Memory's manacles

Memory's manacles

Remember Rooplal Shaharia? Remember how he came home some months ago to garlands, boxes of sweets, and tearful hugs, after spending 27 years in Pakistani jails? Remember how he spoke of Indian Prisoners of War (PoWs) who continue to live dismal lives in Pakistani prisons, years after the hostilities that had got them there in the first place had ended? The Delhi High Court recently ruled that Rooplal Shaharia was entitled to Rs 7 lakh in compensation, besides other facilities like a petrol pump and land, as compensation for the trauma he had suffered in the cause of the nation. Now spare a thought for the two Chinese prisoners of war rotting for 38 years in a Ranchi mental asylum, imprisoned by geography, language and an utterly callous system. The report this newspaper carried on Monday, on Yung Chialung and M.A. Shiblong, two old Chinese soldiers whom time forget, demonstrated yet again that reality can often defy the boundaries of fiction -- and of reason. Why, for heaven's sake, had nobody in the vastocean of Indian bureaucracy been alert to this blatant violation of human rights? How was it that the world's rising superpower, the People's Republic of China, did not find it worth its while to rescue two of its soldiers taken prisoner during the 1962 war with India from a fate worse than death?

Now for some reminders. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reiterates that ``All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood''. Article 3 states that ``Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person''. There are, besides this crucial Declaration, several international codes and conventions that seek to govern the manner prisoners of war are treated. By any token, therefore, the treatment meted out to Chialung and Shiblong is legally unacceptable and morally repugnant. It was as Alexander Solzhenitzyn wrote in one of his novels, ``Forget the outside world. Life has different laws in here.''

Nobody can hand back to Chialung and Siblong the 38 years that fate and circumstance had cheated them of. The hands of the clock cannot, alas, be rolled back. Like Rip Van Winkle they will, possibly for the rest of their lives, continue to exist in a limbo -- their past a cruel joke, their future uncertain. The nation for which they had once fought has undergone many more revolutions than Chairman Mao Zedong had ever envisaged. Even their own families have possibly given up any hope of seeing them alive again. But regardless of all this, humanity and justice demand that every effort be taken to ensure that these two old, and possibly very sick, men are allowed to regain their freedom and return to their homeland. Both Beijing and Delhi must work in tandem to ensure that this happens and happens as quickly and efficiently as possible. The gesture could, perhaps, even come to symbolise a new spirit of detente between the two largest nations of Asia.