Kaur, led a sustained campaign for over two decades for his release. Had this not been the case, his death would have gone as unnoticed as that of his fellow Indian inmate Chambail Singh, who was earlier this year murdered in the same Kot lakhpat jail where Sarabjit was incarcerated and fatally attacked. If only the Indian authorities had then strongly raised the matter with Islamabad, Sarabjit Singh may have been alive today. Dalbir Kaur is right in having observed that New Delhi had done “nothing” to protect her brother’s life and liberty.