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British MP makes
Tytler tuck his tail
Murderer of Sikhs stopped from entering
Britain,
MP told British Foreign Sec to arrest him
Sach Kanwal Singh
 LONDON:
For months now, Narendra Modi, he of the Gujarat massacre of Muslims
fame, has been reeling under the shame of a politician who has been
consistently denied visa by the US administration after human rights
groups came up with incontrovertible proof of his involvement and
encouragement to the killings.
The shame has now come visiting another shameless. Senior Congress
leader Jagdish Tytler, the man who exhorted and led blood thirsty
mobs in 1984 to kill and burn alive hundreds of Sikhs, and who has
become the face of pogrom against the Sikhs, now cannot visit the
United Kingdom.
Clearly, India’s ruling Congress party, its president Sonia Gandhi
and rising Congress scion Rahul Gandhi too will get their own share
of shame or embarrassment, depending upon their individual
sensitization and sensitivity, as a result of the UK
administration’s move. After all, they made Tytler chairman of the
volunteers’ committee of the Commonwealth Games Organizing
Committee, but just see what slap has London delivered.
But then credit must go to where it belongs for stopping in the
tracks the plans by Tytler to masquerade as a respectable member of
the world community. Rob Marris, Member of Parliament MP and chair
of the British parliament’s All Party Group on Sikhs, told Foreign
Secretary David Miliband in no uncertain terms, and in writing, that
Jagdish Tytler was a murderer, and that his presence in Britain was
“unacceptable.” Marris wrote to Miliband in just the nick of time,
on October 28.
 Tytler
had planned to visit the
United Kingdom
as part of an Indian delegation for the launch of the Commonwealth
Games Baton Relay in London earlier this month. As soon as Marris, a
Labour Party member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West, got
wind of it, he set up an emergency meeting with Ivan Lewis,
Britain’s Junior Foreign Office Minister responsible for India and
briefed him about Tytler’s past.
Robert Howard Marris is known for his meticulous work, is a graduate
with first class honours in History and Sociology from the
University of British Columbia, was the receipient of the coveted
“Backbencher of the Year” award because of his ability to study a
problem in depth before coming up with his own carefully analysed
conclusions, and was recently seen as a sort of a “saint” when
British politicians were hit by the May 2009 political scandal of
MPs expenses disclosures.
No
wonder, Marris had done his homework very well. So, not only did he
tell the British government that Tytler’s presence was
“unacceptable” but even pressed that should this man enter Britain
and sets foot on its soil, Scotland Yard must not lose a minute in
arresting him and sending him up for trial for murders of hundreds
of people in India.
Eager to save his skin, and with prospects of a real arrest and real
justice staring him in the eye, Tytler scrapped all plans to be part
of the London ceremony, and called off his visit. In the bargain,
Marris seems to have saved even the Queen some embarrassing moments
where a mass killer couldpossibly have come face to face with the
monarch and basked in reflected glory.
In
his letter to Miliband, Marris described Tytler, a former Indian
federal minister in the Manmohan Singh government who was forced to
quit after a government-appointed commission of inquiry confirmed
his shameful role on massacres, as “a controversial former
politician from India, who is alleged to have been deeply involved
in the November 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms in India, in the aftermath of
the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi”.
It
is significant that Marris, thanks to his better understanding of
the issue than even the Indian media, preferred to use the term
“pogrom” over riots.
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 MP
Rob Marris had done his homework well. Not only did he tell the
British government that Jagdish Tytler’s presence was
“unacceptable” but even pressed that should this man set foot on
British soil, Scotland Yard must not lose a minute in arresting
him and sending him up for trial for murder of hundreds of
people in India |
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“Many survivors of those harrowing events are now living in the UK;
as are the relatives of many victims. It would be unacceptable for
someone who had committed such acts to be admitted to the UK, even
to visit,” said the MP, whose constituents in west-central England
include many from the Sikh community.
At
a meeting with Sikh groups later, that was organised by the
All-party Parliamentary Human Rights Group and was addressed by its
chair Ann Clwyd, fellow-MP John McDonnell, Indian journalist and
author of an acclaimed book on the pogrom Manoj Mitta, and Bikramjit
Singh Batra of the human rights group Amnesty International, among
others, Marris said, “You can’t just go to the (London) Metropolitan
police and say -- as we tried last week -- that `Jagdish Tytler is
coming to Britain and we want you to investigate him, imprison
him’.”
His approach should be a lesson to Sikh groups who have passionately
worked for bringing justice to the victims of 1984 pogrom but who
sometimes lack in thoroughness as far as paperwork, understanding of
the laws and the working of the human rights domain is concerned.
“You have to present them with a sufficient cut-and-dry dossier. We
only need two or three of the ringleaders -- not hundreds of them --
so that if they set foot in Britain, they get arrested and they get
charged,” Marris said. To this, MP John McDonnell added, “Last
week’s exercise of barring Jagdish Tytler from coming here was
useful.”
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In Rob Marris own words: “(Jagdish Tytler is) a controversial
former politician from India, who is alleged to have been deeply
involved in the November 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms in India…Many
survivors of those harrowing events are now living in the UK; as
are the relatives of many victims. It would be unacceptable for
someone who had committed such acts to be admitted to the
UK, even to visit.” |
Now, Indian apologists in the High Commission in
London
are scurrying around to claim that Tytler’s visit to Britain for the
launch of the Commonwealth Games baton relay in London was not
confirmed but they have nothing to say when asked why would a line
up of British MPs with no known anti-India stance spin a bundle of
lies publicly.
Clearly, the efforts of Rob Marris and others have hurt where a
well-packed punch was in express need of being delivered, and they
have delivered it well to loud applause of not just the Sikh
community but also of all right thinking and justice loving people
of
India,
Britain and indeed throughout the world.
Indian Government’s own Justice Nanavati Commission, whose findings
were of course found by the Sikhs as a collective as far less
scathing than what was more widely known, said in its report
submitted in Aug 2005 that there was evidence against Congress
leaders Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and H.K.L. Bhagat for instigating mobs
to attack and kill Sikhs.
11
November 2009
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