Pakistan should return Sarabjit to India
I Citation: Source: Live Pakistan, Date: 4/15/08
http://www.livepakistan.com/
II Summary: In 1990, an Indian man was arrested by Pakistan police after he was accused of spying and for the four bombings that killed fourteen people. Now, India wants Pakistan to return their prisoner and let him go home to India. Many people are taking action and talking with government officials about the issue of “freedom, religion, and belief.” Some of the other issues that are occurring due to this is the rise in religious intolerance in Pakistan and the continuous violence in Kashmir. Ideas are flowing to prevent the build up of fear by mob pressures due to the violence and religious intolerance. There are many concerns from Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and atheists about the Caste status and religious affiliation. As of now, there are no comments from Pakistan that they should return Sarabjit to India, but it seems that if they don’t, it may lead to even bigger issues like the ones that the people of India are trying to fix. The act of taking Sarabjit prisoner has just opened up another door to problems and disagreements between India and Pakistan.
III Reactions:
A) This article relates to the AP world history theme Impact of interaction among and within major societies because it demonstrates the conflicts that they have and how they are trying to solve them, or at least India is. Also, if Sarabjit wasn’t caught and accused of spying and killing fourteen people, who knows if these problems that some people threw under the rug would have been resolved. This interaction among these two societies is a great step forward to perhaps solving these religious and social intolerances.
B) The Indian and Pakistan complicated history started when both countries became independent from Britain. When they became separate from each other, the state of Kashmir was not included in either India or Pakistan. When Pakistan went to talk to Kashmir about their decision to stay their own independent state, India took this as an invasion and went to defend Kashmir. This was the start of their first war. Then, there were two more wars that occurred between India and Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. During one of these wars, 93,000 prisoners of war were taken which in turn caused a never ending battle between the two countries.
C) This article was written by Asma Jehangir, a female Indian activist who established the first law firm for women with her sister. Throughout the article, she shows her knowledge about this conflict and found great evidence and talked to many people about what is going on and what is going to be done to fix this problem. She is an insider who lives in India and was a previous member of the Commission of Human Rights and is now a part of the Human Rights Council.
D) Asma Jehangir does not show or express her opinion much in this article but she does have the opinions of many people living in India about how they feel on this issue. This article may be skewed due to the fact that she is an insider and is part of a big Council who is trying to make a difference.
E) It would be helpful to hear from a Pakistani officer and to hear why they still have him captive and if they are going to take any actions in the close future. It would also be helpful to hear from an outsider to both India and Pakistan such as Britain because at this time, Britain is making, “urgent diplomatic moves to prevent a crisis from erupting between India and Pakistan”, according to well-placed official sources in London. It would be great to hear what they have to say about the feuding history and their plans for this new issue.
F) I really liked this article and thought that it brought out some issues that needed to be solved. It was a well written article with a lot of knowledge and effort put into it. It was also very interesting when I looked up the history to their feuding because the sight that I used was thorough and gave me a lot of details as to why the issues are still coming and piling up. I am going to look further into this issue to see how it will progress over the next few weeks and see if Pakistan will have a comment then about releasing their Indian prisoner.