Shivalik Bakshi’s Nowhere Man is a wonderful read. Will the Ministry of External Affairs react and open another round of negotiations on missing PoWs with Islamabad?
It was in 2004 and the Indian cricket team—encouraged by the then PM Atal Behari Vajpayee—was visiting Pakistan for the Samsung Cup ODI and test series. I distinctly remember an Indian journalist asking me if I would push an idea to ask the Pakistan authorities about Indian prisoners of war languishing in Pakistan jails? We were in Multan, a dusty city synonymous with Alexander the Great and his forces, and Virendra Sehwag—by then—ad smashed a triple century to win a test.
Discussing Indian POWs over cricket, biryani and Pakistani hospitality, I realised, would be very tough. Worse, it could trigger a diplomatic row.
But that night, the thought of the Indian POWs hovered on my mind for long. Discussions about Indian POWs in Pakistan have never taken a serious shape, unlike discussions on whether Lal Bahadur Shastri was poisoned in Tashkent or Subhas Bose was a saint in disguise near Faizabad and known as Gumnami. A handful of Indian intellectuals have routinely done candlelight marches near the Attari border that leads to Lahore. And some Indian authors and publishers have attended literary fests in Pakistan.
But no one discussed the status of the Indian POWs.
And it is why Shivalik Bakshi’s “Nowhere Man: The Story of Captain Kamal Bakshi, Missing since the 1970 Indo-Pak War” assumes importance, sorry…great importance. The books has a question that India has not asked: Where are the soldiers? And in this case, where is Captain Kamal Bakshi? There are no answers and I doubt there will be any answers. The author says he likes to investigate the case of men who went missing in the 1971 war. That’s a noble thought and I wish him luck.
I went straight to the chapter, titled “The Longest Hours, 3-6, December” where Subedar Hakam Singh—he reported to Capt Kamal Bakshi—narrated the night before Indian commanders fell into the hands of the Pakistan Army on the Western border. The battle of Chhamb was the bloodiest battle of the 1971 war. It was a tough day and a dark night, the Indian soldiers were running out of ammunition. The Indian Army was saddled with a single tank which was virtually out of order. Singh narrated to the author what he saw, and what he felt: “We faced a massive attack on the morning of December 6 from enemy troops. And then enemy tanks also showed up. Many, many tanks. We were completely outgunned. And then it was just us men against those enemy tanks. We fought as best as we could. War is chaotic. There is gunfire and shelling and dust getting kicked up and blood being split. The tall sarkanda around us was ablaze, so there was a lot of smoke.”
Didn’t help come from the Army Headquarters? No, there was no artillery support available, not a single battery, all the guns were in the process of pulling back because the Indian commanders were concerned about them falling into enemy hands. Worse, the large-calibre, long range guns were destroyed by Pakistani fighter jets. So there was no support. And then, Capt Kamal Bakshi and others were captured by soldiers of the Pakistani Army.
During 1988-98, New Delhi and Islamabad exchanged some prisoners. Among those repatriated was one Mukhtiar Singh, who spent over a decade in Pakistani prisons to serve time for his crime. And it was during the debriefing by Indian authorities at the border on 5th July, 1988 about his time in prison, Mukhtiar claimed to have met an Indian Army officer, Capt Kamal Bakshi, in Pakistani prisons. Mukhtiar also claimed to have met Capt Ravinder Kaura multiple times in several prisons across Pakistan.
The author painstakingly talks to members of Capt Bakshi and hears out what his sister felt about her missing brother: “It has been a lifelong struggle to contain the deep pain of losing my only brother, one who had such a large presence in my life. It isn’t just about missing his physical presence – there is also the constant agony of wondering, what happened on that fateful morning in 1971, and whether he is all right wherever he is and whether he will still return one day.”
Will he, I have my doubts because Islamabad would never admit that it handed over an incomplete list of Indian POWs to the Red Cross. And New Delhi was more concerned about getting Sheikh Mujibur Rehman alive from Pakistan.
The author argues vociferously why New Delhi should act, and act now. He feels the greatest flaw committed by India was not to have carried out a complete search of the Pakistani prisons before releasing the Pak POWs. The move could have worked, ostensibly because Pakistan was totally shaken at that time. But it did not happen. India returned an estimated 93,000 Pakistani soldiers, the move parallel to the surrender of the 6th German Army during the Second World War at Stalingrad- numbering about 100,000 prisoners of war. And the Pakistani POWs were treated well, unlike Indian soldiers in Pakistani prisons.
I remember PM Narendra Modi had told Parliament that there were 83 Indian soldiers, including the “missing 54”, in Pakistan’s custody. The rest are possibly soldiers who “strayed across the border” or were captured for alleged espionage. Pakistan has consistently denied holding any Indian POWs.
This is not all. The book talks about one Sukhdev Singh, a migrant worker from India to Oman, who said he had met one Jaspal Singh, an Indian soldier who was captured by Pakistan forces during the 1971 war and then sent to an Oman detention camp in Masirah Island. When he returned to India, Sukhdev went to the village of Jaspal Singh and met his wife. Writes the author: “After hearing him out, the old man’s wife disappeared into the house and returned with a framed photograph of her husband. ‘Was he the man you spoke to?’ she asked Sukhbir. ‘Yes it was him,’ Sukhbhir had conceded.”
Can the Indian POWs escape? Tough for them because they must be nearing 80. The movie 1971 highlighted the plight of the Indian POWs in Pakistani jails and how they failed in their attempts to escape. The movie highlighted how the Indian POWs from the 1971 war were kept along with 1965 POWs who had gone insane with despair.
“The enemy is here, I am going on the attack,” this was Capt Bakshi’s last radio message. A wonderful read, will the Ministry of External Affairs react and open another round of negotiations with Islamabad?